hoar frost « Locally Grown Northfield

Mosquitoes hatch; makes me long for January

By Griff Wigley, on April 1, 2010, 6:43 am

It was 81 degrees yesterday so Robbie and I opened all the windows to let in the fresh air. No screens necessary, we thought, till we started swatting mosquitoes. Oy. It could be a long hot summer.

Here’s a 30-second animated slideshow looking back to a gorgeous, –20 F mosquito-free day in January in downtown Northfield. The photos are from two of my hoar frost photo albums, here and here.

Music: “Italian Movie” by Graham Wigley. Continue reading Mosquitoes hatch; makes me long for January

Another hoar frost morning

By Griff Wigley, on February 13, 2010, 12:18 pm

I hauled out my old tripod and a new monopod this morning to try to do a better job at capturing yet another spectacular hoar frost. I got much better pre-dawn shots of downtown than last time. And I spent a couple hours in Carleton’s Lower Arb once it got light.

Here are three people shots. Photo albums are forthcoming but it may take me till mid-July to sort, crop and publish them.

Hoar frost on downtown’s willows, circa 1975

By Griff Wigley, on February 10, 2010, 7:59 am

My wife Robbie has been scanning old slides and she came across this hoar frost photo she took waaaaay back when we first moved to Northfield.

Back then, willow trees lined both sides of the Cannon River south of the 5th St. bridge. She took this photo behind the Safety Center facing east.

Photo album: downtown Northfield dressed in hoar frost at night

By Griff Wigley, on January 19, 2010, 10:49 pm

I’ve got too many daytime hoar frost photos to sort through before I publish them so instead, here are some photos I took early this morning (6-7 am). The glow from downtown’s streetlights on the low cloud ceiling provided just enough contrast.

See the album of 18 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:

Continue reading Photo album: downtown Northfield dressed in hoar frost at night

Hoar frost photo album coming

By Griff Wigley, on January 14, 2010, 11:39 am

I spent hours on Tuesday morning taking about 300 photos (some macros) of the spectacular hoar frost, mostly around downtown but also a few at St. Olaf and Malt-O-Meal. Here’s a preview. I hope to have them up sometime this weekend.

