Results: VPTA owner survey on hiring a management company

The responses to the VPTA owner survey on whether or not to hire a management company for the association are posted to the Members page (password protected).

Here’s a summary of the responses with two graphs:

VPTA owner survey - management company - final - charts and summary

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Valley Pond Townhome Association garage sale coming up September 15

VPTA garage sale 2012 Sandy McClintock

VPTA resident Sandy McClintock is organizing a multi-family VPTA garage sale (PDF poster) to be held on Saturday, Sept. 15, 8 am-2 pm. Each participating family will set up at their own address. Maps will be provided listing all participating addresses.

Contact Sandy if you would like to participate. Phone: 507-412-0665; email: sandy@themcclintocks.net.

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Photos: 1st annual Building #1 summer potluck

Building #1 rep Jim Pence put on his Master of Ceremonies and Programming Extraordinaire hat yesterday and with his wife Liz, hosted the 1st annual Building #1 summer potluck in their backyard. 

I weaseled an invitation for me and Robbie by promising to take photos for this VPTA blog. Pence’s neighbor Jowane Howard also snuck in, claiming seniority of some kind since she’s lived in the VPTA longer than anybody.

Other building #1 residents who bellied up to the potluck bar: Jerry and Ann Krause, Dennis and Sandy McClintock, and Scott McMillan.

See the large slideshow of 14 photos (recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

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The storm water pond in Hidden Valley Park does its job

storm water pond in Hidden Valley Park A full storm water pond in Hidden Valley Park, June 2012
Normally, the storm water pond in Hidden Valley Park looks like the photo on the left. Last night, after 6 inches of rain, it was full and slightly overflowing in spots, much higher than the previous high mark since we’ve lived here

Here are a few more photos:

DSC01192 DSC01193 DSC01197

DSC01200 DSC01201 DSC01204

See the City of Northfield storm water pond page for details about how the ponds are managed.

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Make way for the ducklings

VPTA resident Cheryl Backstrom wrote via email:

Griff, on May 14, John and I enjoyed the “Make Way for Ducklings” parade across our backyard. 12 of them followed momma mallard.

IMG_5408_1 IMG_5413_1

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Photo album: Valley Pond Townhome Association annual meeting

We had a great turnout for our VPTA annual meeting on May 8 at the NCRC building.

See the large slideshow of 31 photos (recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

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City installs pet waste signs at entrances to Hidden Valley Park

pet waste sign at entrance to Hidden Valley Park

At our last VPTA board meeting, we discussed whether the Association should pay to have the City of Northfield install one or more pet waste stations (example here) along the trail in Hidden Valley Park

The Board decided that a better first step would be to ask the City to install “Please Clean Up After Your Pet” signs to see if that solved the problem.

This week,  a City crew installed signs at the three entrances/exits to the park. Our cost: $54.

May 25 update.  Robbie has been stuffing pet waste bags into the holes in the signs.  And people are using them.

Robbie Wigley, inserting pet waste bags on sign Robbie Wigley, inserting pet waste bags on sign

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Spring cleanup around Hidden Valley Park

Robbie Wigley, Jerry Krause IMG_20120406_173810
Last Friday, Jerry Krause joined me and Robbie for a trash pick-up activity around Hidden Valley Park. We got done in less than an hour. Saaaaweeeeet!

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City Parks Department cuts down the noxious trees

noxious trees cut down, Hidden Valley Park, Northfield noxious trees cut down, Hidden Valley Park, Northfield noxious trees cut down, Hidden Valley Park, Northfield
I’m not sure when it happened exactly but some time in the past few weeks, a crew from the City of Northfield Streets, Parks & Facilities Divisions mowed down all the noxious trees at the south end of the pond in Hidden Valley Park. There were hundreds of small trees there, blocking the view of the pond for those of us on the south end. 

A tip-of-the-blogger-hat to Street & Park Supervisor TJ Heinricy and his staff for doing this.

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Pond dredging not scheduled for 5-7 years

Hidden Valley Pond
It turns out that it’ll be a few years before Hidden Valley Pond is dredged. Here’s the email from Brian Welch, Engineering Resources Manager for the City of Northfield:

Mr. Wigley,

We plan to dredge the pond just east of Heywood Rd (between Creek Ln & Sunset Dr ), that we refer to informally as Rosewood Pond. The pond near Hidden Valley Rd. is in reasonably good shape compared to the ponds at Rosewood, John North Park and Grant Park. Those three ponds will be addressed first, and then Hidden Valley and the two ponds near the High School (east of Division on either side of Washington St S) at a later date.

Given the cost of restoration for each pond we expect that it will take at least 5-7 years to complete the first three ponds (the are included in the CIP to be presented to the Council tomorrow night). Hidden Valley Pond would likely come after that, closer to 2018-2020. The current rate of sediment infill is low so we do not anticipate significant changes to the pond’s functionality in that time frame.

We have a meeting scheduled this week with the regulatory agencies (DNR, Corps of Engineers, BWSR, etc.) to discuss their jurisdictional claims on the first three ponds. The construction time frame will be governed by any regulatory permitting process we are required to complete. Once we have a handle on the permitting process we will hold a neighborhood meeting for the Rosewood Pond area. The John North Park Pond work will be discussed in conjunction with the road work planned in 2012 for that neighborhood.

TJ will likely be involved in the initial draining of the Rosewood Pond, but the dredging project itself will be run through the Engineering Dept. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,

Brian

——-
Brian Welch, Engineering Resources Manager/Transit Manager
City of Northfield
801 Washington St S.
Northfield, MN 55057
507-645-3027

See: Stormwater Pond Evaluation and Prioritization: Assessment of Six Basins (PDF). It was prepared for City of Northfield on June 13, 2011 by Barr Engineering.

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Pond cleanup project to begin this fall

The city is planning on implementing the maintenance of the storm ponds this fall.  Luckily for us, Valley Pond is on the list of the first to be addressed.  A utility fee was assessed two years ago designed in part for the purpose of maintaining and cleaning up the ponds.

http://northfieldnews.com/content/pond-cleanup-project-begin-fall

According to Brian Welch, engineering resources manager for the city of Northfield, the Cannon River and the ponds that flow into it have seen a significant increase in sedimentation and runoff since then.

“We knew we needed to reduce the runoff levels to 1984, so we had to go back and look [at the Cannon River],” he said. “Now we know we need to cut the levels in half. We knew that a number of ponds needed work.”

With that in mind, Welch and his team have proposed a pond maintenance and rehabilitation program designed to return Northfield ponds to their original states.
In a plan to dredge the ponds and restore them to their original dimensions, six have gotten priority: Rosewood, Grant Park, John North Park, Hidden Valley and Sibley View (East and West). Rosewood, located at the corner of Heywood Road and Creek Lane, is about 10 years old and has about 29 percent sedimentation. It will cost around $58,600 to maintain.

Storm Water Ponds! Could this be us?
A blog post speaking of the anatomy of a storm pond.

City to conduct assessment of Hidden Valley Pond this week
Brian Welch, GIS Technician for the City of Northfield, has this update in Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski’s June 25 Friday Memo:

Photos: Barr Engineering surveyor

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And we have ducklings… It must be Spring!

On Friday, May 13th I got this note from Earlyne and Gene alerting me to the baby ducks spotted on the pond. We have all been waiting for the first sighting but none of us expected this.

Hi-In case you haven’t heard or seen them, there are 14 hiding in the grass just west of Myron’s(NE corner of pond). It is not a good location, with people and dogs going by on the path. Arlene was on their deck when I walked by today and pointed out that the parents had led them across the path to a bush in their yard and were hiding there. We talked softly and suddenly they were running across to the west, back to the grasses.
Very cute and tiny. Of course, I didn’t have a camera or phone with me.

So when I spotted them on Saturday, I ran for my camera but was not fast enough. I finally got a shot of them on Sunday but they move so fast… it took 3 different times for me to get them actually in focus. We have counted as many as 24 and as few as 21, so that seems to be in the ball park as to the number. With a little research, Mallards don’t usually have this many in a brood, so she must have inherited a few from another mom, poor thing. They are never in line and seem to burst on the scene when they appear. We have seen two other momma ducks, one with 3 and another with 6 ducklings.

Momma with approx 21 ducklings

Griff did a blog about them on Locally Grown.  Check it out.

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Birds on the Pond

I thought I would put together a group of photos I have been able to get of several birds visiting me this year. These are the times I wish I had a better camera and lenses. If you have pictures, please send them to add to this slide show. It would be good if you indicated what the bird is if it is not obvious, especially for those of us new to the bird watching scene.

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Hawk

I just about had a heart attack on Friday when this small hawk hit the windows in our living room. I have taken some precautions to make sure this doesn’t happen by putting stickers on all the surfaces of the bay window… but it didn’t seem to work for this little guy. All ended well as he did fly off and I can only hope he survived. I must admit I was ready to call someone to get some advice until he finally stood up. Here are some pictures, I know I probably will never be able to get this close to a hawk again and hopefully not under these circumstances. I think the conclusion on Facebook is that it is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. You may have a different opinion.  (and just in defense of myself…  I took the pictures, even though it says Griff did…  he just wants all the picture credit around here) :roll:

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Are we killing our trees with mulch?

I just ran across this instructive video on the proper way to mulch around a tree.  We have quite a few young trees in the Association that may need to be checked.  It is a pretty simple fix.

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