Rob Hardy's blog

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this piece are those of an individual member of the Northfield.org board, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the board as a whole.

Since I joined the board of Northfield.org in 2008, we have had numerous discussions about whether to allow anonymous (or pseudonymous) comments on the site. We recently moved to a new comment system (Disqus) which allows guests to leave such comments. Recently, the first pseudonymous comment, under the name “Newt,” was posted on Marika Christofides’ story about Rebekah Frumkin’s Occupy Northfield teach-in. I would like to take this occasion as an opportunity to address the issue of anonymous comments, and the standards of civil discussion that I would like to see adhered to on Northfield.org.

Later this evening, my wife and I are driving up to Minneapolis International Airport to meet our son, Will, who is returning from a year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Thailand. We’re excited, and curious to reconnect with someone who, undoubtedly, will be both profoundly familiar and so profoundly changed. A year abroad, immersed in a different culture, is a transformative experience.  As I prepare to head to the airport, I’m a little in awe.

“I am from the United States of America, but I feel like my soul is half Brazilian and always was,” says Aletha, who spent her Rotary year in Brazil.

What a wonderful experience: to discover that one’s soul is expansive enough to hold a new world.  How much better the world would be if it contained more such expansive souls!

One of Northfield's worst-kept secrets is Pizza Night at Red Barn Farm. The Winter Family farm on the south edge of Northfield is an idyllic place, made even more special with the addition of a wood-fired pizza oven. On Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons in the summer months, Tammy and Patrick Winter and their two children fire up the oven and set about the herculean task of making pizzas for the crowds of people picnicking on the lawn. Depending on when you arrive and order your pizza, it can take a while: we waited almost two hours for our pizza the first time we visited. But the relaxed and convivial atmosphere make it a pleasant wait. Adults sit on blankets sipping glasses of wine (bring your own), children run around happily, and often a band plays up beyond the bonfire of used pizza boxes. It feels like a weekly Fourth of July celebration or a family reunion. And the pizza, when it finally comes, is amazing. After Griff Wigley went for the first time on Wednesday, June 8, he reported on LocallyGrown that 130 pizzas were made. His post includes a good set of photos from that evening.

For our family, Friday is the traditional pizza night. I make my own pizza dough, and usually cook the pizza in the oven on a special pizza stone. Last night, since the weather finally cooperated, I decided to fire up the Weber grill and try making my own backyard wood-fired pizza.

One of the things I like about living in a town bookended by wind turbines is that it gives me a clearer sense of the direction of the wind. For most of the past week, the turbines have been facing into a resolute east wind, bringer of unsettled weather, clouds, and rain. But yesterday afternoon, as I walked through the Cowling Arboretum, I saw that the Carleton turbine had turned to face a north wind, and I was reassured that the forecast would deliver on its promise of clearing skies.

The wind turbines are one index of changes in the weather from day to day. The restored tallgrass prairie in the Arboretum, on the other hand, is an index of the steady progression of the seasons from spring to fall. Right now, one of the highlights of the prairie is the white wild indigo, spiking up above the prairie grasses. The characteristic yellow and orange flowers of the midsummer prairie—rudbeckia (black-eyed susan), compass plant, and various sunflowers (like the sawtooth sunflower pictured here)—have just started to bloom. Click here for a small photoset of some of the flowers blooming in the Arboretum right now.

Early this morning, my wife and I said goodbye to our oldest son, Will, as he passed through security at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to begin a twenty-four hour journey to Thailand, where he will spend the next eleven months as a Rotary Youth Exchange student. 

But the adventure really began a year ago, when Will and I met with Vicki Dilley, the Northfield Rotary Club’s youth exchange officer, to find out about the exchange program.  The months that followed were punctuated with important milestones leading toward the big day of departure.  In early November, the application was due. In early December, Will joined more than a dozen other Northfield students in Roseville for the district interviews.  In late December, Will learned that he had been placed in Thailand.

This weekend, Northfield has been host to the 2010 Vintage Band Festival.  The four-day festival draws brass bands from as far away as Helsinki, Finland.  One of the highlights of the weekend was a reenactment of a Civil War “battle of the bands,” with two bands in historical costume facing off across the Cannon River.  On the east side of the river was Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band, from Maryland, which specializes in music from the period 1870 to 1900.  On the west side of the river was the 1st Brigade Band, from Watertown, Wisconsin, which specializes in music of the Civl War era. The band members play "over the shoulder" instruments, the bells of which face backwards toward the soldiers who were marching behind the band. You can see an over the shoulder bugle in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art here.  

