Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A Minnesota high school graduation in snapshots June 4, 2012

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Faribault High School graduates enter the gym for commencement Sunday afternoon as family and friends look on.

ALL ACROSS THE U.S., high school students are graduating or have graduated. Families and friends pack bleachers to witness commencement ceremonies, to listen to talk of the past and of the future.

It is a bittersweet time for parents.

For students, the day is one of of mixed emotions. Happiness. Sadness. Excitement. Perhaps a bit of trepidation about life ahead.

On Sunday afternoon, the youngest of my three children, my son, graduated from Faribault High School. I didn’t cry, didn’t get all emotional and introspective. I expect the tears will come later, when we drop him off at his North Dakota State University dorm nearly a five-hour drive away.

In the meantime, in these final two months, I will embrace each day I still have my boy home. For I know that not only will his life change, but so will mine.

The seven valedictorians, with GPAs of 4.0, speak at the graduation ceremony.

The class of 247 students toss their caps after diplomas are awarded.

My eldest daughter checks to see if her little brother’s diploma is signed.

The typical pose in front of the school photo, of my son.

The ever-changing/growing diversity of Faribault as seen in this post commencement gathering outside the school.

My family in our backyard after commencement.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Color my world with flowers May 24, 2012

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Tables packed with colorful flowers fill the Faribault Garden Center.

HOT PINK, royal purple, bold orange, golden yellow, pale peach…seemingly every imaginable hue blankets the greenhouse in a riotous patchwork quilt of blossoms.

I stand there. Blissful. Smiling. Taking it all in.

How can I possibly choose where to aim my camera first, which blossom to dip my nose into, which plant to admire?

Hot pink geraniums initially catch my eye.

It is impossible not to be happy in a place like this, to want to swoop up the old standby geraniums and petunias, to grab packets of dainty, sweet-smelling alyssum, to corral containers of impatiens onto a cart, to choose the crimson bloodroot plant, to want it all, to fill my yard with color and beauty.

A row of hanging baskets filled with begonias stretches across the greenhouse.

A Minnesota winter, albeit a mild one this year, does this to me. Not even the vibrant and bold polyester patchwork quilt that warms me from November to April is enough to satisfy my visual need for color. By May, my soul, my eyes, my very being yearns for nature to color my world.

A colorful King Kong coleus.

A snippet of the vibrant polyester patchwork quilt my paternal grandmother stitched for me so many seasons ago.

More vivid blooms…

The non-descript Faribault Garden Center, where I photographed all of these flowers.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Lovin’ Minnesota green May 18, 2012

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After a recent hail storm, maple leaves littered my patio. The contrast of green against gray, nature against man-made, struck me. I increased the hue saturation in the green to show the details in the leaf and to create a more artsy image. BTW, as a teen, my bedroom was painted lime green, like this leaf.

GIVE ME GREEN. Not money, although I would accept that. But color.

Vibrant, 1970s hippy lime green.

Dark green as deep as the shadowed forest.

The earthy green of unfurling corn leaves poking through soil.

Mixed shades of green massed in a hillside of trees set against the brooding skies of a moody May evening in rural Minnesota.

I couldn’t take my eyes off this scene northeast of Medford on a recent Monday evening. The lines of light and dark broken by that mass of trees appealed to me visually. And the lighting, oh, the lighting. Perfect. This was shot while my husband and I were traveling along a county road.

Grass green slicing across a field.

The soft sage of dried herbs.

Any green will do.

TELL ME, WHAT hue holds your heart?

Along the same county road near Medford, this near-barren field, sliced by that line of green grass, caught my eye as did the foreboding sky and the light, oh, the luscious light of early evening.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The uncooperative Sphinx moth May 14, 2012

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The wings of the white-lined Sphinx moth beat non-stop in a blur of motion as it feeds on the nectar of Superbells.

IF I DIDN’T KNOW BETTER, I would have thought it a hummingbird, this rapid wing-beating insect that swooped into my yard Sunday afternoon, drinking the sweet nectar of the pink-striped Calibrachoa.

Often confused with a hummingbird, this white-lined Sphinx moth whips its wings at up to 85 beats per second.

No wonder I found photographing this fascinating creature an incredible challenge. Perched on a step ladder at near eye level with a hanging flower basket I’d gotten for Mother’s Day just hours earlier, I tried to focus my lens on the energetic moth. I mean, honestly, could the moth simply just hover in one spot for maybe a minute?

It didn’t help either that the wind swayed the basket and that I’m a teeny bit afraid of anything with flapping wings. When the moth circled my head and seemed to take an interest in the floral-patterned shirt I was wearing, I grew a little nervous.

And then the husband, unbeknown to me, grabbed at my pant leg. I screamed. He laughed. The moth zoomed away.

Later, I would read online that the Sphinx moth, since it has no ears, could not possibly have been frightened by my screech. Rather the quick jerk of my camera and my rapid descent from the ladder likely temporarily caused the moth to exit from the patio premises.

Apparently, though, the lure of that sweet nectar was too much as the moth returned. I climbed onto the ladder again and then tried some under the basket shots until the moth, seemingly intoxicated by all that drinking, zig zagged towards the woods.

Aiming up from under the flower basket, I captured the Sphinx moth zoning in on a blossom.

Another down under, looking up shot showing the moth’s proboscis dipping into the flower for a sip of nectar.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN, or tried to photograph, a Sphinx moth?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

May flowers May 10, 2012

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An allium bud.

THE FIRST FLOWERS of spring always draw me close with my camera to bend and crouch and ponder how I might photograph buds and/or petals in a way that seems anything but ordinary.

I study buds clasped so tight I wonder how they will ever release. I marvel in delicate petals and the green of leaves and stems and in coiled fiddleheads.

Bleeding hearts

Every spring flower, from the first jolts of lemon-hued daffodils to the vibrant red and yellow tulips and now the pink of dainty bleeding hearts and the lavender of long-stemmed waving allium, pulls me close. Yes, even the dandelions.

A dandelion gone to seed.

As we transition into May in Minnesota, I consider the annuals I will pot, the seeds I will sow in flower beds and the perennials yet to bloom in the heat and humidity of long summer days.

This truly is the time of year when all seems brighter and greener and, oh, so full of promise.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Unlocking the poetry within an abandoned farmhouse April 30, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:05 AM
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An abandoned farmhouse along Minnesota State Highway 19 east of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

Abandoned Farmhouse

My old bones rattle in the winter wind,
grown weary from years of standing,
bitter cold encompassing my body.

Despair surrounds me
like rot in the weathered heap of the barn,
like rust consuming the junk pile.

Alone, all alone now, abandoned
except for the dying circle of trees
that embrace me, holding me close.

The years have broken my spirit—
too much silence within my walls,
too many tears shed upon my floors.

Left here, without laughter, without hope.
Dreams shattered in my broken windows.
My door closed, locked with a skeleton key.

Abandoned. Desolate. Alone.
Leaning only on the prairie sky,
in a circle of dying trees.

#

IN 2001, THIS POEM published in Poetic Strokes, A Regional Anthology of Poetry from Southeastern Minnesota, Volume 3. To this day, it remains one of my favorite poems among all those I’ve penned.

“Abandoned Farmhouse” retains that status because the poem connects to my past, to rural southwestern Minnesota where I grew up in a cramped 1 1/2-story wood-frame farmhouse. When I was 11 years old, my parents built a rambler with a walk-in basement a stone’s throw across the circular gravel driveway from the old house. They needed the space for their growing family as the sixth, and final, child arrived in August of 1967.

The summer after we moved into the new house, we tore down the old house, board by board. Memories of dismembering that house lath by lath, nail by nail, imprinted upon my memory. Decades later I would recall the bones of the old house, the skeleton key that unlocked the porch door, the grove of trees that sheltered it from the strong winds that swept across the prairie.

I would write this poem, personifying an abandoned farmhouse.

My poetic words reach beyond my childhood home, though, to embrace the many abandoned farmhouses that dot the prairie landscape. I often wonder about the families that lived in these houses and about the stories they would tell.

Returning to an even earlier time period, my poem also reflects a pervasive loneliness that often troubled early pioneer women in a land that could feel desolate, harsh and inhospitable.

This past March, I captured that desolation in an abandoned farmhouse photo (above) taken within five miles of my childhood home. It aptly illustrates my poem.

To this day, I see both beauty, and despair, in abandoned farmhouses.

©  Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Shared with you in celebration of National Poetry Month, which ends today, April 30.


 

Prairie lines April 26, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:31 AM
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Crisp, straight roof lines define buildings on this farm site along U.S. Highway 14 just minutes west of Springfield in southwestern Minnesota.

I NEVER TIRE of the crisp lines that cut across the southwestern Minnesota countryside. The razor sharp edge of a barn roof. The thick, defined rails of train tracks. The precise spacing of orderly crop rows.

This rich farmland, more familiar to me than any place on this earth, has always been defined by lines. It is the visual perspective I hold of this land that holds my heart.

Crop lines along U.S. Highway 14 west of Springfield in a field that awaits planting.

I cannot view this prairie place without seeing those strong, bold and definitive horizontal lines.

It is the expanse of the sky and of the land in this visually uncluttered place that naturally draws my eyes to rest upon the lines, to lock onto a spot that connects me to a concrete object or to the earth.

This barn stands strong and sturdy between Sleepy Eye and Springfield along U.S. Highway 14.

Consider this perspective the next time you travel through western Minnesota. Forget your preconceived notion of this as a place you simply must pass through to get from point A to point B. View the land and the sky, the small towns and the farm sites, the endless vistas with your eyes wide open, appreciating all that unfolds before you.

A farm site with a smiley face on the barn, between Sleepy Eye and Springfield.

Just west of Springfield off U.S. Highway 14, a gravel road and an orange snow fence cut horizontal lines across the prairie as do the low-slung farm buildings.

A pastoral hillside scene on the edge of Courtland along U.S. Highway 14.

Railroad tracks edge past this farm site along U.S. Highway 14 between Essig and Sleepy Eye. To the right in the photo, a tractor awaits the planting season.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My Easter in a single snapshot April 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:32 AM
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HOLIDAYS ARE MEANT to be celebrated with family. I know that’s not always possible as distance separates many of us from loved ones.

But this Easter my husband and I spent the weekend with our three grown children at our second daughter’s Appleton, Wisconsin, apartment, a five-plus hour drive from our southeastern Minnesota home.

It was, as the four of us traveling there in our family van would conclude, “a long, weary journey,” made longer by the beginning of road construction season.

But it was worth the detour, the traffic, the $3.939/gallon gas in Appleton, the fierce wind, the dust storm in potato land near Coloma, the tumbleweeds and small branches flying across the interstate at Tomah…. so worth the drive for all five of us to be together.

We laughed and teased. Dined and worshiped together. We built family memories.

I could write hundreds of words to sum up the weekend. But the image below, although technically of low quality, best tells it all. This single, blurred shot captures what only minutes earlier I had attempted to get in posed pictures. The three are viewing those posed frames on my oldest daughter’s camera. Just look at the trio with my husband in the background. You can almost feel the love, can’t you?

I had no time to adjust my camera or frame this image. I saw the moment and snapped the shutter button. Perfect.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

All aboard for the Randolph model train show April 2, 2012

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Railroad enthusiasts displayed their trains in the Randolph School gym Saturday. One participant told me he enjoys the social aspect of these gatherings. Last year he went to train shows on 16 weekends.

I WAS DEFINITELY out of my element on Saturday poking through two gyms packed with all things railroad at the annual Randolph Railroad Days.

You might even say I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume and variety of railroad-related merchandise vendors were selling and by the train set-ups hobbyists were displaying. I tried to meander on my own, unnoticed, no easy task when you’re sporting a DSLR camera and occasionally crawling on the floor. People tend to notice.

