GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cloudy, chance of rain all day. A weak low pressure system joined the parade of systems moving through this week, and it may bring some patchy fog this morning, along with possible showers the rest of the day, though clouds may start to dissipate a bit this afternoon—if you're off to the west in VT, though, there's a chance of thunder. Highs today in the upper 60s and, with colder air coming through, down into the upper 40s or low 50s tonight.Headed home with dinner. "It's not easy to raise a family," writes naturalist Ted Levin about Erin Donahue's new trail video of a male red fox in Thetford. "Predators shop throughout the day, 24/7. You freight food in your mouth, the all-purpose receptacle, without the advantage of opposable thumbs or shoulder bags. Fox catches a mouse. He puts it down and grabs a second, a third. Returns home, jaws stretched, mouth crammed. Kits deliriously hungry. Dinnertime meltdown... I remember the scene."And speaking of rodents... Wow. The Upper Valley has a ton of people who know their fauna. That was an American red squirrel in yesterday's photo, not a chipmunk. Thanks to everyone who pointed it out. And take my word for it: There were a lot of you."A great way to get raw material for a book." It's Lost Woods number 79, and Henry's out planting trees because he's run out of things to write about. 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 delves into Eddie and his "great sense for the nonsensical."Major Upper Valley employers create housing fund. "We desperately need...more housing stock. We know our employees need it. We know our employers need it," Mascoma Bank CEO Clay Adams told a Vital Communities get-together yesterday. Adams led the effort to create the $10 million loan fund aimed at apartment construction, reports the Valley News's John Lippman. So far it brings together the Hanover Co-op, Hypertherm, King Arthur Baking, Dartmouth Health, Dartmouth College, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, and Mascoma Bank, and will be managed by moderate-income housing nonprofit Evernorth.“Dartmouth is really good at what I call flinty sustainability.” That's the college's sustainability coordinator, Rosalie Kerr, talking to Energy News Network's Lisa Prevost. Prevost writes about the tensions the college faces as it implements its climate plan: highly efficient buildings like the new Irving Institute, no new investments in fossil fuel funds, and its ongoing effort to transform its heating system on the one hand; on the other, an energy institute and Tuck center funded by fossil fuel industry leaders and a central heating plant that in 2020 was the 10th biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the state.SPONSORED: What are your ideas about how and where to accommodate future development in Hanover? Housing, business and mixed uses? Where should they be located? Let planners in Hanover know at the maroon link just above or by following this one. Your responses will be used to help formulate Hanover’s new Master Plan. Sponsored by the Town of Hanover.From "the lowest, saddest point in my life to the highest, joyous professional peak.” Dartmouth computer science prof Andrew Campbell was already teaching at the college in 2009 when his younger brother, Ed, who'd battled bipolar disorder for years, died by suicide. That devastating experience, writes David Hirsch in Dartmouth News, is what has fed Campbell's trail-blazing research into using smartphone data and machine learning to gauge and analyze students' emotional and mental state. Hirsch details the arc of Campbell's work—and its worldwide impact on research into mental health.“A clubhouse where everyone is welcome and we sell some stuff.” It's been 20 years since Kim Souza quit her job and opened Revolution in a different WRJ from what it is today. In the VN (scroll down), Alex Hanson talks to Souza about the store's beginnings, early stumble (it nearly went under in 2006), and rise to retail and cultural downtown icon. Weather allowing, Revolution will be celebrating at First Friday this evening with a parking lot party. Details in "Heads Up" below. Hanson also offers a glimpse of the ongoing Hood exhibition by painter and newly retired studio art prof Louise Hamlin."There is something magical that happens in thrift stores." Herald movie critic (and Springfield Public Access programming manager) Kevin Paquet is a thrift store connoisseur, and his strategy is summed up by his approach to music: "The trick," he writes, "is to buy your CDs based on how weird the song titles are." That's led him to ignored and out-of-the-way bands, writers, and art... and sparked his curiosity about who's behind his finds. After he tracks down members of an early '90s band, Manatee, one tells him that thrift stores—or "the secondhand experience"—are the antidote to being steered by algorithms."Woodstock is Vermont's Hellmouth." Okay, so that's a guy who would know: renowned