Along Brown County Road 29 between New Ulm and Morgan, MN.
RED
Along U.S. Highway 14 between Mankato and Nicollet, MN.
WHITE
Along Brown County Road 29 west of New Ulm, MN.
AND (touches of) BLUE.
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
The changing prairie view May 14, 2014
Newly-erected power lines, part of the Cap X2020 transmission line project northwest of Morgan along Minnesota State Highway 67, run seemingly into forever.
I FEEL ABOUT MONSTROSITY power lines as I do about wind turbines. I don’t appreciate their visual impact upon the land.
These towering giants, in my opinion, mar the landscape, distract and detract, cause me to feel small, unsettled and insignificant in their presence.
A farm site along Minnesota State Highway 67 dwarfed by a new transmission power pole.
Perhaps it’s just the southwestern Minnesota prairie rooted girl in me who values her horizon wide and broad and vertically interrupted only by grain elevators, water towers, silos and groves of trees.
Old style power lines still run along Brown County Road 29 between New Ulm and Morgan.
I wonder if my grandparents felt the same about the early rural electric co-op posts and lines strung along gravel township roads, the cement stave silos popping up on farms…old water-pumping windmills abandoned.
A cluster of Harvestore silos define a farm northeast of Vesta along Minnesota State Highway 19.
I felt a certain discontent when blue Harvestore silos began soldiering into southwestern Minnesota decades ago. They lacked personality and represented, to me, the demise of the small family farm.
Wind turbines in extreme southwestern Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo, July 2013.
These are my thoughts as I travel through my native prairie today. Progress does not always please me. Visually or otherwise.
(This post is cross posted at streets.mn.)
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Awaiting planting in southwestern Minnesota April 23, 2014
YOU CAN SEE IT, sense it, almost smell and hear it—the anticipation of spring planting.
Along Minnesota State Highway 19 between Redwood Falls and Vesta.
Bare and stubbled fields stretch for miles and miles across southwestern Minnesota, earth turned to the warming sun, awaiting the seeds of spring.
Only remnants of winter remain in scattered patches of road ditch snow.
Along Brown County Road 29 southeast of Morgan.
On the edges of farm yards, tractors and planters and other implements sit, pulled from machine sheds. Greased. Oiled. Ready.
Farmers wait. Thawing spring rains fall. Frost rises from the ground. Drying winds whip across the land.
A child-size John Deere tractor photographed at dusk a yard away from a field in my hometown of Vesta.
And the days unfold into the season of renewal and hope and sowing of seeds.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Rural revelations in country cemeteries April 17, 2014
To the left lies the Vesta City Cemetery, where my father, grandparents and other family members are buried. In the distance you can see the grain elevator complex in my hometown.
AS A YOUNG GIRL, I remember fearing cemeteries, that place where my paternal grandpa was laid to rest atop a rare prairie hill when I was just nine.
A historical marker in the Holden Lutheran Church Cemetery, rural Kenyon.
But my view of cemeteries has evolved over the years so that today I see these earthly resting spots as places of faith, art, history and personal stories.
A fence surrounds the Urland Lutheran Church Cemetery in the Sogn Valley area.
I no longer focus on the bones buried beneath my feet or the newly-departed lying under a heaped mound of dirt. Rather, I find myself reading tombstones, marveling at carved stone, wondering about the lives of those who lie within the often fenced boundaries of graveyards.
The picturesque Valley Grove Church Cemetery near Nerstrand Big Woods State Park.
In particular, I am drawn to country cemeteries that my husband and I happen upon during leisurely Sunday afternoon drives in rural Minnesota.
Northwest of Faribault in Shieldsville Township sits the historic Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church and the adjoining Trebon Cemetery.
Spot a spire spearing the sky and we typically find a cemetery tucked behind or aside the church. Convenient and comforting.
Folk art in the Trebon Cemetery honors Christ and the deceased.
