I was in New Prague last Friday and stopped by to see how the Bohemia Acres townhomes look with the lawn work completed. The yards are nice and green and greatly enhance the overall appearance of the homes.

Bohemia Acres was a nice project for the Scott County Housing and Redevelopment Agency. They have created excellent moderately priced housing for the New Prague community. While moderately priced, the homes have many features that should appeal to the general public.

Right now the backyards of the Bohemia Acres townhomes look out over agriculture fields. I don’t know how much longer that will be the case, but for now the view is lovely.

I hope some area families make these units their homes soon. We thoroughly enjoyed building them for the HRA.

Posted by Ray Cox at 4:03 AM | Link

 
The Northfield Chamber of Commerce held another Scarecrow Contest this fall. The judging was done yesterday and The Rare Pair clothing and shoe store won with this entry….

I congratulate the Rare Pair staff for constructing this creative scarecrow.

Northfield Construction Company also entered the contest….with a couple of wonderful scarecrows created by Jodi. She worked hard to come up with a good theme related to our business and, since we are doing lots of hail storm repair work, focused on storm damage repair.

One of the scarecrows is saying “I’ve been shingling 'til I’m blue in the face”

The other one is saying “ ‘Hail’ me a cab I’m tired of shingling.”

Jodi did a great job with the scarecrows. The used shingles, banged up roof louver and wheelbarrow really add a nice touch to our construction related theme. Thank you Jodi!

Posted by Ray Cox at 4:48 AM | Link

 
Northfield Construction Company has completed work on a lovely new home we have for sale. It is located west of Northfield near Millersburg, and overlooks Circle Lake. The views from the living room look over a pond, with the lake in the background.

The home is finished on the exterior with an all Portland cement stucco finish, ready to give years and years of trouble free service.

The living room has a combination of custom oak floors with a carpet insert.

At one end of the living room is a double-sided gas fireplace finished with extensive oak trims and Prairie style ceramic tile work.

The kitchen has beautiful quartersawn red oak cabinets with granite countertops. The appliances are high end stainless steel. There is excellent task and accent lighting throughout the entire kitchen.

All trims in the home are select red oak, including the stair trims and balusters.

With a main floor study, this home is designed to handle a family or busy professionals. It is a short ride to Interstate 35, with quick access to the southern metro area, Faribault or Owatonna.

If you are interested in this home, please contact Sonja Freeland at Northfield’s Edina Realty.

Posted by Ray Cox at 1:28 PM | Link

 
Yesterday I spent the morning with a large group of people from the construction, timber, cabinet making, and forest management industry. We gathered at the Northfield Construction Company shop to discuss sustainable wood products. I also represented the State of Minnesota in my role as State Representative from this area.

Don Arnosti works with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

I’ve known Don since I first started my legislative service, when he worked for Minnesota Environmental Partnership. Don and I collaborated together to arrange the meeting Thursday. We called the meeting a ‘Discussion of Coulee Region Sustainable Wood Products’.

Don opened the meeting by reading the preliminary vision statement for this group, which, in its draft form, says:

“We can create a supportive web of local relationships among forest landowners, wood processors, wood retailers, builders, craftsmen, and other people interested in utilizing ‘green’ certified, sustainably harvested, local forest products in the Upper Mississippi Coulee Region, for the benefit of all.”

We had some good discussion on the vision statement and the general consensus was that we needed to broaden the scope of our thought. Some of the best comments on ‘thinking larger’ were from Jon Wigen, representing the purchasing arm of Lamperts Lumber Yard. Jon gave the group some very good insights on what it is like to find, obtain and market sustainable forest products. I was encouraged to hear Jon say that he felt the market was huge, but it needed refinement and consumer acceptance.

Dave Bubser with SmartWood was in attendance. Dave lives in Northfield and has been involved in forestry certification programs for some time. He had many good comments.



Tim Carroll and his wife were here from Cedar River Horse Logging. You may have seen Tim featured on a television program recently. He uses horses and directional felling to carefully log forests. He has long-term contracts with landowners to manage their forests for them. Tim had another group to meet with later in the day in this area so he brought his working team of horses along with him.

I spoke to the group about possible involvement and assistance from the State of Minnestota. Don keep good notes.

The State of Minnesota spent a significant amount of dollars implementing plans and inspections to see that all our state forests are certified under the Forest Stewardship Certification (FSC) program. Now that we have that certification in place we need to promote it, use the labeling, and see that consumers understand it. FSC forests are managed in a way that causes much less environmental impact to the forest and land, and generates good wood utilization from the forest. FSC also requires a ‘chain of custody’ for the logs taken off FSC lands providing proof of proper handling of the logs from stumpage until the final product is produced from the lumber.

With my involvement in the building construction industry as well as state government, I am particularly interested in working to develop sustainable wood harvesting and wood products. The legislature may need to become more involved in the development of the sustainable wood industry, or it may move forward on its own through consumer and purchasing demands.

It was wonderful to see 20 people from all walks of life assembled to discuss sustainable forestry and wood products for a couple of hours. I sincerely hope this is the start of a plan that can bring sustainable wood to all parts of our state and region. Northfield Construction is trying to do more and more with sustainable wood, recyling, getting building certified under the LEED program, etc. We are all better served if products are handled in a responsible manner.

Posted by Ray Cox at 4:22 AM | Link