GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, chance of showers late. We're just at the start of a period of unsettled weather, so here's hoping you soak up whatever sun we get today. There's a mass of warm, moisture-laden southern air headed this way, along with low pressure and various vortices and disturbances, which will bring us several days of rain. For today, though, a mix of sun and clouds, temps getting to about 80; tonight, a chance of rain, only into the upper 60s overnight.A bear in the woods. On Erin Donahue's trail cam in E. Thetford. "Bears belong to the mammalian family Ursidae, the youngest family of carnivores," writes Ted Levin. "They evolved from doglike ancestors about 55 million years ago. Modern bears appeared in Eurasia 5 million years ago, diversified, and spread to North America. During the Ice Age, our black bears evolved in the company of giant short-faced bears (the largest mammalian land carnivore EVER), saber-toothed cats, American lions, dire wolves, and grizzlies...which is why they take to the trees when frightened. Climb first, ask questions later."Next week: Getting from I-91 northbound onto I-89 southbound (toward NH) will get harder for a few days. Starting Monday (depending on the weather), Exit 10A northbound from I-91 will close so that NHDOT can install drainage pipes under the off-ramp. The agency expects work to last until 6 pm on Thursday (again, depending on the weather), but doesn't mention how NHDOT comes to be working on an off-ramp in VT. The detour will take northbound traffic up to the Wilder exit (Exit 12) and then back onto I-91 south to Exit 10A southbound.With Orange County sheriff's office in disarray, residents look for alternatives. Darren Marcy's article in the Herald focuses on a proposal being pushed by Robert Childs of Tunbridge, who administers a Facebook group aimed at crime in the area. With frustrated members talking vigilantism, he's pitched the Tunbridge selectboard on joining with other towns to contract with Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer for patrols; Palmer says he's open to the idea. “The people in Orange County have really been left up a creek without a paddle,” he says. “I’d dare say, without the canoe.”In Claremont, city council decides not to eject member. Remember how last month the council decided to look into whether Councilor Andrew O'Hearne broke council rules by interfering with a public works crew? Well, they held the hearing on Wednesday—and members of the work crew in question didn't show up. Instead, reports Patrick O'Grady in the Valley News, the three workers signed a joint statement one council member rejected as "garbage." The council opted not to move ahead. “The councilor is entitled to face his accusers,” said Asst. Mayor Deb Matteau. “I think that is fair.”“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really take a year off.” That was Peter Rutledge talking yesterday to the VN's John Lippman about his decision to close Norwich Wines and Spirits, the store he's run for over a quarter-century. Lippman recounts the course of Rutledge's career, his move to buy and rename the store—“I would call people and say, ‘This is Peter at the Jug Store and your wine is in.’ And they always thought I was saying ‘the drug store’"—and the hard decision, after years of being away from his young family, to shut down. “I need to make a clean break. I don’t want to be the transition guy here helping somebody get it all set up,” he says.SPONSORED: Special summer pass at Upper Valley Yoga! It's $180 and includes 15 passes to use for any class: in-person at our WRJ location or Thetford studio, online via Zoom, or outside at any of our pop-up locations. Also includes unlimited access to our on-demand library, with hundreds of recorded classes from the past two years, plus specially recorded "short practices" that you can fit into your busy summer plans—a 20-minute practice you can take with you to the beach, the mountains or your own backyard. We've got you covered! Expires Sept. 15. Sponsored by Upper Valley Yoga.
Hiking Close to Home: The Cascades in Waterville Valley, NH. This hike heads out to seven different cascades along Snows Mountain in Waterville Valley, and in addition to the falls, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, the trails lead to a variety of side attractions including the top of the Snow Mountain Chairlift, Elephant Rock, and The Boulder. Fit for a fun day of adventure visiting the Cascades and venturing on side quests to other attractions, hiking this trail after a week of scattered showers should produce some good water flow to the falls and some beautiful greenery.“Everyone’s here because they do what they love.” That would be putting on a show, which North Country Community Theater has been doing for a half century now. Its newest production, 9 to 5: The Musical, starts up at LOH tonight (see Heads Up below), and in the VN, Liz Sauchelli writes about what draws people of all ages to devote months to mounting a production: It's a chance to indulge in a love for the theater without pursuing it as a career. Or as veteran NCCT performer Amy Fortier tells Sauchelli, "It’s really great to continue to be a theater kid."Been paying attention to Daybreak? Because Daybreak's Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, do you know what percent of calls for service from Hartford's Fire/EMS department are for actual fires? Or which landmark Norwich institution is closing? Or what a recently passed bill in New Hampshire would allow emergency personnel to treat and transport? Those and other questions at the link.But wait! How closely were you following VT and NH?
