hand painted silver gelatin photograph
If you are traveling the roads of Northwestern Minnesota and Northeastern North Dakota inlate Autumn, you are likely to encounter a number of these. Each fall they are harvested from the fields and loaded onto trucks bound for Crystal Sugar. Every now and again a Sugar Beet with a taste for freedom will jump ship and land unceremoniously by the side of the road. For most, this is the end of the journey unless a kindhearted photographer of vegetables happens to spy you on the side of the road and stops to pick you up and tuck you carefully into the back seat of her car. That is what happened to this lucky Sugar Beet, or at least I would like to think she felt lucky. I saw her cold and alone lying on the shoulder of the road. "Kirby, stop the car and turn around, I just saw the perfect Sugar Beet." He did without question. He understands about such things. He understands about a broken row of poplar trees, a sliver of light on a milkweed pod and the charm of a renegade Sugar Beet.