Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Unlocking the poetry within an abandoned farmhouse April 30, 2012

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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

 

Minnesota Prairie Roots blog post 1,000 April 15, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:33 PM
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The prairie just outside of Walnut Grove in southwestern Minnesota, the first photo I published on my blog.

TODAY MARKS a memorable occasion for Minnesota Prairie Roots.

This very story—the one you’re reading right now—marks my 1,000th post.

On July 15, 2009, I published my first piece here on WordPress, introducing a new audience of readers to my blogging which began 18 months earlier at a Minnesota magazine.

The publisher/editor of that magazine decided he couldn’t keep up with my daily blogging. So he cut the blog. While at the time I was upset and disappointed, I see in hindsight that it’s the best thing that could have happened to me as a blogger. My blog has reached new readership levels that I never could have attained within the confines of blogging for the periodical. I was freed to write whenever, and about whatever, I chose.

Let’s look at the statistics to see how my readership has grown. In 2010, my first full year of writing here at Minnesota Prairie Roots, I averaged 201 views per day. A year later, that number reached 442. And this year I’m averaging 697 daily views. In March, I reached a new monthly readership high of 24,484 views. I have no idea how that compares to the stats of other bloggers, but I’m pleased.

Sometimes even I am amazed that so many people are drawn to my stories. They hail from all over the world, to places I haven’t even heard of such as Qatar and Mauritius.

I am grateful for every reader and especially for those who take the time to comment. An exchange of ideas and expressions of thought are integral components in any blog.

Through the nearly three years of blogging at Minnesota Prairie Roots, I have never once struggled with writer’s bloc. Often times I have more material, in words and photos, to share than I have time to post. I write here nearly every day. Not because I “have to,” but because I “need to.”

Rachel Scott, the inspiration for Rachel's Challenge. Photo courtesy of Rachel's Challenge.

What interests readers? Consistently, my top post remains “Rachel’s Challenge: Start a chain reaction of kindness.” I wrote the story in November 2009 after Rachel’s Challenge, a national non-profit that travels the country promoting kindness, presented a program at Faribault High School. The organization is named after Rachel Scott, 17, the first person killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. The presentation made a powerful impact on me and I wrote an equally powerful post that has now been read by thousands.

I am proud of that piece as I am of a series of posts I wrote about the flash flooding in Zumbro Falls in October of 2010. The stories were unplanned, but happened after my husband and I drove into the flood-ravaged community on a Sunday afternoon. Our intentions to view the autumn colors along Minnesota Highway 60 that day vanished when we saw the devastation. I pulled out my camera and notebook and recorded the stories of several women,all flood survivors, both in Zumbro Falls and neighboring Hammond. They showed incredible strength and determination. I still keep in touch with Katie Shones of Hammond, whose home was spared but whose community was nearly destroyed.

When I met Tracy Yennie in downtown Zumbro Falls, the 31-year-old mother of four young boys was living in a shed on her property along the Zumbro River. Her home was flooded during the late September 2010 flash flood. I often wonder what happened to Tracy, who called herself "a redneck," and her family.

To share those stories, to give those women a voice, to publicly recognize their fortitude moved me deeply. There is power in words and images shared with honesty and passion.

Writing is my passion. It is the reason I blog.

I savor sharing my discoveries with you in words and photos. My blog has been termed “probably the best ‘place’ blog in the state,” by respected Iron Range blogger Aaron Brown at Minnesota Brown. He nails it with that “place” tag. My writing has always been rooted in the land. I consider myself an unpretentious, down-to-earth, honest writer.

My blogs have been featured online at Minnesota Public Radio in the News Cut column crafted by Bob Collins. At MinnPost, you’ll find my work often in Minnesota Blog Cabin, which daily features the best work by bloggers from around Minnesota. I’m honored to be part of these respected publications, to offer a glimpse of life outside the metro area.

Beyond that, I have connected with other bloggers and non-bloggers. This world, despite all the negativity, is still brimming with good people. Finding individuals who, like me, possess a passion for writing has been a bonus of blogging.

With that, I want to thank each of you for reading Minnesota Prairie Roots. It is my hope that, through my words and images, I will take you to places you’ve never been or offer you insights you’ve never considered or cause you to pause and savor the simple things in everyday life.

I’ve always appreciated the basics of life and landscape: the fiery glow of a prairie sunset, the scent of freshly-mown alfalfa, a row of just-laundered clothes snapped onto a clothesline, the weathered wood of a once-majestic red barn, the handmade sign marking a Main Street business, the tight clasp of a tulip bud, the unexpected hug of my teenage son, the surprises along a back gravel road…

My writing and photography remain firmly rooted in my rural upbringing on the southwestern Minnesota prairie, the place that inspired my blog name and the place that still holds my heart.

CLICK HERE TO READ my first post on Minnesota Prairie Roots, published 1,000 posts ago.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire April 6, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:50 PM
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MY SWEATSHIRT REEKS of smoke, as if I’ve been sitting around a campfire for hours.

But in reality, I’ve only stepped into my backyard for several minutes, into the strong scent of smoke drifting from across the street a few houses away.

Honestly, I could not believe my eyes. Who, in their right mind, would burn leaves in tinder dry conditions like this? Apparently my neighbor.

Only an hour ago, I heard a local radio broadcaster announce a burning ban issued by the sheriff in Rice County. Given the dry conditions, only recreational campfires and grilling are allowed.

Recreational campfires like this one are still allowed. I gathered with extended family around this campfire in Waseca on March 24. This photo is for illustration purposes only.

The National Weather Service has issued a “red flag warning” for the western half of Minnesota from the northern to southern borders. Gusty winds and low relative humidity in an already dry landscape are creating “critical fire weather conditions,” according to the NWS.

Heed the warning, Minnesotans. Use common sense. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a warning from the NWS or a directive from the sheriff to tell you that burning leaves, or anything else for that matter, today or anytime soon would be a very bad idea.

I kept expecting to hear the wail of fire trucks racing to my neighbor’s house. I live along a heavily-traveled street. It’s happened before that a passerby has called the fire department when a neighbor has been burning leaves.

HAVE YOU HAD any fires in your neighborhood today or recently? If so, send me a report via a comment.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Finally, a woman on the Steele County Board April 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:50 AM
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CONGRATULATIONS, STEELE COUNTY, Minnesota. You’ve finally elected a woman to serve on the County Board of Commissioners. It’s about time.

I could hardly believe the news when I heard it this morning on an Owatonna radio station. It wasn’t the election of a female that surprised me. It was the fact that it’s taken this long.

For the first time in its history, this southeastern Minnesota county will have a woman serving on its county governing board. She is Nina Huntington, a dental hygienist from Owatonna, who beat out opponent Doug Hughes in a special election on Tuesday to represent the Fifth Commissioner District.

Huntington won with 250 votes, or 60 percent, compared to Hughes’ 164 votes, according to an article in the Owatonna People’s Press. Only 10.25 percent of the district’s registered voters cast ballots.

Interestingly enough, Steele County also made headlines on Tuesday as Minnesota’s healthiest county in ratings released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. That study considers mortality, morbidity, health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. Click here to read those study results.

So there you have it—Minnesota’s healthiest county now has a woman helping to govern it.

Huntington’s election in Steele County leads me to wonder this:

How many other Minnesota counties have never had a female serve on the county board of commissioners? If you have the answer or can direct me to that information, I’d like to hear. I would guess that number to be quite high.

Also, what do you think a woman can bring to county government that a man may not?

CLICK HERE to read an interview with Huntington published in the Owatonna People’s Press after she filed for office.

CLICK HERE to read the election results story in the OPP.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Blooming on the prairie March 25, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 2:08 PM
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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

 

An unbelievable 83,451 still missing March 23, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:21 AM
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A tribute to POWs and MIAs at the veterans' memorial in Northfield.

United States suspends recovery of troop remains in North Korea

I nearly skipped over the AP article on page A5 of my local daily newspaper. But then I paused, allowed my eyes to linger on the headline before reading the heartbreaking story.

Just as efforts to find American service members missing during the Korean War were set to resume, that mission has been suspended. The action comes on the heels of North Korea’s plans to rocket-launch a satellite in apparent violation of United Nations’ sanctions.

That’s the situation in a nutshell. Hopeful families who have been waiting for the return of their loved ones for more than 60 years still wait.

I cannot imagine. The wait. The not knowing. The pain in losing a child to war. How many mothers and fathers of Korean War veterans have died without bringing their soldier boys back home for proper burial? Many.

The statistics shocked me. I had no idea that 7,960 Americans are unaccounted for from the Korean War, according to the Defense Prisoner of War-Missing Personnel Office, U.S. Department of Defense. Among the missing/unaccounted for are 146 Minnesotans. Click here to read that list.

But the numbers are even more staggering when you consider the totals for wars from World War II through the 1991 Gulf War. There are 83,451 Americans missing. That’s almost the entire population of Duluth. Most of the unaccounted for, 73,690, served during WW II.

Yet, until you begin thinking of the missing in terms of names, the totals seem merely overwhelming statistics that cannot be comprehended. So I went to the DPMO website and clicked on news releases. There I found what I was seeking—the names of soldiers gone missing in Korea and who, all these years later, have been identified through the use of modern-day forensics.

Just to explain, North Korea gave the U.S. 208 boxes of remains believed to be those of 200-400 U.S. servicemen, according to the DPMO.

Among the recently-identified remains are those of Army Cpl. William R. Sluss, 21, of Nickelsville, Va. He was captured by the Chinese and died as a result of malnutrition in the spring of 1951 while a POW in North Phyongan Province, North Korea.

The remains of Army Pfc. George A. Porter, 21, of Philadelphia, were also recently-identified. He was among more than 100 men taken prisoner by the Chinese during what became known as the “Hoengsong Massacre.”

And then there’s Sgt. Willie D. Hill, 20, of Catawba, N.C., whose infantry division was encircled by Chinese forces in November 1950 resulting in heavy losses, including that of Hill.

William. George. Willie.

They were young men lost to war, in a very literal sense.

I have never lost a loved one to death by war. But I have lost a loved one to war. My father fought as an infantryman on the front lines during the Korean War. He was wounded on Heartbreak Ridge and decades later, in May of 2000, was awarded a Purple Heart. He returned to Minnesota a changed man, unable to bury the horrific memories of buddies blown apart before his eyes, of enemies he’d killed.

Today he would have been identified as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. But back then, upon his military discharge in 1953, my dad was simply expected to return to civilian life as if nothing had changed for him personally.

April 3 marks nine years since my dad died at the age of 72. I am convinced that he would have lived longer had any type of counseling been available to him upon his return  to the farm fields of southwestern Minnesota.

Yet, despite my wish that he could have gotten help, I am thankful that he came home. In one piece. Alive.

Thousands of other American families do not have the comfort that is mine—to visit a cemetery knowing their loved one is buried here, on American soil.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A Blackberry never tasted so sweet March 22, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:48 AM
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“TELL ME AGAIN. What is a Blackberry Playbook? What does it do?”

I’ve asked him for the umpteenth second time and he is clearly frustrated with me.

“Never mind,” he says.

I persist because I want to understand. My son knows I am technologically-challenged, that I can’t distinguish a Blackberry from an iPAD or a Kindle. It is all too much for someone who grew up without a telephone during the early years of her life and only within the past 18 months acquired a cell phone. It is all too much for someone who learned to type on a manual typewriter. It is all too much for someone who recently upgraded from her 2003 desktop computer.

I don’t decry technology. I am simply slow to understand the ever-evolving world of high tech gadgets.

But my high school senior, with his scientifically and mathematically-wired brain, embraces technology and is planning a career in computer and/or electrical engineering. It’s a career path that will suit him perfectly, focusing on his passions.

That leads us to his latest endeavor, which ties in with the Blackberry Playbook. My son created Agon, a Blackberry Playbook game app which released March 17. Described as “an abstract strategy game with perfect information,” Agon was invented in France during the late 18th century. I won’t even attempt to explain the game or how my 18-year-old adapted it to the Blackberry. He would tell me, “Never mind,” if I asked. Click here to read for yourself. And feel free to try the game and post a review.

One reviewer compares the game, also known as “Queen’s Guards,” to chess. This does not surprise me. My teen plays chess and enjoys strategic board games like Settlers of Catan and Power Grid. Pull out those games and I run the other way. Give me word games. My boy once tried to teach me chess, but without success.

His success with Agon, though, has netted him a sweet prize—a Blackberry Playbook. Pretty cool, huh? Besides getting the actual product, this accomplishment can be listed on college scholarship applications and eventually on his resume.

Additionally, my son tasted sweet success at the recent Minnesota Science Olympiad, placing second in the astronomy competition. Yes, he knows a lot about the sky, too.  He and a teammate also took sixth in state with their gravity vehicle after coming in first at regionals. Faribault High School, his school, finished 14th overall in state among 33 schools.

Success tastes especially sweet when you’re only eighteen.

NOTE: The creators of Blackberry Playbook and the creator of the Agon app (namely my son) have no idea I wrote this post. I am simply a proud mother sharing my boy’s success. Had I not googled “Blackberry Playbook,” I would be mostly uninformed about this tablet.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The gifts of the daffodil March 21, 2012

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The clutch of daffodils now blooming in my front yard flower bed.

NOTHING COMPARES to the daffodil. Bright. Cheery. A burst of brilliance in a dreary landscape of muted browns and grays.

Like an island in the vast sea or an oasis in the desolate desert, the daffodil provides a welcome respite for the winter weary sojourner’s eyes.

She holds the promise of spring unfurling in her petals, of sunshine-filled days ahead, of the earth erupting in new growth.

She causes me to smile and think of May baskets woven from construction paper and jumping rope and leg-kicking toward the sky upon a weathered board swing.

Simply put, the daffodil makes me happy.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Another beautiful day dawns in Minnesota March 17, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:18 AM
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I raked leaves from flower beds on Friday.

SATURDAY MORNING, 7:15, and already the day holds the promise of record temperatures and of sunshine interlaced with rain showers.

I can smell spring in the undeniable, distinct scent of cold earth turned to the sun, of leaves air drying.

The morning air snaps with a briskness sweeping through the open kitchen door to curl around my bare feet.

I can hear the incessant, piercing whistle of a cardinal calling for a mate too early on a weekend.

My neighbors’ windows are still shuttered to the day, their eyes closed in sleep to this beautiful morning that unfolds.

But I’ve been awake for several hours as seems my habit these days. As I ponder the hours that stretch before me, I glance out the window, see the flashing lights of an ambulance, the golden globe of the sun, a red pick-up pulling a boat.

Turning back to my computer, I wonder what my day will hold. Yesterday drew me outdoors to rake deep layers of leaf mulch from flower beds, to clip back hydrangea. I worry that I may be pushing the season, exposing the new growth of perennials to the frost that is certain to come. Yet, I could not leave these plants buried, struggling to push through the leaves, emerging weak-stemmed and yellow.

The leaves are bagged now and shoved into garbage cans lining the limestone path my husband laid years ago from the backyard patio to the side yard gate.

Last evening we dined on the patio, at a card table topped with a vintage floral tablecloth. My husband carried out the homemade pizza and the mugs of beer, our usual Friday night fare.

As we savored the chicken barbecue ranch pizza, I considered that this must be a first for us—dining on our patio in mid March. In Minnesota.

Friday night alfresco dining in Minnesota, in March.

Around 5 p.m. Friday, I photographed the sun slipping behind the wooded hillside that abuts my backyard. I positioned myself to shoot the sun through a gap in branches on a single tree.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling