Feature Stories

12 Snapshots of Love

Enjoy from-the-heart vintage photos & stories submitted in our love-themed contest.Click Here to See Winner with the Entries!

22 Bloggers

Meet a sampling of bloggers who write, with distinct voices,about life in Minnesota. Click Here for the Complete Article!

On the cover

St. Cloud State University student Eric Wheeler waited two years for the picture-perfect snow to blanket his surroundings so he could trek the outdoors and capture the ideal winter wonderland through the lens. His winter dream came true last spring. Yes, spring. “The perfect snow I was waiting for finally fell on April 20, 2011. The lakes in central Minnesota had thawed out only days before and the snow that seemed to stay on the ground forever had finally melted away. When I woke up early in the morning and looked outside, I was excited to see such a perfect opportunity to capture the beauty of Minnesota.” Wheeler took the cover picture in St. Cloud’s Quarry Park and Nature Preserve. “Thinking I would just hop out of my car and snap a few pictures before getting to my morning workout, I packed my camera and gym bag and headed out. Little did I know, I would spend the next hour and a half exploring the trails and capturing images of white trees reflected off still water, rocks climbing out of wintery surroundings and winding trails. I ended up snapping more than 100 photographs.” You can check out more of Eric’s work at http://wheelerblogs.com and www.facebook.com/photographybywheeler.

departments
& columns

4 Calendar

5 Letters

Julie Kraemer, Luxemburg - Joyce Kiehn, Litchfield, Tanara Wudinich, St. Cloud, MN,

7 Meet your neighbor

Gaylen Bicking - North Branch

8 Glory days

Wishing I could build a raft and sail away

9 Moments in time: First things

Dawn Quigley - MUST MAKE COFFEE. Must make lunches for kids. Must make coffee. Must shovel the walk. Must dust house for New Year’s party. Must follow resolution to lose 10 pounds. Must make coffee...

10 Moments in time: Toast plate

Bernie Nordman Wahl - IT IS AMAZING how simple things from our childhood memories shape and guide us. These simple things frequently involve food.

32 Travel: Olive Branch Retreat

Mike Nistler - NESTLED AMONG THE lakes and trees and farmland near Grey Eagle, the Olive Branch Retreat is a story waiting to be told as well as an experience ready to be relished.

Located on Fuller Lake in southern Todd County, this unique setting was once home to the Franciscan sisters and was a convent known by the name, Portiuncula, or “Little Portion.” Due to a vow of poverty, the nuns kept the facility modest in architecture and decoration.

36 Cooking in the Country with Chris

HERBS ADD FLAVOR to any dish. Simple to grow, herbs can be planted in small spaces like pots. If you have room for just a few herbs, you must include my favorite versatile five...
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40 Book reviews

Memory of Trees - A Daughter’s Story of a Family Farm
By Gayla Marty - University of Minnesota Press, 2010

Vestments
By John Reimringer - Milkweed Editions, 2010

Henry! you’re late AGAIN!
By Mary Evanson Bleckwehl - Illustrated by Brian Barber Beaver’s Pond Press, 2011

42 Guys and garages

Antique outboards get collector’s motor running
NEIL ANDERSEN CAN’T explain his fixation for outboard motors. He didn’t grow up on a lake. He never even owned a boat. But for some reason, he started collecting them nonetheless.

44 What’s in your boathouse?

1955 Partee Playboy boat
My featured red boat in this issue is a 1955 Partee Playboy, built by the Partee Boat Manufacturing Company in Lebanon, Tennessee.

45 Minnesota crossword

46 Back in the day

A 50-year tradition — The Last Supper Drama continues to inspire at rural Faribault church
EVERY YEAR SINCE MARCH 1963, worshippers and actors have gathered inside the 1870 limestone sanctuary of St. John’s United Church of Christ — Wheeling Township, rural Faribault, for The Last Supper Drama.
It is, says 2012 co-director Pauline Wiegrefe, a moving, emotional event that puts participants and attendees “in the mindset of Holy Week.”

48 Picture This
Submitted by Ryan Ware of Chaska, Minnesota

Ryan Ware captured this image of empty corn cribs, titled “Lean Harvest,” along State Highway 30 east of Jeffers in southwestern Minnesota. “Corn cribs are very near extinction,” Ware says. “The stark emptiness of the cribs against the near featureless snow leads me to think how the corn missing from the cribs represents the missing purpose of the structures themselves.”

TODAY, RYAN WARE lives in Chaska and works as an IT supervisor for an online university in a downtown Minneapolis skyscraper, far from his native southwestern Minnesota prairie. Like so many young people, Ware, who grew up in Westbrook, moved away to attend school and then stayed away for a career. Yet, he’s found a way, as a hobbyist photographer, to connect to his rural roots. “It’s a renewal for me to get out and photograph in the rural areas,” says Ware. “I’m interested in capturing the rural spirit as it existed when there were many small family farms and farms passed from generation to generation. If some of this spirit is not captured and preserved, it may be lost to future generations.” Go online to ryanwarephotography.com to learn more about Ware’s photography. More of his photos will be featured in the spring issue of Minnesota Moments.

FYI If you’ve got a special photograph you’d like to share with the readers of Minnesota Moments, send it to us at E-mail: info@minnesotamoments.com or mail to: Picture This; Minnesota Moments, PO Box 436, Cold Spring, MN 56320. Photos will not be returned, unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.