Burton Tellefsen was a visionary.
Decades before there were formal conservation programs, Tellefsen was planting grass buffer strips, creating holding ponds for runoff, planting tens-of-thousands of trees and fought to preserve surface water and water quality.
Tellefsen tragically died in an automobile accident back in 1998. Even through he has been gone for more than 10 years, his work with conservation and nature can be seen across the county and across the state.
On Tellefsen's home farm place, which is on County Road 4 north of Walnut Grove, his great niece, Rachel Landherr and her husband, Pete Landherr now occupy the house and land.
Both Rachel and Pete have made it a hobby, of sorts, figuring out the man who once walked the land where they live there and why he did the things he did.
"Burt was a pretty serious guy," Rachel said. "He was very scholarly. There were thousands of books in here. You could have a conversation with him about anything."
It was this love of reading and research that (Pete) Landherr believe led Tellefsen to plant a wide variety of native and some European species on his land.
"Burt really researched the plants that he put out on the land," Landherr said. "They weren't junk plants. They were plants that were originally here. When we moved in we found these cancelled checks from a seed company. We called them up to see what Burt was doing with them. It turns out he was harvesting the seeds from the prairie grasses and flowers and selling them to this company.
"Thanks to Burt's vision, our number one cash crop off of the land is seed we sell to the same company."
Landherr is limited, however, in the land he can harvest seed from, as most of the land is enrolled in CREP, which prevents any harvesting of any kind from taking place.
"A lot of the land that he did his seed work on was farmland," Landherr said. "He went ahead and put buffer strips around ponds, ditches and streams with all these native plants. He did it all on his own – his own will, his own pocket book. There were no subsidies or programs for doing that. He was just doing it to keep his soil on the land and out of the pond."
Tellefsen didn't just want to do conservation for his own. He wanted other people to be engaged, too. He wanted to get trees, knowledge and desire to others.
"When we moved on to the farm place, a couple years after Burt's death, people would stop by and ask us if we were going to, 'have all the trees?'" Rachel said. "From what I have heard, he would have hundreds and thousands of trees in his front yard. All the trees were in these little pots. People could come and take as many as they wanted."
"The Arbor Day Foundation had sent a letter to Rachel's mom stating that he had ordered 1 million trees from them in his lifetime," Landherr said. "And he had his own little tree operation on the side, too. When we first moved in I was so confused. I would go across the road and see all of these pine trees, but the tops would be cut off. I thought people were stealing them for Christmas Trees.
"Then, slowly, I would find little bits of charcoal on the ground and bits of burned tree. I pretty sure he was going over there and start a brush fire and use the fire to open the cones. Then he'd rake them around in that sand and they'd germinate the next spring and he'd just pull them out of the sand and give them away or plant them someplace else."
Tellefsen also planted trees on other people's land, on public land, universities, many, many groves.
"All the trees by the soccer field at Southwest (Minnesota) State University were planted by Burt," Rachel said. "So when I'd be out there playing soccer, he was out there planting trees. There is a nature center behind the college. He planted that, too."
"He also planted the trees and orchard at Lake Laura," Landherr said. "He planted the spruce at Tracy High School. He also planted a lot trees on the campus at Gustavus Adolphus. When the tornado came through St. Peter, they called him to come plant more trees, but he had just died."
One of the more dramatic projects that Tellefsen took on in his lifetime was landscaping a section of river bluff to prevent soil erosion, and create a place for wildlife.
"I think one of the coolest things that Burt did was on the south place," Landherr said. "There is the Cottonwood River down there, an upper field and a lower field. There are a range of hills there set back from the river.
"I think what happened was in heavy rains, you'd get some of these gullies washing from the upper field to the lower field. He went in there everywhere there was a gully and dug in a series of holding ponds. And in a couple of them he let the farmer next to him run his tile line into the ponds."
Landherr said that Burt then ran a dike along the whole bottom of the hill, so that instead of just running out in the Cottonwood River, the water had to go through yet another holding pond before it made its way into the river.
"It really takes all the stuff out of the water," Landherr said. "It is clear water by the time it makes it down to the river. And there is so much wildlife in there." 
In addition to planting trees, prairie grass and controlling runoff, Tellefsen worked to keep surface water on his land, too.
"The headwater to the Sleepy Eye Creek, which is now just a series of ditches, is on Burt's land," Landherr said. "The farm the headwater is on is referred to as the Radtke place. What he would do with the sprawling areas of surface water is he'd hire a company to come in and dig down (in the slough) to make it deeper. That way he'd get to have more farmland, but at the same time have a place for the water to go before being discharged."
Tellefsen also used rock, large rocks and small rocks, to help with erosion and create environments for plants and animals.
"Burt love to play with rocks, too," Landherr said. "I think it was kind of his way of making his own little monuments. On the Radtke place, which is just a mile away, or so, he has a huge rock garden. I think what it was is that it was just a great place to work, so he made some work there. He dug a huge ditch for water to travel down before it headed into the lake.
"Then he lined the ditch with massive rock and planted all sorts of water loving plants and trees along and in the ditch."
Tellefsen loved planting those pine trees. On the land at the Radtke place and where he has his series of holding ponds, Tellefsen planted thousands of Norway, Scotch, White, Juniper, Spruce and a variety that grows almost like moss over the top of rocks.
"I think of this (the ditch on the Radtke place) as being like a fort of his," Landherr said. "He worked in a very educated way, with the land, never forcing his ideas, but working with the land the way it was. But there is a playful element to his work, too. Almost like there was a little kid in him that liked playing with the rocks and trees."
One of the more interesting things Tellefsen did with rocks was to create a series of four large rock monuments along the ridge of Cottonwood River. All four monuments are in perfect alignment from east to west. The rock was brought in from different areas and placed there by Tellefsen himself.
"People used to ask Burt, 'Why are you playing with all those rocks?'' Landherr said. "He would always answer them, 'To confuse future geologists.' I'm not sure why he did a lot of the things he did. But I love coming out here and walking and looking and learning.
"Burt may be gone, but by observing the way he did things, I've learned a lot about how nature works and how to do great conservation."