GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
What goes up must come down. At least, if you're the temperature in northern New England in spring. Yesterday was cloudy and warm; today, sunny and cooler. High pressure's settling in, but so's the aftermath of yesterday's cold front coming through. High today in the mid-40s, gusty winds from the northwest. Down to the mid-20s tonight. But hey, check out next week!And in the meantime, spare a thought for our neighbors to the north. What was maybe a little freezing rain here on Wednesday was a full-on ice storm in Quebec, with trees and power lines down and 1 million people without power in the province, about a third of them in Montreal. As of last night, some 700,000 were still without electricity.Two ways of looking at trees...
Reflected in a mud-season tire track, with pretty much every shade of brown and a little oil rainbow thrown in for good measure, from Annemieke McLane;
And a bowing birch in Cornish, from Sherrie Greeley.
Brian Barthelmes, the 6'7" former offensive lineman for the Patriots who now runs Standard Company Tattoo in WRJ, is a terrific interview: thoughtful, funny, unfettered. Dartmouth student Breanna Glover, desperate for a podcast subject for her "Tell Me a Story" nonfiction radio class, figured she'd just go get a tattoo. Instead, she wound up talking to Barthelmes about art, White River, his band Tallahassee, tattooing... and the time he tattooed his own leg with designs by his three-year-old twins. Thanks to Sophie Crane and her class for this week's podcasts!
DHMC, APD, New London Hospital, and others to drop mask requirement. As of Monday, reports Nora Doyle-Burr in the Valley News, masks will be optional for people at DH facilities who don't have respiratory symptoms. Doyle-Burr writes that an email yesterday to volunteers in the hospital system explained that the move is “due to high vaccination rates, low community transmission and increased public immunity." Woodsville's Cottage Hospital is ending its mask requirement today, and the UVM Health Network and Concord Hospital made similar announcements this week.With e-buses now on the road, Advance Transit turns to finishing charging infrastructure. The new buses began their routes about three weeks ago, AT says in a press release, adding that some riders "have noted a much quieter ride and bus operators have noticed a smoother driving experience." The buses were funded by federal grants and financial incentives from GMP, and more are due next year. The company expects to finish installing new charging infrastructure in the fall, "the most significant facility upgrade since AT’s building expansion in 2009."SPONSORED: Renewables are generating more electricity than coal for the first time in America. But are we acting fast enough to ward off the worst effects of climate change? Each passing year makes it harder to reach our long-term climate goals. Fortunately, solar and wind power appear to be getting on track to help the nation achieve its net-zero emission goals by 2050. Hit the maroon link to see the latest outlook from some of the world’s leading climate and energy forecasters – and what you can do be part of the fast-moving Green Energy Revolution. Sponsored by Solaflect Energy.Alleged serial groper caught after teen witnesses gave chase. In the VN yesterday, John Lippman recounted how Wiliam Menard, a Piermont man accused in January incidents at Dartmouth, was charged after similar incidents in February. After Emma Wardwell, whom he'd allegedly fondled in the Target parking lot in West Leb, gave chase, he jumped in a car that took off—followed by two boys who'd seen what happened. They were able to get the car's license plate and returned to the lot, where they gave it to Lebanon police. "All these other adults freaking watch me standing there struggling, screaming my head off. And these young boys came and saved the day," Wardwell says.Putting together "a team of Jane and Johnny pollinator seeders.” Stockbridge VT's James Key is a beekeeper—and, writes Carolyn Parker-Fairbain in the Herald, a teacher, an ethnobotanist, and a believer in what amounts to grassroots honeybee cultivation. The director at large of the VT Beekeepers Association and the only black member of its board, Key teaches the craft, has launched a sort of "subscription-style" apiculture course in which people work beside him, and is forming a pollinator cooperative with other bee people so they can pool resources—all with an eye toward boosting bees.If you give a town a cookie shop… On Artful, Susan Apel writes about Katie’s Cookies, newly opened on the Lebanon pedestrian mall and already popular. Owner and baker Katie Boardman started selling cookies last summer at the Leb farmers market, and grabbed the opportunity to open a store with a door when a space became available. Chocolate chip is offered every day, other flavors rotate: chocolate marshmallow, coconut lime, peanut butter Nutella, oatmeal raison, and gluten-free options were on the menu recently. On her FB page, Boardman says she’s sold more than 12,000 cookies in three weeks.SPONSORED: After a three-year Covid pause, the Five Colleges Book Sale returns to the Upper Valley! It's at a new location this year: the former Sears store in Kohl's Plaza on Route 12A in West Leb. Shopping days this year are Sat-Sun, April 8 & 9, 9 AM-5 PM; Mon-Fri April 10-14, noon-7PM; April 15 from 9-5, and Half-Price Day Sunday, April 16, 9AM-3PM. Only 100 shoppers will be allowed in the store at any given time, so please enjoy less crowded shopping, with restocking of lots of books, throughout the week. More information at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Five Colleges Sale."The best thing about being an Innkeeper is that no two days are ever the same." In his About Norwich newsletter, Demo Sofronas has launched a "day in the life" series about people around town, and first up is the Norwich Inn's Dave Burtonbush. Who says that as innkeeper, he can be called on to do anything from working the front desk or cleaning rooms to working as a fry cook or busser in the inn's restaurant. "Talking with people is the best part of the job though," he tells Demo, whether it's someone on staff or a baker in town for a few days of classes at King Arthur."Everybody's a comedian." That's the pitch-perfect caption on this photo in the Vermont Standard of last Saturday's improv night at Artistree, when audience member Laurie Marshall came on stage to describe what she'd done all day, and the spotlight—and Rick Russell's camera—caught her in a sublimely expressive moment.Hiking Close to Home: The AT on Moose Mountain, Hanover. Starting at the Three Mile Road Trailhead, this is a beautiful section of the Appalachian Trail, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. The trail crosses a tributary of Mink Brook, then climbs Moose to the South Peak and a scenic viewpoint. It then turns north following the Moose Mountain ridge, eventually reaching the North Peak before descending to the Goose Pond Trailhead just over the border in Lyme. The route intersects numerous trails, such as the Harris Trail, Tom Linell Ridge Trail, and Shumway Forest network, offering chances for loops.Been paying attention to Daybreak? Because Daybreak's Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what's a "Big Night"? And what was it that went missing from that burned barn in Plainfield? And what's going into the old Pier 1 space in West Leb? 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, which national figure stopped by Burlington electric-aircraft company Beta Technologies this week?
And NHPR's got a whole set of questions about doings in the Granite State—like, workers at which national chain in Rochester NH are trying to unionize?
NH House passes compromise budget. Which, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt, caught many legislators by surprise, given tense negotiations over the past week after Democrats in the closely divided chamber indicated they wouldn't support a draft budget and GOP conservatives warned against appeasing Democrats. The compromise, proposed yesterday by the two caucus leaders, axes an effort to expand education freedom accounts, raised Medicaid rate increases, provides salary increases for state employees, and curbs gubernatorial emergency powers. The budget now goes to the Senate.NH population grew by by 17,700 over two years, thanks to migration. In fact, writes UNH demographer Ken Johnson, every county in the state saw population growth, which was "surprising given that deaths exceeded births in nine of New Hampshire’s ten counties, resulting in 4,100 more deaths than births statewide." The exception was Hillsborough County. The highest net migration growth came in Carroll, Belknap, Sullivan, and Coos counties. Grafton had the slowest growth and the least net in-migration.“There are places that say, 'Sure, parents, bring books in. Bring supplies.' We don't want parents to do that." That’s David Post, CEO of Little Sprouts childcare centers, rebuffing parents’ efforts to mitigate a looming fee hike. Little Sprouts, writes Alison Novak in Seven Days, runs six centers in VT, but it’s hardly local; it’s owned by a French company, owned in turn by a private equity firm. That chasm, some fear, means less focus on the well-being of children, parents, and caregivers. VT is considering legislation to increase child care subsidies, but there’s worry that will draw more investors looking for profits.And speaking of colors—oh yes we were, up at the very top—let's start with black. "Black and sophistication go hand in hand," writes Toronto-based blogger and color expert Bob Hambly. Which may be one reason Julius Caesar gave a black pearl valued at 6 million sesterces—the equivalent of $1.5 billion today, Hambly says—to his mistress. Or did you ever wonder why barns are iconically red? Early on, Hambly writes, farmers discovered that if they added rust to their protective coating of linseed oil, milk, lime and turpentine, it discouraged mold. All that and much, much more on Hambly's blog, Colour Studies.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.
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It's First Friday in WRJ, and as usual, restaurants, galleries, stores, and various other public spaces will be opening their doors and hosting events. There's a lot going on: Starting at 5 pm, exhibitions at Long River Gallery (photographs by John Lehet with live music), Kishka Gallery (opening reception of fantastical landscapes by Steph Terao and a first birthday celebration for gallery pup Knish), Two Rivers Printmaking studio (group show), the Zollikofer Gallery (in the lobby of the Hotel Coolidge with landscape paintings and an artist talk by Olivia Janna Generaux). Meanwhile, from 5-9 at Speakeasy Studios in the Tip Top, Here in the Valley hosts an exhibit of paintings by musician Ed Eastridge and music by musician Allison Fay Brown, while at 6 pm the Main Street Museum hosts a Drag Piano Night featuring the MSM's own David Fairbanks Ford.
At 5:30 today, Dartmouth's English department brings in Bianca Stone for a poetry reading. Stone—granddaughter of famed poet Ruth Stone—runs the Ruth Stone House, a literary nonprofit, and will also be on hand tomorrow evening at 7 for a screening of Nora Jacobon's film Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind at the Loew; Stone and Jacobson will discuss it afterward.
At 6 this evening, VINS presents the second of its virtual series on efforts to save owl populations in the US. This one focuses on the Teton Raptor Center’s Poo-Poo Project, which is trying to prevent animals from taking up residence—and then dying—in the vertical open pipes on vault toilets in wilderness areas around the country. Since 2013, the project has distributed more than 18,000 screens to cover vents in all 50 states.
This evening at 6:30, AVA Gallery brings in Lebanon-based dance artist Ellen Smith Ahearn and her collaborators for Vulture Sister Song, "a modern fairy tale about the relationship between humans and the natural world, specifically, the deeply symbolic vulture." Ahearn and Kate Elias, Pete Dybdahl, Jacob Elias, and Josina Guess, use live storytelling, folk music, sculptural lanterns, movement, humor, and more to explore our interdependence.
Starting at 6:30, the Hop and Dartmouth's music department continue their joint New Music Festival with Armond Dorsey's The Breathing Suiteand then, at 7:30, the improvisatory J. Pavone String Ensemble. In the Baker-Berry Library. Both may be sold out, but you can check for tix at 603.646.2422.
At 7 pm, the Thetford Arthouse Cinema screens Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy. Joaquin Phoenix as a tortured ex-WWII seaman who stows away on a yacht that happens to be owned by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in the process of founding a quasi-religious cult. "Like a lot of Anderson's previous work," The Guardian wrote in 2012, "it is about pioneers, leaders and dysfunctional families, and...about the origins of American modernity, the pre-history of a certain kind of self-help and self-belief, entrepreneurial and evangelical."
Also at 7, Rivendell Academy's documentary film series screens The Blind Boys of Alabama: How Sweet the Sound, Leslie McCleave's 2015 film biography of the legendary gospel quartet that got its start at a segregated state-run vocational school in the 1930s. After the film, McCleave will join the audience via Zoom to talk about it all. In the multipurpose room at Rivendell Academy in Orford. (No link.)
If you don't mind a bit of a drive, you could head to the Bellows Falls Opera House this evening at 7:30 to catch the Blue Ridge-based indie rock-Americana powerhouse The Steel Wheels, along with folk singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey. They're at end of the New England stretch of a tour before turning south again.
Or you could head a different direction, to the Flying Monkey in Plymouth NH, where, also at 7:30, Boston's Adam Ezra Group—which built on its fervent pre-pandemic following, created over hundreds of hard-working gigs, with daily livestreams during the pandemic—will be back to performing in front of an actual audience.
And at 9 tonight, closer to home, the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover welcomes the avant funk stylings of power drummer Russ Lawton and organ wizard Ray Paczkowski, who make up Soule Monde, or as the publicity says, "the jazz duo your parents warned you about."
Any time you get publicity from a company called Hanging Mudflap Productions, you need to take note. Tomorrow at 1 pm at the East Bethel Grange, it's your chance to see a local screening of The Farm Boy, dairy farmer George Woodard's feature-length WWII film shot on and around his farm in Waterbury Center. Woodard's son Henry plays a character based loosely on his dad's dad who falls in love with a girl he meets at a barn dance (played by George's real-life neighbor, Grace Woodruff) before getting sent off as a mechanic at the Battle of the Bulge. (Of filming all the Belgian scenes in Vermont, Woodard told Seven Days, "Belgium is too far to get back in time for milking.") The film includes several actors from the Randolph and E. Randolph area, and scenes filmed in those parts, too. Screenings in Tunbridge and Randolph later this month.
And at 4 pm tomorrow, singer, pianist, guitarist, actor, and consummate entertainer Tommy Crawford continues his month of Saturday residencies at Sawtooth Kitchen, offering up a rotating set of original songs with a measure of traditional tunes mixed in.
From 7:30 to 10:30 pm tomorrow, contra dancing is back in Norwich's Tracy Hall, with western Mass. dance caller Kristen Planeaux and music by Strafford Celtic fiddler Emerson Gale and local pianist (and dancer) Sue Hunt. Masks still required.
And at 8 tomorrow night, WRJ's Main Street Museum brings in three punk bands—or as the MSM puts it, "Loud, enjoyable music for people who still feel." First up, the father-and-7-year-old-daughter duo Rocking Puppies followed by the pirate-surf-rockabilly-punk-guitar madness of the Jonee Earthquake Band, then local faves Time Life Magazines.
And on the theory that you might just not make it to Bellows Falls...
down in Virginia. And Peter Mulvey a year ago
Have a fantastic 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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