Daybreak Monday 4/13/20

WELL MET, UPPER VALLEY!

This is going to be one of those April weeks. To start, we get a low pressure system courtesy of the Mississippi River Valley by way of the Great Lakes, pushing warm air ahead and trailing cold air behind. Today, as you may have noticed, that means rain, lasting all day. It'll be windy, with gusts over 30 mph this afternoon (GMP's warning of possible outages). Temps could cross 60 in mid-afternoon, then fall into the higher 30s overnight as things dry out.You remember last week's Super Pink Moon? Named for pink phlox (which miraculously seems to bloom in April in other places) not for the color of the moon itself. Only, Andrea Miller got this pic of it, and you tell me...Okay, let's do a little catching up from the weekend...

The bind for essential workers: They want to stay home but they need to work. "Any place where people are is not a safe spot," North Country Medical Couriers' Bobbi Lynds tells the VN's Alex Hanson. Workers who interact with the public — in grocery and convenience stores, pharmacies and feed stores — are on edge. One measure, Hanson writes: How many take a break if granted paid time off. Eight of the South Royalton Market’s 24 staff members, he says, took up an offer of paid leave. Oh, and if you're in a store? Be nice. "Our job is way more stressful than it was before,” says one cashier.Dartmouth students returning to frats, sororities, off-campus housing, and Hanover officials are peeved. Town Manager Julia Griffin tells the VN's Anna Merriman she believes between 60 and 80 students have come back, despite a letter she sent students back in March asking them not to. The Greek houses are privately owned and neither the town nor the college can do much about it, though Deputy Fire Chief Michael Hinsley has been “actively interacting” with off-campus students. Still, Griffin's not happy. "They’re returning from all over the country and the world. That’s a whole lot of potential vectors,” she says. "I won't lie. I couldn't sleep the first night I heard you might start early." That was Nan Cochran talking to her daughter, Josie Fisher, yesterday on NPR. Fisher's a fourth-year med student at Harvard, preparing to start her residence at Mass. General; Cochran was a clinician at the VA in WRJ, and teaches at Geisel. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro hosted the mother-daughter conversation about what it's like to prepare to take care of hospital patients in the midst of a pandemic... and what it was like for Cochran to begin her residency just at the start of the AIDS epidemic. There's a whole lot of baking going on out there. "Our sales volume for the last few weeks was double what we would see for fall and holiday bake, our busiest seasons,” King Arthur Flour's Carey Underwood tells Canada's Global News. There's a reason for this. "A house that smells of baking — any kind of baking — is a comfort to anyone,” food blogger Julie Van Rosendaal says. The good news if you head to the store and there's no flour: More's on the way. "Our business is running 1/4 to 1/3 what it was prior to the pandemic." That's Nicole Bartner, owner and, at the moment, sole (unpaid) employee of the Hartland Diner, talking to Paul Hyson for his Upper Valley Edible Explorations blog. She's been running the diner's takeout business on her own since March 20 (though she's now got someone to answer the phone and run orders out to the parking lot on weekends). "Granted, I am TIRED most nights. And I do mean TIRED. But I was able to, immediately, pivot to take-out only and do it myself and bring in just enough money to keep us alive."Extreme social distancing comes to spring tire season. It's that time of year, and garages and local tire stores are open as usual, but there's a new, you-never-have-to-see-another-person option out there, if you want to go that route. Zippity, which for the last few years has brought we-come-to-you auto maintenance to large employers in the region, is starting up at-home tire-swapping for the general public. You arrange it online, leave your keys (and tires) where they can find them, and that's pretty much it. Oh, you do have to live on a paved road, at least through mud season.Area banks go all out to process small business loans, grants. The federal Paycheck Protection Program is designed to help small businesses stay afloat, the VN's John Lippman writes. "It reminds me of a Depression-era program," Mascoma Bank CEO Clay Adams tells him. The money's going through SBA member banks, including Mascoma, Ledyard, and Claremont Savings. Adams says Mascoma expects to be processing “in the tens and tens and tens of millions.” While officially a loan, it will be forgiven if 75 percent of is used to cover payroll and the rest to cover rent, utilities, and mortgage payments.Meanwhile, statewide in NH, bankers issued $400 million in PPP loans during the first week. Almost 2,000 businesses got them. The figure is actually an estimate by the NH Bankers Association — the federal Small Business Administration isn't releasing the actual numbers. If the money is, indeed, used to pay workers, that comes to about 10,000 jobs protected, though as NH Business Review's Bob Sanders notes, 30,000 unemployment claims are being filed weekly in the state. Six million pieces of PPE arrive in NH. The shipment, 91,000 pounds in all, was on a plane from China that landed yesterday at Manchester Airport. As you may remember, inventor Dean Kamen used his contacts in Asia — and with FedEx CEO Fred Smith — to secure masks, coveralls, face shields, and the like. In a press conference, Gov. Chris Sununu said, "We’re going to get it out the door as fast as we can. We’re going to fill our stockpiles, and at the end of the day, truly live up to the commitment that we have stated — that everyone that needs PPE in the state is going to have PPE.”No one can stop you from climbing them, but they won't count. The Appalachian Mountain Club said yesterday that any 4,000-footers summited from today until stay-home order are lifted won't count on its various 4,000-footer lists. "We feel this additional step is necessary to address the large numbers of people who are not heeding the recommendation and continue to risk spreading the virus in communities that may not have the resources to deal with the result,” the AMC Four-Thousand Footer Club announced yesterday morning. Eyeing the garden? You might have to wait. Just as people are doing more baking at home, they're also doing more planting at home. High Mowing Seeds, the popular organic seed provider in Wolcott, VT, just announced that "record-breaking" orders have forced it to stop taking online orders until April 28. It will continue selling to commercial farmers and to farm and garden retailers (you can find that list here). except for commercial growers. (Thanks, JC!)On the other hand, if you want to get your Vermont craft cheese online, now there's an easy way. The Vermont Cheese Council has created a new website that connects you to various cheesemakers (including Billings Farm, Cobb Hill, Ryegate's Karim Farm & Creamery, and Vermont Farmstead). Cheesemakers need to move soft cheeses quickly, Marty Mundy, the Council's executive director tells Seven Days in this article, and they're starting to need to get harder aged cheese out the door to make room for new wheels. Meanwhile, VT farmers markets are in limbo. After Phil Scott's announcement Friday that the state of emergency will last at least until May 15, the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets clarified what this meant for farmers markets: They can't open. Farmstands, online sales, curbside pickup, even pre-ordered pickup at a central location (at least in Montpelier)... that's okay, Ag Secy Anson Tebbetts said. And CSA's are considered an essential service. The agency's working with farmers markets to figure out what to do.Covid-19 outbreak at Northwest State Correctional Facility nails at least 50 inmates and staff. In all, 32 of the 200 inmates at the St. Albans prison tested positive, as did 16 staff, with another nine still pending, Seven Days' Derek Brouwer reports. "The outbreak is nearly as large, in terms of case volume, as those at two Burlington nursing homes" that were epicenters in the state, he writes. State officials have been scrambling to relocate prisoners, and the ACLU and the state employees' association are calling for universal testing at all six of the state's prisons. The Dept of Corrections launched a data tracker showing the status of inmate testing each day as of 10 am. "If you had asked me six months ago who lives in Vermont during mud season, I’d say only Vermonters. [But] these folks are one with us now and it's time to get them paying income taxes.” That's a Stowe state rep. commenting on a little-noticed provision in Vermont's new emergency law declaring that for tax purposes, second-home owners in residence during mud season must pay state income tax. “We will be aggressively enforcing the new provision," says the state tax commissioner. Except... oh, wait. It's satire from The Winooski. Oh well.“Into the final minute and Olive in possession – but this is where Mabel is strong, chasing the game, using that intensity.” You'd usually hear Andrew Cotter's hushed voice telling you what's going on at Wimbledon or the Olympics. These days, he's stuck at home, and in a virtuoso display of sportscaster ingenuity, doing the play-by-play on his labradors, Olive and the younger, undeniably spryer Mabel. Maroon link is to the most recent, while the first in what millions of people around the globe are hoping will be a series is here. (Thanks DG)

Last Thursday's rain brought snow at higher elevations... and Lyme nordic skier and coach Jay Davis got out onto the height of land on Dorchester Road Friday morning. Every twig and branch was covered in white. Jay caught it on video and his son Andrew edited and put it online. I wouldn't dream of saying this is it for winter, but think of it as a final reminder of what it's like out on the trails, or a last-gasp meditation on winter's beauty.Bradford, Woodstock, other towns discover that spreading treated sewage sludge has raised groundwater PFAS levels. It's been common practice to spread the sludge on farm fields, but last fall the state began tests on soil and groundwater for PFAS levels at fields where biosolids are spread. One state agriculture official says that a prohibition on harvesting feed and crops from fields where contamination was found may be needed, VTDigger reports.It's that time! Watch out for migrating frogs and salamanders. They're headed for vernal pools, ponds, and wetlands, and they're crossing roads to get there. So the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking motorists to slow down and keep an eye out. What do you think? With less traffic out there, will there be a population explosion?Vermont guy builds megabot. For the last year and a half, Joshua Nye of Monkton has been working on a 10-foot-tall robot made of PVC piping, two-by-fours, aluminum roof flashing, and bike cables. Now, says WCAX's Scott Fleishman, Nye's almost done. His bot (which he climbs into to operate) has power steering and can move forward and back thanks to a snowblower attached to the back. Nye's been streaming test runs on his YouTube channel. Oh, and the robot's name? Marduk.

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Okay! Here we are! Let's kick off the week reminding ourselves it's not always going to be like this. Rainy, that is. Esperanza Spalding, double-threat vocalist and bassist,

performed at... oh, heck, you'll figure it out right quick.

See you tomorrow.

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