GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
You've heard of shoulder seasons? Today's a shoulder day. We started out a bit below freezing and will rise into the upper 40s by early afternoon. Mostly sunny all day, though clouds will start building in late, ahead of a warm, wet system we'll be dealing with tomorrow. Lows tonight only around freezing.Raptors!
For starters, here's a magnificent red-shouldered hawk Cynthia Crawford photographed near the Norwich-Thetford line. It had taken off after being harassed by crows. Recent discussion on birding lists, she writes, "suggests there are several in the area overwintering this year."
And here's a snowy owl being released up in Irasburg, VT last week by VINS staffers and VT Fish & Wildlife warden Jake Johnson. Johnson had brought it in in late January after it was found in a manure pile—no clue why it was there. Oh, that towel you see? Owls like to tear them apart.
Coming to VT town meetings next week... Everything from filling in an underground sidewalk vault in Bradford to a bid in Chelsea to withdraw from the First Branch Unified School District to some contested selectboard races in Thetford. The Valley News's roundup is only in the "e-edition": Hit the link, then the little "Editions" icon over on the right, then Sunday's paper. Meanwhile, Claire Potter takes a look at the debates in Hartford and Woodstock over legalizing the retail sale of cannabis, which will also be on the ballot March 1. Jeopardy!-famous... That would be retired Dartmouth prof Tom Cormen, who last week appeared in a clue (for $1200, no less) on the famous game show: "Thomas Cormen, who wrote 'Introduction to' these, taught his last computer science class at Dartmouth in 2019 after 27 years." He's also Susan Apel's neighbor, so naturally she got in touch with him to ask, "Wait, what?" Turns out it has to do with a textbook he wrote, which has sold a million copies and whose fourth edition is due out in April. And now he's Artful-famous...SPONSORED: Make sure your ideas are included in the next community health improvement plan! Join your local hospitals and public health network in a virtual conversation about the Upper Valley’s most pressing health needs (like access to mental health care, cost of healthcare, childcare…) Come to listen and learn, or bring your ideas and make your voice heard. There are two options to join the conversation: This Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 9 AM and Wednesday, March 2 at 5:30 PM. Registration required. Follow the link to register. Sponsored by Community Health, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health."I had ethereal experiences at dusk on mountaintops with the clouds surging..." Chris Rimmer is retiring later this year from the VT Center for Ecostudies, and in the VN Claire Potter profiles him and his work: from budding classicist to ornithology researcher at VINS to founding executive director at VCE, a risky venture that Rimmer calls "the best move we ever made." In his 15 years there, Potter writes, the budget quadrupled from $500,000 to about $2 million and its research and outreach efforts expanded. But for Rimmer, the best times were always in the field, studying mountaintop birds.Why are Hartford and Lebanon "expected to be the seemingly sole solution to the housing issues in the Upper Valley"? That was a Wilder resident in an email to neighbors on Twin Pines' proposed low-income housing project next to The Haven; the town planning board rejected it. In the VN, Jim Kenyon notes that of the 25 properties Twin Pines lists in the region, 20 of them are in Hartford or Lebanon. This makes sense to service providers, but for neighbors of the latest proposed project, Kenyon finds, enough's enough.Springfield prison in full lockdown after Covid cases spike. The move came after testing Friday found 45 inmates at Southern State Correctional Facility with the illness, reports WCAX. Officials say none of them have serious symptoms, and that there are no cases among the geriatric population.Walpole NH man killed in police shooting. The NH Attorney General's office yesterday identified him as 57-year-old Christopher Tkal. State police responded to a 911 call late Saturday night "and an encounter ensued with a resident inside the home, identified as Tkal," reports the Union Leader's Paul Feely. Responding troopers had no body cams or cruiser cameras, and police say no further information will be released until later this week.First a sled ride. Then 30 pounds of fish. Then a bus to the ocean... You may remember the story last month about a group of ten loons that were trapped by ice on Lake Winnipesaukee. They'd been found by a group of skaters, and their report eventually made it to NH's Loon Preservation Committee, which mounted a rescue effort. VPR's Lexi Krupp tells the story of what happened next and why it mattered.“That might have been the best race of my entire life, I’m not going to lie." XC skier Jessie Diggins won the silver medal in the 30-kilometer women's freestyle this weekend despite contending with the aftermath of food poisoning. In case you're keeping track, VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor rounds up the medals for Olympians with VT ties of one sort or another: two for Diggins, two for snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis (who, like Diggins, went to Stratton), one for downhiller Ryan Cochran-Siegle of Starksboro, and one for aerial skier Megan Nick of Shelburne."I feel like I'm entering into a relationship with something that's as alive as I am. It has a language, like I do." That's renowned baker Jeffrey Hamelman talking about wood-fired ovens. He helped get a community oven in Hartland off the ground, and last fall, researcher Amy Brooks Thornton talked with him and three other wood-fired oven bakers—in MA; Alstead, NH; and Norwich—about their experiences: physical, emotional, communal. She's compiled a video of those conversations on everything from harnessing fire to baking bread and pizza to how ovens bring people together.So frustrating! This is one heck of a New Hampshire jigsaw puzzle, but check out the bottom right, posted by Reddit user MesaVerde87...
Heads Up
At 5:30 pm, the Rockefeller Center brings in former HHS secretary (and Dartmouth alum) Alex Azar for a lecture called, "Operation Warp Speed: Lessons from the Most Successful and Important Public-Private Partnership Since the Apollo Project." As HHS secretary in the Trump administration, Azar helped spearhead the government's effort to spur the development of Covid vaccines. The lecture will be both in-person in Filene Auditorium and livestreamed.
Some of you get today off, others of us... Well, let's get the week off to a rousing start with rock pioneer Fats Domino in 1957 and "Blue Monday," which he popularized and which became one of the first R&B songs to make the Billboard charts. (Thanks, DG!)
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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