During this Holy Week, when Christians worldwide focus on reflection and repentance and the suffering and crucifixion of Christ, it seems fitting to revisit some of the Minnesota cemeteries I’ve explored.
Just west of New Ulm, at a memorial honoring Milford settlers who died in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, roses were placed on the marker on Memorial Day weekend 2006.
There is much to learn here about those who went before us—those we loved and those we never knew.
Fields and a cemetery embrace many country churches like Vista Evangelical Lutheran Church in southern Minnesota.
Words to ponder at a cemetery in Theilman in southeastern Minnesota.
Handcrafted signs like this one in Cannon City (near Faribault) grace some rural cemeteries.
An art appropriate cannon marks a Civil War Veteran’s tombstone in the Cannon City Cemetery.
A simple grave marker in the Urland Lutheran Church Cemetery.
A well-tended family plot in the Trebon Cemetery.
A compelling statue of the Virgin Mary in Trebon Cemetery.
A beautiful nature-themed tombstone rests in a cemetery on the west side of New Ulm.
Stone against stone at Hauge Lutheran Church (the Old Stone Church) in Monkey Valley, rural Kenyon.
My dad’s military marker in the Vesta City Cemetery.
This post was previously published at streets.mn.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
A photographic connection to my rural roots April 12, 2014
I INFORMED MY HUSBAND that I would focus on photographing houses, rather than barns, on a recent 600-mile round trip from Faribault, Minnesota, to Appleton, Wisconsin.
He didn’t believe me. And he was right not to believe.
Yes, I snapped images of houses. But I could not, no matter how I tried, keep from lifting my Canon DSLR to capture photos of farm sites as we traveled.
They are like a magnet for someone such as myself with rural roots. Having left the farm 40 years ago upon my graduation from high school, I rely today on memories and visual connectedness to fulfill my longing for the land. That and my writing, especially my poetry.
Few people I know farm anymore. No one in my immediate extended family farms, although two brothers remain rooted to agriculture, one via co-ownership in a farm implement dealership and the other as CEO of an ethanol plant, both in my native southwestern Minnesota.
The farm where I grew up near Vesta is rented out. Thus I have lost that touch of feet on the farm, familiar creak of the barn door—that direct connection to the place of my youth.
My natural instinct now is to seek out, with my eyes and camera, that which is no longer mine.
(All photos were taken while traveling three weeks ago along Interstate 90 between Rochester and the Wisconsin border. Yes, the snow has since melted. Yeah!)
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
It’s in the details March 25, 2014
IN A FLASH, I’ve passed the farm site along Minnesota State Highway 60 between Faribault and Kenyon.
But I’ve clicked the shutter button, preserving this rural scene, a moment frozen in time. Many times, for whatever reason, I have photographed this place.
Later, viewing this most recent image on a computer screen, I notice the details that escaped my eyes during that drive-by. And I wonder how, all too often, we miss the details.
Details comprise the whole, define our lives in ways we never realize. A look. An intonation. A reflex. Puzzle them together and you have life.
A snapshot. An album. A collection of minutes, hours and days that collectively become weeks and months and years. And suddenly you are, like me, past middle age, a generation away from death.
You wonder about the details, whether you’ve noticed and embraced and lived them.
Have you swung in a tire swing?
Or have you simply viewed tires as a necessity to carry you along the highway of life? Too busy to notice details.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Photo bar hopping in rural Minnesota, Part II March 19, 2014
The rather non-descript R & L’s Pit Stop photographed in Hope in 2011.
THE SMALL TOWN liquor store or bar rates as more than simply a place to grab a cold one or wolf down bar food.
New Richland bars, 2011.
Oftentimes, these rural establishments serve as community gathering spots. Locals belly up to trade stories, talk crops, solve the world’s problems. There’s a certain comfort in that, in the familiarity of sharing gossip and opinions and woes within the confines of a dark space, sheltered from reality.
The seemingly popular Cabin Bar in Nicollet, photographed two years ago.
Sometimes these places remain as the sole business along an otherwise vacant Main Street. On a Friday or Saturday night, vehicles line the streets. Folks gather to shoot a little pool, drink a little beer, tell a few jokes.
The Monty Bar anchors a corner in downtown Montgomery and features wonderful vintage signage.
For awhile, troubles vanish, the body rests, a sense of community togetherness prevails.
Creative graphics for a bar in Kilkenny.
All of this I imagine as I photograph the exteriors of small town Minnesota bars and liquor stores. Unique signage, creative names, architecture and more draw me visually to these watering holes.
The Roadhouse Bar & Grill is a hot spot in Wabasso. During the summer, old car enthusiasts and motorcyclists gather here on Tuesday evenings for a “Roll- In” that draws up to 1,000 people. There’s plenty of outdoor seating on a sprawling patio where a hamburger bar is set up for the popular event.
Each holds a story. And if you, a stranger, venture inside, heads will swivel, eyes will bore and the locals will wonder. What is your story?
BONUS BAR PHOTOS:
The Old Town Tavern advertises specials and more during Morristown Dam Days 2013.
A misguided attempt, in my opinion, to update the American Legion in West Concord. Photographed in 2010.
The Pub in Canton, near the Iowa border, photographed in 2012.
CLICK HERE TO READ “Bar hopping, Minnesota blogger style.”
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
A love & hate relationship with winter March 14, 2014
Along a gravel road somewhere between Nerstrand and Kenyon, Minnesota. That’s the driveway, not the road.
FOR ALL OF THE TIMES I’ve spurned this winter of brutal cold and deep snow, I must confess to a certain appreciation for the poetic dreaminess of a snowy rural landscape.
Winter exposes, uncovers, bares the basics to the eyes in a way that the fullness of summer cannot.
Power lines and roads cut horizontal swaths. Farm sites beckon like a welcome oasis in a sea of white. Bare-branched trees flag the sky.
A red barn seems redder, a steely grey bin greyer. And a white farmhouse simply vanishes.
This is winter. Spurned. And, sometimes, loved.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
All roads lead “somewhere” March 13, 2014
EXCEPT IN MY NATIVE southwestern Minnesota prairie, where roads run mostly straight and the land lies divided into field grids, I possess no sense of direction.
That navigational deficiency evokes occasional tense moments when my husband and I journey into unfamiliar territory. We have neither smart phones nor a GPS, only a road map, an atlas and Randy’s sense of direction to guide us.
I always want to know exactly where we are and where we are headed. He, on the other hand, is an adventurer attempting to calm my unease. The road “will lead somewhere,” he reassures, which isn’t at all reassuring.
“Which way?” he asked.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, as we drove “somewhere” east of Nerstrand, aiming toward Kenyon, we came upon an intersection of gravel and tar roads. “Which way do you want to go?” Randy inquired.
The gravel road I did not want to follow.
I peered down the icy gravel road ahead and thought to myself, “not there.”
Too late. “There” proved to be precisely my spouse’s preferred route.
The half muddy, half icy road.
As the van slogged along the gravel road, marred by mud and ice, I muttered something about “not going in the ditch.”
Left (east) or right (west)?
Eventually we came to a T in the road. “Which way do you want to go?” my husband asked again.
Then he turned left.
#
NOTE: All images have been edited because, well, I can do that to make this story more visually dramatic.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Soup, salad & sandwiches at St. John’s March 12, 2014
SUNLIGHT FILTERS through the fellowship hall windows on an early Sunday afternoon in March. Outside the 40-degree temps feel balmy after a brutally cold and snowy Minnesota winter.
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Wheeling Township, rural Faribault, Minnesota.
I’ve left my coat in the van, drawing my sweater tight around me as I pause to photograph St. John’s United Church of Christ, Wheeling Township, before hurrying inside. The strong wind has a bite to it.
Salad options.
Inside, I grab a shiny silver tray, select a salad from choices on ice, pinch lettuce into a bowl and add toppings before placing the tray on a table to photograph the salad selections. While I do so, a teen ladles a generous scoop of Ranch dressing atop my lettuce salad.
Lynn, right, tends the potato soup in this duo scene, divided by a wall, of kitchen and fellowship hall.
Next, I move toward the kitchen serving window to consider the soup offerings—chicken noodle, potato bacon and bean. All homemade. I start with potato. Lynn fills my bowl.
Kim and Keith serve diners.
Juggling camera and tray, I move down the line to the sandwiches. Kim and Keith are ladling soup, too, and refilling the sandwich tray.
Sandwich choices from ham to sausage to open face.
I choose an open face sandwich topped with a mix of meat and chopped pickles.
My husband and I settle onto folding chairs at a table nearest the kitchen. I want easy access to photograph the scene, the moments that define this first of three Sunday Lenten soup luncheons at St. John’s.
I’ve been here before, often enough that parishioners welcome me into this country church east of Faribault just off Minnesota State Highway 60 along Jacobs Avenue.
My first tray of food.
I know the routine, too. Gather my food and then transfer bowls and sandwich onto a paper placemat so the trays are ready for the next diners.
Key food preparer, organizer, church organist and co-youth leader, Craig, carrying a coffee pot, right, says 60 -70 diners were served at Sunday’s luncheon.
There’s something about familiarity and dining in the company of the faithful, the din of conversation and the clack of kitchen noises, that comforts as much as a hearty homemade soup.
Mandarin orange dessert plated for delivery to diners.
For two evenings and a day prior, Craig and his mother, 88-year-old Elsie, and their neighbor, Lynn, have labored, preparing the three soups, the nine salads and the mandarin orange dessert. Parents of Youth Fellowship members brought the sandwiches.
This is a labor of love and of service—the chopping of onions, the soaking of beans, the dicing of ham, the mixing of homemade dumplings (by the octogenarian)…
Brandon dries dishes. The Youth Fellowship sponsors the soup and salad luncheons.
In the kitchen, 13-year-old Brandon dries dishes beside his mother and Elsie. Others tend the soup, sandwiches, salad and dessert. Youth hustle to bring and refill beverages, to clear tables, to deliver dessert. Craig rushes to refill coffee pots and cups.
Bibles, florals and candles decorate tables.
I observe it all, from tabletop bible centerpieces opened to Psalms to the dainty floral pattern on church china to the stool I’ve seen Elsie use in the kitchen every time I’ve been here. She’s always in the kitchen.
The hardworking team.
This congregation works together, feeding diners like me who appreciate their efforts and the taste of great homemade food as much as this rural setting and fellowship.
Inside the church kitchen, 88-year-old Elsie works next to her stool.
Once I’ve finished my first bowl of potato soup, I get a new bowl and a scoop of bean soup, followed by a second helping of potato. I pass on the third soup; I’m not a fan of either chicken soup or of dumplings.
As I finish my dessert, Kim and Keith join my husband and me to rest for a bit and eat lunch. We talk about kids and the horrible long winter and vehicles in ditches and the couple’s continually snow blown driveway and such. It’s a comfortable conversation.
Elsie, 88, sits in the kitchen and enjoys a bowl of bean soup at the end of the luncheon.
Before we leave, I pop into the kitchen again and catch Elsie finally sitting down with a bowl of bean soup.
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FYI: If you’re interested in attending St. John’s next two soup luncheons, here are details:
The church is located at 19086 Jacobs Avenue, rural Faribault.
These will be your salad options.
On the way out the door, study the Germanfest photos on the bulletin board:
St. John’s UCC Germanfest is another must-attend annual event in September. Great food, entertainment, bingo, quilt show and more define this ethnic gathering.
And then purchase a jar of St. John’s famous homemade apple jelly or butter:
Beautiful and savory St. John’s apple jelly.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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