A HILLSIDE ABLAZE in color appears before us as our van descends Rice County Road 30 northwest of Nerstrand. The road curves, twists into the valley between farmland and farm sites until we reach our destination, Valley Grove churches.
Randy steers the van off the paved road onto the gravel driveway leading to these two historic Norwegian immigrant churches standing high atop a hill overlooking the rolling countryside. This secluded place rates as a favorite destination of ours any time of year, but especially in autumn.
The hilltop location offers a sweeping view of the surrounding land, including the Big Woods, especially colorful now. I simply cannot get enough of the red, orange and yellow tree lines that provide a painterly backdrop to this bucolic setting.
Here the 1862 and 1894 churches rise, a testament to the faith and endurance of the Norwegian immigrants who settled this area. The topography likely reminded them of the homeland they left for new opportunities in America.
On this day, as the wind blows cold and strong across the churchyard—so much so that we eat our picnic lunch inside the van—I ponder how these foreigners felt once winter arrived in all her cold and snowy starkness. Perhaps they wondered why they ever left Norway.
But on this fall day, I recognize also how much they must have appreciated this beautiful hilltop location. The Valley Grove Preservation Society works hard to retain the natural beauty of these 50 acres of land. The trees. The tall prairie grasses. The wildflowers. They also maintain the two aged houses of worship—the old stone church built first and the adjacent wood-frame church constructed 32 years later.
Beyond the churches and surrounding cemetery, we follow an uneven path into the prairie, pausing occasionally to take in the colorful, distant trees. Randy steps atop a limestone slab for a better view. I spot a garter snake a step down from his feet, then edge away, not at all fond of snakes.
Turning back toward the churchyard a bit later, I see the churches rise like ships upon an ocean of prairie grass. It’s not hard to visualize Norwegian immigrants boarding ships, sailing across the massive ocean bound for America.
The hopes and dreams they carried to America and eventually to Minnesota imprint upon tombstones in names and dates and words. Their hopes imprint, too, upon this land.
When I walk this ground, I feel the imprints of souls beneath my feet. This place seems sacred. Sacred in the voices I hear if I lean into the wind and listen. Sacred in the vistas I view.
Valley Grove is a place of serenity. Of quiet. Of natural beauty unequal in the autumn of the year.
All of this I find, feel, experience, see on an autumn day at Valley Grove, among the rolling hills and valleys of northeastern Rice County.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
From words on a government website to soybean markets & a crisis in rural America October 15, 2025
Tags: agriculture, America, China, commentary, farm crisis, farming, messaging, opinion, rural America, rural Minnesota, soybean market, soybeans, tariffs, trade war, United State Department of Agriculture
WHEN I FIRST READ the message bannering the United States Department of Agriculture website during the current government shutdown, my jaw dropped. In a two-sentence statement, “The Radical Left Democrats” are blamed for the closure of the federal government. How unprofessional, I thought, to so blatantly put politics out there on a website designed to help America’s farmers. But then again, why should this surprise me?
United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is doing the same in a video message blaming Democrats for the shutdown. She expects this to be broadcast in airport terminals. Many are opting not to air her clearly political statement. And they shouldn’t. It’s unprofessional and wrong in more ways than I can list, no matter what your political affiliation may be.
But back to that message on the USDA website. It goes on to say that President Donald Trump wants to keep the government open “and support those who feed, fuel and clothe the American people.” Now that is certainly a noble statement at face value, one we could all applaud. Who doesn’t want to support our farmers? But in the context of what the President has done to farmers, the statement seems laughable.
Here in the heartland, farmers have lost a major market for soybeans, my state’s top agricultural export. China has stopped buying soybeans from not only Minnesota, but America. That’s billions of dollars in lost income. And all because of the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, begun by the man who slapped tariffs—now averaging 58 percent—on Chinese imports with a threat to increase that to 100 percent. I’m no economist. But even I understand China’s retaliatory tariffs and actions to tap other markets for soybeans. They went to Brazil and Argentina.
And now President Trump proposes sending $20 billion in aid to Argentina, all tied to an upcoming election there. Why would we bail out a country exporting their soybeans to China while our own financially-strapped farmers are suffering because they’ve lost a key market? This makes no sense to me. Again, I’m not an economist or a politician, simply an ordinary American citizen, with a farm upbringing (and who decades ago freelanced for the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association), questioning the logic of any of this.
Even without the Argentinian component tossed into the mix, there’s more. President Trump has proposed an aid package for farmers to help them get through the financial crisis he created via his tariffs and the resulting trade war with China. That aid would come from the money collected from tariffs. Now I know farmers—my dad was one—are fiercely independent and would rather have a market for their cash crops than government aid. If not for the tariffs…
As the harvest continues here in Minnesota, I can’t help but feel for those who work the land, who continue to face so many uncertainties, financial challenges and stressors. Interest rates on loans remain high. Market prices remain low. Land rents continue to rise. Equipment and other costs are high. And on and on, including the loss of the long-standing soybean export market to China, which quite likely may never be reclaimed.
This is becoming a crisis situation for farmers—those who feed, fuel and clothe Americans. From fields to small town Main Street, rural America is hurting. And politically-biased blame words published on a government website aren’t helping.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling