By Mike Nistler

We Minnesotans are funny when it comes to the weather and talking about it.

Here we are on August 1 and I, along with others, are lamenting the end of summer, looking forward to the cool days of fall and dreading winter.

We like to get a jump on things, I guess. Sure, the weather during July was cool, and today’s high is not supposed to break out of the 60s here in central Minnesota, but why the jitters about summer’s passage with at least a month to go?

I think it has everything to do with the harshness of winter, especially as we age. It just seems to get more and more difficult each year to enjoy the winter season.

And, as you age, time seems to pass more rapidly, thus making summers seem as though they are here and gone before we know it.

Why then, doesn’t winter seem to pass in the same fashion?

By Mike Nistler

After a long, long hiatus, I’ve decided to return to this space.

There have been lots of reasons for by long absence from writing, some of which will become known in the weeks ahead, especially when those of you who are subscribers receive your next issue of the magazine.

Until then, it will have to remain a secret.

The good news from the offices of Minnesota Moments is that our last edition, which featured Hutchinson as the Best Home Town in Minnesota, has sold like hot cakes in that south central Minnesota community.

The local CashWise store there has sold out of its first 150 copies. I hand-delivered another 140 today. The store management has set up a nice display at the front of the store complete with a poster and helium balloons.

If you haven’t seen a copy and would like to read about Hutchinson, order your copy online today. This issue will definitely sell out in the coming weeks.

Until tomorrow, stay safe.

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The car bumped along the hilly, narrow one-lane gravel drive, past fenced apple trees, past workers hoeing weeds under the already hot mid-morning sun, past rows of raspberry bushes.

Over a creek and then, before us, a strawberry field snuggled on all sides by trees along the Straight River bottom.

We — my husband, oldest daughter and I—had come to Straight River Farm just outside of Faribault to pick strawberries.

This has become an annual family outing, this gathering of plump red berries, this contest to see who picks the most.

As we bent low to the earth, we talked, popped juicy Jewel berries into our mouths, marveled at their size and flavor.

Laughter came easily here in this place of quiet, of sky and earth and river and berries.

All too soon we were finished, our cardboard flats heaping with the fruits of our labors.

As we loaded our boxes into the car, the sound of rushing water drew me to the river bank. Muddy water churned in a fast-moving current.

Then, movement in the grass. A tiny spotted frog leapfrogging in swift bounds through the tall stems, over a pile of logs and back toward the river.

Back in the farmyard, the ceremonial weighing of our boxes to see who would claim the honor of picking the most berries. Gentle teasing as the weigh-in progressed, with mom — that would be me — the winner, having harvested 12-plus pounds of strawberries.

With 33.2 pounds of fruit safely tucked inside the trunk, we headed home, knowing the best part of our day lay behind us. Now we had hours of work ahead—berries to wash, hull, slice, package. I had pie crust to mix and roll, pies to make.

Later that evening, as I parceled reserved fresh berries into containers for my daughter and packed her strawberry pie, I thought about how sweet this day had been. Amber had driven down from Minneapolis to be with us, to continue our family tradition of picking strawberries.

Could life get any sweeter?

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By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

B-6, O-65, I-27, …

Slowly, the announcer called off BINGO letters and numbers, repeating each once. I strained to hear the difference between a B and a G. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t playing the game.

Instead, I sat on a padded chair, on the other side of a closed curtain room divider at the Eagles Club, waiting.

As I sat there, I counted, too. One, two, three…11 red coolers with white lids stacked before me and to the right. This counting, taking in my surroundings, passed the time.

I saw several people reading, decided that was a good idea and went to my car to retrieve a book.

“We thought you got scared and left,” a front door greeter said upon my return.

“No, just getting my book,” I said, waving it at her as I walked back to the waiting area.

I sat down, read a bit, tried to concentrate but couldn’t. So I turned to the guy next to me, introduced myself. Larry and I chatted. He’s 77, a retired mechanic, Korean War vet, woodworker, consummate volunteer. He had been here earlier in the day, staffing the canteen. Now he was back, this time to donate blood.

Me too. At the last minute, I decided to accompany my husband to his appointment with the Red Cross blood drive in Faribault.

I’d never done this before, given blood. I was a bit apprehensive.

Finally, my number, my turn. Behind an enclosed curtain, I provided my personal information (do you really have to know my weight?), had my vitals checked, then answered health history questions on a laptop computer. So far, so easy.

Then the move to the table. This was the hard part. I lay there, staring at the whirling ceiling fan, the four lamps in the ceiling light fixture, the white twinkle lights strung through draped netting.

Then the grip of the blood pressure cuff on my arm, the swabbing of iodine, the prick, the letting of blood. Except for the initial surge running through my arm and the tingling in my fingers, the process was painless. Squeezing and palming a red ball alleviated both.

I wondered, though, why I was lying flat on my back and not sitting partially reclined like everyone else. So much for reading while donating.

“We do that for all first-time donors,” my blood-drawer said.

“And why do I get purple tape?” I asked as he tightly wrapped tape in an X around my bandaged arm. Maybe this, too, marked me as a first-time donor.

“To match your shirt,” he said, pointing to my purple shirt. He was kidding, of course.

“But green is my favorite color,” I teased.

He picked up a roll of green tape and wrapped a double X around my arm.

I left smiling and feeling that maybe, just maybe, I was repaying a bit for the blood transfusions my mom received in December 2007, for the blood that saved her life.  

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Thwunk. A heavy limb smashes into the earth. Inside my office, the floor trembles.

Later, a whoosh, as branches brush against the side of the house.

Eight feet away from my living room picture window, workers labor to cut down a large basswood in the front yard.

They arrived just hours earlier in their orange truck, rang my doorbell and disrupted my writing. A request from the crew, contracted by Xcel Energy, to trim branches.

“Could you,” I ask, “cut down the tree?”

They hesitate.

I see my opportunity. “We had two tree companies here a few years ago, and neither of them would touch the tree because of the power lines,” I say.

It is the truth.

My husband and I worried about the leaning tree every time strong winds blew in. Would this be the storm that pushed the basswood onto the power lines, into the street, onto a portion of our house?

Several years ago, a large limb crashed atop our bedroom during a night-time storm.

Now was my chance to convince these tree-cutters that completely removing the tree fit Xcel’s best interests.

They consider, then agree.

But first, a call to my husband to make sure this is OK with him. It is.

I sign the papers.

Then, the set-up, truck bucket navigated into place, ropes secured, sawing, limbs falling, discarded, to the ground.

My stomach churns when I step outside and see the pile of branches, the nearly-limbless tree, the exposed house.

Even though I had wanted this worrisome basswood gone, I feel a twinge of regret, of sadness, of guilt.

I had signed the death sentence for this basswood that I’d known for 25 years. 

“You could replace it with a spruce like your neighbors have,” one of the tree-cutters advises.

“What, so you can come and cut that down too?” I reply.

“Oh, they’re slow-growing. It’ll take 25 years for one to grow,” he says.

Twenty-five years. If I’m still here, could I make this decision again to remove a tree? I would rather not.

For now, the absent basswood and the deep tire ruts that mark our lawn, like the sides of a freshly-dug grave, are painful enough.