Save the date: May 15 high school mountain bike racing team information mtg for student-athletes & parents (5)
- Griff Wigley: Good turnout last night for the Cannon Valley Mountain Bike Team meeting at the high school. I’ve blogged a summary with the ppt presentations.
- Griff Wigley: Jordan Osterman, the new Sports Editor for the Northfield News, scooped me on Saturday. I’m glad! Northfield high school mountain bike team forming As a club sport, mountain biking would have no official affiliation with either...
- Griff Wigley: Good suggestion, Curt. I’ll do that for next week’s blurb. I have been verbally emphasizing the importance of having girls on the team, especially since their points on race days count more than boys’ points. Other...
- Curt Benson: Hey Griff, I wonder if you shouldn’t put a bit more emphasis on the idea that you’re recruiting both boys and girls for this team. And that the scores for both the boys and girls make up a team score. I think that in the...
- Griff Wigley: It should be noted that this team does not yet exist! So this meeting is for those student-athletes (and their parents) who might be interested in joining this new team.
Props to the Northfield News for the Fire Relief Association ethics story (1)
- Griff Wigley: Suzy Rook has a sidebar to today’s Nfld News update on last night’s Council meeting. Excerpt: The city administrator and finance director say they have asked for the information on several occasions, including last month...
Proposed: City of Northfield Statement for Our Safe and Welcoming Community (193)
- David Henson: Peter, you have the Internet you do the research. Use San Francisco as a baseline (an accepting place) – gays there have very high rates of depression and drug use.
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Those are fascinating beliefs, but conveniently for us, the research has already been done, and they’re wrong. Legalizing gay marriage has no effect on the observed incidence of homosexuality, and the concept of...
- David Henson: John, I understand sexuality to be a continuum and not a hard and discrete fact. I earnestly believe that if gay marriage is approved many more people will experiment with gay sex and some numbers will get AIDS (and depression and...
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Kiffi, I am not sure that is fair. As long as peoples’ condemnation does not translate into hostile action, I am of the general opinion that people have a right to condemn behaviors they disapprove of, whether or not...
- kiffi summa: David: it does not profit a discussion to take comments to the evaluation point outside of the context within which they were written. I fully resent your remark: “your views seem highly intolerant”… I have...
George Kinney wants you at Saturday’s solar energy workshop (1)
- Adam Elg: Keep up the good work George!
A backyard campfire: one of my favorite simple pleasures of spring (2)
- john george: Living where we do, it is only a few blocks walk to North Street and a grand view of the sunsets. Also, with our neighbors’ mature white pines & spruce, our covered deck affords outdoor enjoyment with a fair amount of...
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Mmm, fire.
Two build-outs underway on downtown’s West side. Guess the businesses; guess the media coverage (6)
- Griff Wigley: Nfld Patch: Denmark-based Firm to Set Up U.S. Headquarters in Northfield
Why is the Northfield Rescue Squad Association retaining attorney David Hvistendahl? (5)
- Griff Wigley: Props to the newspaper and Suzy Rook for mentioning LoGro twice in the story: Fire Department officials, including Fire Chief Gerry Franek, did not respond to several requests from the News for association financial records or...
- Griff Wigley: Posted to Northfield News at 1pm: Ethical questions arise over Northfield Fire Relief Association expenses Donations made to Northfield Fire Relief Association aren’t public dollars, but that hasn’t extinguished city...
- Griff Wigley: Curt/Robert, There’s a summary of the Rescue Squad on Page 21 of the 2009 NFD report to the City. It doesn’t mention that there’s a Rescue Squad Association. The last paragraph states: The Northfield Rescue Squad is...
- Robert Palmquist: If Hvistendahl’s motivation was to keep the financials from getting known, his submitting a memo like that just really backfired. I agree, why would these financials be such a secret??? And why did the NRSA hire a lawyer to...
- Curt Benson: So Hvistendahl has found another place to wet his beak. You ask a good question, “Why is it important that the City not know the Northfield Rescue Squad Association financials?”
Never mind that NEG cover, Girls Nite Out is Friday (3)
- Jim Haas: Happens to me a lot. So much that my lovely wife had to coin a term for it: she says I have datelexia.
- norman butler: Since coming to my adopted country 16 years ago I have observed, amongst other things, that not putting the day with the date is both common and peculiar to Northfield (MN? USA?).
- John Thomas: Just a reminder, advance tickets for Girls Night Out 2012 can be purchased on The Grand’s website at http://www.thegrandnorthfield. com/public-events. Your tickets will then be available at a special “Will Call” at...
Howie and Jeni’s downtown gem: Eco Gardens (2)
- Liz Reppe: This is a great place to buy plants! Jeni is very knowledgeable and they are both really helpful. You get great service and plant expertise, but the prices are not higher than other places in town.
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Awesome place. We get plants there.
R.I.P. Ray ‘Jake’ Jacobson. His legacy of public sculptures has helped to make Northfield a vibrant place (3)
- bill metz: While most of how Jake is being remembered revolves around, and rightly so, his great and wonderful talent as an artist and teacher and the works of sculpture he has left for our and the next generations enjoyment, I have had the...
- Ross Currier: It was an honor for me and the NDDC to work with Jake. His pieces of sculpture in our community send a powerful visual message that Northfield is an Art Town. I still marvel at his clever and creative approach to building social and...
- paul krause: The memorial service will be held at 11am. Doors to the Chapel will open at 10am for a chance to visit with family members and friends to share memories of our dear friend. Anyone who would like to view the documentary Harvest (which...
Now that we know Northfield’s firefighters aren’t really volunteers, more transparency is needed on their fundraising activities (22)
- kiffi summa: Come on, Griff… you say you’re “more than a little clueless about about investments” but you “just happened to notice”… and from what you said, were reading analytically, etc etc… Once...
- Griff Wigley: I’m more than a little clueless about investments but I noticed on page 14 in the April 24 Council packet that the Fire Relief Association has 85% of its pension portfolio in stocks. Isn’t that a bit risky/aggressive for...
- Griff Wigley: Has there been any media reporting on the intergovernmental meeting in Bridgewater Township that was held on April 25 re: the Rural Fire Protection District and the City of Northfield?
South Hwy 3 is much less ugly (2)
- Jim Mangan: I noticed this morning that a few of the newly planted trees along South Highway 3 have a pronounced lean. Could it be storm damage?
- Ross Currier: It’s great that someone is enhancing the connection between downtown and uptown. I know they coordinated their work with MNDoT, City staff, and the Streetscape Task Force. Uh, raise your trowels in a toast to the Northfield...
Construction underway at Rejoice!; citizen group trying to get sanctuary restored (33)
- Raymond Daniels: Just saw on NN that the City of Dundas and Rejoice! prevailed in the lawsuit.
Cliff and Sofie want you Out of the Silence & Onto the Streets for a LGBT rights march on Sat. May 5 (3)
- Vicki Serreno: I wish I’d known – this is my neighborhood since I left Northfield in 2010. I’d have shown up to support them.
- Kathie Galotti: My neighbor and sometimes babysitter Maggie Kennedy appears in this video as well! Go Maggie, and Cliff and Sophie and Parker and everyone else! Well done, guys!
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Heh, we had those when I was in college. Guess we’re making progress, they’re starting years earlier now!
Prairie’s Edge Humane Society is one of 15 sites for the Great Northfield Rummage Raid for Charity (1)
- Sandy Vesledahl: Thanks for blogging our garage sale Griff! We are at 2018 Jefferson Rd, Suite 1, thanks to the Jasnoch Family for allowing us to use the space. We will be there until 5:00 today and again from 8-2 on Saturday. We’ve had a...
Sheena Basness wants you to know about the cheap spay/neuter clinic coming to Northfield on April 30th (2)
- Bright Spencer: I have an 8 year old dog that has not been neutered, has not reproduced and never been out unleashed except in our yard. It costs nothing to care for your pet properly.
Peter and Jesse are putting up a geodesic greenhouse in their backyard (6)
- Bright Spencer: To see this makes me so happy! Best of luck to you!
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): For what it’s worth, I’m pretty happy with the whole process so far, although we found exciting new things out about the land development code, such as “the rules for calculating how tall a building is for...
- Phil Poyner: Hey, I was close!
- Peter Seebach (Seebs): Not a hot tub, a swimming pool. One of those backyard pools you can get at k-mart, and the greenhouse is so we can use it a couple months earlier in spring and later in fall.
- Phil Poyner: They gonna put a hot tub in there?
Sidewalk dining in Northfield: Why is The HideAway still the only one? (4)
- Arlen Malecha: I wish more establishments had outdoor seating & dining. Now that our offices (Coldwell Banker South Metro www.CBSouthMetro.com are downtown, I love to see people sitting and dining outside. It is fun to walk up and down...
- Sean Hayford O'Leary: I would say the current configuration of Division Street makes me grateful not everyone is doing it. Sidewalk dining brings a lot of livelihood to the street — but I’ll admit that I’ve been occasionally...
- Griff Wigley: Rebecca, there are several Northfield eating and drinking establishments that have outdoor dining with tables and chairs, serving alcohol, but not SIDEWALK dining. Downtown ones that come to mind: The Tavern, Chapati, The Cow, Froggy...
- Rebecca Bliss: Timely post, Griff -I didn’t realize this. I was just commenting to my husband about how nice it would be to dine al fresco now that the weather is getting warmer. Guess this is another discovery for the new...
Jim Spaulding has a new sealcoating business, a division of The HideAway (1)
- Arlen Malecha: As long as his coffee is not as thick as tar and his tar is not as thin as coffee I would say all is good in Jim’s world.
Do Northfield area educators still use cheesy self-esteem tactics on kids? (3)
- Patty Gallivan: MOST Northfield volunteers are waiting for someone who DARES boost a program with evidence of effectiveness to come forward with leadership to actually make a difference with students in our Northfield schools. Make sure to let us...

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Mosquitoes hatch; makes me long for January

Another hoar frost morning

Hoar frost on downtown’s willows, circa 1975

Photo album: downtown Northfield dressed in hoar frost at night

Hoar frost photo album coming

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