GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, pleasant. You never want to say we "deserve" good weather, but... we deserve this. High pressure's building in for the weekend and today we get the benefits: dry, cool air, breezes from the north, maybe some high clouds in the afternoon, temps in the low or mid-70s. Down into the 40s overnight.Red fox spotted. And, notes naturalist Ted Levin, "for the moment, no amount of stealth conceals its intentions." The compelling visual on Erin Donahue's latest trail cam video is of the fox. But pay attention to the audio. "Crows," writes Ted, "rarely pass up an opportunity to pester a predator, to alert a sleepy woodland that something prowls within the deep, green shade. Listen to the language of crows and jays, the agitated notes of songbirds, the sudden snorts of deer . . . it's a language forgotten at the peril of the vulnerable."Time to catch up on Lost Woods! It's Weeks 87-89 (scroll down, then move your way up) and Henry would thoroughly enjoy being out on a boat by himself... if only everyone else in Lost Woods would let him. As he does every week here, Lebanon writer and illustrator DB Johnson chronicles the doings in Lost Woods—and on his blog he pays attention to hermit thrushes ("This world continues, with or without me, and in this moment, the bird makes me happy to be here now") and ponders the difference between creating and work.Primary care shortage in Upper Valley has patients scrambling. One measure: Good Neighbor Health Clinic in WRJ typically serves uninsured or under-insured patients but is increasingly "fielding calls from people who have health insurance but who are unable to find a primary care provider," reports the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr. Workforce shortages, fewer primary care docs in the pipeline, increased demand—all have taken a toll. DHMC stopped scheduling new primary care patients in the spring, though it's loosened up recently; New London Hospital is seeing only new pediatric patients.From a chance encounter, a final family meal together. Late last year, Stuart Edson's mom, Betty—a longtime member of the Sharon Congregational Church then of Bethany Church in Randolph—was dying of colon cancer. Her family wanted to gather for one, final Christmas together, but Stuart's house, writes Scott Fleischman in the Herald, was too small. A few weeks before Christmas, Stuart bumped into Ashley Lincoln, who organizes Gifford's Last Mile Ride fundraiser for end-of-life care. He asked if she knew of anyone who might have a house they could lend. She did. Last Mile Ride events kick off this weekend, and Fleischman tells the story.After being rebuffed three times, AT&T is back for fourth try with Chelsea tower. The company, reports the VN's Frances Mize, has looked at 20 sites in town since it began its search for a cellphone tower site in 2020, and has had to withdraw three applications after opposition from townspeople. The newest proposal, filed Monday, is on land off Route 110 owned by Sarah and Doc Gordon, who already host a VTel tower there. "We already have all the infrastructure in place,” Doc Gordon tells Mize. “And this is the first site proposed by AT&T that’s not in town. I think that’s key.”SPONSORED: After today, everything changes! The US House votes today on the Senate's new climate bill raising the solar federal tax credit back to 30 percent—a savings of over $10K for the average household going solar! Most households will qualify for thousands of dollars in new funding support to install solar power, home batteries, EV chargers, and electric heat pumps, as well as for EVs. This home electrification program will not only save home fuel and electricity costs, but could also cut your household carbon footprint practically to zero. Hit the maroon link for a summary. Sponsored by Solaflect Energy.Lawnmower sabotage. Vermont State Police yesterday announced they're looking for the public's help in a case stemming from a July incident in Randolph. A homeowner reported that "someone had been to their residence while they were not home and attached fireworks and matches to the exhaust of their lawnmower," the VSP says in its press release. "While mowing the yard, the fireworks exploded, burning the homeowner and sending them to the hospital. This could have happened anytime within the prior two weeks of the date of the incident." Anyone with info should call the Royalton Barracks.Hiking Close to Home: Sunrise and Sunset Hikes. Sometimes, you just want to get out when the trails are empty and the skies are going to be beautiful once you get to the top. This week, the Upper Valley Trails Alliance's Kaitie Eddington offers up a guide to options both nearby and a bit farther away, from Ascutney's Summit Trails and Bald Top in Fairlee to the Welch-Dickey Loop and Sandwich Mountain. Wherever you go, hike prepared.Been paying attention this week? The News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what did competitive elections cause in VT? And why are communities aiming to limit water use? And what does Lebanon want developers' ideas for? You'll find those and others at the maroon link.The Wall St. Journal just highlighted five NH ice cream stands. A spot in Sunapee is one of them. "New Yorkers obsess over bagels. Philadelphians fixate on cheesesteaks. But for residents of New Hampshire, it’s all about ice cream," writes Charles Passy, who gave his reportorial all touring the Granite State and choosing five standouts. Rubbing shoulders with places to our east and south is Sunapee's Sanctuary Dairy Farm Ice Cream, a decade-old ice cream stand run by Beck Johnson, whose family's dairy farming roots go back to the 1700s. Go for the tetherball, stay for the maple bourbon. (No paywall).VPR's first half-hour special? It was "Maple Syrup." It's popular to dump on Vermont Public now that it's removed "Radio" from its name, but Brownsville's Frank Hoffman begs to differ. He was present at the creation in 1977—hired as a music producer and all-around staffer through a federal grant. In a VTDigger commentary that serves as a reminiscence, he sketches the triumphs (the first live broadcast of Jon Appleton's Synclavier) and the hardscrabble early days ("Oh, how I butchered the classical names of the composers...") at the station's first studio in Windsor. And the distance both he and VP/R traveled.Close bear encounters are on the rise in VT. The state’s fish and wildlife department has already received more than 800 reports of bear encounters this year, up from 600 in all of 2021, reports Seven Days’ Dan Bolles. And that would be cause for concern if, you know, you tried to pet one. Officials say the surge in ursine sightings has a few explanations, mainly that VT packs a lot of bears (6,000 of them) into a small area. A dwindling food supply, though, is what leads them off the beaten path…toward your backyard bird feeders and, Bolles writes, “that most prized bear delicacy: your smelly trash.” "I started seeing things that told me everything science had been saying about bears was wrong." This week, Eva Sollberger's video feature for Seven Days, "Stuck in Vermont," crosses the river: to Lyme and the Kilham Bear Center. She talks to Ben, Debbie, and Ethan Kilham about their work—and includes lots of bear cub footage. "I think the public needs to know they're very intelligent animals [and that] they're probably more afraid of us than we are of them," Debbie Kilham says. And, adds Ben, "probably more representative of how we became human than any other non-human animal."“Duck architecture,” teacup balconies, and more of the world’s weirdest buildings. In 1931, a duck farmer on Long Island decided he wanted a duck-shaped building to sell his eggs. Today, not only is it a historic landmark, the store spawned a term for any kind of structure that describes what happens inside it. Architectural Digest rounds up a few of these whimsical workplaces, including a giant basket in Ohio and a carpet museum in Azerbaijan. The list also has a few that are just plain wild, like a snake-shaped Airbnb in Mexico and a house in Toronto that looks like it was sliced right in half.The Friday Vordle. It's been a good week of puzzle-solving, people!
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At 1 pm today, it's the final Front Porch Concert of the summer in Thetford, featuring free-form jazz musicians Bill Cole on non-western, double-reeded wind instruments (including didgeridoo); Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, trumpet, and, maybe, plastic funnel; Ras Moshe on various flutes, alto and baritone saxophones, and percussion; and Joseph Daley on tuba and baritone horn. It's at 1590 Tucker Hill Road, no charge. After this, Cole's ensemble shifts to the SoRo green for Sept. and Oct.
At long last, the Lebanon Opera House's Nexus Festival kicks off today at 1:30 pm with an open bluegrass jam session with the HillBenders (and then their Main Stage performance behind City Hall at 5:15) and, at 4 pm, a community singalong led by new Revels North music director and accordionist Alex Cumming. Tonight, the Western Terrestrials at 6:45, soul headliner Betty Smith at 8, and, at 9:30, the wildly popular Rail Trail Tunnel silent disco led by DJ Troy Supreme and guests (there are still a few tix left here). A full schedule of music, tango and American Indian dance lessons, community arts open studios at AVA, and plenty more tomorrow and Sunday. Here's Alex Hanson's writeup in yesterday's VN.
Starting at 2 pm today, the Peacham Acoustic Music Festival—known more familiarly as PAMFest—gets underway in and behind the Peacham (VT) Congregational Church. Jam sessions, concerts, contra dances, fiddle and taiko workshops, performers like Pete Sutherland, Bob and Sarah Amos, the Pointe Noire Cajun Band, Colin McCaffrey, Patrick Ross, Annie & the Hedonists... Runs until 11 tonight and all day and evening tomorrow.
Today at starting at 5 pm on the Billings Farm lawn, it's "Moos, Brews, and Cocktails, Too"—Billings' must-be-21-and-older gathering with cows, butter-churning, giant bubbles... along with tastings from Outer Limits Brewing and SILO Distillery, food from Wicked Awesome BBQ and Billings' own Farmhouse Café, and music by classic rockers Em and Nat.
Also at 5 pm, but online, local essayist, short story writer, Dartmouth prof, and Enthusiasms contributor Peter Orner joins essayist and Yale writing teacher Colleen Kinder and novelist Jacqueline Mitchard for a "literary cocktail hour" hosted by the Brattleboro Literary Festival. They'll be talking about Kinder's book Letter to a Stranger, in which she asked 65 writers to pen short essays to strangers about unforgettable encounters and to grapple with this question of why it left such an indelible mark.
At 7 this evening, the East Barnard Church is hosting a screening of Hello, Bookstore, filmmaker AB Zax's tribute to reading and the communal pleasures of a good bookstore. The film focuses on Matt Tannenbaum and The Bookstore, his shop in Lenox, MA, which he runs "as if it were a library, a cocktail party, and a projection of his literary dreams," Variety wrote in its list of the "10 Best Films of 2022 (So Far)." Tannenbaum will be at the screening. No website. The church is at Allen Hill Road and Broad Brook Road in E. Barnard, VT.
At 7:30 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, the faculty at Classicopia's summer music camp give their second and final concert of the summer. Emmanuel (violin), Frances (cello), and Elizabeth (piano) Borowsky join Classicopia founder Daniel Weiser for a program featuring Max Bruch and Boris Dvarionas, the four-hand piano "Dolly Suite" by Gabriel Fauré, trios composed by the Borowskys themselves, and tango-inspired trios by Astor Piazzolla.
And tonight around 9 pm (not tomorrow night, as erroneously noted in yesterday's Daybreak), the Norwich Lions Club Fair will be hosting its annual fireworks display from the Norwich Green.
At 8 am tomorrow, registration opens for the bike ride portion of Gifford Health Care's annual Last Mile Ride in Randolph. Staggered starts for 11- and 24-mile gravel and road bike routes begin at 9 am. Fees go to support patients and their families at the end of life, whether it's meals, travel accommodations, special events, transportation to appointments, funeral expenses, or fulfilling a patient's final wish. Run/walk and 75-mile motorcycle ride next weekend.
Starting at 8 am tomorrow and running until 2 pm up in West Newbury, VT, it's the West Newbury Summer Festival. 5K run starts at 8:30, music throughout the day, parade at 10:30 (this year themed, "Love Your Mother, Earth"), food from Ladies Heart & Soul Catering, plus booths, antiques, and everything else you'd expect from a small-town festival.
Tomorrow morning at 10 am, the students of the Classicopia Summer Chamber Music Camp return for a concert at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon after a 15-year hiatus. They'll perform in two chamber music groups, plus orchestra, and add in Broadway songs to the program as well. No charge.
Starting at 10 am tomorrow and running until 5 pm, the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce and Artistree co-host the 2022 Taste of Woodstock along Elm Street (which, heads up, will be closed to traffic). There'll be booths with stuff to try from Jeezum Crow Smoked Foods, Blake Hill Preserves, Sunny Side Taqueria, Anna's Empanadas, Eat More Pie, Silo, Wild Hart, and St. Johnsbury distilleries, and lots more. And music, hosted by Jim Yeager, with bands including Jacob Butler, Bryan Frates, Libby Kirkpatrick, Myra Flynn and Paul Bofa, AliT, and the Krishna Guthrie Band.
This one takes a bit of traveling, but if you're a LARPer, time and distance mean nothing. The Great Vermont Corn Maze in Danville is hosting a full-on, maze-wide "Convergence" live-action role-playing get-together starting at 1 pm tomorrow. The task is to solve the massive, 24-acre maze and to handle Time Vortex Portals, Battle Zones, Soundless Acres, Bridge Tolls, and more (all non-contact). They recommend the kind of footwear you'd need to hike 2-3 hours on dirt paths, and will provide a journey bag, but you'll probably want a backpack for water and snacks.
At 4 pm tomorrow in the Hop's Warner Bentley Theater, the New York Theater Workshop brings in Lorena: A Tabloid Epic, Eliana Pipes' play about the media spectacle that surrounded Lorena Bobbitt and her infamous 1993 trial—but that never reckoned with Lorena herself, which Pipes sets out to rectify.
Tomorrow starting at 6 pm at the RW Black Community Center in Hanover, Anne Fleming—a partner dance teacher and leader—will teach beginner West Coast swing, move on to "beyond beginner" at 7 pm, then launch full-on at 8 pm into an evening for Swing, Ballroom, Hustle, Country, and Nightclub dancing.
At 7 pm tomorrow, folk singer-songwriter and balladeer Sarah Thomsen travels all the way from Duluth, MN to the East Barnard Church for an evening's concert. You can watch in person or live via YouTube or FB.
Finally, on Sunday at 11 am, Here in the Valley launches a summer concert series at the Wonder Stage of Wilder, pairing a touring act and a local band. This week it's Boston-based progressive folk quartet Amber Wilds, joined by The Epitones. Directions and parking info once you buy your ticket.
And some music to take us into the weekend...
What MB14 can't do with his voice probably isn't worth doing. Mohamed Belkhir was born in Amiens, France, got into rap when he was about 12, took up beatboxing a few years after that, suddenly drew national attention in 2016 with an appearance on
The Voice France
, then began focusing on opera and film (he's in the new film
Tenor
, playing a sushi delivery boy who gets noticed by a Paris Opera singing teacher.)
, all of it just him and his voice (and a loop station).
Voilà
for sure.
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, 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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