On Sunday, April 9, I wandered along the streets of my four blocks in East Northfield. I started off my walk musing about the bright, bold paint colors on the houses when I spotted the chickens.
I did not expect to see chickens on my walk. My neighborhood in my hometown looks similar to this part of Northfield at first glance, so I had been expecting the two to feel similar even as I looked closer. But I would never see chickens at home, especially not crossing the street or in someone’s front yard. The chickens yanked me out of the mental model that I was trying to force Northfield into, which helped set the tone for a more mindful walk.
I found a few other eye-catching things in the neighborhood as I walked. There were cauldrons in a garbage can, perhaps spring-cleaning purged Halloween. At my feet, someone had scrawled in chalk an addition problem about three-digit numbers. And as I reached the edge of my four blocks, a red arch welcomed me, like a portal to another world.
I noticed some themes as I looked at the houses and the yards along my walk. Many of the houses were painted vibrant colors all throughout my four blocks. I saw bright blue, dark red, purple and green houses, along with more muted colors like beige, gray or white.
But not everything was consistent. Closer to 5th Street (which is closer to Carleton College), the houses were larger, usually two stories. As I reached near 9th Street, more of the houses were one story, and had smaller footprints. In the photos above, the purple and green houses are good examples of the size of houses near 5th Street, while the white and blue house looks more like the houses near 9th Street.
Overall, I was impressed with the variety of creative ways that people used their land. I saw play structures and garden beds, firewood and patios, dogs and lawn chairs. One memorable pair of houses on Nevada Court showed a sharp contrast. One house had a roaring fire cooking something, dogs on the porch, and a yard full of wood, sticks and bushes. The other house had a neatly manicured lawn with grass and a circle of dirt around the tree. Even this small area of Northfield showed many different possibilities for how to make a house a home, and looking closely helped me appreciate all the versions.
