GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Quieter, possible lingering showers. Last night's system is moving out, but there's still a chance of rain and a slight chance of thunder for most of the day, along with more clouds than sky. High today around 80, which you should enjoy because as a ridge of high pressure settles in over the eastern third of the country tomorrow, it's the last time we're going to see a high that low for a while. Low in the upper 50s tonight.By land and by water...
"If you're looking for something other than sunsets or birds..." So begins an email from West Leb's Stan Rinehart, who sends along a photo of his son's California desert tortoise and bearded iguana. This spot is devoted to local photos and doesn't run pics of pets, but the two are so photogenic together that what the heck.
Meanwhile, on the local non-pet front, Etna photographer Jim Block recently spent some quality time with a beaver at the Esther Currie Wildlife Management Area in New London and some very quality time with a curious river otter in the West Leb Wetlands.
Swamps: the best places not to meet anyone. Or at least, that's why Henry likes them. It's Week 27 of Lost Woods, and he and Lydia are hanging out in one, painting, writing, swatting bugs, living on the edge... As he does every week, writer, illustrator, and, now, cartoonist DB Johnson provides a full week's worth: Scroll right to see what happens next or left to catch up on previous weeks. And if you've missed a week (or more), check out the archive and synopsis behind the three little parallel lines at the top right.Leb lightens mask mandate for vaccinated. The city council Wednesday decided that people who are vaccinated can go maskless at the Thursday Farmer's Market, the Valley News reports. It also will allow business owners to lift masking and social distancing requirements for the fully vaccinated—if they don't interact with the public. Staff or volunteers who are not vaccinated or whose status is unknown will still be required to wear them.SPONSORED: Oil and gas finally bowing to climate change reality. The industry was dealt three heavy blows in recent days—from the courts, government agencies, and investors. In each instance, the message was clear: To survive the age of global warming, further fossil-fuel exploration should end now, with money shifted to renewable energy development. These recent steps may mark a historic turning point. For an overview of these encouraging trends and the part you can play, hit the maroon link. Sponsored by Solaflect Energy.Red River goes to private equity. The Claremont-based IT firm, originally founded in Hanover in the '90s, provides IT services to the feds, municipalities and private businesses. This week, Cerberus Capital Management, a $70 billion private equity firm based in NY that also owns Shaw's supermarkets, announced this week that it's taken a controlling share, reports the VN's John Lippman. The announcement, Lippman notes, "was silent on whether the sale would result in employee layoffs—a common occurrence when private equity firms acquire locally owned startups." Hiking close to home: Lower Grant Brook Trail. The Upper Valley Trails Alliance this week points out this relatively short trail in Lyme, NH. It begins at the edge of the fields behind the Lyme School and continues 1.4 miles along gentle terrain, through pastures, meadows, and hemlock forest, to River Road and the Connecticut River. There are many historical structures along the way, including stone walls and old bridges. The trail connects to other community trails as well. Users can access it from the Lyme School or River Road. "An expressionless, irritable beast of dark water and dark spaces..." But when you find a large snapping turtle on a hook on the end of a line someone's tied to a spike and left dangling in a pond, you find a way to free it. So writer and naturalist Ted Levin and his son, Jordan, pull the snapper out of the water and rescue her. "Mosquitoes bite me, leeches bite turtle, blood-letting on both ends of the blue nylon line," Levin writes. Sounds like fun!Who's buying Koffee Kup? Why are some local restaurants and diners closing temporarily? This week's new We the People news quiz is out, giving you a chance to check out how well you've been paying attention. Interestingly, most respondents last week knew the minimum wages in NH and VT—but don't like them. Only 3 percent agreed that $7.25 should be the wage in NH, and 18 percent agreed with VT's $11.25. Instead, solid majorities think $15 is right. This week's "big question": "Is your school system doing an adequate job supporting student mental health?" Yep, there's a lot of dog ticks out there. NHPR's Annie Ropeik talks to Tom Mather, who runs the Tick Encounter program at the U of Rhode Island. So far, he says, sightings of Lyme-carrying black-legged ticks (you know them as deer ticks) are about normal, but dog ticks are having a banner year. Interestingly, though, it feels like all sorts of ticks are expanding into new places because deer are, too: "Deer are starting to really move into even peri-urban areas,” Mather says. And oh boy, we may also start seeing more Lone Star ticks.NH to invest $100 million in mental health infrastructure. The news came in a press conference yesterday, at which Gov. Chris Sununu said the money will go toward creating new psychiatric care beds, ramping up its mobile crisis teams, and building a new psychiatric hospital for people involved with the criminal justice system, reports the Monitor's Teddy Rosenbluth. “(We’re) making sure there are community-driven opportunities so folks don’t just have to rely on a single hub out of Concord or Manchester,” Sununu said.NH Senate passes budget, hot-button items intact. The chamber voted along party lines last night to lower various taxes on business, along with the rooms and meals tax, and to ban abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother's life is in danger. It also opted to keep its amended version of the House's "divisive concepts" provision, with GOP Sen. Jeb Bradley arguing that it would make sure "that we do not train, do not instruct, do not teach—especially our kids—that they’re somehow inferior or superior," and Dem minority leader Donna Soucy labeling it an "anti-American gag rule."Sununu okay with abortion restrictions. In an interview yesterday, NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt reports, the governor said he has no