Daybreak Monday 2/1/21

RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!

Yep: Snow tonight! We're not getting the totals they're expecting in unappreciative spots like Philly and northern NJ, but still... As we wait for the storm to move up the coast, the day will start out cold and mostly sunny, with winds picking up, clouds moving in, and temps getting into the high 20s over the course of the day. Snow might reach us early in the evening, but if not it'll be here overnight. Winds from the east, temps steady overnight.And what will those totals look like? Storm tracks change, but at the moment, heaviest snow in VT will be in Windsor and eastern Rutland counties, in NH in Grafton County and points east and south. Here are the National Weather Service's expected total maps for:

Sometimes, patience is its own reward. This barred owl has been hanging out in Zara Downs' yard in Etna for several weeks, and she finally got a chance to photograph it. "Just dumb luck," she writes. "My phone over a telescope lens."Three minutes and ten seconds. Etna's Jim Block didn't get much time to photograph a flock of waxwings—mostly Bohemian and one Cedar, visitors from the far north—that settled in his yard before some trucks rumbled by and annoyed them. But he made the most of it.“I’ve never seen anything like it.” That's Alan DiStasio, president of Four Season Sotheby's in Hanover, talking to the Valley News's John Lippman about the Upper Valley's version of the pandemic-driven home-buying surge. The number of homes sold and the rise in median prices set records throughout the region in 2020 (except Lebanon, where home sales rose but median prices fell). Lippman notes two dampers for the coming year: falling inventory and prices rising faster than household income, which is putting houses increasingly out of reach for locals. Dartmouth reverses course, reinstates teams it cut. Since last summer, the college had insisted that its decision to axe men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing, and men’s and women’s swimming and diving was final. Then came a Title IX lawsuit contending that by cutting the women's teams, the college fell out of compliance with federal law. In a campus-wide email Friday, President Phil Hanlon wrote that “elements of the data that Athletics used to confirm continued Title IX compliance may not have been complete.” The Dartmouth gives the details, plus the legal settlement.Norwich police chief headed to Windsor. Jen Frank, Norwich's popular police chief for the past two years, will take over the Windsor department—where she was school resource officer before moving north—in March, reports the VN's John Gregg. She'll replace Bill Sampson, who's headed to a department in MA; his last day was Friday. Frank is the second Norwich chief to move on to Windsor: Steve Soares served as Norwich chief from 2001-4 then four years as town manager, before taking the Windsor chief's job. In an email to Gregg, Frank said, "In many ways it feels like I am coming home.""Butcher and Pantry second, Brownsville first." By now, Brownsville Butcher & Pantry is a going thing, an everyday stop for locals, popular with visitors, a re-envisioned general store that over the last few years has forged its own unusual path. Getting there took vision and the rolled-up sleeves not just of owners Lauren Stevens and Peter Varkonyi, but of Brownsville and W. Windsor. On his "Vermontrepreneur" podcast, UVM's Jordan Rowell talks to Stevens and Varkonyi about what it takes to start a business on a tight budget and to keep a grocery/café going during the pandemic.120 paintings from March to December. So what do you do if your store takes it in the knees during the pandemic? Learn to paint, of course. At least, that's what Sally Wright Bacon, owner of OODLES, the eclectic art, furniture, jewelry, and clothing store in WRJ's Tip Top Building, did. "I would paint 12/15 hrs a day. Every day. I was obsessed. I was filled with joy and determination," she tells Artful blogger Susan Apel. "I wanted to paint things that would make people smile. Feel good. Even laugh."New London Barn Playhouse aims to expand in both space and time. The 89-year-old theater company, reports the VN's Alex Hanson, today launches the public phase of a fundraising effort that has already netted $2.7 million. Its goal: physical improvements, including improved parking, a new courtyard, and larger costume shop; and creating a year-round Center for Artistic Development that would allow for education programs, small productions, readings, and other public presentations beyond the summer months. Monoclonal antibody treatment available around NH... except here. The treatment, used to help fight symptoms in seriously ill Covid patients, has been used some 350 times in NH, reports the Union Leader's Mark Hayward. But officials at DHMC, unconvinced of its effectiveness, have held off. Acting chief medical officer Jonathan Huntington points out that national organizations, including NIH, do not recommend its routine use, and it has not been shown to help patients avoid the ICU or death. “We continue to follow the data closely, and we may adopt new policies as new studies are released,” he says."If you doubt elections have consequences, just look up the bills before the House Education Committee this week." In a column, InDepthNH's Garry Rayno points out that just a couple of months ago, Concord's focus was on a school funding commission's report calling for a major overhaul of how state education aid is determined. Now, the legislature is about to launch hearings on a new school voucher bill that would make vouchers available to nearly all parents with children in public, charter, and private schools—with, Rayno believes, a strong likelihood of passage.VT legislature takes step toward overturning Act 250 executive order. On Friday, the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee voted 5-0 to block Gov. Phil Scott's controversial order to consolidate the state's nine regional development review commissions into a single professional board. The committee's recommendation will come to the full Senate floor this week. State law requires only one chamber to overrule an executive order and the Senate resolution, writes Seven Days' Kevin McCallum, presumes only one chamber is needed. Scott, however, contends the law is unconstitutional. Stay tuned.VT towns wing it on town meeting. “The riskiest thing right now is to hold a floor meeting,” Will Senning, the state’s director of elections, tells VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor, and though the secretary of state's office does have guidelines on how to do so if a town decides to go ahead, it also "strongly encourages" them not to. Some towns are moving questions usually decided from the floor to a ballot; others will hold balloting on officeholders in March but floor debate on everything else sometime in the spring. The state's allowing only Brattleboro to debate and make decisions online.Four months in two minutes. Ever wonder what it looks like to deconstruct a dam? Swiftwater Films has a timelapse (via Outside) of the months of work dismantling the Nooksack Dam on the Middle Fork of Washington’s Nooksack River. Lots of big yellow machinery moving a lot faster than it does in real life."Unappreciative?" Hah! DC already got this storm, and the National Zoo's giant pandas are clearly snow enthusiasts.

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Before the snow comes, let's just go far away for a moment... A midsummer's evening in Sweden,

 It's haunting.

(Viewer discretion advised: brief cows-being-cows moment). (Thanks, ML!)

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