GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
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Partly sunny, chance of rain, snow. Moderately warm southern air continues its migration this way, with temps reaching the low or mid 40s. There’s also a tight little clipper coming through today, bringing clouds building in over the morning and then rain and/or snow this afternoon, with the dividing line somewhere around Hartford and Lebanon. Rain could be heavy at times. Down to the low 30s or high 20s overnight.
How to survive on sawdust. “Whitetails are ruminants, like cows and goats,” writes Ted Levin about Erin Donahue’s latest trail cam video. “They browse twigs, lightly chew. Find a safe place to engage their four-chambered stomachs. Chamber one: rumen, storage and fermentation—shrubs turned to froth. Burp up food (cud), chew, reswallow in peace. They ruminate. Chamber two: reticulum, accepts the cud, reduces particle sizes, increases surface area for digestion. Chamber three: omasum absorbs nutrients. Chamber four: abomasum, the true stomach, finishes digestion. Deer digest microbial soup, having turned indigestible cellulose into antlers, bone, and muscle.
And hey, now we know spring’s around the corner. Snowdrops, from Don Kollisch.
Did you catch Dear Daybreak yesterday? If not, you missed Amanda Perry’s photo of a remarkable, Rothko-channeling Thetford Center sky; Patricia Kangas Ktistes’s recollection of the Ladies Benevolent Society in Grafton in the 1970s—and the particular resonance of Pyrex; Sue Lin’s nighttime deer encounter with her dog; and Mike Loots’s observations of the first red-winged blackbird to return for the spring.
New Strafford selectboard gets a lesson in accuracy, chastises Herald. Four of the board’s five members are new, and at their first meeting last week, reports Darren Marcy in The Herald, they got enmeshed a misstatement of road closing dates at the previous board’s March 2 meeting, which would have been trivial except it had been entered in the minutes. At the end of business, the sole returning member, Mary Linehan, brought up a March 12 Herald article that touched on a potential conflict of interest in a proposed appointment to the community forest board, saying it had been “deeply offensive” to some town staff. The board “rejected” the piece as inaccurate.
Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre is a work in progress—but there’s definitely been progress. And more to come, as volunteers and a crew from Rutland Home Depot descend on it next week to re-do the green room. But as Justin Bigos writes in the VT Standard, the new cabinetry, lighting, and counters in the backstage space for performers is all part of an extensive rehab that Pentangle Arts director Deborah Greene has been carrying out over the past couple of years, from tearing down light-blocking foam to turning the entry into a mezzanine that can host pre-show events. Her goal: “Make it a place of welcoming; make it a place where people can come together.”
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“Usually your props don’t have a shelf life.” But when they’re food—like trout, prepared fresh each day in the Barnard Town Hall kitchen for BarnArts’ production of The Art of Dining, which opens tonight—all bets are off. As Marion Umpleby writes in the Valley News, the food has been “one of the trickiest parts” of staging Tina Howe’s 1970s-era play, which centers around a Jersey Shore restaurant called The Golden Carousel, its married owners, and the diners who, “Like horses spinning by on a carousel…offer a window into just how many lives can fit around the table,” Umpleby writes. Runs this weekend and next, and that oxtail soup? It’s at the concession stand.
And that’s not the only food mashup: Next month there’s “Fiddle & Flour”. Literally. Upper Valley Music Center announced on Wednesday that in mid-April it’s going to pair Grammy-nominated roots fiddler Bruce Molsky and master baker and James Beard Award nominee Martin Philip—who happen to be friends—for an afternoon of either a fiddle or a bread workshop (Molsky will teach tunes, Philip will teach home bread-baking) followed by a conversation on “the interplay of their art forms” and then a jam session led by UVMC alum and Molsky student Annie McDougall—accompanied, of course, by fresh bread.
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Following fishers. Their tracks “wove through mature mixed hardwoods, planted red pines, and hemlock stands, along downed logs, across streams, and over wooded hills,” writes Jack Saul in this week’s “This Week in the Woods.” “We followed the prints for miles but never caught up.” But along the way, you can learn a lot. Embryos, for instance, don’t implant in a mother’s uterine wall for many months—allowing her to get through summer and early winter without spending excess energy and letting her kits be born in the spring. Also, fishers are one of the few animals to prey on porcupines—though they’re also fine with beaked hazelnut, apples, blackberries, and blueberries, plus squirrels, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and bird eggs.
Not Hiking Close to Home. Or at least, not on a trail. It’s mud season, and the UVTA says you can protect the region’s trails by sticking to open, dry areas this spring. When snow melts and rains come, hiking on muddy trails causes soil compaction, erosion, and damage to vegetation. If a trail is so muddy you need to walk on vegetation to stay dry, turn back. Instead, explore lower-elevation trails in hardwood forests, dirt roads, and recreation paths. TrailFinder can tell you which trails are closed or partially open. Avoid higher elevations and north slopes before late May. Staying away from certain places now makes them ready to enjoy all summer long. Good spots to try at the link.
NH AG’s office warns of scam text messages impersonating state courts. They’ve been getting reports of text messages to Granite Staters “alleging that they have missed a court date or owe a fine. The messages often include what appears to be an official ‘notice of hearing’ and direct recipients to click a link or submit payment to avoid further legal consequences. These messages are fraudulent.” The state courts don’t send unsolicited texts or request payment that way. So if you get one, delete it.
Local, state law enforcement officials defend raid actions to VT legislature. At a hearing yesterday on last week’s ICE raid on a S. Burlington home, the heads of the VT State Police and the local departments involved told lawmakers that they’ve been “trying to come up with a way to thread the needle on this”—protect the public and permit federal agents to carry out lawful activities. “As much as we need to ensure we highlight all misconduct by law enforcement, it’s imperative we acknowledge there are some in the crowd whose actions went far beyond peaceful protest or even civil disobedience,” said S. Burlington’s chief. Seven Days’ Lucy Tompkins reports.
Meanwhile, an immigration court judge in MA yesterday granted bond and ordered the release of Cristian Humberto Jerez Andrade, the Honduran man ICE officers took from the house during the raid. The judge also told Jerez Andrade to apply for asylum by next Thursday to avoid deportation. His case, reports VT Public’s Derek Brouwer, “was complicated by his 2021 conviction for domestic abuse involving his current partner, who has supported his case. He also had a record of arrest warrants out of Louisiana and Florida.” An Ecuadorean woman who was also detained was ordered released earlier this week; her younger sister has her initial hearing today.
Food in its natural habitat. It took eight years for Stockbridge’s Kevin Chap—who once led outdoor education programs for the VT Youth Conservation Corps in Woodstock—to get the foraging knowledge he amassed exploring the wilderness around Stockbridge, Killington, Barnard, and Bridgewater in front of a national audience. But next month, writes Seven Days’ Ken Picard, “Wild Foods” will premiere on PBS, with episodes on everything from the reintroduction of bison to blueberry farmers in ME to foraging mushrooms in VT. Picard traces how the show came about and where it’s headed. “You vote with your fork every time you sit down for a meal,” says Chap.
The best of the best photography in the world, 2026 edition. Pull up a chair, because there’s a lot to relish in the shortlists and winners of the Sony World Photography awards. Photographers from more than 200 countries compete in the open, professional, and student categories, writes Jeremy Gray on Petapixel. There are too many stunners to choose from, so head over to the competition’s full gallery and dive into the national and regional wards to see, from Bangladesh, Pinu Rahman’s lionesque portrait or Boris Nedosekov’s Sunset Over the Desert in Uzbekistan. There’s so much! The overall winner will be announced April 16.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Well, gosh. The debut of The Art of Dining in Barnard, Cindy Pierce in S. Pomfret, Into the Woods in SoRo and The Wizard of Oz in Canaan, the Navy Band Northeast Pops Ensemble in both Hanover and Claremont, Simone Dinnerstein and The Spitfire Grill in Randolph… And plenty more! Surely you can find something to entertain you this weekend. It’s all here.
And for today...
The powerhouse British singer Raye—both a Grammy winner and a multiple Brit Award winner—at Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra and one heck of a backup chorus on “Nightingale Lane”, a song “about the greatest heartbreak I have ever known.” You’ll want this one up to 11.
See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
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