Because Seven Days wants to know if you know which major international company Vermont just sued—plus lots more around the state.
And NHPR's got a whole set of questionsabout doings around the Granite State—like, how's Chris Sununu feeling about running again for governor?
Last-minute change to NH budget lifts caps on campaign contributions to state candidates from PACs, political advocacy organizations. The move, reports Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, reversed a six-month-old limit on how much candidates could receive or transfer from a previous campaign. It's stoked a debate in Concord on "how much money political action committees should be allowed to spend on political candidates," DeWitt writes, with reform advocates arguing the legislature's opened the floodgates and some lawmakers insisting they've just returned to the status quo.State of VT settles with small group of defrauded Jay Peak investors. The announcement yesterday, reports Anne Galloway in VTDigger, came two days into a ten-day trial in which foreign investors in what turned out to be a fraudulent development alleged that Vermont officials had "failed to meet their legal obligation to supervise the projects and prevent an eight-year Ponzi-like scheme." It's unclear how much the settlement, which involves eight of those investors, will pay them; their attorney says a more expansive settlement that involves other investors as well is currently being negotiated.“There is actual money for the arts, and society's relationship to art and creativity is a pillar." That’s Gypsy Snider, a founder of the circus troupe 7 Fingers, explaining why the circus scene in Canada—and especially Montreal —is so vibrant. Cirque Du Soleil, writes Jen Rose Smith in Seven Days, is hardly the only ring in town. The three largest circus companies in the world are based in Montreal, as well as many smaller ones and the National Circus School. All that adds up to a scene that includes top-flight acrobatics, clowning, contortion, and dance. The Montréal Complètement Cirque festival runs July 6-16, with ticketed shows and free performances throughout the city.You may be standing on a mountain that's taller than Everest. No way, you think? Let's let Zaria Gorvett with BBC Future tell you more, in a story about the search for the mysterious mountain ranges hidden not on top of the earth, but deep within it. Scientists believe these monoliths—some four times higher than Everest—are somewhere between our planet's metallic core and the surrounding rocky mantle. Just more proof that our world is an amazing place. And there may be no such thing as a flatlander.It’s a long, long shot. Winners of the Drone Photo Awards are out, and they yield patterns and perspectives not possible here on the earth's surface. Categories include nature—vast schools of fish, ostriches in the Namibian desert—and sports, like a highline walker in the Alps. Photos range from the delightful (a whale teaching her baby to hunt in a peaceful bay in Vietnam) to the awe-inspiring (Bashir Abu Shakra's video of four years of travel through remote landscapes). Drones aren’t the only vehicles for cameras: Platforms also include fixed-wing aircraft, balloons, blimps, rockets, kites, and parachutes.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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Bookstock gets going in Woodstock today with a book sale at the Norman Williams Public Library starting at 9 am, a noon lunch & learn with neurologist and historical novelist Melodie Winawer, a series of workshops for writers at 5 pm, and satirist Andy Borowitz talking to VT Public's Mitch Wertlieb at 7 pm. Then, starting tomorrow, the schedule fills with authors, poets, journalists, and others for a series of panels and events that'll have you trying to figure out how to get to them all: Peter Orner and Laura Jean Gilloux talking creativity, Susan Page and Mikaela Lefrak talking bad-ass women, Jeff Sharlet on The Undertow, a session on cartoonists, Joseph Ellis and Vic Henningsen on the American revolutionary era, KeruBo and Liz Stookey Sunde on healing through music, Speech Thomas on music... And then even more on Sunday, including a panel on storytelling through film in VT with Samantha Davidson Green, Jay Craven, and Rick Winston, plus some guest filmmakers in the audience; Martin Philip and Rocket talking food; and a whole lot more. Link above goes to the full schedule.
Nearly six decades on, a couple members of an old high school garage band, American Dream—Steve Rice and Bodie Kelton—are getting together every Friday at 2:30 this summer to perform at the Wilder Club and Library. They're joined by a rotating crew: Richard Cook, George Packard, Douglas Morse, Jake Kelleher, Jim Roberts, Larry Rogers, and other local musicians keeping their hand in on folk rock, blues, and other genres. The library is open during that time, Kelton writes, "and our friend 'George the Librarian' hosts all the library facilities until six." No link.