Have you noticed these bug-covered, dark purple objects hanging from trees around Northfield? The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is currently conducting a survey to detect the presence of the emerald ash borer. This detection trap is hanging in an ash tree in Central Park. The emerald ash borer is an insect whose larvae tunnel into the bark of ash trees and destory the tree's circulatory system. The state's more than 900 million ash trees are at risk for infestation by the emerald ash borer.

The three 2010 Northfield High School graduates who organized the "Beat Cancer: Cancer Jam 2010" benefit—Heidi Strike, Leigh Langehough, and Rachel Hanson—have been named the recipients of the July 2010 "Making a Difference" Award by the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative.  The award "celebrates those groups or individuals in the community who have a positive influence on Northfield's youth."  For more, see Zach Pruitt's Northfield Healthy Community Initiative blog post.  

A new trail link was dedicated this morning behind Just Food Coop.  The riverside trail, linking the Mill Towns Trail to downtown Northfield, was dedicated to Maggie Lee, who cut the purple ribbon to officially open the trail.  Speakers at the event were Meg Otten, chair of the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail; Chip DeMann; Spencer Jones, the architect of the trail link; Mayor Mary Rossing; and Maggie Lee.  After the ribbon cutting, attendees were offered purple coneflowers from Mayor Rossing's garden, and invited to toss them into the river and make a wish.  

Just Food provided coffee and scones before the ceremony, and music was provided by brass from the Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra.  Coffee was offered after the ceremony on the new deck behind Butler's Steak and Ale.  Click "Read More" to view a short slideshow of the event.  For better quality photos, see the gallery in the Northfield News or Griff's set of photos on LocallyGrown.

Editor's note: It is my pleasure to introduce Elle Kaskinen, a senior at St. Olaf College, who will be working with Northfield.org as an intern this summer. Look for Elle's first story on Northfield.org in the next day or two.

I would like to begin by saying thank you to the staff and readers of Northfield.org for allowing me the privilege of participating in an internship for the summer. My name is Elle, and I am a senior English major at St. Olaf College. I am originally from St. Croix Falls, WI. My favorite classes at St. Olaf have been those that have focused on journalism.  I look forward to bringing to the table the knowledge I've gained at St. Olaf, and to continuing to learn from this internship experience. I especially look forward to writing pieces that about people and events in the beautiful community of Northfield.

I welcome story suggestions from community members. I would also encourage any comments and/or feedback. Email me at: kaskinen@stolaf.edu.
 

by Sarah Goodwin, 8th Grade, ARTech

It is a warm spring morning. The bus pulls up to ARTech Charter School at 8:00. There are some students, however, who have already arrived. Some were driven by parents, but not all. On such a warm spring day, it is almost certain that one or two or four students arrived another day, a self-powered way: on a bike.

The Northfield High School Class of 2010, which graduated on Saturday evening, June 5, was the last class to start middle school in the old Northfield Middle School.  When the more than 300 members of the class of 2010 entered sixth grade in the fall of 2003, the 92-year old building was already overcrowded and in poor condition.  Two years earlier, in 2001, Northfield voters had approved a referendum to construct a new middle school south of Bridgewater Elementary School, which was ready for occupancy when the class of 2010 started 7th grade in the fall of 2004. 

by Emma Kmoch (7th grade), ARTech

As a teenager who cares about the enviorment and staying healthy, I try to patronize local businesses as much as possible.

Recently I saw an amazing documentary called “Food Inc.” It is about how several major food companies control most of our food and how dangerous this food can be. Hearing about a two-year old child who was killed by a tainted hamburger just stiffened my resolve. I think everyone needs to watch this movie, it really makes you think about what you are eating.  After watching “Food Inc.” I refuse to buy food anywhere but the co-op, and I never eat fast food.

by Noah Schmelzer (7th grade) and Bobby Vander Aarde (8th grade), ARTech

Most people have no clue to what May Term is.  May Term is the last three weeks of school at the Northfield School of Arts and Technology, also known as ARTech. There are many seminars a student can choose from, including half-day and full-day classes. If you are a student at ARTech, you can either choose a full-day seminar or a half-day seminar. The half-day seminars proceed until lunch time, and then a different class goes on after lunch. A student may only choose one full- day seminar or two half-day seminars: an A.M. and a P.M. class. These are determined before May Term starts. May Term started on May 24, 2010, and ends on June 11, 2010.

Since 2003, Northfield.org has been a place where the citizens of Northfield can tell their stories.  But since I joined the NCO board, I’ve wanted the website to feature more stories from a segment of the population whose voices have been underrepresented on Northfield.org: the voices of Northfield’s youth.  In an attempt to find some of those youth voices, I accepted an invitation to spend  a few days with teacher Annie Klawiter’s May Term writing class at ARTech Charter School in Northfield.