author and folklorist of the spooky, Joe Citro. For Episode 666 of "Stuck in Vermont," Seven Days' Eva Sollberger headed to Woodstock to meet up with Citro and get a tour of the town where "so many weird things go on...and have gone on," as Citro says. They swing by the Norman Williams Public Library, F.H. Gillingham & Sons (to check in on its friendly ghost), and other spots in town, and Citro reminisces... including about the teacher who told him he'd never be a writer because he couldn't spell.Hiking Close to Home: the Mayor-Niles Forest in Hanover. The forest sits on the western slope of the Moose Mountain ridge and holds three trails that meander around the property with multiple streams and great views of both geologic formations and scenic vistas, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. The trailhead starts at the end of Iby Road; from there, follow the class 6 Plummer Hill Road a short distance to meet the junction with Tote Road (on the right), which will take you to the Two Brooks Trail (yellow loop), and White Ledge Trail (orange blazes), as well as to the AT corridor.Been paying attention this week? The News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what interrupted the Enfield/Canaan Memorial Day parade? And what kind of shortage is worrying area swimming pools this summer? And why does Goose Pond need to be drained next year? You'll find those and others at the maroon link.NH Exec Council approves $35 million in federal funds to repair dams. The bulk of the money, which comes from the American Rescue Plan, will go to state-owned dams that have deteriorated to the point of danger—including, reports Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin, the Goose Pond Dam. In all, $5 million will go to locally owned dams, and the state is setting up a system for setting priorities. Meanwhile, the Exec Council also has approved $720,000 for police department body cams from a dedicated state fund, including almost $50K to New London.Homelessness rises in Vermont. The annual Point in Time Count, spearheaded by the VT Coalition to End Homelessness, released its results yesterday, and found a 7.3 percent increase in persons experiencing homelessness in the state since last year, reports Seven Days' Rachel Hellman. The small jump follows a 133 percent increase between 2020 and 2021. The count, which is a snapshot of those who are literally without housing on a single night in January, doesn't capture those who are doubled up with another household or couch surfing, Hellman writes.Moose antler hunters are a different breed altogether. At least, Will Staats is. Somewhere up in northern VT, the 64-year-old scours the forest floors for the remnant racks of these elusive beasts. And when journalist Billy Baker (publishing originally in the Globe) decided to shadow Staats on one of his daily journeys into the woods, he thought he’d be writing about the competitive subculture of moose antler hunting. He quickly realized the story was Staats, a man 20 years Baker’s senior, who hikes in a pair of rubber boots—”a mountain man super-athlete” in tireless pursuit of moose litter.“In the womb…we looked less like people and more like rainbow trout.” That’s writer Lauren Silverman, submerging us with one of the most mysterious fish in the world. Silverman pens a beautiful piece—part confessional, part popular science—about how much the rainbow trout’s migration and spawning habits mirror our own impulses to move from one place to another. Only a tiny percentage of these fish swim from their freshwater home to a salty, perilous sea, and back again. Her partner Paulo left his home in Argentina and yearns to go back. The ocean transforms the fish; some never return.Once those well-fed baby foxes become toddlers... They get pretty darn rambunctious and curious. Just to bring us full circle today: Viktor Čech, a wildlife photographer in the mountains of northern Slovakia, noticed a burrow with some kits outside it. So he set up a motion-sensing GoPro and left it. It didn't get ignored for long.The Friday Vordle. Sponsored today by the Sharon Academy Middle School, which wonders if you’re ready for the latest scientific discoveries from this hotbed of innovation, the Upper Valley. If so, their science fair is the evening of Thursday, June 9, with a chance for alums, families, prospective students and the generally curious to check out all the experiments and demos.
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Yesterday and today, COVER Home Repair's first all-women volunteer crew is working on a house in Canaan. In a couple of weeks, they'll field another one in Claremont. It's part of an effort—the WRJ non-profit calls it "creating a brave space for women in carpentry"—to teach skills and confidence and, as director Helen Hong writes, "to challenge stereotypes about who is and isn’t a construction worker or carpenter." In all, COVER intends to have six to eight all-women projects in VT and NH this year.
