ON A MORNING when we are poised to possibly break a 141-year-old record low temperature of minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit for this day in Minnesota, I bring you these messages from the State Bank of Faribault:
And this is why we want spring:
With the coldest winter in 35 years and endless snow, WE WANT SPRING!
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
WE MINNESOTANS VALUE our snow shovels, an essential tool to clear our driveways and sidewalks of the never-ending snow.
A snow shovel at the ready at St. Luke’s Church.
When I recently photographed a snow shovel inside the entry to St. Luke’s Church, Faribault, I wondered how many times I’d snapped images that include shovels. So I searched my files and selected a few to show you.
My neighbor boy shoveling the driveway in February 2013. We start ’em shoveling young here in Minnesota.
Shoveling snow at the same house during a December 2010 blizzard.
My husband shovels the end of the sidewalk while our neighbor works toward him with the snowblower following a December 2010 blizzard that dumped 1 1/2 feet of snow on Faribault. We have two snow shovels, a scoop shovel and a snowblower to handle snow removal at our house and a neighbor’s place.
Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church in Faribault is prepared with a trio of snow shovels.
My spouse shovels snow from our backyard patio in March 2011. Most of that snow was shoveled from the house and garage roofs earlier in the season to prevent ice dams and to reduce the weight of deep snow on the roofs.
What would we do without our snow shovels?
Tell me, if you live in a snowy region, what’s in your snow removal artillery?
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
The rural scene, dominated by a blue sky, unfolds before us.
BLUE SKY STRETCHES before my husband and me as we traverse back gravel roads northwest of Faribault Sunday afternoon.
A drive along country gravel roads always uplifts me, no matter the season.
I yearn for this escape, for this reconnection to the land, this attempt to rejuvenate my spirit.
This scene inspires the poet in me.
Just being in the country calms my soul, brightens my outlook, causes me to pause and appreciate this land, this place God has created and given into our care.
Memories in this scene…
In this moment, at this time, I slip into the past, envision myself laboring in the barns we pass. Soothing thrum of the milking machine. Cocooning warmth among cows snugged in mounds of golden straw. The comfort of ‘CCO radio.
I envision these fields seeded in corn or soybeans.
In farm fields, I see a much younger and skinnier version of myself plodding between rows of soybeans to yank cockleburs on a scorching summer day.
The comfort of memories in a farm yard.
At the sight of a farmyard, I hear my buckle overshoes crunch upon hard-packed snow as I follow the path from house to barn.
An ocean of snow-washed land.
Memories unleash in this landscape, in the view of farmyards anchored into hillsides within an ocean of snow-washed fields.
A remnant of yesteryear in an old corn crib.
I am happy here. Content. At peace.
Splashes of red jolt the blue and white landscape.
Yes, even in this winter of too much cold and too many snowy days, I find solace in blue skies and sunshine, barns and white-washed fields.
The punctuation of a red wagon and its shadow stretching across the snow draw my attention.
FYI: To read my previous post featuring photos from this Sunday afternoon drive, click here.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
SUNDAY BROUGHT A WELCOME change in weather with an abundance of sunshine and temps reaching nearly 40 degrees Fahrenheit here in southeastern Minnesota.
It was a glorious day.
Following a country road Sunday afternoon somewhere northwest of Faribault.
So after my husband had finished repairing a friend’s dad’s snowblower, we set out on a Sunday afternoon drive along back country roads northwest of Faribault. Oh, how I love a drive in the country, camera in hand, shooting scenes from the passenger side of the car.
And, yes, prior to departure I cleaned the salt-grimed car windows, a futile effort as the windshield was soon spotted with road spray. Temps weren’t quite warm enough to roll down the front passenger side window to take photos. No, we can’t always stop for photo ops or we would never get anywhere.
Anywhere was our destination. We both are suffering from cabin fever, the trapped feeling that afflicts Minnesotans when the winter gets too cold and too snowy for too long. Such is this winter. Today, after a one-day reprieve, we are sliding back into the deep freeze.
But we had yesterday, a gloriously warm and sunny Sunday. For that I am grateful.
Sunday proved a perfect day for this family to ride their horses.
These Minnesotans snowmobiled in the ditch along a Rice County Road.
A few miles further north, other snowmobilers parked next to the old school in Millersburg and walked across the street to Boonie’s Bar & Grill.
While some played, others worked. This guy prepares to saw wood along a rural roadway.
