We went out last night for the first time in a week. We’ve been sick at home. We were greeted with a spectacular sky and sunset.
Praise God for this amazing evening greeting.
Sunset
Tag: Northfield
The Upper Arb
On these glorious mornings, Gary and I are walking on trails we’ve recently re-discovered.
We park outside the Oaklawn Cemetery and pass through the gate to Carleton College’s Cowling Arboretum…the upper arb. (The lower arb has nice trails too…it goes along the Cannon River and through the woods. The entry point is at a different section of campus.)
From the entrance we use for the upper arb, you can choose to go to the right or left. The right leads down to the prairie, the left takes you through an heavily wooded area of oak trees, and all the trails connect.
A posted sign offers information on how the different sports have worked-out on the upper arb over the years.
Carleton’s cross-country teams (men’s began in 1938 – women’s in 1970), practice on the trails and hold track meets. In the early 1990’s, Runner’s Magazine voted the upper arb the best place in Minnesota to run.
Carleton College started grooming the trails for cross-country skiing in 1978, and continues to open the trails to all skiers. We have skied and snow-shoed in the upper-arb during winter.
I enjoyed learning that in the 1930’s there was a Saddle Club, and horse and riders were permitted to jaunt on the trails. An equestrian center was also built on the upper arb, but was shut down in 1964. It would be fun to ride horseback on the trails, although it is no longer permitted.
We have done a bit of walking on the trails in the upper arb in previous years, but not during this time of year when the prairie is in bloom. It is so pretty!
It feels like we’ve discovered a whole new trail. We pass very few folks out on our morning hike. We have the trails mostly to ourselves.
The sun shines on our path. The sky is blue. It is so peaceful.
We’re grateful Carleton Colleges maintains the trails, and opens them up to the public.
Northfield’s Popcorn Wagon
Northfield’s beloved popcorn wagon has been in Northfield since 1979. It sits on Bridge Square every summer and is run by 27 “kernels” (volunteers) who make popcorn and sell it. I recently attended a history talk about the popcorn wagon by Susan Hvistendahl, at FiftyNorth, Northfield’s Senior Center.
The popcorn wagon was built in 1918 at C. Cretors & Company in Wood Dale, IL. C. Cretors & Co. is a five-generation family-run business that is still in business today. They have a museum in Wood Dale, IL, which would be fun to see. The popcorn wagons were first introduced at Chicago’s World’s fair in 1893, along with many famous inventions that year: the Ferris Wheel, and Cracker Jack’s, even Hershey Chocolate had its beginnings at that fair.
Northfield’s popcorn wagon is a Model C and there are fewer than 22 remaining. The Model C’s were “designed for success”, and advertised to be “an ornament to any town”. Indeed, Northfield’s popcorn wagon is a town icon.
Initially there was a doll figure called Tosty Rosty, that manually turned the tumbler inside the wagon, making the popcorn pop, of course. Northfield’s Tosty Rosty has stopped working, but there are hopes it will be revived.
In May 1979 Vera Johansen bought the wagon and started the business of making popcorn. Apparently she became known as the unofficial hostess of Northfield. It is told that at one time ducks came up from the river to eat dropped popcorn. I wonder if that still happens? Another time, a fan was purchased to blow the aroma of freshly popped popcorn out into the air, drawing people to come purchase the delicious treat.
In 1988 Vera Johansen sold the popcorn wagon to the Sherwin family. It became available again in 1994, and Northfield collected contributions for its senior citizens to buy the wagon. It was brought up to code and returned to Bridge Square in May 1995, when the Senior Center volunteers took over the care of the wagon. Believe it or not, this little popcorn wagon is a money maker for our FiftyNorth Senior Center.
Recently a new door, new window frames and window panes, and interior shelving have been restored to the wagon. Currently there is a fundraiser to raise enough money to finish renovating the outside by stripping, sandblasting and repainting it, and adding new wheels. (Originally it was horse-drawn.) The goal is $50,000. They have raised $5,000, and a family foundation recently gave a generous gift of $25,000.
At the end of Susan’s talk, a singing duo and a guitarist sang a lively rendition called “Buttered Popcorn.” It was a delightful evening at FiftyNorth.
Tour de SAVE
On Saturday Gary and I rode a 25-mile bike loop for Tour de SAVE. SAVE is an acronym for Suicide Awareness Voices of Education. The ride was a fundraiser for this organization.
