GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
It's a transition day. The high pressure that brought us the last few days has moved on off the coast, and there's low pressure advancing from the west. We still get a thoroughly enjoyable day, though, with the approaching weather showing up today as partly cloudy skies—but still, plenty of sunshine (once the fog clears). Highs today a little cooler—mid or upper 70s—with winds from the southeast. Increasing clouds tonight, lows in the mid 50s.A ruminative chew. On Erin Donahue's trail cam in E. Thetford. "Ruminants," writes Ted Levin, "include giraffes; camels; the taxonomic family that takes in cattle, sheep, and goats; and, of course, deer. They have four-chambered stomachs, better suited to feed quickly to avoid predators and digest cellulose, the tough carbohydrate that forms plant cell walls. The first stores food, which is then regurgitated later and rechewed (cud); others break down the cellulose, absorb water, and further digestion. Only then do a deer's 28 feet of intestines absorb food. The unintended outcome is burping methane, a greenhouse gas.""Yo, dude! This is not an eagle-friendly community!" At least, not if you're a male loon with a family out on the water. You catch all sorts of action if you spend a lot of time watching ponds, as Newbury photographer Ian Clark does. In his latest blog post, he spends time with the loons on the ponds he follows, as well as herons, a hunting osprey, that eagle, and a quartet of does, cavorting in the water.Towns around Woodstock look at regulating short-term rentals. Plymouth already does: the selectboard adopted regulations two years ago, mostly in a bid to keep tabs on what's being rented out and make sure they adhere to environmental regs. Now two other towns, reports Tom Ayres in the Standard, are on their way. W. Windsor has a new ordinance in the works, which the selectboard will take up next month, requiring STR owners to register. And Barnard has a special committee weighing options for regs that "preserve the traditional character of the town and the rights of Barnard property owners."In Hanover, zoning board holds firm on Co-op. Back in July, the board turned down the Co-op Food Stores' bid to turn its Lyme Road store into a commissary. In mid-August, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, the Co-op appealed that ruling, challenging the proposed commercial kitchen's label as "light industry", which is barred from the area where the store is located, and arguing the board was wrong to brush aside its testimony about financial losses "in favor of speculative comments that the store might be mismanaged." On Aug. 22, Sauchelli writes, the board declined to reconsider its ruling. The Co-op has until Sept. 22 to appeal to Grafton Superior Court.SPONSORED: Registration for the UVTA Tour de Taste closes TODAY! Join the Upper Valley Trails Alliance Sunday, Sept. 8th for a gorgeous day of bike riding and tasty food samples from local farms and restaurants—with an amazing menu this year! All proceeds from the event will benefit the Trails Alliance's programs and projects. Come bike, eat, and support your local trails alliance! Pre-registration is required and closes tonight, so get your tickets now! You'll find them at the burgundy link and here. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance.NH Supreme Court rules op-ed aimed at Hanover High parent was opinion, not defamation. The case, Alex Nuti-de Biasi writes in the Journal Opinion newsletter, began after 2021 testimony from Hanover's Daniel Richard supporting what eventually became the state's "divisive concepts" law. That drew an op-ed in the Union Leader by Robert Azzi including Richard in a list of people espousing "white supremacist ideology" aimed at the schools. Richard sued for defamation, but on Wednesday, the state Supremes dismissed his case, arguing the op-ed "merely expressed the author’s political opinions."New WRJ home for the chronically homeless to get its first residents. In the VN, Emma Roth-Wells reports that the three-story, 18-unit building on Route 5, a joint project among Twin Pines Housing, the Upper Valley Haven and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, is due to get its first six residents by the end of this month. The longstanding project aims to give residents case management services as well as their own space. To qualify, Roth-Wells writes, "individuals must have experienced homelessness for at least a year or repeatedly, and have a disability."This weekend, no fewer than three music festivals. And two of them are brand new. The old-timer in the group is the Imagine Zero Music Festival at Fable Farm in Barnard—it debuted last year with a goal, as Alex Hanson writes in the VN, "to hold a music festival that’s fun, but also deliberate about its impact on the climate and the environment." Meanwhile, the three-day Green Mountain Reggae Festival debuts today in Bradford, VT, while the first What Doth Rumble gathering starts up tomorrow at the Main Street Museum in WRJ. Hanson covers the background, spirit, and particulars of each.“Context is about mutual shining.” Randolph native Nico Muhly is one of the composers featured in Saturday's VSO strings concert at the Chandler celebrating the seasons. And what he means by that, he tells the Herald's Isabel Dreher, is that how the audience hears each piece is affected by what came before and affects what comes after. Dreher offers up a preview, and talks to violinist Bella Hristova, who is both guest soloist and, in a way, conductor—using body language. The setup, she says, requires intense teamwork. “It’s like it becomes a living organism,” she tells Dreher.Fretting about mosquitoes and diseases? Here's what NH's state epidemiologist says. “We want people to go out and enjoy the remaining nice weather," Dr. Benjamin Chan tells NHPR, "but we want people to be aware that there is risk this season and, we believe, elevated risk for these viruses." He's talking about EEE, West Nile, and other fun viruses—which have been found mostly in southern NH because, Chan says, "that's where we have the mosquito surveillance.” What to do? Clear standing water, use bug spray, don't hang out in shaded, swampy areas... Here's DHMC on symptoms to watch for.Hiking Close to Home: Hoope's Loop, Lyme, NH. This week's suggestion from the UVTA is part of the Crossroads Academy trail system, a fun, family-friendly 1.4-mile loop that crosses Hewes Brook twice: It's a small brook during the summer and a rushing river in the wet seasons. Some hills and local views round out this lovely hike. Get to the trail from the lower building (Bancroft) field at Crossroads—95 Dartmouth College Hwy, Lyme. If you are in the Bancroft parking lot looking at the building, the trailhead is to your right into the woods.Been paying attention to Daybreak? Because Daybreak's Upper Valley News Quiz has some questions for you. Like, what's getting torn down in downtown Lebanon? And how big a whoopie pie is a Killlington bakery going to have to make next week if it wants to set a world record? Those and other vital questions at the link.But wait! How closely were you following VT and NH?
Because Seven Days wants to know if you know which TV show Olympic rugby bronze medalist and Burlington native Ilona Maher will compete on.
And NHPR's got a whole set of questions about doings around the Granite State—like, what's the forecast for New Hampshire's fall season according to the National Weather Service and NOAA?
VT’s medical aid in dying system strained by calls from non-residents. The number of out-of-state, terminally ill patients hoping to end their lives has been growing ever since VT became the first state to waive a residency requirement, reports VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak. Now, some VT palliative care physicians say they are getting calls from more patients than they can responsibly handle. And entreaties to expand the pool of physicians who'll take on such cases face tough sledding. As Lefrak writes, "Most doctors here already have more Vermont-based patients than they can handle."After years of declines, VT State University sees a jump in enrollment. It's a bit apples to oranges, because VTSU is actually new: created last year by joining the state colleges in Randolph, Lyndon, Johnson, Castleton. Still, there are 200 more degree-seeking students in this fall's freshman class than there were last year, reports Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days. And after years of turmoil at the top, VTSU under interim president David Bergh has settled into finding non-disruptive cost-saving measures, improving services, boosting online courses, and making it easier for CCV students to transfer credits.Six years on, most of VT's natural disaster mitigation plan goes unfulfilled. In all, the 2018 plan laid out 96 separate actions the state could take to address risk factors for damage from natural disasters. But in a new report, state auditor Doug Hoffer finds that only a third of them have been carried out. And as for the rest, he tells VTDigger's Peter D'Auria, “I think there’s no question that those recommendations, had they been adopted, would have made a difference in the last two years." Unfilled tasks include creating a statewide map of headwaters and sharing data among agencies.The 100 best TV episodes of all time. Well, the 1950s to now, anyway, which means at least one of your favorite shows is somewhere on this list from Rolling Stone. They run down phenomenal examples: The West Wing, “Two Cathedrals” (“theatrical, erudite, sentimental—and it all works to stunning effect”); The Bear, “Forks” ("nowhere is The Bear’s brilliance more apparent”); even the first episode of Battlestar Galactica (“set an incredibly high bar for the show that followed”). Have fun scanning the other 97—and arguing about whether #1 deserves it. And yes, I Love Lucy’s chocolate factory is in there.
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There's so much to do this weekend! For starters,
(see above) gets going today in Bradford at the fairgrounds with yoga at 11, DJ Satta Sound at noon, then the Joshua West Band, Dub Apocalypse, Coyote Island, and more. Runs tomorrow and 'til 6:15 pm Sunday.
with an opening reception for the flax art exhibit at the East Barnard Church. Tomorrow and Sunday, the fair runs from 10 am to 4 pm with weaving demos, talks by flax artists, food, and Randy Leavitt and Friends providing music on the Community Hall porch each day at noon.
The project is the Flynn's traveling back-to-school celebration, and this year it brings the Québecois acrobatic troupe Cirque Kikasse, which operates out of an unusual—but fully functional—food truck, as well as the Balkan music/New Orleans brass mashup band The West Philadelphia Orchestra. Starts up at 6 pm.
Pentangle Arts is hosting a special screening of Joe Wein's documentary, a first-hand recounting by
Steven Callahan of the two and a half months he spent trying to stay alive in an inflatable life raft in the Atlantic after a whale collided with his boat. Screening at 7:30 pm, followed by a Q&A with executive producer Robert Sennott.
Saturday
The first and second Saturdays of this month and next, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller is hosting "Run with a Ranger" for intermediate and advanced runners and trail runners: a 4.5-mile, 600’ elevation gain run through the National Historical Park's carriage roads and trails. Starts at 8 am, no charge, but you'll need to sign up at the link.
The 5K walk/run and 10K race along the White River is an annual fundraiser for Sharon Elementary's farm-to-school program. There's also a fun-run race for kids around the elementary school itself, plus music by The Seven Stars Community Fiddle Band. Things get going at 9 am, and there's registration on-site from 7:45-8:45 am if you don't do it online.
Archeologists from UVM’s Consulting Archaeology Program have been at work on the Homestead's grounds, and at 10 am tomorrow will be talking about what they found and learned from their dig. The excavation, the Homestead says, "yielded some surprising results."
with workshops at 10, music starting at 3 pm. It's two full days, with workshops on mixing, tuning, and animation tomorrow morning (and more workshops Sunday), while on two stages, as Alex Hanson put it in his VN piece, "The sheer number of bands and musical styles boggles the mind," drawing heavily from the What Doth Life collective in Windsor, but also AliT, Dylan Patrick Ward, Western Terrestrials, and more. Runs well into Sunday night.
at 11:30 at Fable Farm in Barnard. It's all day and into the night, with Path of Totality starting things off and Lakou Mizik closing them out, by way of Beecharmer, the Ben Kogan Band, Chad Hollister, Billy Wylder, The Wolff Sisters, and more. They're aiming for as little waste as possible, and running shuttles all day from Woodstock High and downtown Woodstock if you want to do your part—schedule at the link.
A documentary about Leb's Densmore Brick Company at the Kilton. Lebanon's Heritage Commission is hosting a 2:30 pm screening tomorrow of
Hand of Brick
, Stefan Van Norden's 2014 film about the company whose bricks are in everything from the Dartmouth steam plant and the VA to Claremont City Hall and St. John the Evangelist in St. J. A developer has proposed a 474-unit apartment complex at the site of the old brickyard. No link, but City Historian Nicole Ford Burley
.
The Upper Valley Circus Collective hosts the popular troupe, no stranger to the Upper Valley, for this show of aerialists, jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, clowns, and more putting their own twist on the folktales, stories, and novels they love. There's a three-hour workshop with Cirque Us's ace performers at noon; show begins at 5 pm. Half the profits go to Plainfield Elementary's Class of 2025.
By the time you take your seat for the performances starting at 7 pm tomorrow, the writers, directors, and actors behind the ten-minute plays you'll be seeing will have spent most of the past 24 hours writing, envisioning, creating, and rehearsing them. From scratch. As the organizers put it, "Witness the magic of theater as teams work against the clock to bring these new works to life on stage."
Violinist Bella Hristova leads the VSO's strings through music that spans the five Vermont seasons, with compositions from natives Nico Muhly and Pete Sutherland to compositions by Astor Piazzolla, Florence Price, Antonio Vivaldi, and more. Starts at 7:30 pm.
Here's hoping the clouds cooperate: With the help of the Springfield Telescope Makers of the Stellafane Observatory in Springfield, VT, it's an evening of stargazing. Things actually get going at 6 pm with lawn games and an evening hike, then an astronomy presentation at 7:30 pm and, at 8:30, the Stellafane folks will have their telescopes—often hand-made—available for peering through. If you bring a flashlight, make sure its beam is red, not white.
Sunday
Joshua Brown, music director at the Norwich Congregational Church, will play a program focused on music written and inspired by English musicians, featuring works by Stainer, Howells, Carter, and Mendelssohn.
4 pm, no reservations needed, reception to follow.
And to set us up for the weekend...
Classical guitarists Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli have broad tastes: In concert, they'll perform everything from Bach and Debussy to tango. Now, though, they've got a new album out devoted to the music of one of their countrymen, Domenico Scarlatti.
Have a fine weekend, and 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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