Daybreak Monday 3/15/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

"Ineffective sunshine." They sure know how to throw shade, those weather people... It'll be getting sunnier as the morning goes on, but we're not going to feel it: Those northwest winds yesterday and last night and the cold front that moved through sent temps and wind chills plunging. We should get up into the low 20s, but winds remain persistent. Down into the low single digits tonight, ahead of a warming trend tomorrow. Ice out. Or at least, downriver. On Friday, Mary Kay and Dennis Brown happened to be on the Ralph Lehman Bridge in WRJ (that's the one by Town Hall) as an entire river-full of broken-up ice on the White flowed out to the Connecticut. It was a sight. By Saturday, the river was just free-flowing water.It's been 64 years. But last week, for the first time since the Hartford Woolen Mill shut down in 1957, a wool processing facility in WRJ got switched on, went about its picking, carding, and spinning, and eventually turned out 1,100 yards of yarn. The new Junction Fiber Mill, writes John Lippman in the Valley News, is a venture by Savage Hart sheep farmer Peggy Allen and her business partner, Amanda Kievet, who used to work at Ibex clothing. There's a shortage of yarn-processing capacity for sheep farmers in VT, and the pair aim to help fix that.  D-H relaxes visitor guidelines, a little. Starting today at its various Lebanon and Lyme facilities, the hospital system will let visitors back in on a limited basis: one visitor at a time for adults, two for pediatric patients, and three for patients in end-of-life care. One visitor can go along for an outpatient appointment, as well. Details at the link.This could get interesting: Dartmouth student gets proposed Hanover zoning change on town meeting warrant. The measure, reports the Union Leader's Damien Fisher, would essentially boost the the number of unrelated people allowed in rental units. It's garnered enough signatures to qualify for the warrant this summer, and is due a planning board hearing tomorrow. Town Manager Julia Griffin tells Fisher that Hanover already has problems with overcrowding in neighborhoods near campus. “When that kind of proposal comes through, it sets off all sorts of alarm bells," she says. (Paywall alert.)SPONSORED: Explore the grace and flow of Belly Dance. Free online intro classes with Gina Capossela, Tuesday, March 16 through Saturday, March 20. All shapes, sizes, ages (12+) and ability levels welcome and encouraged. Learn an entire dance and become a belly dancer in just one hour! Over the past 20 years, Gina has taught thousands of Upper Valley women to belly dance and she can teach you, too. Hit the maroon link for details, or email [email protected]. Sponsored by Gina Capossela.The goal? Create a “flavorful tortilla chip that doesn’t break in guacamole.” And that, the VN's Lippman reports, is what Sharon native (and now Brooklynite) Zack Gazzaniga has accomplished with Zack's Mighty Organic Tortilla Chips. It took sourcing Flint corn from Italy and convincing two farms in upstate NY to grow it; finding a processor in California that would bake, cut, and then fry chips to his specs; and raising $3.6 million in startup capital. Now his chips are available at the Co-op...and over 600 stores in seven states.At least we know what'll come after the "1"...  In both VT and NH, land line users will have to start using the 802 or 603 area codes at some point this year or next even to dial locally. This is because a new national suicide prevention hotline is starting up, which people will get to by dialing 988. But 988 also happens to be a telephone exchange in any number of states (it's Portsmouth in NH; Troy—and Jay Peak—in VT). So to avoid confusing telephone switches, area codes (and, for non-local toll calls, 1 + the area code) will be required. David Brooks explains it all in the Monitor. My head hurts already.Your bird feeders? Time to take them in. Even during the day. That's the word from Andrew Timmins, the black bear project leader for NH Fish and Game. “It’s critically important that people be responsible. This warm weather is really going to jump-start things, particularly in the southern part of the state," he tells the Union Leader's Shawn Wickham. Timmins adds that though bears generally feed at night, they're also smart, so just taking feeders in at night isn't effective: "They’re simply going to realize, hey, I’ve just got to start coming here during the day.” Wickham talks alternatives with Audubon's Rebecca Suomala.Is NH flying cars' last hope? "The roadable aircraft has been on a wobbly trajectory since its inception in 1917," writes Bill Donahue in Bloomberg, and it got even wobblier in February when the Massachusetts company that was the first to get an FAA air-worthiness certificate for its flying car laid off half its workers and said it was pivoting. Now, however, thanks to the bill last year that made "roadable aircraft" street-legal in NH, what's left of the industry is looking to the Granite State as a test site. And turns out that one company, Pal-V, has a showroom right at Manchester Airport. Yours for just $390K.“I started to understand why people are alcoholics or addicted to drugs.” That is Jessie Diggins, the new women's xc ski World Cup champion, talking about her struggle with bulimia in her late teens. She's been talking to the press and taking advantage of her new fame to press the causes she cares about, including attention to eating disorders. "I have a much bigger platform," she says, "and I’ve found myself thinking, ‘I have to do something with this.’ If there’s a way I can make a difference, then I want to try.” VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor looks at Diggins's efforts and her new memoir.“You can’t really ask a second-grader who [they] spent recess with." That makes it hard to trace contacts and isolate kids who've been exposed to Covid, which may be one reason Vermont has seen more outbreaks at elementary schools than middle schools or high schools. VTDigger has put together outbreak data it collected from the state for the school year so far; it shows there were at least 14 outbreaks in December, 11 in January and 17 in February. Lola Duffort parses what the numbers tell us, noting that most school-based outbreaks appear to have been small.Now this is a triathlon. First you ski 1,000 miles over sea ice. Then you paddle a network of rivers and lakes for another 1,200 miles. Finally, you bike the remaining 2,400 miles. And then you'll have done the longest north-to-south crossing of Canada ever attempted. Yesterday, Guillaume Moreau and Nicolas Roulx flew to Resolute Bay, in the Canadian far north. From there, a Twin Otter will take them to a weather station farther up Ellesmere Island...where they'll head south and, they hope, wind up in Point Pelee National Park in southern Ontario seven months from now.There are drone videos...and then there's this. You may have seen this already because it's, like, everywhere. But that's because it deserves to be. As part of a project to document businesses in Minneapolis threatened by the pandemic, drone operator Jay Christensen featured the Bryant Lake Bowl & Theater—using a racing drone that starts outside, swoops inside, careens across lanes and back around the innards and through the bar and inches away from bowlers. It took 10 tries, but the result is an 87-second single-shot whirlwind. Oh, and at the end? Don't worry. The drone survived.

So... Let's catch up.

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You know, it's a Monday. And sometimes on a cold Monday with the wind howling out there you just need to seize the day right off. So here's the St. Petersburg (Russia)-based Divertissement Chamber Orchestra

from Summer in Vivaldi's 

Four Seasons

.

See you tomorrow.

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