GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Chilly, blustery, snow showers ending. They may be done here, but it looks like they'll be continuing throughout the day elsewhere, especially in the Northeast Kingdom. Otherwise, more clouds than sun, and we're due winds from the northwest throughout the day with gusts into the 40 mph range. Highs today in the mid or upper 30s, down into the lower 20s tonight.So yes, there were power outages. At one point yesterday morning some 25,000 households were without power in VT, especially in Orange, Washington, and Rutland counties. That figure's down to about 2,200 now, mostly along or just east of the Greens.
And there are several hundred NH Electric Coop customers without power in Orford and Piermont, along with scattered outages elsewhere. Other utilities are reporting just a handful.
And while we got some snow, it was the mountains that really got hit. The link goes to the Weather Service's snow total map (enter, say, Williamstown VT or Pinkham Notch in the search field at top). It's behind—its latest figures are from yesterday morning, but just add 7-10 inches for last night's mountain snowfall. For the most drama, move the time slider to the past 36 hours.Spending measures pass in school meetings in Lyme, Cornish.
Lyme's vote last Thursday in favor of a $2.6 million bond for renovations at the Lyme School overrode the recommendation of the town budget committee, which had seen an earlier, less complete presentation by the school board. The renovations, reports the Valley News's Frances Mize, will include lead and asbestos removal, new HVAC systems, and upgraded security systems.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, writes Patrick O'Grady in the VN, Cornish voters approved a $5.4 million budget. Voters also backed creating a committee to study creating a shared district and middle-school consolidation with Plainfield.
What's it take to get people to town meeting "so that it doesn't take something going wrong to get people really engaged"?
That's the question Hanover town manager Alex Torpey has been pursuing. You may remember
after talking to towns in both NH and VT. Now NHPR's Rick Ganley speaks with him about the effort. It can be something as simple as sending out a postcard with highlights of what's coming up at town meeting, he says. Town reports "are pretty long. Ours in Hanover is a couple hundred pages. It's a lot to ask someone to read cover to cover."
Trooper identified in Bethel crash. On Friday on I-89, a fire truck was at the scene of an accident just north of Exit 3, when it was struck by a VT state trooper who was on his way to first aid training at VSP headquarters. The trooper, 19-year veteran Eric Vitali, was airlifted to DHMC with serious injuries. “The firetruck was there as a blocker,” Bethel fire chief David Aldrighetti told the VN. “But then the fact that the rescue equipment was there and firefighters were able to act in literally 30 seconds are factors that went a good way for a really unfortunate situation.” NBC5 video at the burgundy link.Behind We The People's upcoming play, a little knot of Thetfordites. The musical, Something Rotten, opens April 5 at the Briggs, and though it's got a cast and crew from all over, in Sidenote, Li Shen notes that five of them are from Thetford—including producing artistic director Perry Allison and Gove Hill's Enrique Polletta, who's constructing a significant part of the set in his barn, designed to fit into a box truck. Allison tells her that, in the wake of the company's pandemic hiatus, its original ensemble of actors is back, as well as a new generation of younger actors.Icy conditions at Tuckerman's Saturday prove deadly. A 20-year-old skier, Madison Saltsburg, died after falling some 600 feet down the bowl, and two others suffered traumatic injuries after falling into rocks and ice. Search efforts "continued for hours in the dark as teams worked to rescue the injured skiers and remove Saltsburg’s body from the mountain," reports the AP's Nick Perry. Conditions were especially treacherous, Jeff Fongemie, director of Mount Washington Avalanche Center, tells WMUR, after a week of rain and warmth gave way to freezing temps.Elsewhere in the Whites, two rescues.
The first was on Thursday evening, when a 23-year-old from Kentucky fell while bushwacking off the Amonoosuc Ravine Trail,"hit his head and face, lost one of his sneakers, and became hypothermic," reports NH Fish & Game. Rescuers found him at about 10:30 pm. Other than that reference to his sneakers, the agency merely notes that he "was not prepared for the hike."
Then, on Friday evening, a woman from Montreal whose group had set out after 10 am to do the Franconia Ridge Loop fell while descending the Falling Waters Trail. She and a companion had been left behind by the rest of the group, and were trying to navigate the trail without headlamps. Another hiker who found them gave them extra clothing and a sleeping pad to lie on while they waited for rescuers. "It is imperative that you prepare yourself for the outdoors," Fish & Game writes.
Amphibian crossings happening unusually early this year. In fact, writes Amanda Gokee in the Globe's NH newsletter (no paywall), their Feb. 28 start date was the second-earliest on record; in 2017, the first recorded was on Feb. 25. She talks to Brett Amy Thelen, science director of the Harris Center for Conservation Education, about how salamanders and wood frogs stay alive through the winter, why they migrate to water, and how the center tracks road crossings—amphibians generally follow the same path every year. Here's the Harris Center's daily forecast for whether amphibians will be on the move.Cross-border knitting. Hannah Miller, who teaches at VT State-Johnson, is "on a quest to read and write and knit in all of Vermont's public libraries," and recently got to #22 on her list: the Haskell Free Library in Derby Line (and Stanstead, QC), which, as you probably know, straddles the border. Seven Days filmmaker Eva Sollberger went along for her latest episode of Stuck in Vermont—so, among other things, you can see the border line running along the library floor, meet librarian Natalie Mercier, who speaks English on one side, French on the other, and get a tour from acting director Evelyne Crevier.The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
At 6:30 this evening, the Etna Library presents a talk by Margo Burns at Trumbull Hall in Etna, "Saturday Morning Cartoons: Yogi, Bugs, Bullwinkle & Big Business in the 1960s." Burns, who studied animation, will talk about how the advent of television led animation studios to shift their focus from movies to the small screen, and Madison Avenue advertising execs to discover the lucrative market children represented. The result was Saturday morning. Burns will tell that story—alongside clips from some cartoon classics.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts Wisconsin-based gardener and herbalist Jane Hawley Stevens. She'll be talking about her new book, The Celestial Garden: Growing Herbs, Vegetables, and Flowers in Sync with the Moon and Zodiac. Which pretty much sums it up.
Oh, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble goes the pan...Back in 1947, Margaret MacArthur and her husband, John, moved to Marlboro, VT after he got a job teaching there. Margaret, who'd gotten involved in the folk song revival while living in Chicago, turned her attention to Vermont—especially after she began teaching music and decided her students needed to learn about their own musical traditions. She taught herself to play the dulcimer and then the harp-zither, began collecting old folk songs, recorded Folksongs of Vermont for Folkways, and became a renowned and much-loved performer, collector, and folklorist. She died in 2006. Among the songs in her collection at the Vermont Folklife Center (and in the Library of Congress) is "Maple Sweet", written by the Reverend Perrin B. Fiske in 1858. It seems perfect for right now. At the link, Megan and Dan MacArthur (two of Margaret's grown kids) perform an a cappella version. (Thanks, DP!)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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