Back in Faribault, another man cut wood.
And we ended our drive with a walk along the snowy trails at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault.
Fresh tracks showed us that others snowshoed and skied through the nature center.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
FOX 9 morning news on Monday shows temps and windchills predicted for Monday evening in the Twin Cities.
I’M ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES. I don’t have to venture outside, into the frigid cold which is gripping Minnesota and many other parts of the country.
Rather, I can hunker down inside, working from my home office.
When I arose Monday morning and switched on the radio, the temperature registered at a negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of 47 degrees below zero. That’s cold, people, darned cold.
Starting a cold winter morning off with a bowl of banana-laced oatmeal.
The television weatherman reported the same brutal temps before I turned off the TV and enjoyed my usual morning bowl of oatmeal.
I have an abundance of fleece and wool throws at the ready.
On mornings like this, the house feels colder than normal. So I’ll notch up the thermostat a degree, to 68, and grab a fleece throw from the couch to toss across my lap while I write.
A cup of instant cappuccino to kickstart me on an exceptionally cold winter morning.
And although I’m not a big coffee drinker, I typically have a single mug of instant French vanilla cappuccino each morning. I can almost hear all of you serious coffee drinkers out there cringing at the idea of me drinking instant coffee.
Every January the regional library system implements its reading incentive, appropriately named “Hot Reads for Cold Nights.” My mom gave me this mug, which she got from her library system. That’s my stash of books and magazines from the library.
Saturday I stopped at the local library to stock up on books and magazines, but didn’t read much until Monday evening as I attended a wedding on Saturday and then Sunday evening was riveted to the two-hour premiere of Downton Abbey. Much to my husband’s dismay, I recently discovered this Public Broadcasting Service Masterpiece Theatre show.
Ice rings created by my husband and now in the backyard.
My spouse entertained himself on Sunday by watching the chilly football game in Green Bay and later making ice candle holders. He froze water in ice cream buckets on our patio. I darted outside Monday morning to view and photograph his ice art.
The furnace vents through a pipe into my backyard.
And then I photographed the exhaust venting from the furnace, enveloping the lawn chairs in a visual contrast of seasons.
A reminder that, yes, spring will come and this fern will once again grace my backyard.
Back indoors, I aimed my camera lens at a fern (temporarily displaced by the Christmas tree) and at a pineapple on my kitchen counter.
The closest I am to anything tropical.
If you live in Minnesota, you understand why I photographed both. Right?
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
ATTENDING CHURCH SERVICES has always been a part of my Christmas time celebration for it is Christ’s birth I focus on today.
I recently photographed these scenes at Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church, an historic Faribault, Minnesota, church:
While the sanctuary stood empty, I imagined the pews packed with worshipers,
the baby Jesus already laid in the manger,
the anticipation of children restless with excitement.
What a joyful time.
May the blessings of peace, happiness and joy be yours today and in the year ahead, for unto us a Saviour is born, Christ the Lord.
Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Be present at our table, Lord, be here and everywhere adored, These mercies bless, and grant that we may feast in fellowship with Thee.
Guests file through the serving line at the free Community Christmas dinner.
PERHAPS THEY NOTICED the words above the church basement kitchen window, perhaps they didn’t. But the hundreds of diners who filed through the serving line at the annual Community Christmas Dinner at Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church in Faribault on Sunday, were blessed…
…by the men and women and youth who served them
a delicious meal
in the wonderful company of folks like Mike and Sue, high school sweethearts who met at the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind in Faribault and who have been married nearly 31 years.
Diners were blessed by organized volunteers who leave detailed notes so that this dinner flows seemingly flawlessly.
They were blessed, too, with a hardworking kitchen crew that works behind the scenes preparing food, washing dishes and kettles, etc.,
and by team members with a sense of humor (as written on this volunteer’s apron).
Uplifting basement banners offer words of blessing.
Sweet blessings come in cakes baked, per these special instructions and brought to the church basement,
and then frosted with whipped topping and sprinkled with colored sugar,
before Madeline and others serve the Christmas cake, the same dessert that’s served every year at the Christmas dinner.
Blessings come in the company of others in the warmth of this church basement on a cold December day in Minnesota.
These waiting women were blessed, too, by a driver bringing the vehicle close to the door for their ride home.
The members of the historic 1915 Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church
bless the community of Faribault each December by opening church doors for the annual Community Christmas Dinner.
Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Near Poy Sippi, Wisconsin.
MY FONDNESS FOR BARNS, for photographing them, never wanes.
Along Wisconsin State Highway 21.
When I fit my eye to the viewfinder, swing my camera lens toward a barn and click, it’s as if I’m clicking my heels together and flying into my past.
Also along Wisconsin Highway 21.
I am trudging down the barn aisle, leaning into the wheelbarrow heaped with ground corn. I am scooping that feed by the shovelful to top silage pitched from the silo and parceled before the Holsteins’ empty stanchions.
Near Poy Sippi, Wisconsin.
Later, as milk pulsates into milking machines and Dad has poured the milk into a tall thin pail, I am lugging the precious liquid to the milkhouse, handle biting into my chore-gloved hand.
Another farm near Poy Sippi.
Memories come into focus—the golden booming radio voices from ‘CCO, the slap of a cow’s tail, hot urine splattering into gutters, cats swarming around a battered hubcap, the stench of manure, taut twine snapped with my yellow jackknife and prickly alfalfa itching my exposed wrists.
An old-fashioned farm along Wisconsin Highway 21.
But, mostly, I see my farmer dad in those barns I photograph.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
The Rock County Veterans Memorial in front of the courthouse, Luverne, Minnesota. That’s a restored Civil War cannon.
FROM THE VETERANS MEMORIAL fronting the Rock County Courthouse to the next door Rock County Veterans Memorial Building—which houses the Herreid Military Museum and more—to the Minnesota Veterans Home and the town’s star role in the Ken Burns’ World War II documentary, The War, Luverne honors and respects veterans unlike any other rural Minnesota community.
That’s my impression, anyway, after a visit this summer to Luverne, tucked into the extreme southwestern corner of my state.
A flag hangs in a hallway outside the military museum.
You cannot help but feel awed by the patriotism that exists here.
A statue titled “Poppies” personalizes this memorial as do the names of some 1,600 veterans engraved in pavers.
And because sometimes a picture is truly worth a thousand words, allow me to show you a snippet of the ways in which Luverne honors veterans:
The 1900 former Rock County Jail and sheriff’s home today is the Rock County Veterans Memorial Building. It houses the Herreid Military Museum, the Brandenburg Gallery and the Luverne Chamber of Commerce.
An overview of the Herreid Military Museum which pays tribute to Rock County residents who served their country in the military. A third-floor exhibit will open in 2014 featuring the story of war from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A model plane in the museum.
Another view of the military museum.
The memorable face of a veteran at the outdoor memorial.
Equally memorable words.
Today, Veterans Day, please remember our veterans and the sacrifices they made for our freedom.
FYI: Click here to learn more about the Rock County Veterans Memorial.
For more info on the Herried Military Museum, click here.
By clicking here, you will learn more about the Minnesota Veterans Home in Luverne.
Click here to learn more about Ken Burns’ WWII documentary, The War.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Expansive sky and land inspire the poet in me.
WHAT DRAWS YOUR EYE in a rural landscape?
Strong lines pull me in, lead me to wonder, “Where would that rugged gravel road take me?”
Or do you even notice your environment as you travel from point A to point B?
I notice the geometry in these buildings, how they cluster and fit together on this farm site.
I challenge you, the next time you drive through rural Minnesota, or rural Anywhere, to truly see your surroundings. Don’t just look with glazed eyes. See. Once you see, you will appreciate.
A sense of history defines this farm in that strong barn which dominates and in the mishmash roof lines of the farmhouse. Both cause me to reflect upon my rural upbringing, upon my forefathers who settled 150 miles from here on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.
History, point in life, memories, even your mood on a given day, will influence how you view the rural landscape, what draws your focus.
I see trees huddled, protecting and sheltering that house from the elements, from that threatening sky. My thoughts turn introspective as I consider how we are all sometimes vulnerable and huddled, drawn into ourselves.
Whether a writer or photographer, architect or historian, teacher or retiree, stay-at-home mom (or dad), a farmer or someone in between, you will lock onto a setting that inspires creativity or prompts thought or perhaps soothes your soul.
There is much to be said for noticing details, for understanding that the miles between small towns are more than space to be traveled.
FYI: These edited images were photographed nine days ago while traveling along Minnesota State Highway 60 between Faribault and Kenyon. In just that short time, the landscape has evolved with crops harvested, trees stripped of their leaves by strong winds and now, today, snow in the forecast.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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