(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008, the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.

Welcome to "Prairie Mosaic," a patchwork of stories about the art, culture, and history in our region.

Hi, I'm Barb Gravel.

And I'm Matt Olien.

On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic," we'll learn about the history of the Bobcat, watch how horses can help with therapy, and listen to an up-and-coming musician.

♪ You don't show the dark days past ♪ Nelda Schrupp of Lakota, North Dakota uses metal to create her one-of-a-kind designs inspired by the rattle, a sacred object used in spiritual ceremonies.

Nelda's hope is that everyone can appreciate and hear the beauty of their sound.

[resonant rattling] (Nelda Schrupp) That sound when you're praying helps to carry your prayers, and it's a very soft emotion, it's a very sacred feeling within you when you pray.

And that beautiful sound is a sound that you just want to share with your spiritual leader.

[guitar softly finger-picking] ♪ ♪ ♪ Noisemakers are a very primitive item.

The different tribes used different kinds of rattles.

When the medicine men prayed, they'll prayed to the 4 directions, and they'll use their rattle while they're praying.

The sounds helped carry the prayers to grandfather.

But women don't make rattles.

That's a man's birthright to make rattles if they so choose to.

I do rattles, but it's more for artistic interpretation.

Mine are very contemporary, very modern.

I try to stick as close to possible with the meanings of colors, the materials, but yet stay out of the realm of the sacredness of making the traditional rattles that they use in ceremonial purposes like blessings and naming ceremonies.

A lot of the jewelers, their focal point is the stone... where mine is the metal.

When I buy my metal I buy silver in different gauges.

My favorite gauge is 24 gauge.

That's sturdy enough to keep the hollow forms.

I solder 2 identical pieces together, and that creates the hollow.

A lot of our northern plains designs are very geometric.

I'll cut 'em down into little pieces of their former selves and create little hollow forms, then I'll turn around and re-create a different image that does not even look like what they began.

I use my melted down scrap silver, and I make little beads, and I put 'em on the inside.

And each rattle is so different.

They can be basically the same chamber, but it depends on the size of the beads and how many beads I put in 'em.

[rattling] Do you hear that one?

This one is kind of a... kind of more clunky.

This one's more ringin'.

Some pieces are so intricate that I have to wire 'em together.

And I leave a little skirt around the image, and that's where I'll put my solder.

After my last soldering I'll cut off all the excess.

Then I drop 'em in the acid bath.

This is just pure citric acid.

It's nontoxic, and it cleans just as well.

Then I put it in my other bowl over there, and I soak all the acid off.

From there I'll go back and solder again.

That's the repetitiveness of the soldering process.

I'll solder, the acid cleans, I rinse it out, go back to soldering, and I'll do that until the piece that I've created is done.

And then I start the polishing!

I call them audio aesthetics because it's hearing beauty.

Even the blind people can enjoy the artwork because of the sound.

They're so individualistic, they're like little people, and their little voices.

I follow my intuition a lot.

I follow my spontaneous creativity a lot.

When I finish a piece it has no resemblance of what I started out with.

People don't realize how much inspiration is needed to create these pieces, how much time, how much effort, how much of yourself gets into that piece.

I'd like for them to see the creativity that goes into these pieces.

What tickled me the best is when the Smithsonian wanted to buy a piece from me.

Not only the National Museum of the American Indian, but the National Museum of American Art as well.

That kind of gave me the satisfaction of saying yea, look at that, I can do it!

It certifies that I am a true artist, and other people recognize me as an artist.

I do tell my grandbabies that when you have grandkids, I say, take them to these museums and show this is what great, great grandma made.

I'm leaving a, I don't know if it's a legacy, but a history for them to enjoy.

I don't want 'em to follow in my footsteps, but it's possible you can make anything for yourself.

You can make yourself whatever you want to be in this world.

Equine Assisted Therapy is becoming well-known as an option to addressing physical and psychological needs in patients.

Ricigliano Farms in Wolverton, Minnesota, and its nonprofit Hoof Beats For Healing, brought together talented counselors and therapists with horses and their handlers to offer something more than regular equine therapy.

[guitar plays in bright rhythm] (Victor Ricigliano) If you can get a person to even walk up and touch a horse, to feel the horse breathe, that slow, rhythmic breathing.

I've seen people that have had really bad days, they're in crisis situations, and the horse just seems to just accept all of that from them and calm them down.

Ricigliano Farms encompasses a lot of different things, it's an equine facility, it started out as an Arabian breeding farm, and it's evolved into an equine assisted physical and psychotherapy program and a working student program for kids where some of the local schools, the kids get off the bus, they do their homework, they work with the horses.

♪ The makeup of the horses here at Ricigliano Farm is what I like to call eclectic.

We have everything from the miniature horse to a very large warmblood and everything in-between.

(Victor) We also have horses that were rescued.

(Lori) And those are the most grateful ones.

We have rescued some that have been in situations where there's been near starved to death or abused.

