GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Showers still likely. At least until mid-afternoon, maybe later, as a low pressure system circulates through the region. Cool temps have been producing snow above 2,000 feet. In the valleys, we're looking at highs today that pretty much won't budge from whatever you woke up to—low or mid 40s. Mostly cloudy all day, winds from the northwest, down into the mid 30s tonight."I keep thinking dragons." That's what Corlan Johnson writes about the long-necked snags that she encounters rearing over the Ompompanoosuc.Just a reminder that Hartford's VA Cutoff Bridge closes for two weeks starting today. Crews will be tying the new bridge that's been built over the White River alongside the old one into Route 14. The new bridge is tentatively scheduled to open Oct. 28, and over the next two weeks there'll only be pedestrian access. Detour map at the link.Two Bradford VT selectboard members step down. Selectboard chair Ryan Lockwood and member Nikki Stevens submitted separate resignations at the board meeting last Thursday, reports the Journal-Opinion's Alex Nuti-de Biasi. "The Selectboard seems to have no plan forward concerning the future of Bradford," wrote Lockwood, who became chair earlier this year. "We seem to be content to focus on signing training requests and liquor permits...rather than using our limited time to focus on the larger issues, such as economic development, housing and the betterment of the community as a whole."Upper Valley standup: “It’s becoming a scene." That's Kieran Campion, the guy behind Sawtooth Kitchen, talking to Marion Umpleby in the Valley News about the rise and fall and rise of comedy in the region. Though the Woolen Mill's been around since 2014, stand-up venues took a hit after the Engine Room in WRJ closed and open mic nights at Salt Hill ended. Now, though, Sawtooth has made Wednesdays a regular night, the Dartmouth Comedy Network is in full swing, there's a biweekly open mic at Bright Side Brewing at the Leb airport, the Lebanon Opera House continues to book comics, the Woolen Mill's annual VT Comedy Festival hits its third year...SPONSORED: October is AMERICANA month at Smith's. The estate of Henry Page of Gilmanton will be featured in our live and online sales this month. Henry was a master craftsman, known for his skill in producing replicas of Early American antiques using 18th & 19th C. woodworking techniques. He also restored exceptional period antiques for pieces that reside in museum collections. This is your chance to own a piece of exquisite history from his personal collection. Auction preview today and tomorrow from 10-4, ahead of the Live Auction Wednesday at 10am. Sponsored by Wm. Smith Auctions.A LISTEN thrift store shirt commands the global spotlight. The shirt with a tiger print is pretty much Victor Ambros's favorite, and after the Hartland native won the Nobel Prize in Medicine last week, it made the interview rounds with him. "He wears it every three days after it goes through the wash," his wife, Candy Lee, posted Friday on the Upper Valley VT/NH Facebook group. "Thank you to the person who donated it! It has become a topic in almost every interview he gives." Even better, it looks like a group member may have found Wally Vaine, Ambros's old fourth-grade teacher. Thanks, HHC!"Basically, all day, every day, I think of different ways to melt ice cubes." But not next month. Next month, Woodstock's Jacob Chalif, a Dartmouth grad student who studies ice core samples in search of clues to atmospheres of the past, will head to Antarctica to help study four-million-year-old ice. In the VT Standard, Tess Hunter profiles Chalif and his work. “In every single location that we’ve ever gotten into an ice core, we see undeniable fingerprints of human pollution," he tells her. "We see lead at Denali. We see mercury in ice cores from the Alps from Roman smelting..." Chalif explains the science and what's ahead for him in Antarctica.W. Windsor sends its historic cannon back to Massachusetts. For decades, the cannon—probably cast in Sweden in the 17th or early 18th century and maybe used on a Dutch ship plying the CT River—sat in front of W. Windsor town hall and got fired off every July 4 by Danny Knowles. Knowles was the guy who brought it to town, after finding it—he liked to tell people—when he was a police officer in Hampden, MA and chasing a suspect through the woods. As VT Public's Howard Weiss-Tisman reports, though, the town has sent it back in Hampden. "It’s just something that was stolen stuck on the front lawn of town hall," says selectboard chair Mark Higgins.Now that the NH legislature has overriden the governor's veto on a cyanobacteria bill, what's next? The measure, sponsored by Salem GOP Rep. Lorie Ball, limits the use of certain phosphorus-containing fertilizers; it was one of two bills the legislature last week enacted into law over Gov. Chris Sununu's veto. In NH Bulletin, Claire Sullivan explains what the bill does—both in restricting fertilizers that might run into streams and ponds and in requiring a state education effort on the issue—and what might happen next: Legislators are eyeing other bills. The state's issued 66 cyanobacteria warnings this year.Does VT need regional government? Peter Gregory, who runs the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee planning commission in Woodstock, sure thinks so. “Some of the smaller towns are really struggling," he tells VTDigger's Corey McDonald. "It’s just one thing after another.” The chairs of a new legislative study committee looking into the question think so, too. "We keep hearing over and over again [that] municipalities are struggling to have the resources they need," says one. McDonald dives into whether shared services—more than a town can muster on its own, but less than statewide—might help."I don’t know what I did to this mountain, but it wants me dead." That would be NH's Mt. Guyot, which for the second time in his life Maine AT thru-hiker Rusty Foster summited in freezing-cold rain and high winds. In August. Foster, a media blogger who's hiking the trail south, is writing about the experience for The Washington Post (gift link), and his feelings about NH and VT are summed up in the headline of his latest update: "The agony of New Hampshire, the ecstasy of Vermont." The NH mountains, he writes, "were huge and relentless." VT, by contrast, is "a wrinkly land, with every climb containing numerous smaller ups and downs." Thanks AC, JL, CJ!The Monday jigsaw. "Round barns have a special charm," writes the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross about this week's puzzle subject. "This was a round barn near the intersection of Academy Road in Union Village and Rt. 132"—where Sweetland Farm is now. The barn is gone, but there are still two good examples nearby, he adds: in Strafford, VT and in Piermont, NH. Here's an aerial photo of the barn and surroundings from 1962.
And let's just ease into the week.With acoustic finger-picking master Tommy Emmanuel and a new piece of his, "Angelina".See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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