GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Reminder: No Daybreak next week. It's time to get serious about all the upkeep that's impossible to do with a daily publishing routine. Back on Monday, Aug. 19 with CoffeeBreak.Let's talk Debby. The rain, obviously, began late yesterday, with the heaviest amounts due to fall over northern NY and in a band that stretches northeast from Middlebury up through St. J. In the words of the National Weather Service, the storm in Vermont so far "has over achieved, especially central/northern areas." We could see between an inch and two altogether in these parts, and there are also warnings of potential flash flooding roughly from Lebanon north, though the forecast for NH outside the mountains is more for showers than for downpours. On top of all that, some areas may get thunderstorms tonight, and strong wind gusts. The upshot: Keep an eye on things today (though amazingly, the forecast is for sun tomorrow). Highs in the mid 70s, lows upper 60s.
And don't forget New England 511 for roadways. There's already a report of standing water on I-91 near Lyndon, and more will no doubt crop up during the day.
Fortunately, Sunday night's skies are looking clear for the Perseids. NASA calls it “the best meteor shower of the year," and though it began a few weeks ago and won't end until next month, the peak is Sunday night into Monday. At the link, Smithsonian with some background and viewing tips.A long-tailed weasel prowls. On Erin Donahue's trail cam in E. Thetford. "The long-tailed is the largest of the three species of weasels in North America," Ted Levin writes. "Males are 18 inches long, including a six-and-a-half-inch tail, and weigh about eight ounces. In Vermont, females are four inches shorter and half as heavy. Besides leopards in the Old World, mountain lions in the New World, and humans in both worlds, long-tailed weasels have the most extensive north-south distribution of any wild mammal—from southern Canada to Peru."And a Friday bonus photo: Rick Russell's masterful pic from last weekend's 30th Annual Pomfret Ox Pull, with Chelsea's Mark Whitney urging on his team.Woodstock Village will enforce short-term rental ordinance. You'll remember that last week, voters in the village opted to uphold an ordinance enacted by trustees in the spring, while voters in the larger town deep-sixed their identical version. This means the ordinance's new cap on rentals and higher fees will apply to the village, while STRs in the town will be subject to an earlier ordinance. Even so, Lauren Dorsey writes in the Standard, the village's increased ability to communicate, monitor, and enforce STR regs will boost the information available to the town, as well.VT Supreme Court sides with Tunbridge landowners, says it's time for case against town to be tried on the merits. The justices' decision deals with an offshoot of the lawsuit filed by John Echeverria and Carin Pratt in 2022 challenging the town’s claim it has the right to maintain legal trails that cross their property. A lower court judge had ruled the case wasn't ready to be decided. The justices reversed that decision. The lawsuit—arguing that landowners, not the town, have the authority to maintain trails on their land—now goes back to where it started, reports Darren Marcy in the Herald.The varying impact of new school tax rates on Upper Valley towns in VT. "As is typically the case," writes Patrick Adrian in the VN, "the specifics of the tax rates set this summer vary widely from town to town, even within the same school district." With rising property values and the impact of state finagling on the funding formula added to generally rising school budgets, plenty of towns are seeing boosts: Woodstock's got the highest tax-rate increase in the region, with increases in Pomfret, Norwich, Thetford, and Hartford, as well, Adrian reports. Other towns—Barnard, Fairlee, West Fairlee, Vershire, Royalton—have seen tax rate drops. The reasons vary: Adrian explains.Outside a general store, a free payphone. Or, as the N. Tunbridge General Store's Lois Gross calls it, a "payless" phone. It's a project by Williamstown VT electronics engineer Patrick Schlott, who collects old telephone equipment, including payphones. Putting one to public use "was partially being a geek and messing around with old phone equipment," he tells Tim Calabro in the Herald, and "partially living in a rural area and going through the pains of ‘there’s no cell service out here.'” Schlott pays the costs himself, and is looking for other stores that might want one. "People use it all the time," says Gross.Three days of music in Lebanon, rain and shine. As Alex Hanson writes in the VN, Lebanon Opera House director Joe Clifford has focused on lesser-known acts in the past when putting the outdoor Nexus Festival together. This year, which marks LOH's 100th birthday, is different: Tonight, singer-songwriter Joan Osborne is headlining the festival. Because of the rain, she'll be indoors in the opera house, as will rock guitarist Jax Hollow and her trio—everything's free, but $20 will get you a 15-minute head start on finding a seat. Check the LOH website in Heads Up below for information on acts and venues.100 days of James Baldwin at Dartmouth. Or, actually, mostly online. It would have been the iconic writer's 100th birthday a week ago, and in celebration, the college's Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life invited scholars, writers, students, alumni, and staff to read from his work. The videos will go up on Instagram through the fall. "People are choosing very different texts to read, because there's so much of Baldwin's work that is still with us. His thoughts are still very relevant today," says institute director Kimberly Juanita Brown. Here's a trailer, by filmmaker Iyabo Kwayana.Hiking Not Quite Close to Home: Moosalamoo and Falls of Lana, Leicester and Salisbury, VT. The UVTA highlights this loop to the Falls of Lana and on to beautiful views of Lake Dunsmore, Silver Lake, the Champlain Valley and the 'dacks. Follow the Silver Lake Trail to the Rattlesnake Cliffs Trail, and then, on the way back, find the turn to take the Aunt Jenny Trail. This route climbs over 1,000 feet—there are other options, but the views from Rattlesnake Cliff are worth the effort (and should be open now that peregrine nesting season is over). Park in the Silver Lake/Falls of Lana area off Rt. 53 in Salisbury.Been paying attention to Daybreak? Because Daybreak's Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what did a VT judge just clear the way for in Hartland? And what's that new cannabis dispensary in Fairlee called, again? 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 what mosquitoes in two northern VT counties just tested positive for.
And NHPR's got a whole set of questions about doings around the Granite State—like, what did National Weather Service records for NH in July just show?
Want a used NH bridge? You've got a month to bid. Amazingly enough, NHDOT sells off historic bridges for "adaptive reuse", and it's just listed the one that carries NH Route 127 over the Warner River in Warner. The 1937 bridge is 120 feet long and its stringers (not its piers) will be sold as is for $1 (though don't underestimate the removal and transport costs) to whichever entity can best articulate how it'll be removed, preserved, reused, and maintained. Coming up at some point: the Northern Rail Trail bridge in Andover.There's hope on the cyanobacteria front. It's expensive, but this a $500K treatment of Lake Kanasatka in Moltonborough with alum this spring has left the lake's waters clear and swimmable, reports NHPR's Amanda Pirani. "The treatment works by binding the phosphorus [cyanobacteria feeds on] to the lake bottom with aluminum sulfate, cutting off the cyanobacteria’s food source," Pirani explains. The money came from the state's $1 million cyanobacteria mitigation fund, and the treatment is expected to last for 10-15 years—as long as property owners don't keep dumping phosphorus into the lake.Report of zero illegal border-crossing apprehensions in NH reignites debate over state task force. Stepping back into the highly charged political issue, the ACLU last week released numbers from a Customs and Border Patrol record request showing no CBP encounters with undocumented people crossing the border between January and May of this year, reports Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. Dems have argued that a state task force created last year is unnecessary; Gov. Chris Sununu and AG John Formella counter that it's proven its worth in domestic encounters and has prevented illegal crossings.Could aspirin help combat beech leaf disease? Down in CT, a team at the state Agricultural Experiment Station in Windsor has been looking into how the microscopic roundworm that causes the disease was able to spread so quickly from Ohio to all of New England—it was discovered in NH in 2022 and VT last year. Their theory: they're carried by rain droplets when it's windy, as well as on birds' feet during rainy weather. They're also looking at possible solutions, reports CT Public Radio's Jennifer Ahrens, including treating beech saplings with aspirin and wintergreen flavoring.Trees don’t want to breathe wildfire smoke any more than we do. Trees have pores on the surface of their leaves that, like our mouths, breathe in and out—though they do both at the same time. On The Conversation, Delphine Farmer and MJ Riches, research scientists at Colorado State U, describe how their field site turned into a natural lab when wildfire smoke shrouded it. They discovered that trees “weren’t inhaling the carbon dioxide they need to grow and weren’t exhaling the chemicals they usually release.” In short, they were holding their breath. The authors hypothesize why trees react that way and explain what happened when they tried to defibrillate them.A Canada lynx, looking around. And it just happened to settle itself down to do so in front of a Voyageurs Wolf Project trail cam in northern Minnesota.
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The annual three-day extravaganza, begun during the pandemic, has quickly become a late-summer Upper Valley hallmark. Things start up at 4 pm today with Twisted Pine fiddler and singer Kathleen Parks, move on to rock guitarist Jax Hollow, the Clements Brothers, big-time star Joan Osborne, and closing out the night, a silent disco. Jax Hollow, Joan Osborne, and the silent disco are in LOH itself; Parks and the Clements Brothers will be on the Colburn Park stage—bring an umbrella. And for everything going on tomorrow and Sunday, from Jeh Kulu and Bela's Bartok to Soul Porpoise and the Voloz Collective, check the link. It's all free.
The Jamaica-born reggae star and his reggae-ized covers of Talking Heads songs is scheduled for Pentangle Arts' Music by the River in East End Park today at 6 pm. But there's no rain location, so check the link before heading out.
As part of its Bandwagon Summer Series, Next Stage Arts presents the nine-member Brooklyn-based brass (and drum) band—the "#1 brass band for BalkanSoul GypsyFunk". Indoors at Next Stage Arts.
This evening at 7, it's Boyd Meets Girl—the duo of Australian classical guitarist Rupert Boyd with American cellist Laura Metcalf.
by Brahms, Mozart, and Dora Pejačević. The quartet will perform the same program again on Sunday at 4 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Woodstock.
Playwright Annie Baker's debut film is set a bit south of here, around Amherst, Mass., in the summer of 1991. It's "a tiny masterpiece,"
NYT
critic Alissa Wilkinson wrote back in June, a mother-daughter film in three parts, each revolving around a different adult who shows up in their lives, "so loaded with details and emotions and gentle comedy, that it’s impossible to shake once it gets under your skin." 7 pm in the Loew.
The two bands from Windsor's What Doth Life collective start up at 9 pm tonight.
Saturday
Elm Street will be closed from 7 am to 7 pm with food starting up at 10 am as some 45 vendors from all over line the street, from
Jeezeum Crow Foods, Trail Break, and Naga Bakehouse to Montpelier's North Branch Vineyards and St. Johnsbury Distillery. There'll be samples at FH Gillingham's, and music also starting up at 10 am. Link goes to Aaron Rubin's writeup in the Standard with more details.
The musical festival featuring up-and-coming bands was supposed to start today, but because of the weather will cram as much as possible into tomorrow afternoon, with bands (Kotoko Brass, Kalbells, Sister, and many more) starting up at 2 pm, along with food, hula-hooping workshops, and a bunch more. At Fledgling Farmstead on Bicknell Hill Road.
Improv jazz with Bill Cole on reeds and digeridoo Joe Daley on tuba and horn, Ras Moshe on sax and flute, Taylor Ho Bynum on trumpet and cornet, Bill Lowe on tuba, Daniel Lin on cello, and Althea SullyCole on kora. 1 pm at the First Congregational Church on Thetford Hill.
The Hop presents two readings of NY Theatre Workshop works in progress. Both are at the Theater on Currier.
, by Sharon Masihi, shows an artist wrestling with relationships, love, work, and above all her ties to the audience in front of her. At 4 pm and for audiences 16 and up. At 7 pm, it's
, Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel's look at being a queer artist of color in Hollywood.
The singer-songwriter, who weaves together folk, blues, and progressive rock as a solo performer, will be on stage from 6-8 pm.
It's a night of standup comedy with local comedian Vicki Ferentinos, NYC's Sharon Spell, and Burlington's Maddie Cross. 7 pm tomorrow, just a couple of seats left.
The Woodstock-based jazz artist, along with drummer Tim Gilmore and bassist Peter Concilio, will perform John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" at 7 pm tomorrow. Admission is free, though donations are welcome.
It'll be in the pavilion on Pavilion Road tomorrow night, with music by Blind Squirrel—Erin Smith and Steve Hoffman on fiddle, Suzanne Long on fiddle and cello, and guitarist Eric Faro in his first dance gig with the band. Calling by Dave Eisenstadter. Walk-thrus at 7:15, dance begins at 7:30.
Remember the tribute to Pete Sutherland in Wednesday's music section? That was Yann Falquet, who'll be joined by fellow guitarist Keith Murphy for a blending of French-Canadian and Anglo/Celtic song traditions. Also on tap: The duo of Eamon O’Leary and Jefferson Hamer, who perform as The Murphy Beds. 7:30 pm tomorrow.
Sunday
The North Country choral ensemble will perform a "sublime and desolate" work by Eric Whitacre, The Sacred Veil. It's a 12-movement work for choir, piano, and cello with lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri—and by Silvestri's wife, Julie, who died of cancer at age 36—that explores the thin veil between life and death in a family.
And some things to know about next week.
Tuesday
Plymouth State philosophy prof Maria Sanders on "AI in Action: Real world applications and ethical implications", presented by the Haverhill Library Assn. at 7 pm in Alumni Hall.
The visiting Voloz Collective does an "Intro to Physical Theatre and Devising" workshop in Hartland. 6-8 pm in Damon Hall (upstairs). No link.
Wednesday
Field biologist turned visual storyteller Ronan Donovan on "Wolves, Humans, and Keystone Species". Donovan, who grew up in Norwich and now lives in Montana, will look at the role wolves and predators play in forest ecosystems in the midst of climate change. 5:30 pm at the Howe and online.
Valley Improv at Sawtooth Kitchen, at 8 pm.
Thursday
The Lake Morey Resort brings in G. Love and Special Sauce. Part of its free Thursday summer concert series. Music at 8 pm.
Friday
The Cornish Fair, with everything that that means, starts up next Friday at 9 am. Runs through Sunday.
As for next weekend, there's plenty going on, and you'll manage to figure it out.
Whew. That was a lot.
Let's go out with Noah Kahan's "Stick Season". But not performed by Kahan. Nope, it's an "Afro-Cuban" cover done by the definitely not Afro-Cuban, Ontario-based Walk Off the Earth.
Have a fantastic week! See you August 19 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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