After you registered, you could fill out a pennant to wear, naming a person or persons you were riding in memory of. Both Gary and I have personal connections to people who have taken their own lives, but there were a lot of folks riding for the sake of bringing awareness to suicide.
SAVE hosts several types of events, including 5K walk/runs, throughout Minnesota and the US. Click here for a link to their website.
We had a beautiful morning to ride. The hot and humid weather moved out and cool, dry air moved in. The rural route took us on backroads, past fields and farms. The blue sky boasted white wispy clouds.
After the ride we met friends for lunch, and then walked to Bridge Square in Northfield to listen to some good band music, put on by the Vintage Band Festival, an annual outdoor music event in Northfield.
And, of course, we had a dish of ice cream to wrap up a delightful, summer day.
We were grateful for these wonderful organized events; yet we continue to mourn the loss of loved ones lost to suicide.
A Hedgehog and A Firefly
A flicker of light~ Twinkling and twirling around... Fireflies at night.
While in Minnesota, our Ukrainian friends saw fireflies for the first time. They were excited. We were with them one evening, and the fireflies were dancing all around us. We all enjoyed seeing the fireflies, as well as our friend’s excitement.
I told them the one and only time I saw a hedgehog was in Ukraine, and it was exciting to see it. We walked to a village after class one day, to an interpreter’s home, and we saw a cute, little hedgehog tucked away on the side of the path.
God is creative!
“God made the animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the crates that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:24
Log Jam
On a warm, summer’s evening in Northfield, Bridge Square and the Riverwalk draw a lot of people. It is a nice place to stroll along the Cannon River, to look at the water falling over the dam, to see people fishing off the bridge, or just sitting and visiting or eating ice cream.
The other night we took our ice cream treat down to Bridge Square and looked out on the river. To our surprise there was a log jam.
A couple big tree trunks were stuck in the dam and hundreds of branches and sticks have accumulated at the blockage. We’ve never seen it backed up so much.
It was a sight to see. Hopefully it will be cleaned up soon.
A Conflict of Interest
Squirrels are cute little critters, with comical antics and amazing flexibility. They are fun to watch.
But they can also be destructive in gardens, and they can scare away the birds from the feeders. We have many squirrels in our yard, so we started trapping them a few years ago. We use a live-trap and once caught we deliver them to, what we’ve dubbed the “Squirrel Resort”, a land flowing with trees and water. We escorted many squirrels there. It has all the comforts of a happy place for the critters, out in the country.
Our neighbors across the street however, feel differently. She feeds the squirrels. In fact, she has trained a young squirrel to jump up on her lap and eat from her hand! She demonstrated the act one morning. I was amused. She offered to send me a picture to use for my blog.
He is cute.
I didn’t tell her we’ll be setting up a trap in our back yard…
Hopefully this young one will stay in my neighbor’s yard where the food is…
A Bouquet of Lilacs, a Hard Way
I love the smell of lilacs…and the pretty delicate, purple flower blossoms are beautiful. They are a wonderful sign of spring. It’s always nice to bring a bouquet into the house.
The lilac bush we have in our backyard is an old-fashioned garden variety. The mother plant was planted in the yard of the house I grew up in, in NE Minneapolis when I was a little girl. In 1980, we moved to Burnsville and I dug up part of that bush from McKinley Street and transplanted it to our yard in Burnsville. Then, in 1994, when we moved to Northfield, I took along part of the lilac bush and planted it in the backyard of our new home.
The bush is old.
The past few years it has produced fewer and fewer flowers, and this year not many at all. We learned it is not blooming because it has a lot of old and dead wood, since it hasn’t been pruned. The only pruning it has received the last 29 years is when I cut off branches to bring in a sweet-smelling bouquets into the house.
Apparently, we should have been pruning the bush every year. Whoops.
So we decided to prune it way back this year. When we cut off the top branches, I cut off the smaller branches with blossoms.
That was a hard way to get a small bouquet!
We cut out a lot of dead wood and larger, old branches and trimmed back some of the new growth. We pruned a lot off.
It was a good job that needed to be done. It looks pretty good…and hopefully the next year or two it will produce a lot more flowers once again.
Fairy Garden Stories
Many walkers and joggers use the sidewalk along the east side of our corner lot. We planted trees along the walk as a screen for our windows, but I do like to see the variety of folks who use the sidewalk. It leads to a paved trail that takes one around three ponds, and it is a delightful walk.
A couple of weeks ago when we were working out in the yard a gentleman, who was walking on the sidewalk, stopped to ask us about our house color (my all-time favorite green house). As we were visiting he said his grandson loves my fairy garden. He said his grandson will make sure everything is in place and clears out any dead leaves etc. when he walks by it. That made me smile, and inspired me to recreate the garden as soon as possible. I had just cleared the area of my fairy garden to clean things up and re-do it. It is along the sidewalk.
I washed up the glass stones for the pathway and realigned them. I situated the porcelain table and chairs and fairies in place, including my troll from Norway. There were a few new items to add to the scene this year.
When I opened a package that I bought at a thrift store last fall I was surprised. I thought it was street lamp poles, instead it was a string of lights, and that made me happy. I laughed. They do not light up but that’s ok, I like them. I placed the lights in the garden, and added a new-to-me wishing well (another purchase from a thrift store). I put a turquoise stone in the wishing well, to represent water.
Now I enjoy my fun little fairy garden that will soon be hidden under a rose bush when it fills out. Right now, it is open for all to see. I’m trusting my little friend will enjoy it. My granddaughter did last summer.
A few years ago, a friend’s granddaughter took walks with her mom and passed a fairy garden, with a door. One day the little girl opened the door and to her surprise found a note in it. She was delighted and read the note from the fairy. Occasionally the fairy would leave her notes all summer, and the little girl enjoyed looking for a note every time. I’m wondering how to incorporate that idea into my garden…hard, since I do not have a door…
Another fairy garden story: A couple recently moved into a new house in the country and put out a gnome-size door next to a tree in their back forest, visible from their kitchen window. When I saw it, I commented on how much I like fairy/gnome gardens. They said they were going to add a gnome.
A few weeks later the guy came up to me in church and said he thought of me while snowshoeing one afternoon. It had gotten dark early and he was snowshoeing on their new acerage and kind-of got turned around. Eventually he saw a light through the trees and thought it was his wife with a flashlight, out looking for him. It was not. It was a solar light on the gnome door that was leaning against the tree close to their house. It guided him home!
Ahh…fairy stories abound.
Fairy Houses
As the snow melts, daffodils and hyacinth sprouts will begin to emerge, and fairy gardens will be uncovered.
I am enchanted with fairy gardens. They are whimsical and I love finding them in surprising places: under a flower or next to a tree trunks, maybe under rocks in a rock garden. I also like creating one in my own backyard flower garden.
Some fairy gardens are elaborate, like one on St. Olaf Avenue in Northfield. The garden is filled all kinds of miniature critters with some fairies, most are reading books. It is clever.
My fairy garden is simpler; a table with chairs, with one fairy drinking from a tea cup and another fairy with a watering can…and oh yes, I added a Norwegian troll last summer.
I’m planning an expansion to my garden this year with a few trinkets I’ve picked up in thrift stores…a lamppost and wishing well to name a few.
A couple of weeks ago we went to the Minneapolis Home + Garden Show in the convention center downtown Minneapolis. The show always has colorful flower gardens to show off and lots of different vendors promoting their wares. Every few years we think it’s interesting to go see “what’s new in home-style”.
This year my favorite display was…what I call… life-size fairy homes…uniquely designed sheds that look like fanciful fairy houses. I wanted to bring one home to play in, but they were asking an exorbitant price!
What fun it would be to have an adult-size fairy house in a backyard…especially if it were tucked in between some trees. It could be a great place to set up a small library scene: book shelf full of books, a lamp, and a comfortable chair… or a place for sitting in quiet contemplation…or a fancy garden shed with all manner of plants and dirt, tools and planting supplies…or maybe even a game room?
When writing about these sheds, a memory surfaced of playing in a shed in our backyard when I was a little girl. My dad and brother made an adult-size play shed out of scrap wood – nothing fancy like these fairy sheds – but it had a door and a window and that was enough. The neighborhood kids and I played for hours in that shed.
I’m thinking that subdued memory was what sparked such a joyful response in me when I saw the creative fairy sheds at the Home + Garden Show.