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MPR News Staff

MPR documentary: 'Blessings of the Fields'

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King in his harness, ready for a ride.
King, a draft horse, is photographed near Bemidji, Minn.
Monika Lawrence for MPR News

An MPR documentary by Mark Heistad explores old-fashioned farming with horses, and how machinery and technology have remade American farms and transformed rural society itself.

Heistad, former MPR host and documentarian, produced "Blessings of the Fields" in 1985. He now teaches journalism at Morningside College in Iowa.

Farmer Clarence Nordstrom of Pine City died in 2001 at the age of 86.