(Victor) We have horses like Aspen who was, in the vet's words when we bought her at an auction, she was within 7 days of starving to death.

(Lori) All she looked like was bones covered with hair.

She had a baby at her side when we got her, and the baby was also near death.

Lori and I purchased them both, and it's a very happy ending.

(Lori) She has been just such a wonderful horse in our Equine Assisted Therapy program.

(Victor) Artie was sold to a 4-H girl.

Artie was supposed to die within 48 hours.

(Lori) It's very interesting to watch how they go from no trust to them not just trusting, but helping humans.

(Victor) We have a client here, a young man his name is Oliver.

Oliver comes from a rough background.

His adopted mother loves him dearly, treats him as if it is her blood child.

And she was having problems with Oliver's behavior.

He was acting up at home, acting up at school, and he came in here, and we started with just talking with him and then brushing the horses.

So he learned through the horses respect for other people's boundaries, and instead of demanding things, he's learned to ask.

(Kallie) Go get your horse.

(Victor) If he asks the horse to come with him using the correct cues with the horse, the horse will come with him.

But when he demands and yanks on the horse, the horse is not going to let him do that.

Oliver has come so far with his equine therapy that not only does he still come for therapy with Kallie to work with the horse, but he's also now one of our youngest working students.

He works one day a week.

He cleans stalls, he hauls barrels, he drives tractors, he was here for haying.

He's come a very, very long way.

And the horse has allowed him to open up to Kallie, which gives her the opportunity to give him the tools to deal with those traumas that he had when he was younger.

During our sessions when we're working with the horse we have an equine specialist that's also a part of our session.

So it will be the equine specialist, myself, and then the client.

Ready?

Set... good.

Let's look straight ahead, squeeze a little bit with your calves, then go forward.

What that equine assisted therapy handler should be looking for is the stress level in that horse.

Because what happens is, the horse takes on or reflects back what that rider or patient is giving off.

You know, we kind of have that fight or flight response when we do something that is scary or that we're fearful of.

Horses are very much on that level as well.

So they can really read people's body language.

Even just by touching them they can sense where your heart rate is at.

Are your muscles tense?

Give her one last hug.

(Kallie) They really can communicate nonverbally just like how we can.

They're very helpful when clients aren't communicating openly and honestly.

Each horse has a story.

Sometimes they're good stories, and sometimes they're not so good stories, but they have stories.

(Victor) When we have a new client that comes in here, we'll walk through the barn with them and we'll introduce them to the horses.

All we do is give them the horse's name.

And they go through and they look, and they spend a couple minutes in front of every stall.

Then when they're done we'll ask is there a horse that stood out to you?

Is there a horse that you would like to start working with?

(Lori) And what is so interesting, and almost is dead-on scary is that children and adults are drawn to the horse that has their problem.

(Victor) Children that have come in here that come from an abusive background, they will migrate to the 2 horses that are from an abuse case.

They know nothing about these horse's background, but that's the horse that they link with.

We created Hoof Beats For Healing as a 501(c)(3), and we did that so people could donate to the horses.

If people go to our website, you can go on there, and you can give a donation to get the horse's feet done one time, or that you're gonna give so much a month for food for that horse, or you want to donate money so that a child can work with the horse.

'Cause right now insurance covers the therapy end of it.

It doesn't cover the equine use fee with the horse, and we've been working forever to try and get insurance companies to recognize it.

So we do have kids that come out here that rely on grants.

Hoof Beats For Healing gives those grants to those kids.

(Lori) Nice deep breath, in through the nose.

How can an animal who can't speak help others speak?

I wouldn't choose anything else to do with my life.

Every single day I get up, and I'm like, I get to ride horses today!

I get to help others today with my horses.

I get to translate what the horse was saying.

In this Artifact Spotlight Chris Schuelke of The Otter Tail County Historical Society shares with us the history behind the first Bobcat skid-steer loader and how it changed the face of agriculture.

Hi, this is Chris Schuelke with the Otter Tail County Historical Society in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and this is our Artifact Spotlight.

One of the most common pieces of machinery that is utilized throughout the world is the Bobcat self-propelled loader.

And it had its start right here in Otter Tail County.

So in 1956 Rothsay area turkey farmer Eddie Velo was having issues cleaning his turkey barn.

Turkeys generate a lot of waste.

In his pole barn he had a number of poles located throughout, so he could not find a machine that would circumvent the poles and clean his barn in a more efficient, timely manner.

So he contacted 2 blacksmiths, 2 machinists in Rothsay, Louie and Cy Keller and came to them with a problem that I need a machine to clean my turkey barn in a more efficient manner.

So working together the Keller brothers and Eddie Velo solved the problem, and they came up with a self-propelled loader that was able to move around the poles in the turkey barn and was able to clean the waste in a much more efficient manner.

And it was a new machine that no one had really seen anything like this.

Maneuverable was one of the big things, economical, dependable.

It didn't cost a ton of money.

Especially turkey farmers initially to clean their barns, but it had so many other uses.

The Kellers eventually decided to patent this.

Here's the original patent that the Keller brothers applied for with the patent office, and it's the clutch drive mechanism that you'll see right here, that is what the patent was for, not the actual total machine, but the clutch drive that was totally unique.

No one had seen anything like that, and eventually that's what became patented and became known as eventually the Bobcat.

This happened in the late 1950s when Cy and Louis Keller brought a prototype Bobcat down to the Minnesota State Fair to demonstrate.

Representatives from Melroe Company were there, and eventually that formed into a partnership with Melroe Company to manufacture the Bobcat.

And the rest they say is history.

The Bobcat is now used throughout not just the United States but throughout the world for a variety of different purposes.

And again, the original, the first was made right here in Otter Tail County, and it's now on display at the Otter Tail County Historical Society.

Rachel Meyer can be found playing her ukulele throughout the region including on our "Prairie Musicians" stage.

Enjoy music from her EP "Neon Lights."

[playing in bright rhythm in a minor key] ♪ ♪ ♪ First heartbreak never felt a pain like this ♪ ♪ Closed off and scared to talk to our friends again ♪ ♪ I fled home didn't want the memories ♪ ♪ Of endless nights under neon lights ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I was scared to move on didn't know how to love again ♪ ♪ You said that I gotta get out ♪ ♪ It wouldn't be hard for me anyway ♪ ♪ And I talked to some guys but none of them were just quite right ♪ ♪ First heartbreak never felt a pain like this ♪ ♪ Closed off and scared to talk to our friends again ♪ ♪ I fled home didn't want the memories ♪ ♪ Of endless nights under neon lights ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Stepped into the dating game met a couple strangers ♪ ♪ Fell in and out of love made some choices I might regret ♪ ♪ I'm wanting to settle but I come home to neon lights ♪ ♪ Sat alone wrote another song about a break up ♪ ♪ Sat alone wrote another song about moving on ♪ ♪ Sat alone wrote another song about finding love ♪ ♪ Sat alone wrote another song about being lonely ♪ ♪ First heartbreak never felt a pain like this ♪ ♪ Closed off and scared to talk to our friends again ♪ ♪ I fled home didn't want the memories ♪ ♪ Of endless nights under neon lights ♪ ♪ And at the end of the day ♪ ♪ I'm still lonely ♪ ♪ And now I'm seeing everything in neon lights ♪ [playing in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪ The rose you gave me ♪ ♪ Sits wilting on my desk ♪ ♪ It's been a month ♪ ♪ The road to get here ♪ ♪ Well it's been a long one ♪ ♪ But we're happy ♪ ♪ We started as best friends ♪ ♪ Stayed like that for quite some time ♪ ♪ Then suddenly ♪ ♪ Our chemistry ♪ ♪ Is just a little more than that ♪ ♪ ♪ A little more than that ♪ ♪ ♪ More than that ♪ ♪ ♪ I shut you down once ♪ ♪ Or maybe it was twice ♪ ♪ I needed time ♪ ♪ It happened suddenly ♪ ♪ I still don't understand ♪ ♪ But I'm happy ♪ ♪ We started as best friends ♪ ♪ Stayed like that for quite some time ♪ ♪ Then suddenly ♪ ♪ Our chemistry ♪ ♪ Is just a little more than that ♪ ♪ More than that ♪ ♪ More than that ♪ ♪ ♪ [finger-picking in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Don't you dare break down yourself ♪ ♪ ♪ You've worked so hard to get here ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ You deserve the whole world just let yourself ♪ ♪ ♪ Let it all come rushing in ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ You've built great big walls around your heart ♪ ♪ ♪ So you don't get hurt again ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Smile in your heart ♪ ♪ Full of joy you radiate only light ♪ ♪ You don't show the dark days ♪ ♪ Passion and fire you're not afraid ♪ ♪ To pave your own path ♪ ♪ You jump into the unknown ♪ ♪ Passion and fire you walk with purpose ♪ ♪ Showing only confidence ♪ ♪ Not to show any struggle inside ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Beautiful ♪ ♪ Soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Don't you dare break down yourself ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful is happiness ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ You deserve the whole world ♪ ♪ Just let yourself ♪ ♪ Let it all come rushing in ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ ♪ Beautiful soul ♪ ♪ Beautiful ♪ ♪ Soul ♪ ♪ Beautiful ♪ ♪ Soul ♪ If you know of an artist, topic or organization in our region that you think might make for an interesting segment, contact us at... (Barb) You can watch this and other episodes of "Prairie Mosaic" on Prairie Public's YouTube channel, and please, follow Prairie Public on social media as well.

I'm Barb Gravel.

I'm Matt Olien.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of "Prairie Mosaic."

[guitar, bass, & drums play in bright country rhythm] (woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4th, 2008, the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.