GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Dry, quiet. High pressure's building in from the Ohio Valley, and we're well out of the serious heat that's due to our south and west. There'll be a few clouds around, but mostly today we get bright sunshine, temps up to around 80 or a bit above, winds from the north and northwest. Back into the 50s tonight.Speaking of dry days... In its updated report yesterday, the federal Drought Monitor says that most of New Hampshire is now in a moderate drought, including Grafton and Sullivan counties; the far southeastern corner is in severe or extreme drought. Meanwhile, in Vermont, the eastern half of the state has moved into moderate drought; most of the west remains "abnormally dry." Remember that in each state can also hit the "By Location" tab and then "Local" to drill down, where you'll find that many area towns are now in moderate drought by several measures.When you've got a bill as long as a Great Blue Heron's, how do you feed your young? Well, photographer Jim Block can show you, in a series of photos that top his early-summer photos from around the region, especially in NH. Lots of bird life, enticing photos from the Esther Currier Wildlife Management Area in New London, some fine-looking bullfrogs, and the full-on feel of summer in northern New England.About yesterday's loons. Photographer Nancie Severs used a telephoto and kept a discreet distance, but Ted Levin sends along a reminder that not all kayakers are so careful. "Getting close to a loon and chick often doesn't end well for the chick," he writes. "Loons are stuck in place. They can't retreat; otherwise, the chick is abandoned and vulnerable. Or the chick attempts to dive and wears itself out. Kayakers should keep a respectful distance from the nest and shepherding parent loons.""This is getting very confusing." Lydia's still Lydia, the frog's still the frog... and Wally doesn't know which to believe. As he does every week here, Lebanon writer and illustrator DB Johnson chronicles the doings in Lost Woods—and on his blog this week highlights a free audio version of Walden. "I find it so much more inviting and understandable to hear my favorite quotation from the second chapter of Walden here…”Towns grapple with allowing ATVs on public roadways. The issue's become heated, especially in Chelsea and Royalton, writes Dylan Kelley in the Herald. A move to disapprove an ordinance allowing them in Chelsea comes to a special town meeting on July 27. In Royalton, where residents approved ATVs on town roads by a single vote at town meeting, a committee has tried to find room for compromise—which has been tough, chair Sandy Conrad tells Kelley, with the planning commission opposing the vehicles on roads, and the conservation commission opposing them in the woods. Barnard's dealing, too.And in Tunbridge, a lawsuit over trails highlights landowner-control "legal gray area" in VT. It stems from a two-year-long dispute between John Echeverria and Carin Pratt, who own a 325-acre tract known as Dodge Farm, and the town. Two public trails run through the property, which the owners have kept unposted and opened to snowmachines, hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing; however, they oppose the use of wheeled vehicles, including ATVs and bicycles, writes Frances Mize in the Valley News. The town, by contrast, allows cycles on the trails; the suit contends that permission wasn't the town's to give."As musicians, what brings us the greatest pleasure is to try to connect with our audiences. We like to be casual, share what we love, have a conversation about it. We don't want to be on a pedestal." That's bassoonist Leah Kohn, who grew up in Hanover and now lives in LA, describing the approach she and her eight colleagues are taking to this year's inaugural Oak Hill Music Festival. She and her husband, violinist Niv Ashkenazi, talked to Seven Days' Amy Lilly about becoming musicians, some of the composers in this year's festival, and how (and why) the whole thing came together.“They say you can’t step into the same river twice … well, you certainly can’t look at the same river twice, either.” But you can certainly look at Peggy Kannenstine’s paintings of the Ottauquechee River all you like, writes Eric Sutphin in the VN. Kannenstine—whose work is also in the permanent collections of the Hood, the Bennington Museum, and elsewhere—has an exhibit of her river paintings running this summer at VINS. Many of them treat "the tension between the unbridled forces of nature as they come into contact with manmade interventions like bridges, dams and culverts," Sutphin writes.
Hiking Not So Close to Home: Mt. Flume-Liberty Loop. This spectacular day hike over two 4,000 footers has you walking and scrambling 10 rocky miles with an elevation gain of over 3,000 feet. The Trails Alliance recommends mapping it, as it is not described at the link. From the Flume trailhead, walk the road to the Flume Slide Trail, which leads to the Osseo Trail just before the top of Mt. Flume. After the summit the trail becomes the Franconia Ridge Trail. Head northwest to Mt. Liberty and be sure to plan frequent breaks to embrace the stunningly beautiful views. Follow the Liberty Springs Trail down.Been paying attention this week? The News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what's the new name for the Suicide Six ski area? And the Prouty set a record for what this year? And how's Dartmouth feeling about its Lyme Road proposal? You'll find those and others at the maroon link.Where to eat in the Northeast Kingdom. There's no shortage of good spots if you happen to find yourself up there this summer, writes Susan Apel on Artful. There's Pica Pica in St. J, of course, which is Vermont's only Filipino restaurant and, surely, the only spot for a long way where you can find spicy banana ketchup. There's Parker Pie in Glover, though you definitely want to call ahead, though if you don't the Busy Bee Diner down the road will take care of the hungriest of appetites. Hardwick's got The Front Seat, Craftsbury's got the Blackbird Bistro, tiny E. Hardwick has the tea garden at Perennial Pleasures...And if by any chance you're headed anywhere near Loudon NH on Sunday... NASCAR's Ambetter 301 is on tap that afternoon, so you may actually be going to Loudon and the NH Motor Speedway. But even if you're just passing by, there'll be 36,000 spectators all headed there and then leaving at roughly the same times, so NHDOT's got traffic control plans in place on I-93, I-393, and NH 106. Best to let them explain it, at the link.As NH towns depend more each year on property taxes to fund schools, new lawsuit challenges the inequities. The problem, writes NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt in a primer for anyone hoping to understand this latest salvo in the state's school-funding wars, is that NH's per-pupil contribution "falls far short of the actual cost of educating a student." So towns are on the hook, and some taxpayers pay far more than others if they live in property-poor towns. That's the basis of the suit filed last week by Andru Volinsky and colleagues; DeWitt explains it, and how it differs from the ongoing Contoocook suit.Fairbanks Museum addition uses innovative timber “as strong and stable as steel.” Not just strong but eco-friendlier than just about any other building material, writes Seven Days’ Rachel Helman. It’s called CLT, or cross-laminated timber, made with layers of low-grade wood like eastern hemlock, from which the museum annex’s floors and ceiling will be made—and likely the first time CLT has been used in construction. If it catches on, CLT—readily available and easy to produce and cut to size—could be a boon to hemlock harvesters feeling the pinch from paper mill closures throughout the region. Okay, sure, some houses are long. But a bridge? Yep. In Stowe. It's about 140-feet long, 20 feet wide, has floor-to-ceiling windows, is suspended over a stream fed by a small waterfall, and looks like a covered bridge. Oh, and it can be yours for $17.5 million, writes EB Solomont in the Wall St. Journal. When local builders took exception to the whole bridging-a-stream idea, the owners, who live in Toronto, had the steel trusses built in Quebec and trucked down.So hey. If you can figure out where a Vermont place name comes from or read a newspaper or find your way to a state historical marker—and you're a kid—you might want to know about this. For the last five years, the Good Citizen Challenge has been trying to overcome the civics knowledge gap and focus on the American values we all share. Organized by Seven Days and Kids VT, along with the VT Community Foundation and VT Historical Society, this year's challenge offers up a chance at a trip for two to DC, plus other prizes, for completing five activities (at the link). You have to be 18 or younger to enter."40 tiny, perfect things about summer in New England." It's summer and you're going to be out and about, so you might as well have some destinations. The Globe asked a bunch of writers—some on staff, but not all—to write a paragraph about a place worth visiting. The only Upper Valley one that shows up is... guess... Worthy Burger! Though W. Rattlesnake Mountain in Holderness is on the edge. There's also Story Land, and the Funspot near Winnipesaukee, and the Yale Art Gallery, and the Atlantic Spice Co. on Cape Cod, and La Universidad del Chimi food truck in Providence, and... (via MSN, no paywall).Stealthy, secluded snow leopard caught on camera, an absolute stunner. Locals of Ladakh, in the Indian Himalayas, didn’t think it could be done. But wildlife photographer Sascha Fonseca, whose strategy of placing camera traps (aka motion sensor-activated cameras) in remote settings, had already caught his “dream picture of a wild Bengal tiger at night,” he says. So he set out a lens for the “ghost of the mountains”—with little to no expectation of seeing one. The region’s cold, harsh conditions required building protective housing for his camera, and a year and a half later, when he went to browse his photos….And while we're looking at cool photos, here's a different kind of star-track pic. You know how most long-exposure photos of stars shows their tracks all curving in the same direction? That's because they're capturing the earth's rotation around one or the other of the celestial poles. But if you point your camera at the celestial equator, something very different happens.The Friday Vordle. Oh, man! Hasbro and the NYT just seriously upped the Vordle pressure with Wordle: The Party Game.
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Today at 4 pm, writer, illustrator, and MacArthur Fellow David Macaulay will be at the Norwich Bookstore talking about Mammoth Math: Everything You Need to Know About Numbers, his follow-on to Mammoth Science. Macaulay's shelves-full of books, from Cathedral to The Way Things Work to Castle, is renowned for explaining complex ideas in graspable ways. His new book tackles the key principles of arithmetic, angles, equations...
Starting at 5:30, jazz will be back on the Lebanon Mall between Salt Hill and Three Tomatoes, with Fred Haas and Billy Rosen. They'll be there tomorrow at the same time, too, along with dynamic vocalist Grace Wallace and Peter Concilio on bass. (No link).
This evening at 7, Seven Stars Arts Center in Sharon brings in jazz musician and composer Bill Cole and bassist and singer-songwriter Mali Obomsawin. As you probably remember, the two have been collaborating for a couple of years through Thetford's Front Porch concert series (see below for Sunday)—Cole, David Corriveau writes, "has kept acquiring and learning to play a United Nations of wind instruments, among them the Australian didgeridoo and double-reed horns such as the Chinese sola, the Korean piri and the Indian nagaswaram." Obomsawin helped form the indie-folk group Lula Wiles, and now plays with jazz and string bands, including her own jazz sextet.
Also at 7, pianist David Feurzeig will be making his first Upper Valley appearance in his "Play Every Town" tour through Vermont, with a free concert at the Strafford United Church. He'll be joined for this one by Strafford's own Annemieke McLane. You may remember that back in May, Feurzeig set out to become the first musician to play in each of the state's 251 towns to bring attention to climate change. He and Annemieke will play Karel Husa’s Eight Czech Duets for piano 4-hands, and Feurzeig's solo pieces will include Mozart, Scarlatti, VT composer Eve Beglarian, and assorted rags and stride selections.
At 7:30 this evening, Counterpoint gives its sole Upper Valley concert this summer at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. It's the VT-based professional vocal ensemble's first concert there in four years, and it features a program revolving around landscapes, with pieces by Randall Thompson, Benjamin Britten, Joan Szymko, NH composer Amy Beach, Jude Navari’s Siddhartha Fragments—inspired by Herman Hesse’s mystical 1922 novel—and the premiere of a piece by two Upper Valley locals: composer Travis Ramsey and poet Jim Schley. Tix at the door.
Also at 7:30, the Oak Hill Music Festival's nine musicians give the second of their three concerts, this one at the Norwich Congregational Church. This program focuses on Paris, 1880-1947, with pieces by Poulenc, Franck, Eugène Bozza, and Szymon Laks. "Franck’s famous piano quintet, obsessive and romantic, bridges the gap between eras," they write. "Bubbly, accessible, and sarcastic French woodwind music by Poulenc and Bozza is paired with a quartet by Szymon Laks premiered in Paris in 1945, six months after the composer was liberated from Auschwitz and became a naturalized French citizen."
And also at 7:30 (seriously, how you gonna choose?), Hop Film screens VT filmmaker Jay Craven's latest, Jack London's Martin Eden. In his director's notes, Craven writes, "Martin Eden tells the story of a poor and unschooled sailor (Eden), who unexpectedly meets Ruth Morse, a magnetic young woman of means and education. Their unconventional attraction upends both lives and propels timely themes of impossible love, pursuit of the American Dream, dogged individualism, and what can be an ultimately depressing quest for a comfortable place in an inconstant world. I liked how London explores dynamics of social class and weaves the story around his own autobiography." Craven will be on hand to talk about the film and its making.
Starting at 10 am tomorrow and running until 5 pm, VINS holds its "Incredible Insect Festival," with sessions on beekeeping, dragonflies, caterpillars, bugs of the Canopy Walk, and more.
Tomorrow starting at 4, a bit far afield, Glinnis Hill Farm in Northfield presents "The Dancing Pig Festival," a lineup of six local bands including Father Figuer, Marxist Jargon, and Lavendula. It's a benefit for the farm's low-income CSA, which works with the Montpelier food pantry.
Tomorrow starting at 5 pm it's the Route 5 Fest in Bradford and Fairlee, with the Chad Hollister Trio at the gazebo in Bradford from 5-7 and rock/pop/funk singer Jesse Taylor at the Fairlee gazebo from 7-9. Hosted by Bradford's Space on Main and Fairlee's Chapman's General, it's a chance to wander both towns (stores and restaurants will be open) and check out the small business popup markets at Bradford's Denny Park and Fairlee's Chapman's Place.
Tomorrow at 6 pm, Artistree in S. Pomfret throws a closing celebration for "Cover to Cover," its exhibition of works by the nine women who form The Book Lab and specialize in book arts—Rebecca Boardman, Elissa Campbell, Dorsey Hogg, Marilyn Gillis, Debra Kraemer, Ann Joppe-Mercure, Vera Ryerbach, Penne Tompkins, and Marcia Vogler.
Tomorrow at 7:30 pm, Court Street Arts brings in Cold Chocolate to Alumni Hall in Haverhill. The Boston-based Americana band got its start in bluegrass, fusing it with folk and funk, and has carved out a touring niche throughout New England—including at Tunbridge's Shindigs in the past.
Also tomorrow at 7:30 pm, the Oak Hill Music Festival winds up its series with a program of music inspired by breath and song, including Mozart’s quintet for piano and winds, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet, and “Saans” (”Breath” in Hindi), a gorgeous piano trio by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. Back where they started at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
At noon on Sunday, it's the third version of Dayhike & Dine, Bradford Parks & Rec's hike-then-eat series. This week the hike is Mt. Cube in Orford, via the Cross-Rivendell Trail, followed up by dining at 5 pm at Peyton Place in Orford. Meet at noon at the Bradford Park & Ride or 12:15 in the Rivendell Athletic Fields parking lot (across the street from main entrance to Rivendell Academy on 25A in Orford). Email Jared Pendak for more information at [email protected].
At 1 pm on Sunday, Bill Cole, Mali Obomsawin, Ras Moshe ((saxophone, flute, percussion), and Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, trumpet, trombone) return to the front porch at 1590 Tucker Hill Road in Thetford (or to the Thetford Hill Church in case of rain) for the July installment of their series of improvisational jazz concerts.
About a decade ago, Australian comedian and composer Tim Minchin gave the commencement address at the University of Western Australia, where he'd gone for a time. He gave the graduates nine life lessons, including the last: Don't Rush. Life, he said, is meaningless. "You will soon be dead," he went on. "Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it’s tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you’ll be old. And then you’ll be dead. There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is: fill it... And in my opinion (until I change it), life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can." In Minchin's case, he's channeled all that erudition into, among other things, musical entertainment. You wouldn't want to call him Tom Lehrer, but they're distant cousins.
—with score and lyrics helpfully added by George Collier, who makes a hobby of such things.
Have a fine weekend. See you for CoffeeBreak on Monday.
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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