GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
And it begins... After a foggy and cool start to the day, things will start to warm up pretty quickly as clouds move along, the sun comes out—and most importantly, hot and humid air starts making its way into the region from the south. We'll only hit highs around 80 today, but we're due the 90s over the weekend. Chance of rain and thunderstorms tonight, low only around 60. Don't worry: things will cool down next week."Who has not seen deer in a meadow bathed in evening light? They're everywhere." But in the 1600s, writes naturalist Ted Levin of Erin Donahue's latest trail cam video, "deer avoided the forested interior and browsed the lower Connecticut and Champlain valleys. By 1870, they were gone, victims of over-hunting and forest clearing. Eight years later, Vermont released 17 white-tailed deer from New York. Of the 140,000 in the state today, 2,000 die annually in automobile collisions, nearly the number taken by hunters. Black bears, coyotes, fishers, and bobcats also eat venison. There's plenty to go around.""It always surprises me to stumble upon a stone wall in the middle of the woods." Henry walks on, falls off, and educates Eddie and Auk about stone walls. As he does every week here, Lebanon writer and illustrator DB Johnson chronicles the doings in Lost Woods—and this week on his blog he writes about how each of the Lost Woods characters has evolved. They began both literally and figuratively as sketches, "but as time passes, they have begun, through their own actions, to fill in the details of their personalities."“It’s just a natural thing, but it’s always emotional with the loss.” On May 1, Derrick “Rick” Wright died unexpectedly, leaving behind his wife, Beverly, his son, Andrew, and the dairy farm in Bethel-Gilead VT that he and Beverly had worked for 38 years. So members of E. Randolph’s Middle Branch Grange did what farm communities have done for ages: Last Saturday, some 50 people showed up at the farm to cut wood, spread manure, clean the barn, and do whatever other work needed tending to. In The Herald, Dylan Kelley describes the scene. “I didn’t realize we had so many friends," Beverly tells him.Dartmouth offers a tiny bit more info on Lyme Road planning. This week the college said it would reveal a revised plan for housing north of campus in June. That "prompted questions," the Office of Communications says. It offers up little new detail, other than to say that there will be "a variety of briefings for faculty and staff, students, and community members" in June with follow-up sessions in July and August. The plans will focus on "high-quality apartment-style housing," says VP Rick Mills, and "it will be clear to our community and our neighbors in Hanover that we have carefully integrated their feedback.”SPONSORED: “Wow! 20 Years!" Cantabile Women's Voices, directed by Kathy Sherlock-Green, presents its spring concerts on June 4 and 5 in Norwich and Lebanon with the world premiere of Philip Silvey’s “Three Essential Prayers,” Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” and contemporary works. Silvey’s work, inspired by the writings of Anne Lamott, was commissioned by Cantabile in celebration of its 20 years of singing, exploring, and performing; there will be a Meet the Composer presentation before each concert. Tickets and more info at the link. Sponsored by Cantabile.Hiking Close to Home: Heath Forest Trails in Grantham. The Upper Valley Trails Alliance's suggestion this week brings you to this relatively flat and easy 3.1-mile network of six interlaced trails that takes off from Eastman, allowing you to enjoy beautiful vistas of the stream, marshland, and woodlands uninterrupted by roads. Beaver have been at work here, and several of their dams can be seen. Access requires a free parking pass from Eastman: Just hit the "Directions" tab at the link to find your way to the reception desk. From there you can follow directions to multiple trailheads from the Trail Finder link.Hiking close to our home, but not his. Owen Eigenbrot has been working his way north on the AT, and on Day 84 he did the 27 miles from Pomfret Brook in VT to Mink Brook in Hanover. He's just posted his record of that day on The Trek, and it offers a fine glimpse of what these parts look like to the thru-hikers who'll be arriving in ever-greater numbers over the next few months: feeling sweaty and out of place in Hanover, sure, but also the magic of local forests and the feeling of triumph crossing the bridge from VT into NH with the traffic whizzing by and all those miles a thing of the past. (Thanks, JF!)Been paying attention this week? The News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what kind of allergy can the Lone Star tick cause? And what kind of animal got into a Windsor couple's house? And just what kind of weather event did Charleston see earlier this week? You'll find those and others at the maroon link.Most expensive wholesale electricity prices this summer? New England, according to the feds. A report from the US Energy Information Administration pins the blame on the region's reliance on natural gas to generate power, writes Hadley Barndollar for the USA Today Network. Average summer residential electricity prices regionwide could rise close to 16 percent, the EIA report predicts, compared to 4 percent nationally. Because New England imports its natural gas, prices are more vulnerable than elsewhere to turmoil in international energy markets, Barndollar writes.Got bats around? NH Fish & Game and UNH want your help. They're trying to track "maternity colonies"—which can often be found in barns and other outbuildings—of brown bats that have been devastated by White Nose Syndrome. So they're asking people around the state who think they have colonies to count bats once as they exit their summer roost at dusk in June, then again in July to see how the colony has grown and pups begin flying. Forms and details at the maroon link, advice via NHPR's Daniela Allee here.NH lawmakers reach agreement on hunters placing game cameras on unposted land. They've been able to do it all along on private property to track animals, but after owners worried about privacy, a House bill this year sought to require the landowner's permission beforehand; the Senate struck that language after hunters complained, reports Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin. Now negotiators have agreed on language that would require hunters to label their cameras with contact info—and allow landowners to remove and return them.House, Senate negotiators agree to NH "Parental Bill of Rights"; guv vows veto. The measure, which seemed dead Tuesday evening, suddenly revived yesterday after House Speaker Sherm Packard replaced two House negotiators—who'd balked at agreeing to controversial Senate language—with himself and the GOP majority leader. But hours later, Gov. Chris Sununu issued a statement saying, “This bill as written creates numerous challenges for kids. I share the concerns of the Attorney General and as such, will veto the bill if it reaches my desk.” NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt tracks the machinations.VT political deck gets "a complete reshuffling." You may have noticed an awful lot of retirements and bids for higher office in Vermont this year. That's because the state tends to hold onto its elected officials for a long time, writes VTDigger's Sarah Mearhoff, and when things get unstuck—as with US Sen. Pat Leahy's decision to retire—they get unstuck with a vengeance. Mearhoff looks at the top officials who are leaving their posts and the jockeying to replace them, as well as at huge turnover in the legislature, with 11 Senate retirements announced so far and nine of 15 House committee chairs leaving.Donations to local newspapers are "not something we’re just dabbling with. We're counting on it." That's Dan Cotter, publisher of The Vermont Standard in Woodstock. The VT Community Foundation is out with a new report on the role donors can play in helping to keep local news organizations alive in the state. Direct support to news outlets is one. Supporting groups that buttress local reporting—Report for America, say—is another. And backing efforts like UVM's Community News Service, which trains journalists and is launching a local news-sharing effort, is a third. (Thanks, PS!)The climate change-fighting pianist coming soon to your VT town. Not to be glib—Huntington-based pianist and UVM music prof David Feurzeig is more serious than most about the dangers of climate complacency. His plan to inspire action, writes Amy Lilly in Seven Days, is to play a concert in every town in VT over the next few years. The catch: he’ll expend zero emissions in the process, driving his solar-powered Chevy Volt wherever he goes. Feurzeig puts himself in the carbon-free company of none other than JS Bach, who once walked 280 miles through Germany to catch an organ concert.Sometimes, though, you have to go to where the music is. And there'll be classical music festivals all over VT this summer. Lilly follows up in Seven Days with a helpful guide to what's on tap, from Northfield-based Scrag Mountain Music in Burlington, Montpelier, and Putney, to the venerable Marlboro Music Festival, to the brand-new Adamant Piano Concert Series in Calais. Plus festivals in Richmond, Colchester, and Craftsbury.Just in time for this weekend: Why you don't want your window fan right up against your window. There's this science teacher out there who TikToks under the name @wolf_science, offering up slightly geeky but compelling little examples of basic principles at work. Like: how he can fill an impossibly long plastic bag using a single breath. He does just that, taking advantage of what's known as Bernoulli's Principle, which has to do with fluids (including air, if you're being a scientist) moving into low-pressure areas. It's dramatic. And shows how you can best blow hot air out of your bedroom at night.Travel the galaxy from a mountaintop in Slovenia. Or standing on the New Zealand coast. Or deep inside China’s Dahaidao Desert. Head to some of the world’s highest altitudes or darkest, quietest places, and marvel at our glitterdusted cosmic rainbow—our Milky Way—bending across the sky. That’s what these photographers figured out you have to do to capture so many nebulae with the naked eye (and, sure, a really good camera). My Modern Met rounds up—what else—the 2022 Milky Way Photographers of the Year, experts at pairing galactic glory with earthly landscapes no less thrilling."Dreaming about chasing squirrels... or licking squirrels, for some reason." So, okay, Mabel sleeps with her tongue sticking out and BBC sports reporter and all-around Olive & Mabel expert Andrew Cotter's got the evidence. But when he gets into what she's actually dreaming about, she's sporting a badge as crime-fighter D.I. Mabel in Willing & Mabel. Olive, meanwhile, has big, eye-twitching dreams of her own.The Friday Vordle. And remember, Vordlemaven Kevin McCurdy will create new ones both tomorrow and Sunday, with words related to today's Daybreak. Just hit the same link you use to get to today's and you'll find them.
And the Numbers...
The CDC says that community Covid levels in Grafton and Sullivan counties remain high (now joined by most NH counties). Covid levels in both Windsor and Orange counties remain at high as well, along with three other VT counties.
NH cases are rising a bit, with a 7-day average now of 639 new cases per day versus 626 a couple of days ago. The state reported 1,266 new cases over the past two days, bringing it to 320,445 in all. There were 2 deaths reported during that time; the total stands at 2,515. Under the state's rubric of counting only people actively being treated for Covid in hospitals, it reports 36 hospitalizations (-5 since Tuesday). The NH State Hospital Association reports 133 inpatients with confirmed or suspected cases (+1 since Tuesday) and another 49 Covid-recovering patients. Meanwhile, the state reports 387 active cases in Grafton County (+68 since Tuesday), 154 in Sullivan (+29), and 490 (+80) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, it says Hanover has 110 (+24); Lebanon 92 (+18); Claremont 55 (+7); Grantham 21 (+4); Enfield 18 (+2); Newport 20 (+4); Canaan 22 (+6); Sunapee 13 (+2); New London 12 (+2); Charlestown 13 (+4); Lyme 17 (+10); Plainfield 12 (+3); Haverhill 7 (-1); Wilmot 5 (-1); Orford 5 (no change); Newbury 8 (+3); Cornish 6 (+1); and Warren, Rumney, Grafton, Croydon, and Unity 1-4 each.
A word about the Vermont numbers. As you know, the state shuttered its dashboard on Wednesday—including daily metrics for case numbers and hospitalizations. They'll still track daily numbers—but report them only as raw data once a week, on Wednesdays. That same day, they're also producing a weekly "surveillance report" that details trends like "emergency visits with COVID-like illness" and which coronavirus variants are circulating. But here's the thing: Regular case counts are hardly irrelevant. They're the leading edge of hospitalizations, deaths, lost work days, burgeoning cases of long Covid, and everything else this pandemic has brought us. But for now, at least for Vermont in Daybreak, they're a thing of the past. Instead, on Fridays I'll be reporting on what Erin Petenko and the data folks at VTDigger show from the Wednesday data roundup: This week it's 220 new cases Tuesday, 379 Wednesday, a seven-day average of 339 new cases per day (up from 328 on Monday), and 61 hospitalizations (-6 since Monday). I'm still sorting out what to do about county numbers. I'll also link to the Wednesday surveillance report so you can see what the state considers worth tracking.
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Today at 5 pm, the Norwich Historical Society holds an opening reception for its intriguing new exhibition, "Mending the Spaces Between," which takes off from a Bible vandalized in 1848 to explore the deep divisions of that era and reflect on them through the works of 22 local poets and artists exploring questions around how we can mend our world, find ways to listen, and work together. The exhibit will be open Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays from 1-4 pm. Here's Susan Apel's writeup.
Well, it's finally here. Today at 5:30, the White River Indie Film Festival kicks things off for the next two weekends with a gala at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ catered by Fulla Flava and music from jazz duo Grace Crummer and Ed Eastridge. The actual film presentations begin at 7 pm, with the Ukrainian teenage drama Stop-Zemlia—preceded by a message for the WRIF audience from director Kateryna Gornosta and a presentation by the Ukraining Student Assn. at Dartmouth. After that, it's on to 11 feature films, including documentaries and fiction, an array of shorts, two expert panels, a regional showcase, and plenty more. Full program and descriptions of what's on tap here.
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts an in-person reading and conversation with Caren Beilin about her new novel, Revenge of the Scapegoat, in which Iris, a writing professor, winds up a cowherd at a rural art museum as she seeks to deal with family upset. "Though the narrative involves childhood trauma, domestic abuse, addiction, medical exploitation, and the Holocaust," Kirkus wrote, "Iris’ wholly unique voice makes for a very funny work." Beilin will be talking with fellow-novelist Makenna Goodman.
Also at 7, Left Bank Books in Hanover is holding a reception to celebrate the publication of the latest Bloodroot Literary Magazine, with readings by contributors and an open mic to follow. The magazine focuses on work by writers from the Upper Valley and beyond. "At this moment, in the (dare we say) end of the pandemic, the work we’ve chosen is shot through with the light of creativity and the joy of making art, even after years of darkness," write editors Rena Mosteirin and James Dobson.
And this evening at 7:30, it's the final Anonymous Coffeehouse of the season at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. Things start off with Footworks, a family trio that plays high-energy music from Cape Breton and the British Isles; move on at 8:15 to popular Upper Valley Americana band Dan & the Dinosaurs; and winds up at 9 with guitar phenom Quentin Callewaert and his Nashville-based band, on tour through New England right now.
Tomorrow from 10 to 1 on the Thetford Center town green (the one down across from the Village Store, not up on Thetford Hill), the town energy committees in Thetford, Norwich, Sharon, Hartford, and Hanover are holding an "Electric Lawn and Yard Equipment Show 'n' Tell Event" at which people who own electric string trimmers, pole cutters, chainsaws, lawn mowers and more will be showing off their capabilities. Here's you chance to check the stuff out and get answers to your questions from your neighbors.
Tomorrow at 1 pm, the Hop offers up the Met Opera in HD's Lucia di Lammermoor, with soprano Nadine Serra and tenor Javier Camarena in Donizetti's bel canto opera about rival families and, what else?, deadly and thwarted love. In the Loew Auditorium.
And tomorrow at 7 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, Cameo Baroque (Beth Hilgartner on recorders, Leslie Stroud on traverso, Laurie Rabut on viola da gamba, and Ernie Drown on harpsichord) will perform a variety of sonatas, a selection from The Well-Tempered Clavier, and arias drawn from two cantatas and the St. John Passionin a benefit concert supporting the work of Doctors Without Borders in Ukraine.
On Sunday at 1 pm, Dartmouth's Handel Society and Glee Club, join up at the Hop under the baton of conductor Filippo Ciabatti to perform the full orchestral, choral version of Haydn's soaring oratorio, The Creation. In Spaulding.
At 2 pm on Sunday at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon (they're busy this weekend!), violinist Roseminna Watson and pianist Melody Fader return to the Upper Valley for a concert of works by Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Gershwin, and Watson herself.
At 3 pm Sunday, the Abbott Memorial Library in South Pomfret hosts Irish writer and, for now, Vermonter Róisín Sorahan reading from her new work Time and the Tree, a fable about the nature of time and the quest for happiness.
And at 5 pm Sunday, the ongoing Sunday Music Series at East Coast Van Builds in Bradford (a fundraiser for the Bradford Rec dog park) host singer/songwriter and guitarist James Graham and his band and guests Good Company (Jim Musty on guitar, vocalist Janine Waldron, DeWItt Mallary on sax and flute playing tunes from the past few decades.
Let's take everything down a notch, shall we? Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson and his co-star, the ocean waters off Hawaii,
Just get through this weekend, okay? And maybe dream of that snowstorm
A heavy, wet snow will fall on Friday and Saturday with roughly 3-10”in metro Denver, 8-12”in the Palmer Divide & over 2 feet near the Continental Divide. Considering leaf out has occurred, downed trees-branches and power outages will be a significant threat. #cowx
— #NWS Boulder (#@NWSBoulder)
11:36 AM • May 19, 2022
. 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 and writers who want you to 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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