As for events, it's First Friday and downtown WRJ is going to be hopping:
Starting at 5 pm with Revolution's 20th anniversary parking lot party: DJ Skar spinning tunes, Jamaican jerk chicken from the Fulla Flava crew, a vintage pop-up shop from Nancy the Girl, and an assortment of local non-profits and artisans all hanging out and willing to talk. There'll be a guest appearance by the Bread & Puppet Parking Lot Dance Co. around 7pm, and it's all followed up by toasts at Wolf Tree.
And if you're looking for music, there'll be busking on the streets from 4-6 (weather permitting) and then at 6 pm in JAM (that's the old Newberry Market space that's now Junction Arts & Media) the Violin Tour Group from Upper Valley Music Center will be setting up shop, while at 7 pm Dylan Patrick Ward and then the Western Terrestrials will take the stage at the Briggs Opera House for Honky Tonk Night, all hosted by Here in the Valley.
And also at 6, the Main Street Museum kicks off three Fridays of musical theater hits on the piano—Stevie Pomije playing live to start things off, then turning the evening over to the MSM's player piano and never-ending stock of piano rolls.
Meanwhile, on the art front, at 5 pm Kishka Gallery is opening a group exhibition from a sprawling collection of nearly 40 artists—many, but not all, from these parts—to celebrate its first anniversary. Each artist has donated work to the gallery's month-long silent auction—offering a chance, writes Kishka's Ben Finer, to pick up original and, depending on how the auction goes, "extremely affordable" works of art. And around the corner at Long River Gallery, also starting at 5, there'll be live music and a reception for Thetford artist Jean Gerber and her oil paintings from canoe travels in Maine, Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.
And elsewhere...
Starting at 5:30 today, Upper Valley Music Center brings three days of music to and around Colburn Park in Lebanon with its Sing & Play Festival. There'll be buskers performing everywhere, a chamber music sight-reading party at UVMC today at 5:30, recitals and jams and singing tomorrow and Sunday, a Juneberry Chorus farewell to Patricia Norton (who's moved to Burlington) at 4:30, and plenty more.
And adding to the downtown Leb music scene, Music on the Mall (between Salt Hill and Three Tomatoes) will try again (it's highly weather dependent) with two jazz combos this weekend: the Grace Crummer Quartet today, starting at 5:30, and the Fred Haas Trio tomorrow, same time.
Meanwhile, if what you need to be doing is moving, this evening at 7 pm CCBA in Leb kicks off a regular Friday Game Night for June, at the Sports Park. Regardless of where you're from, if you're 21 or older you can round up friends or just show up yourself for a couple hours of badminton, volleyball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, cornhole, and/or more. $10.
And at 7:30, Artistree opens its run (through June 12) of A... My Name is Alice. The musical revue (conceived back in the '90s by Joan Micklin Silver and Julianne Boyd) is built on the contributions of 24 Broadway composers and playwrights, with five women performers and a jazz combo using comedy sketches, monologues, dance numbers, songs, and poems to reflect on—and tell stories about—the complexities of life.
Tomorrow at 4 pm at the Norwich Congregational Church and Sunday at 4 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, Cantabile—Music for Women's Voices presents their 20-year anniversary concert. They'll be performing the world premiere of composer Philip Silvey's "Three Essential Prayers," based on the book of that name by Anne Lamott, as well as Vivaldi’s Gloria, and pieces by Bach contemporary Francesco Durante, Hyun Kook, Dale Trumbore, and R.F.M. Mann. At 3 pm before each performance, Silvey will give a presentation about his piece.
And Sunday from 3:30 to 6:30, the Norwich Women's Club is hosting a townwide celebration with games, face painting, and balloons until 4:30, music from Tuck’s Dojo starting at 4, food from the Lions Club fstarting at 5:00, and ice cream from Norwich Creamery throughout. The idea is to celebrate a community that worked together to get through (so far) the pandemic, but they probably wouldn't look askance if you just showed up to get some ice cream or grab some dinner and sit and listen to music.
When he was 17, David Parsons left his home in Kansas City, MO, and moved to New York City to launch a career in dance. Which he definitely did, becoming a lead dancer in the Paul Taylor Company, summering with Momix, and eventually creating the company that bears his name. He's long had a reputation as a crowd-pleasing choreographer who prefers the sunny side of the repertoire. To the inevitable carping, he once responded, "What's wrong with having fun?"—
(Thanks, DM!)
Have a fine 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 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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