Tag Archives: City of Northfield

VPTA volunteer work crew cuts down invasive trees in Hidden Valley Park

The noxious/invasive trees that the City of Northfield cut down in Hidden Valley Pond back in the winter of 2012 (see blog post here) have been growing back:

  

So yesterday, a volunteer crew of VPTA members cut them down with a tree whacker and loppers, gathered them up, piled them on the edge of the park, and started hauling them to the City compost site:

  

  

The health of the pond is now improved a bit, thanks to Jim and Janet Dale, Theo Durbin, Anita and Chuck Hellie, Kris Herrreid, Kim Johnson, Jerry Krause, Gene Moninger, and neighbor Tim Pautzke. And the view of the pond for many of us is considerably better. (All  but one photo by Janet Dale.)

 

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

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 Division 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 Streets & Parks Supervisor TJ Heinricy and his staff for doing this.