IN THE UNLIKLIEST OF PLACES, inside a box of vintage bullet pencils at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engines Flea Market, between the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., and Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills, I spotted a mini sermon:
Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”—John 14:6
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
I met Bob Michniewicz and his wife, Judy, selling their woodcrafts at the recent Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show. He wouldn’t allow me to photograph his art, except for a single sign and a single cow, not wanting others to steal his ideas. However, a few other crafts got into the photo when Bob obliged my request for a portrait.
OCCASIONALLY YOU MEET a character, and you know it just looking at the person, before lips even part to utter a single syllable.
I knew, just knew, Bob Michniewicz was a character when I saw him and his set-up at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show in rural Dundas. With kitschy wooden lawn ornaments—you know the kind—and wind chimes and eye-catching messages defining his space, Bob was bound to be interesting.
Just look at the poster Bob leaned front and center against a support post for the tent under which he and his wife of 50 years, Judy, were peddling their wares.
Bob was gauging interest in this sign with plans to print it on vinyl and sell it should interest run high.
Naturally, I asked Bob about that message. Seems he’s a bit worked up about all the non-farm folks moving onto farms in his area and then complaining about noise or smell or dust and such from working farms.
“Farmers were here first,” he emphasizes. And that, in this retired farmer’s opinion, should settle any matters of dispute.
All around him, Bob views the ever-changing rural Minnesota landscape. Within a three-mile radius of his farm (the home place) 3 ½ miles from Madelia, only four farmers remain. The rest are people living on the building sites.
Therein, according to Bob, lies the problem. “People don’t know where farm stuff comes from.” I’m not sure I understand what he means, but I think I do and Bob doesn’t allow me to interrupt this rather one-sided conversation.
Bob just steamrolls forward, asking if I know that potatoes in stores are sprayed to keep them from sprouting. (I don’t know this and check later to see if Bob, who is a gardener, is right, and apparently he is, although I’m not saying all potato growers, all stores, follow this practice.)
He looks me directly in the eye and says: “Next time you eat mashed potatoes, you may as well take a shot glass of Round-up with a beer chaser.”
Like I said, Bob’s a character, and an outspoken one at that.
Bob certainly possesses a sense of humor, as seen in this bovine lawn art.
© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Grayden Moorhouse of Randolph holds freshly-threshed oats.
GRAYDEN MOORHOUSE unfurls his palm, revealing some two dozen oat kernels before dropping several into my hand.
He wants me to try them, to separate the meat from the hull with my teeth and spit the shell onto the ground.
I try, without success, and then he hands me a single kernel already hulled.
All the while I am thinking this:
I shoveled plenty of oats in my day growing up on a dairy and crop farm. And why would I want to eat raw oats, which I associate with cattle feed?
But Grayden is one of those guys who seems convincing and I like the strong sound of his name and, heck, what’s life without trying something new occasionally?
So I eat the single oat kernel and that is enough for me. I’d rather eat my oats in oatmeal.
Now that I’ve ended that introductory narrative, let’s follow the path of how those oat kernels ended up in Grayden’s hand via this photo essay from the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show this past weekend in rural Dundas.
Shoveling the raw oats into the conveyor system.
An overview of the threshing equipment and process of separating the oats kernels from the stem.
Bill Becker of rural Northfield mans the Minneapolis Moline which powers the threshing operation.
More shoveling of oat bundles, a dusty, dirty job.
The dust flies as men and machine work.
Plenty of farmers and retired farmers watch, remembering…
While horses plow a nearby field (left), the threshing crew continues working.
And the straw pile grows.
Finally, meet Grayden Moorhouse, whose strong name, it seems to me, belongs in a western.
FYI: Please check back for more posts from the steam and gas engine show. You’ll meet one interesting character and an incredible teen, plus ride along with me on the back of a truck.
© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
LIKE MOST PHOTOGRAPHERS, I shoot a seemingly infinite number of images. That can lead to forgetting photos filed in my computer.
But then one day—as in Thursday—I was asked about an image in a file I hadn’t perused in a long time. A Californian wanted to use a photo of an elderly man, presumably a farmer or a retired farmer, in a PowerPoint presentation for a nonprofit. I shot the image at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show as the man walked past the wheel of an old Rumely steam engine.
The West Coaster needed the photo to emphasize the point that farmers represent only two percent of the population and their average age is pushing 60. I didn’t fact-check those statistics. But I did check out the nonprofit before agreeing to her request.
This inquiry led me to sift through two folders full of photos from the steam and gas engine show. Within these files lie images that, alone, wouldn’t be enough to comprise a blog post. But, pooled, they make for interesting content wherein I raise some questions, point out the unusual and share memories.
I present to you then the forgotten photos. Feel free to comment. I’m quite certain you will have a few thoughts to share once you seen the featured subjects and read my words.
PHOTO A: What have we here, dear readers? Look to the left and scan to the right and you see horns on a wagon, a lawn tractor and an apparently handcrafted tractor. What is the meaning of this?
PHOTO B: Unfortunately, dear readers, I do not need you to tell me that this is a fly strip. Because I grew up on a dairy farm, I am quite familiar with this gross, sticky fly catching strip. One hung in our farmhouse porch where filthy chore clothes and manure-laden buckle overshoes lined the walls and floor. Another fly strip dangled over the Formica kitchen table as a rather unappetizing bit of home decor fly trap. But at least it kept the flies off our dinner plates.
PHOTO C: Two questions: Why is a chemical company publishing a cookbook? Can anyone tell me anything about Heinrich Chemical Company of Minneapolis?
PHOTO D: Did you play with a cap gun as a child? I did. I played “Cowboys and Indians” with my siblings. I know that phrase is not politically correct today, but I was a child of the 1960s, the time of westerns. I watched Gunsmoke and Rawhide on television. And if we’d gotten more than one channel on our black-and-white T.V., I would have watched Bonanza, too. And, yes, I do remember life before television.
PHOTO E: After a quick online search, I failed to find another Massey Ferguson Ski Whiz snowmobile like this one. My husband and I have concluded that this double-seater was handcrafted from two machines. What do you think?
PHOTO F: This image spurs an observation. See how the wings on the Dekalb sign align with the Oliver making the tractor appear to have wings? I did not plan the shot, did not even notice what I’d composed until after the fact. I know that Dekalb symbol well as I detasseled corn for the seed corn company and my dad grew Dekalb corn. Any experienced corn detasselers out there?
THERE YOU HAVE IT. A few photos to possibly bring back memories, prompt discussion or simply amuse you.
© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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