“Just pretend I’m not here,” I told at least one teen (or pre-teen), who scooted out of my viewfinder range when he spotted me aiming the lens his direction.

I managed to snap this photo after telling this trio to ignore me and my camera.

As for the younger elementary-aged boys, I found keeping up with them as they darted from one train model to the next an impossible pursuit.

The middle-aged men seemed mostly interested in engaging me in conversation about the details of model railroading. I decided beforehand that I wasn’t taking notes and that my attendance at this event would be more about my observations and about having fun and not about learning the intricacies of this hobby.

Like engineers, most participants tend their trains. However, I witnessed a small fire, at an unattended table, when a wire shorted. I did not respond quickly enough to either extinguish the flames or take a photo.

As you can see by the blurred train, these trains speed around the tracks.

I judged this "banana train" display as the most creative with mountains and waterfalls in a tropical South American setting. I wanted to hop on board. The waterfalls are on the other side of the mountains.

The overseers—two elderly gentleman perched on bleachers and viewing the action below—were content to let the younger ones set up and run the show, they told me when I climbed to get a different perspective. (They tagged themselves “the overseers.”)

Here’s what I concluded: No matter your age, there’s something magical and mesmerizing about watching toy trains travel a track.

Two-year-old Eli, confined to his stroller, points to trains circling a track.

Eli was pointing to this train set-up being photographed by another railroad enthusiast with his cell phone.

The details in the train displays impressed me. One engineer asked if I saw a cat sitting on a fence outside a barn. I couldn't find it. Then he pointed to a cat so tiny I wished I had a magnifying glass.

Railroad enthusiast Jim from Northfield demonstrated the sounds, etc., that he can control on his train with the simple push of a button. Amazing.

These matching signs made me chuckle.

WHAT PULLS YOUNG and old alike to thrill in model trains?

Check back for photos from the Randolph Railroad Days swap meet.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Blooming on the prairie March 25, 2012

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The former Immanuel church, front, was moved and connected to the Bethel church, back in 1951. The original parish was established in 1857. This photo was taken in the summer of 2011.

WHEN I FIRST SAW this country church last summer south of Morristown, I did a double take. It’s not often you spot two churches merged as one. At least not in the way Bethel and Immanuel became Blooming Grove United Methodist Church in 1951.

Rather than close one church and worship in a single facility, the Methodists opted to actually move one building, Immanuel, nearly four miles east to the Bethel site.

That was quite an event and quite a feat. Maurice Becht remembers in the parish newspaper, The Blooming Grove Methodist Visitor:

I had been helping off and on to get the church ready to move. When it was ready, I was standing off to the side looking when, all of a sudden, the front end of the church went down and the bell tower began to swing like a pendulum. Luckily, they had put a cable from the tower to the other end of the church so it didn’t break off. The front wheels had pulled out from under the church when the bolster slipped. We put it back on wheels and were going around the west side of Wilbert Remund’s buildings when we ran into a soft spot that had to be planked…

Wilbert and Marcella Remund recall:

Lloyd Zerck said that when he got the church moving, it had to be kept going, so Willie put his tractor on. That was just enough to keep it moving…

Eventually Immanuel reached its destination and work then continued to physically join the two buildings. Total project cost was around $16,000 with more than 7,000 hours in donated labor.

Blooming Grove United Methodist Church is located in northeastern Waseca County just off county road 10.

In a poem, “Historic Church in Action,” published in the March 1954 parish newspaper, Albert C. Reineke writes in the fourth verse:

In this alluring and peaceful countryside

Stands “God’s Temple” with towers high,

Two houses of worship now unified.

Sweet memories linger of years gone by.

I have no connection to Blooming Grove United Methodist Church. But I certainly do appreciate country churches and their rich and interesting histories.

"This church with its two steeples is a physical symbol of cooperation, compromise and trust," according to the church website. I photographed the church Saturday afternoon. Even on a hazy March day, Blooming Grove blooms on the prairie. My goal now is to get inside and photograph this church.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling