GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warm again. But don't get too used to it. Today we get temps well above normal but slightly cooler than yesterday, reaching the upper 70s or low 80s. There'll be more clouds around as well, but they'll just be decorative. Lows tonight in the mid-40s, pleasant but cooler tomorrow. Back to normal Sunday.You don't get to see fishers in daytime very often. But Erin Donahue's trail cam did. Ted Levin writes: "You probably wouldn't think of fishers displaying detectable evolution in a human lifetime. Change during our life is often seen in small, rapidly reproducing things—viruses, bacteria, mosquitoes. Studies comparing fishers in museum collections to current free-roaming fishers, however, reveal modern fishers are larger, heads broader. Some biologists attribute this to a release from the ecology of fear. In the absence of catamounts and wolves, fishers have become bigger, occasionally tackling more significant prey, including muskrats, fawns, and sleeping lynxes."Premature sign. Official word from NHDOT about when the Lyme-E. Thetford bridge will close went out yesterday morning to town offices in Lyme and Thetford. The date will be April 27—two days later than a sign that went up Tuesday on Route 5 in E. Thetford had announced. That, explains NHDOT spokesman Richard Arcand, "was a human error." The sign got re-programmed with the correct start date yesterday morning. After $8.9 million in repairs, the bridge will reopen in October, 2024. NHDOT announcement at the link.So we're not going to get this particular view for much longer. From Jay Davis, on the bridge.Barnes & Noble to open new store in West Leb. The national bookstore chain plans to open a 30,000-title shop in the 12A space left mostly vacant by Party City, which shut its doors in 2019, reports John Lippman in the Valley News. The company's director of store planning and design tells him that it's "targeting mid-August" to open. The store will join four independents that carry new books in the region (in Norwich, Hanover, Woodstock, and New London) and several used bookstores. "All bookstores are a good thing," the Norwich Bookstore's Emma Nichols tells Lippman.SPONSORED: Celebrate the shared heritage of India and Afghanistan with a kaleidoscopic journey of music, rhythm, dance and storytelling. In the world premiere of Delhi to Kabul on April 20 at 8 pm in Rollins Chapel, Grammy-winning tabla maestro Sandeep Das and the acclaimed HUM Ensemble explore innovative new collaborations between the two countries, which were major trade centers of the legendary Silk Road and flourished with a vibrant cultural, musical, and linguistic exchange. A conversation with the artists follows. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.Hiking Close to Home: Mt. Tom in Woodstock. UVTA recommends this hike as a perfect mud season option. You'll see some of the prettiest forest and landscape in VT, they say, while hiking on hardened and well drained roads. Park on River Road just across from the Billings Farm and Museum entrance. Cross VT 12 and turn right onto Mountain Road just past the entrance to the park. Climb less than a mile, then choose to turn right to circle the beautiful Pogue (pond) or left to head for the North Peak for views. Or see both to make this a 3-mile trek one way.Strafford Organic Creamery: Hey folks, please return our bottles! Customers haven't been returning them, CEO Amy Huyffer tells VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein, and if they don't get some back right away, the dairy might need to start dumping milk. Like, today. “We used every single quart bottle we had [Wednesday],” Huyffer says. The creamery sells about 7,000 bottles a week, and usually, for every ten that go out, nine come back each week. Right now, the return rate is more like 65 percent. And there's only one glass milk-bottle manufacturer in North America, Weinstein reports. "It’s kind of like a racehorse when you’re in the starting gate and...once the gate opens you’re at a dead run until the end of October." That's Tunbridge farmer Wendy Palthey, and as Carolyn Parker-Fairbain writes in the Herald, it's fair to say the gate's just opened. “There was snow on the field last Monday. Last Thursday I seeded carrots outside, and now today I plowed up two acres, so everything’s happening fast," S. Royalton farmer Ashley Loehr tells her. Hurricane Flats, the farm Loehr owns with Antoine Guerlain, is putting in beets, spinach, radishes, and early turnips this week."All of a sudden, I turned around, and I go, ‘Oh, my god, oh my god!’" Last week, Steve Howard's home in Hartland burned to the ground after a fire started by his wood stove—maybe from embers blown out by a sudden downdraft. It left him, he tells the Standard's Tess Hunter, with nothing "but the clothes on my back." He tried to save something—his car keys, his dentures, his mother's jewelry box. He tried the front door: "I singed my face and eyebrows." The side door: "Man, that was an intense inferno." He smashed a window: "That black smoke was like a Marvel cartoon." In the end, all he could do was watch. But, he says, he's been overwhelmed by the attention since.Respecting the wonder and splendor of each religion. That's what Newbury NH's Art Rosen does, Ray Duckler writes in the Monitor. Rosen's Jewish, but ever since his first class on organized religion, he's thrown himself into studying them all—after a career in market research. "People would go and play golf all day long,” his wife, Maureen, tells Duckler. “He could read the Bible all day long.” He teaches at OSHER and Colby-Sawyer's Adventures in Learning and speaks to churches and synagogues, all to pass along what he knows. Even at 92, Duckler writes, he's "unbiased, inquisitive and a valuable learning tool."The most interesting t-shirt in NH right now? It's on sale at Leavitt's Country Bakery in Conway. One side is a picture of a mural that adorns the bakery's front, with "This is Art" beneath. On the other, the bakery's sign, with "This is a Sign." Last year the town fined Leavitt's, which often has lines out the door, claiming the mural, painted by high school students, crosses the line into commercialism because—pick one—the mountains it depicts are muffins and doughnuts, or it's too big. Leavitt's isn't budging. The Christian Science Monitor's Sophie Hills profiles it all; the debate even surfaced at Town Meeting.NH's founding? Yup, it's complicated. So says historian J. Dennis Robinson, who pens a great piece for NH mag about what really went down after English settlers built a small trading post in the future town of Rye in the spring of 1623. If you prefer fact-over-fiction history, Robinson's detail-rich narrative features eccentric characters, crazy opportunists, ill treatment of the locals, and all the other things that make colonial history richer and more complex than the oversimplified tall tales we're inclined to tell. All in time for the future Granite State's 400th anniversary. (Though honest, it doesn't look a day over 395.)NHPR abandons Twitter. For now, anyway. It's following NPR and other public radio stations after the social media company last week labeled NPR's official account "state-affiliated media"—then backed off to label it "government-funded media". (Twitter owner Elon Musk told the BBC on Wednesday he's now considering "publicly funded.") Whatever, NHPR CEO Jim Schachter writes, "the false insinuation of government influence on NPR journalism remains." So it won't post to Twitter and won't pay to promote its work there. "If Twitter stops maligning public media, we’ll reconsider," Schachter writes.Two abortion rights measures passed by NH House go down on party lines in Senate. Both bills, reports NHPR, had some GOP support in the House as well as measured backing from Gov. Chris Sununu—though a few days ago he predicted they'd fail in the Senate. One would have protected abortion rights under state law, a move GOP opponents in the Senate said was unnecessary. The other would have repealed penalties on medical providers who violated NH's 24-week abortion ban.Been paying attention to Daybreak? Because Daybreak's Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what are we seeing more of in sports because of climate change? And what's DHMC just stopped banning? And what'll you find in the world's most expensive sandwich? More at the link.But wait! How closely were you following VT and NH?
Because Seven Days wants to know if you know what's been going on around the state this week—like, what portion of the state's schools are under scrutiny for their special ed practices?
And NHPR's got a whole set of questions about doings in the Granite State—like, what interesting tack are NH legislators pursuing to address labor shortages?
The argument, Windsor County Sen. Becca White—a part-time cashier at the UV Food Coop in WRJ—told her colleagues yesterday, is simple: "Serving in the Vermont legislature is not supposed to be a career. But it’s also not supposed to be a job that only wealthy or retired folks can afford to do.” In all, writes
Seven Days'
Kevin McCallum, the measure would bring legislators' pay to $29,766. Changes would be phased in starting in 2025. But don't get all excited on your legislators' behalf. It's not clear the House will even take the bill up this year.
"I think he was like, Cartoonist. What the hell is that?" That, Norwich's Tillie Walden thinks, may be why her accountant listed her as "author" on her taxes. Walden was sworn in yesterday as VT's newest cartoonist laureate, and a few days beforehand she sat down with Seven Days' Sally Pollak to talk about what it means—"I want to make people feel excited about art in Vermont," she says. "I'm so happy to talk about comics"—and what she's working on, including a Vermont-set trilogy in The Walking Dead series, Clementine, and a collaboration with twin-sister Canadian rockers Tegan and Sara.It may be warm, but watch those water temps. It's tempting to get out on the water right now, writes VTDigger's Olivia Q. Pintair, but officials are warning that big lakes still have water temps of 38-42 degrees, and rivers, ponds, and smaller lakes are even colder. "Immersion in water below 50 degrees can lead to hypothermia within a matter of minutes, quickly becoming life-threatening," Pintair writes. The Weather Service's Maureen Hastings tells her, “If you’re suddenly immersed in cold water, you can get cold water shock, (losing) dexterity in your limbs and control of your breathing.” Life vests help."Pancakes are thin, round cakes best served with maple syrup." Longtime Daybreak readers know that bad travel writing about the Twin States is a glorious tradition, and Microsoft Travel has a fine example, "12 Reasons why New Hampshire is a foodie's paradise." No argument with pan-fried lake bass, pancakes, or cider doughnuts. But you've gotta wonder what yogurt's doing in there (apologies, Stonyfield), or southern-fried lobster tail (most popular place for it? Chacha Feeka Famous Lassi Peray Wali), or pizza (head straight for Tilton House of Pizza!!!). Scroll right or left for its recommendations.A swing to the left makes a kid’s day (and charms a hundred thousand of the rest of us). Who isn’t fascinated by the skills of heavy equipment operators on construction sites? So precise, so efficient, so … sweet? When a little kid (held in check by mom) put a toy dump truck next to the work site, the operator played along. The video, posted on Reddit, has gone viral, of course. Comments include this: “Most of us construction workers are still children at heart. We like shiny stuff, machines, and loud noises. Absolutely we're going to do whatever to make a kid's day.”The Friday Vordle. If you're new to Vordle, you should know that fresh ones appear on weekends using words from the Friday Daybreak, and you can get a reminder email each weekend morning. If you'd like that, sign up here.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
The good folks at Strong Rabbit Designs are offering sweatshirts, hats, and hoodies at cost: $16 for a cuffed hat, sweatshirts from $25, hoodies from $31. It's all there at the link, but after today it disappears from the lineup. Check out what's available and wear it (or drink from it) proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
This evening at 6, VINS closes out its three-part series of virtual presentations on owls with a talk by owl biologist Beth Mendelsohn of the Montana-based Owl Research Institute on Great Gray Owls. The institute's research has shown that Great Grays often rely on snags, or large dead trees, for nesting—but they're often cut down. Mendelsohn will talk about the research and the institute's work.