At 4:45 this afternoon, the Etna Library welcomes back Alyx the Magician: Alyx Hilshey, a comedy magician and sleight of hand maestro with a masters in electrical engineering, bringing a new, kid-friendly show.
Today at 5:30, AVA Gallery in Lebanon hosts a conversation with photographer Travis Paige, painter Anne Cogbill Rose, painter and collage artist Ann Saunderson, and sculpture artist Bess French. The first three are 2022 juried winners, and all have exhibitions currently on display at the gallery.
Also at 5:30, though only if the weather permits, the Fred Haas Quartet will be performing on the Lebanon Mall between Salt Hill and Three Tomatoes, with Fred Haas on sax, David Westphalen on bass, Elizabeth Frascoia on trombone and vocals, and Billy Rosen on guitar. Runs until 8. They'll be doing it again tomorrow (but again, only if the weather allows).
This evening at 6, at The Barn in Corinth, The Junction Dance Festival's ChoreoLab residents—Amanda Whitworth, Chloe Schafer, and Claire Cook, along with The Barn Collective—present a sneak preview of their work on original dance pieces. And if you want to make a full evening of it, they'll be doing it again tomorrow at 6:30 pm, only this time preceded by a dinner at Montview Vineyard.
This evening at 7:30 at Windsor's Old South Church, Classicopia launches its weekend of concerts, "Reed 'Em and Weep": trios for oboe, bassoon, and piano. Oboist Margaret Herlehy and bassoonist Janet Polk join pianist and artistic director Daniel Weiser for works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Ludwig Milde, Madeleine Dring, Geoffrey Bush, and Paul Carr. "This is," Weiser notes, "a wonderful blend of instruments that is rarely heard together in an intimate setting." Also tomorrow at 2 pm at the Norwich/WRJ home of Andrew Bauman and Sunday at 2 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Also at 7:30 this evening, North Country Community Theater kicks off its two-weekend run at the Lebanon Opera House of 9 to 5: The Musical. For its 50th summer musical, NCCT chose the stage version of the hit Dolly Parton film: Three secretaries band together to take on their sexist boss and remake the company's work practices as they ought to be. With a cast of thousands. Or about 60, anyway, on cast and crew. Odds are good you'll know some of them. Tomorrow at 7:30 pm as well, Sunday at 3 pm, same times next weekend.
And at 9 tonight, Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover brings in James Graham and band, with their blend of folk and soul-based original rock. Influences from Bob Dylan to Wilco, Bob Marley to Beck.
Saturday
As if there isn't enough going on in Woodstock, tomorrow and Sunday are also the Youth Invitational Dairy Show at Billings Farm, running from 10 am to 5 pm. Nervous 4-H’ers practicing and prepping their cattle, judging demonstrations, demos on butter-making, ricotta-making, and more, and then it all comes to a head Sunday at noon with the actual dairy show.
Tomorrow at 6 pm, Next Stage Arts in Putney presents a reggae and salsa dance party with Jacksonville, FL 10-piece salsa band LPT and Toronto-based reggae band The Human Rights. Indoors at the Next Stage Theater.
And at 7:30 tomorrow evening in Haverhill, Court Street Arts presents Session Americana, the Cambridge MA-based collective that, years after its founding, continues to channel its raucous rock/Americana roots in its concerts.
Sunday
From 1 to 4 pm at Flying Dog Farm in Tunbridge, the White River Land Collective holds the first of a series of Sunday gatherings to learn (and engage in) invasive species management.proper invasive species management can help us achieve our goal of protecting and caring for rare/ uncommon plants and natural communities." Bring snacks, water, thick gloves, loppers and a saw if you have them, and wear long sleeves and long pants.Emily Boles, Rudi Ruddell, and Anna Hubbard will talk about and show how "
And from 2-4 on Sunday, the Occasional Jug Band (Mary Jo Slattery, Andy Stewart, and Joseph Stallsmith) will be playing their mix of jug/blues/ragtime/fiddle tunes at SILO Distillery's Music & Marys series at Artisan's Park in Windsor.
Wow. That was enough words for anyone, don't you think?
So let's just keep it simple: the great singer-songwriter and fiddler Amanda Shires, the great pianist Bobbie Nelson, who died last year at 91, and Bobbie's younger brother Willie on backup vocals,
Stay dry! 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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