GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warming up. There's a warm front coming in on winds from the southwest to kick off a seasonable week, and with few clouds to speak of out there we'll be rising quickly through the 20s and 30s this morning into the low or mid 40s this afternoon. Back down to around freezing tonight.Snowcupines. After last week's storm, Clyde Watson sent in two videos from Hanover. "Three Porcupines Arguing Over How to Clear the Entry," she titled the first. They're a bit far away, but you'll get the idea. The second, "Last One In..." is a closeup of the last of the three making progress toward its den.There were some key town decisions over the weekend. For instance:
A packed Cornish Town Meeting on Saturday agreed by just 12 votes, 268-256, to go ahead and take over the town's closed general store and refurbish it, turning it into a library and community center. The debate over whether to save and renovate the current Stowell Library or to accept resident Colleen O’Neill's donation of the general store was civil, reports Patrick O'Grady in the Valley News, despite months of argument leading up to it. Town Moderator Gwyn Gallagher, writes O'Grady, "had the votes hand-counted three times before the final result was announced."
Meanwhile, in Croydon, voters turned out in numbers on Saturday to approve the school budget—thus avoiding a repeat of last year's sparsely attended school district meeting that resulted in the budget being halved. Along the way this time, voters rejected proposals both to cut the budget and to boost it—that one from Free State Project member Ian Underwood, reports Alex Hanson in the VN. It was Underwood whose budget-cutting move last year touched off Croydon's turn in the national spotlight.
And in Enfield, voters opted not to devote a portion of the town's land use change tax for the specific use of the Conservation Commission (which had proposed using it for trail and rec area maintenance), and nixed a proposal to designate 100 acres of town-owned land as a town forest, reports the VN's Liz Sauchelli.
On Thursday last week, Buddy Teevens was on his bicycle in St. Augustine, FL when "it was involved in a collision," Dartmouth Sports said in a Saturday press release. "He remains in a hospital in the St. Augustine area, where his family has a home," the release went on. "As Teevens recovers, the family is not accepting visitors at this time." The
VN'
s Tris Wykes
of Teevens' bicycling enthusiasm, including a ride to Michigan to meet his family for vacation, and a 2007 cross-country trip with Dartmouth receivers coach David Shula.
"My dad, who was a big nerd, signed me up for a comics class that I think he wanted to take himself." And that, Norwich resident and newly named Vermont cartoonist laureate Tillie Walden tells Vermont Public's Connor Cyrus, is how she got into art. Last week, they talked over her move to VT from TX, living as a lesbian artist in the state—"When you have any marginalized identity, and you're somewhere where you're allowed to relax...then your identity almost becomes secondary, and you really start just living your life," she says—and what she calls her "messy" creative process."He made film feel accessible.” That's the Hop's current film director, Sydney Stowe, talking about her predecessor, Bill Pence, who died in December. In the VN, Alex Hanson gives Pence the obituary he didn't get at the time—"he was a private person," Hanson writes. He pays especially close attention to Pence's role as a co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival—“We wanted to create a festival that ordinary people who loved movies could go to,” he said in 2007—to the close ties between the festival and Dartmouth, and to Pence's influence on filmmaking generally and the fine points of film screening in these parts.Where are all the birds? Every year, NH Audubon crowdsources a Winter Backyard Bird Survey, and people reporting in have noticed fewer birds at feeders than in the past. So senior biologist Pam Hunt took to the group's website to explain that while there is, in fact, concern about avian flu and long-term bird declines, year-to-year variation can depend on everything from food available in different parts of the state to flocks preferring one neighborhood to another. "If you’re concerned about seeing fewer birds, consider the many reasons they might be absent from your yard this winter," she writes.VT auditor finds long delays, lack of explanation in state paving projects. The problem, state Auditor Douglas Hoffer said in a report last week, lies in project planning. Overall, his office found, "VTrans delayed the completion of preliminary engineering for [more complex] projects by as much as 3 to 6 years and could not fully explain what caused the delays." In general, construction itself "came in within cost and schedule requirements specified in the contract." VT Public summary at the burgundy link, full report here. "I think you’d be like, Deserted Horse Barn Place." Independent radio producer Erica Heilman went for a five-hour ride with her snowplow guy in E. Calais last week. In addition to running a plowing business for the last couple of decades, Brooke Howe is a farrier and mason. Driving around in his 2018 GMC Sierra, they talk about nicknames for customers, his backing-up skills —"I've creamed so many things," he says—working with no financial safety net, and plowing in the dark when snow is falling. Erica: "Wait a minute. This is a driveway?" Brooke: "Yeah, this is. This is one of the worst. This thing sucks."
And speaking of horses... The World Photography Organisation has announced open competition winners and various short lists for its Sony World Photography Awards and Zhenhuan Zhou's photo of a horse braking in an Alberta barrel-racing competition is clearly one of the standouts. But really, the whole thing is a feast for the eyes, with photos from all over the world. My Modern Met's compilation at the burgundy link, but if you want to get lost for an hour or two, here's where you can check out the full winner and short list galleries—from architecture to landscapes to people and animals in motion.The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
And to start off the week....Let's go slowly, with Berlin-based Argentinian cellist and composer (and Grammy nominee) Sebastian Plano, who tends to like recording multiple tracks through the night in his apartment. Here he's opted for a studio, though it's still all him, with "Prelude to a Soul."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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