problems with the budget provision criminalizing abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Though last year he said he would oppose new abortion restrictions in NH, yesterday he told host Chris Ryan (WKXL, Concord) that "most people agree that, you know, those types of late-term abortions are not appropriate." House deep-sixes right-to-work. This was, note NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee and Annmarie Timmins, at least the 30th try over the last four decades to prevent private-sector unions from requiring all employees, whether or not they're in the union, to pay dues. The House then defeated a motion that would have allowed the measure to be reintroduced, and passed one to postpone the bill indefinitely, which means it can’t be reintroduced until 2023."If you’re trying to solve the dairy crisis, you call Paul... If you're trying to solve the general store in town—you call Paul.” That's VT League of Cities and Towns director Ted Brady talking about Paul Costello, who runs the VT Council on Rural Development. Costello has just announced he's stepping after more than two decades in the post, writes Lola Duffort in VTDigger. Costello has been intimately involved in helping towns throughout the state figure out what their futures might look like—and how to build on their own assets. “We’ve stopped thinking so much about, like, ‘How do we attract the next GE plant?’" he tells Duffort."In water, all possibilities seemed infinitely extended.” In 1999, filmmaker Roger Deakin published a book about his quest to cross Britain and swim in every rock pool, mountain pond, river, and wild spot he could find. Waterlog basically launched the "wild swimming" movement in the country, but it's never been published here. Until now. In Outside, Bonnie Tsui—herself a writer about swimming—pens an essay in appreciation. "Deakin was a traveling salesman for outdoor swimming; I mean that in the best way," she writes. "This was accessible magic, ready to be felt by anyone who made the plunge."Speaking of taking the plunge... When a drop of rain hits the ground, where does it end up? Web developer Sam Learner got to musing about that, and, doing what web developers do, pulled together USGS data that allows you to drip a raindrop anywhere in the Lower 48 and then follow its course through the watershed—almost from drop's-eye view. It's not perfect—magically, for instance, some journeys seem to end at the Canadian border—but it's still pretty fun. (Thanks, JF!)
Last numbers for the week.
Dartmouth remains at 2 student cases and none among faculty/staff. No one is in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 2 students and 4 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 74 new cases yesterday, and its official total now stands at 98,840. There was 1 new death, which now stand at 1,354, while 26 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 1). The current active caseload stands at 423 (down 2). The state reports 33 active cases in Grafton County (up 2), 19 in Sullivan (up 2), and 34 in Merrimack (up 6). In town-by-town numbers reported by the state, Claremont has 12 (up 3), while Haverhill, Warren, Rumney, Hanover, Lebanon, Plainfield, Cornish, Springfield, Sunapee, Newport, and Newbury have 1-4 each. Canaan is off the list.
VT reported 8 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 24,240. There were no new deaths, which remain at 255, while 3 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 1). Windsor County gained no new cases and now stands at 1,479 for the pandemic, with 23 over the past 14 days, while Orange County also added no new cases and has 815 cumulatively, with 6 over the past two weeks.
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It's First Friday in WRJ, and there's an evening-long lineup as a tribute to Dave Clark, musician and tireless promoter of musicians, dancers, and other performing artists around the Upper Valley, who died last October. There will be buskers all around the main block of downtown WRJ from 5-7 pm, performances and a jam session behind the Coolidge Hotel from 7 to 8, a video tribute from 8-8:30, and then more music and jamming afterward. As usual (such a pleasure to be able to write those words), WRIF will also be projecting film shorts on buildings around town. And it's the opening both of the new Kishka Gallery on Gates Street, and of artist Lucy Mink's inaugural show there.
The Center for the Arts in New London, which serves the Sunapee/Kearsarge region, has also launched a set of First Friday events. Today at 5:30 at the New London Barn Playhouse, Barn artistic director Keith Coughlin and managing director Elliot Cunningham will talk over their thoughts about the 2021 season and the challenges to returning to live theatre at this stage of the pandemic.
Down in Putney at 6 pm, Next Stage presents folk/roots/bluegrass/stringband quartet Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem. They do their own music and rework everything from Georgia Sea Islands music to Hank Williams to Springsteen. At Cooper Field, tix are $20 in advance.
Farther afield but no less notable, today marks the return of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. The kickoff event is at 6 pm on the waterfront: It's called "50 Saxophones" but since they've issued an open invitation to saxophonists, who knows how many will actually show up. There will be music all this weekend and through next week, featuring an astounding array of bands and solo artists. The schedule's here, and here's Jordan Adams and Dan Bolles' writeup in Seven Days to give you a broader sense of what to expect.
On Sunday from 2 to 4 pm live on YouTube, the Choral Arts Foundation of the Upper Valley is gathering a whole family of choral ensembles for a virtual concert together, "Singing Into Summer." The directors will introduce pieces live, and 15 local ensembles will perform, including the North Country Chordsmen, VoxStars, Harmony Night, Bel Canto, Cantabile, Handel Society, Full Circle, Juneberry, Kearsarge Chorale, the Thetford Chamber Singers, and more.
Okay, in case that swimming item above didn't get the point across, it's summer, right? Time to cut loose—but not necessarily in the water.
getting all creative on how to command the stage and still make room for a socially distanced backup chorus.
Have a fine weekend! See you Monday.
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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