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Bulbs are in the house! Planting bulbs in the fall is a superb way to get a jump on your garden next year. If you’ve long admired the cheery colors of spring and early summer blooming bulbs, why not get some into your own garden? Tuck them in between perennials and enjoy the spring show or start a new bed by digging a trench and dropping them in en masse. To give your bulbs the best start, add some high phosphorus amendment like bone meal at planting time and water them in but don’t keep them soggy.

Bulbs we love:

Allium – Alliums make a statement! Big or small, the pom-pom blooms are impossible to miss. Plant them now and enjoy them for years. Bonus! Allium is deer and pest resistant and attracts pollinators.

Fritillaria – These are some unique and underappreciated plants! The dangling, checkered flowers are a real conversation piece that add an elegant, unique touch to the spring garden.

Hyacinth – If you want fragrance, Hyacinths are it. The tightly packed clusters of flowers are bright and beautiful and usually undisturbed by critters. 

The post The Bulbs are Here! appeared first on Knecht's Nurseries & Landscaping.

By Teri Knight, News Director Friday is the first day of absentee voting and there are a lot of questions out there.  Northfield City Clerk Deb Little is in charge of voting within the City. While Absentee voting is nothing new, Little said two-thirds of those who voted in the Primary voted absentee. That’s a

Dundas City Adminstrator Jenelle Teppen discusses the new City Hall, and recaps the September 14 City Council meeting.  Topics include the preliminary tax levy, street lighting projects, CARES funding, and more.

Northfield School Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann reports on the first day back to school and recaps the September 14 School Board meeting.

All individuals who live or work in or near Northfield, MN, are invited to share their thoughts on Northfield’s Downtown in an online survey.

Staff from Rethos in partnership with the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation are encouraging Northfield locals to take part in an online survey to share their thoughts, perceptions, and ideas for Downtown Northfield.

This survey is meant to gain insight from residents of all ages (kids included) who live in or near Northfield, as well as people who work in Northfield. This input will be analyzed and included with information from other related surveys and studies with an end objective of identifying community values and themes to direct planning and goals for downtown revitalization.

All survey input will be anonymous. The survey will take approximately five minutes to complete, and will be live from Monday, September 14 through Wednesday, September 30. Simply follow this link in order to complete the survey.

If you have questions about this survey or for the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, contact Greg Siems at greg@nddc.org. To connect with Rethos Staff, contact Emily Kurash Casey, Rural Programs Coordinator at emily@rethos.org.

About Rethos 

Rethos, formerly the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working nationwide for the use of old buildings and sites. We are holistic in our thought and flexible in our approach. We activate space, invest in communities, and reimagine what can be to lead and inspire people to connect with historic places, promoting community vitality. At Rethos, our purpose to reimagine places comes to life through core services that help educate, motivate and strengthen communities. Our board, staff, and partners work together to protect and promote communities’ shared environment and culture. Rethos Main Streets Minnesota helps cities maximize both their people and built assets for economic vitality.  Rethos Main Streets is a Main Street America Coordinating Program and provides local Main Street communities with the training, tools, information and networking they need to reinvigorate their downtown districts. More: https://www.rethos.org/

The post Future of Downtown Northfield online survey appeared first on Northfield Downtown Development Corporation.

More than 100 Northfield seventh and eighth graders failed at least one course during last spring’s distance learning period, and nearly 50% of failing grades came from students of color.

With the return of students to campus last week and the start of classes today (finally!), signs about masks, about hand washing, about COVID symptoms, and about physical distancing* have flowered everywhere: walls, doors, windows, bathroom stalls, floors, pillars… I guess I haven’t seen any on trees or ceilings, but maybe those will show up tomorrow.

And anywhere two people can queue up, the floor is marked with traffic-flow arrows, spacing dots or x’s, reminders about the magical six feet (“2M,” if you’re metric)…

The post Physical Distancing on Campus appeared first on Blowing & Drifting.

Nick Love '19 has evolved as a musician during college and beyond. By following his interests, outside of tradition, he's becoming the music educator he wants to be.

The Northfield City Council has instituted a citizen-led police task force to discuss policies highlighted during recent calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd in late May.

Today we revisit one of my favorite interviews with an a story so compelling you keep reading. I interviewed Sonia Purnell on her historical book… In 1942, as World War II was raging, the Gestapo sent out an urgent message: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”

So far this year, are law enforcement are seeing a higher numbers in DWIs and excessive speeding, with numbers continually increasing as they head into the final months of the year.

So far this year, are law enforcement are seeing a higher numbers in DWIs and excessive speeding, with numbers continually increasing as they head into the final months of the year.

By Teri Knight, News Director Northfield Councilors will be voting on the preliminary tax levy tomorrow night. Right now they are looking at an increase of 3.7, 5.7 or 7.7%. Two councilors are leaning toward the lowest, while two others are inclined to vote for the highest. The other three are interested in the 5.7%

St. Olaf began conducting randomized weekly COVID-19 testing on students, faculty and staff studying or working on campus Sept. 8, which marked the third stage of the College’s testing and monitoring plans. 

The College has also begun updating its coronavirus dashboard daily with campus data on restricted students, isolation beds, percent of students infected, total tests and confirmed positive tests. 

As of Sept. 13, there is one individual in isolation and there are seven in quarantine on campus, with four in quarantine off campus. Less than one percent, 0.11, of students have been infected in the last two weeks, also as of Sept. 13. 

St. Olaf remains in the green alert level based on these numbers and other factors, including total Rice county cases and availability of isolation and quarantine beds. 

93 individuals have been moved out of quarantine and 38 have recovered as of Sept. 13. The dashboard defines “recovered” as, “When individuals are released from isolation.” Individuals are placed in isolation when they test positive through the College or self-report a positive test from a source outside the College’s testing, the dashboard clarifies.

The “Total Tests and Confirmed Positives” chart only includes tests conducted through the Mayo Clinic, which St. Olaf has partnered with to conduct its randomized weekly testing and two rounds of baseline testing. 

The randomized testing is the third stage of the College’s testing and monitoring plans. The first two stages comprised the two rounds of baseline testing. Round one was completed Aug. 4–Aug. 19 for faculty and staff and Aug. 4–Aug. 25 for students, and round two was completed Aug. 20–Aug. 31 for faculty and staff and Aug. 26–Aug. 31 for students.

This baseline testing resulted in 16 positive tests from the first round and 22 positive tests from the second round, with positivity rates of 0.4 percent and 0.7 percent respectively.   

St. Olaf has also implemented contact tracing to notify individuals who need to quarantine because of possible exposure to an infected individual, another part of the College’s monitoring efforts. 

Northfield City Clerk Deb Little discusses absentee voting and in-person early voting.  Early voting will begin on Friday, September 18, 8:00 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. at City Hall. Here’s a link to the City’s Elections and Voter Information pages on the City’s website: https://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/120/Elections-Voter-Information Absentee/Early voting direct page: https://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/121/Absentee-Voting Voters can go directly to the Secretary of

The first day of school on Monday at Northfield Public Schools was unlike any in past years for many reasons.

Despite drastically reduced in-person Defeat of Jesse James Days events intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Northfielders still enjoyed a limited parade, food in Bridge Square and a cruise-in Saturday.

I had a fun little gravel ride today with two friends.

We kept pretty good distance between us, not that it matters that much in the open air when we’re mostly moving at 15 mph. A couple times, I thought about other rides on these particular roads – at least once, with one of today’s riders – and struggled to remember, at first, why we could have every ridden in a pack, or clustered around the guy who had a flat, or camped in a tiny little cabin in a county park.

This resetting of older memories is getting more and more frequent for me, a phenomenon that I’ve talked about with many people. Masking and distancing have permeated public life so deeply that it’s hard to remember that they’ve only been around for us since February, and only really common in Minnesota since late July (when the governor mandated masks in public places).

I guess it’s a nice demarcation in our shared personal histories: things we did before the pandemic, things we are doing in it. I suppose there will be a whole set of things that we’ll do after the pandemic, too (ubiquitous masking in health-care settings?) – or not (salad bars are over, right?). For now it’s enough of a challenge to remember that we weren’t being foolhardy eight years ago when ten of us rode in a tight paceline down a rutted, muddy road – we just didn’t have to worry about COVID.

The post Covid Riding appeared first on Blowing & Drifting.

Association of Freeborn County Landowners had filed a Complaint against Public Utilities Commissioner John Tuma and Chair Katie Sieben:

AFCL files Complaint against Tuma & Sieben

They filed their response and shipped it off to Office of Administrative Hearings for an investigation (note statute says “hearing” … oh well…):

AFCL Complaint forwarded to OAH for hearing

Here’s the result, hot off the press:

INVESTIGATIVE-REPORT_20209-166533-01Download

There’s no requirement of public participation? Minn. Stat. 216E.08, Subd. 2. And parties? No mention. What’s the point of being a party? And following that Office of Legislative Auditor report, guess it doesn’t matter, no one is paying attention.:

Public Utilities Commission’s Public Participation Processes – OLA-Report

Notice of a new topic on the agenda isn’t required? Yeah, I guess the notice statutes don’t matter.

Talking to a participant is not ex party contact? The County is indeed a participant…

Next step is that it goes to the Commission to rubber stamp it.

Who cares? Listen to this: