Jesse Steed, REALTOR®

With this week’s near-record low temperatures and Northfield’s school closures, I find myself wondering simultaneously how to keep myself inside my nice cozy house and how to get my kids out of it. As much fun as it is to have them both home, it’s hard to get our two sons enough exercise to keep them happy and out of trouble.

Northfield may be known now for cows, colleges, and contentment, but its history is first and foremost that of a milling town. John North began his development of Northfield with a wooden mill dam in 1855, and he followed with a sawmill and a gristmill just a year later. He sold the gristmill, located on the East side of the river near Bridge Square, to Charles Wheaton in 1859, and Wheaton in turn sold it to Jesse Ames in 1865.

When I moved to Northfield a little over eight years ago, I was accompanied by my wife, Kathryn, and her ancient and beloved fox terrier, William (pictured on a walk some time ago). Among our first projects as we settled in was figuring out how to take care of William in our new city.

There are 12 Northfields in the United States, somewhere between two and five Red Wings (depending on how finicky you are about spelling and adjectives), three Dennisons, four Dundases, four Hazelwoods, at least 13 Waterfords, 15 Stantons, and a whopping 23 Randolphs. But there’s only one Cannon Falls in the world, at least as far as the internet seems to know.

The attic is an often overlooked but wonderfully versatile part of a home. Depending on how it is constructed and finished, it can serve as a comfortable living space or guest quarters, storage space, or just a climate-mitigating buffer between the elements and the rest of your home. It can be home to family heirlooms, baseball collections, holiday decorations, bats, and even the occasional madwoman (I’m looking at you, Charlotte Bronte).

At this time of year, we hear a lot about peace on Earth and goodwill to men, and it can be hard to remember that peace is a very unusual state for humanity. In Rome, the temple to the god Janus was to be open whenever Rome was at war and closed in times of peace – in the first 750 years of Roman history, the temple was closed only twice.

This weekend, after wheeling my snow-clogged blower back into my garage and engaging in a brief tussle with my wife over who would wield the lighter snow shovel, I began thinking about ways to avoid ever having to clear my own driveway again. If this sounds familiar to you, it may be worth taking some time to learn about housing options that let you enjoy home ownership minus some of the burdens of home maintenance.

There is something charmingly timeless about Winter Walk. In many ways, it represents the best of what small-town Midwestern life has to offer. When the sun goes down, the lights come on, and seemingly everyone in town crowds onto Division Street to sing, shop, visit Santa, or take a ride on a horse-drawn wagon.  It’s hard to imagine Winter Walk anywhere else, and each year it just feels like it must have been a part of Northfield forever.

As tornadoes ripped through our community this September, we witnessed firsthand the devastating power of these storms and the loss they can cause.  But we also witnessed the power of natural disasters to bring communities together for the common good in ways both big and small.

Few architectural features are viewed with as much romance as balconies. They are the site of royal celebrations, of public pronouncements by figures from popes to Julian Assange, and of Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting in countless theatrical productions. In our own lives, they can be a welcome respite from the bustle of crowded streets, a place to enjoy the sights and smells of nature, or just a sunny spot for a cup of coffee.