I know there are high school students volunteering as election judges, staffing phone banks, walking or riding with candidates as they meet with people all across our community. Hats off to our young people and their participation in democracy!
Here’s the work of three Northfield High School students, Chen Ye, Nathan Dahlen, and Logan Regnier, who created a campaign video. Take a look at their creative work!
I stopped by the house of a beekeeper yesterday afternoon. I had never thought about our road shoulders as critical habitat for bees. Particularly as corn and soybean growers take out fence-line growth and move more acres to cropland, there are fewer sources of food for bees. So when Rice County remade CSAH 1 and planted a variety of plants, that was good for bees. And what’s good for bees is good for food and fruit and flowers – good for all of us.
Bees are struggling with recurring infestations of mites, and they need all the help they can get from us. From the beekeeper’s card:
Honey bees are in decline for many reasons including invasive parasites, habitat loss and overuse of pesticides. There are simple ways you can help bees ‘stand on their own six feet’.
Plant bee friendly flowers
Reduce pesticide use
Support local beekeepers
A few years ago, in an effort to document the road easements within Bridgewater Township and to preserve the old books, we scanned all the historical township records. One never knows where some small action will lead.
Since then, a hardworking group of volunteers has been meeting in the town hall, working to transcribe all the old records. Here is their latest find – a reflection on local government:
(W.D. Stewart, Bridgewater Township Clerk, 1859)
To My Successor in Office
Dear sir in as much as my term of Office has now expired and the duties of my Office been performed, But with what correctness I leave you and others to judge, hoping that you will make the allowance for my inexperience, in the performance of public dutie [sic] which are sometimes somewhat intricate.
I found the papers of the town in rather a loose condition, but with a degree of performance. I have succeeded in geting [sic] them in a more compact form
I now most cheerfully submit the Books and papers into your hands hopeing that your Clerkship may prove an table pastime [sic] for you. And also hoping that in your intercourse with the people of the town of Bridgewater you may be able to give them good and wise counsel both in public and private life
I have been a silent spectator and observer of the many carectors [sic] that are daily brot [sic] in contact with each others, And often observe actions promted [sic] by some Evil Selfish motives. And at other times remarks are made through more hollow minded Foolishness as a lack of good sense
And I often observe with what eager anxiety some people and even some old people watch the leaver with which the Machine of government is moved. Sometimes great efforts are made to turn the Machine with leavers that are not suitable. And sometimes men get hold of the leavers and worker them with great violence with but little regard to consequences. The inevitable result would be ruinous to any kind of machine. And would require great efforts of experienced men to repair the injury to injudiciously wrought.
Takeing [sic] this view of the matter I exhort you to be sure that you get hold of the right leaver with which the great machine is moved, the principle leavers for this kind of a machine should be selected from the best material our town affords.
Kathleen Doran-Norton 