And doors open at 6 as Rooted Entertainment and East Coast Van Builds present the next in their Music Matters Concert Series with Jamaican-born, Somerville MA-based reggae star Mighty Mystic (also known as Kevin Mark Holness, younger brother of Jamaica's prime minister, Andrew Holness). All proceeds go to the music program at the Waits River Valley School. At the Lake Morey Resort.
And at 7:30 this evening, the Anonymous Coffeehouse fills the First Congregational Church of Lebanon again. First up are Upper Valley singer-songwriters Jenny Voelker and James Graham. They'll be followed at 8:15 by western Mass.-based singer-songwriter Grayson Ty, then at 9 by London-born, NYC-and-Colorado-based finger-picking guitarist Rupert Wates.
Also at 7:30 this evening, the Notch Climbing Gym and the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club—as they did last year—are joining forces for an evening of Reel Rock climbing films: an effort to climb the Nameless Tower in the Himalayas, a 3,000-foot obelisk at 20,000 feet; the underground Palestinian climbing scene; and the you-can't-believe-a-human-can-climb-that feats of Frenchman Seb Bouin in the Verdon Gorge, the largest canyon in Europe. In Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall at Dartmouth. No charge, but you'll need to register and they wouldn't turn away a contribution to the Rumney Climbers Association.
Tomorrow from 9-5, VINS holds its annual Owl Festival with games, crafts, owl-hoot lessons, photographs and artwork, the owls of New England Falconry, and more.
And from 10-11:30 tomorrow, the Chelsea Public Library hosts local poet Taylor Katz for "an open-hearted, generative, exploratory, and fun-filled" poetry writing class in honor of National Poetry Month. Katz writes that the class will both "explore ways to remember, commemorate, celebrate, and mark our days through writing poems," and read the work of poets who do so.
At 12:30 tomorrow, the Hop presents the Met Opera in HD and its performance of Richard Strauss's Viennese comedy, Der Rosenkavalier. In the Loew Auditorium.
And at 7 pm, Hop Film brings in three short films about writer James Baldwin as he traveled in Istanbul, Paris, and London in the '60s and early '70s, musing on his difficult relationship with his home country because of his race, politics, and public profile. Also in the Loew.
Tomorrow at 7:30 pm, cellist Daniel Lelchuk, who grew up in these parts, graduated from Hanover High, and is assistant principal cellist of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, will give a concert of Bach's music for solo cello. At St. Denis Catholic Church in Hanover.
At 9 pm tomorrow, the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover hosts a double bill of Royalton's Ali T and the Lebanon-based indie rockers Shy Husky as they celebrate the releases of their respective new albums—and their frequent collaboration.
And on Sunday at 3 pm, Artistree presents pianist Matthew Odell and a program he calls "Night Music"—nocturnal pieces by Gabriel Fauré and Robert Schumann along with the music of modern composers Olivier Messiaen, Peter Sculthorpe, and Matthias Pintscher.
And let's go into the weekend...
...with a totally familiar tune, but words that are not. Elisapie Isaac is an Inuk (singular of Inuit) musician originally from the northern region of Quebec known as Nunavik. Her town may have been remote, but the popular '70s Canadian rock band, Sugluk, came from there, and its lead singer was her uncle; Elisapie grew up hanging out with them. She also grew up dancing along to hit tunes, including Blondie's "Heart of Glass." It's been five years since she released an album,
—"Heart of Glass" in Inuktitut. “Inuktitut is still spoken by the majority of the Inuit, in Nunavik anyway,” she told
Vogue
recently. “Bringing [the song] to Inuktitut says, ‘We exist also; we listen to [rock] too.’”
Have a great, restorative weekend. See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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