There is a USAgain clothing and shoes dropbox in front of Northfield Family Dentistry on Woodley near Jefferson Road.

A business called Fireplace Connection has leased the old Polzin Glass building next to McDonald's at Hwy 3 and Woodley.

Colin McLain, Carleton College student, sent me this photo of Carleton's resident Albino squirrel, nicknamed Jumal.

This is a PDF of the Street Reclamation PowerPoint presentation that was made at the public hearing for the street reclamation project at City Hall on Wed.

Doug Bratland has a photo album up of the NAG auction from two weeks ago... 32 photos.

I got a note from Michael Blaha of Organic Arts about this weekend's Daisyfest music festival just south of Dundas.

The website says that "Daisyfest is a southern Minnesota musical festival. Small festival feel, with Rock, Bluegrass, Reggae, Jam Band and more... Camping, vendors, drum circle, and other projects too."

Their news page is a weblog with an RSS feed.

Thanks to Sue Odette, Paul Raadt, Bryce Willett, and Mellissa Cuccio for background info on Carl Squint Hower. I've attached their replies to the blog post.

My wife and I attended the public meeting on the proposed street reclamation project held at City Hall last night. (Reclamation is grinding up existing pavement and reusing it. Ten streets in Northfield are targeted for this later this summer... including ours, Linden St., south of Woodley.)

Brian Hilgardner (left photo) from Bolton & Menk, a Mankato-based engineering and consulting firm, and Northfield Public Works Director Heidi Hamilton presented and answered questions from the audience.

Another public hearing will be held at the June 6 city council meeting. I'll see if I can get the Powerpoint presentation and post it here. In the meantime, join the ISSUES discussion list if you're interested in discussing the pros and cons of this project.

Left: The Water St. parking lot on the West side of downtown is now gone. Right: Two signs at Division and Woodley point detour traffic to downtown.

See the photo album from tonight's performance by participants in the Union of Youth Writing Workshop. Jan Allister was the advisor/writing instructor, with assistance from Ted Tuel.

Participants: Stephanie Bove, Madi Cooper, John Witt, Althea Allen, Willie Gregory-Bjorkland, Sarah Lee, Becca Mellstrom, Nat Allister, Gilly Wigley, Amanda Madsen, Siobhan Meehl, Joey Cherney

Northfield Montessori's new school building is under contruction.

It's new location is between the American Legion Ballroom and the Girl Scout Council of Cannon Valley on North Highway 3.

Last week I blogged photos of Sheldahl Fountain on Bridge Square. There are other commemorative plaques there... in addition to the Civil War Veterans Memorial in the center of the park.

Don McRae, 1992 recipient of the Joseph Lee Heywood award, has a memorial tree on the west edge of the park. McRae died in 1996.

Carl Squint Hower has two of the benches dedicated to his memory. Hower died in 1967. I couldn't find any information on Hower on the web. Attach a comment if you know who he was, or contact me.

Right: Northfield School Board Member Katy Hargis, about to unload a wad of cash at Prairie Creek Community School's annual plant sale on Bridge Square on Saturday.

Area high school students who have taken the year-long Writing Workshop at the Northfield Union of Youth read from their work tomorrow, 7pm at The Key.

Left: the poster promoting the event, titled "The Man from Nantucket and other stories by the fashionably late," was created by Becca Mellstrom. Lead instructor this year (right): Jan Allister, Assistant Professor of English at St. Olaf.

The Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce's annual Spring Fling is today.

See the schedule of events below.

The photo on the left of runners and walkers gathering for the 9 am Run Downtown is from the 2004 Spring Fling photo album. See the NDDC's Run Downtown Poster (PDF) for more.

Can you tell who these people are and who they're watching?