GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A bit cooler, unsettled. Our early-morning rain has tapered off and it should be clear through the middle part of the day, then a chance of showers later this afternoon and into the evening. Mostly cloudy all day, light winds from the west. Temps will get up to around 60, down to 40 tonight.Sharon votes to go ahead with Ashley Community Forest. The 257-acre plot of land straddles Sharon and Strafford, and has been shepherded by the Association of Vermont Communities, the group that came out of local efforts to turn back the NewVistas project. Voters in Strafford had already opted to have their portion of the land transferred to town ownership; on Saturday, voters at Sharon Town Meeting decided to do the same, 230-72, despite some public concern about potential costs. (VN)Simon Pearce, WhistlePig join forces for Quechee restaurant, tasting room. It will be in the former Parker House tavern—which, come its opening Memorial Day weekend, will become The Parker Bar + Bistro. Next door to Simon Pearce's flagship restaurant and showroom, the venture includes a more casual restaurant and WhistlePig Parlour, reports the Valley News's John Lippman, an upstairs space where guests can try out the Shoreham VT craft distiller’s whiskeys. Simon Pearce bought the building early last year.NYT digs into Geisel cheating investigation. The paper, which did its own analysis of Canvas, the software at the heart of the allegations that students used online materials in close-book exams, found "instances in which the system automatically generated activity data even when no one was using a device." Geisel Dean Duane Compton tells reporters Natasha Singer and Aaron Krolik that administrators' investigation was careful, and that they provided accused students with "all the data" on which cheating charges were based. Even so, Singer and Krolik write, questions remain about the data and its use.SPONSORED: How have indigenous communities, homelands, and spirituality influenced jewelry design? Four jewelry artists from Hawaii to New York come together to talk about topics from design to accountability in this free discussion moderated by Diné artist and Dartmouth alum Sháńdíín Brown '20. Join us on the Hop’s YouTube channel on Thursday, May 13 at 7pm! Co-sponsored by the Hopkins Center's Donald Claflin Jewelry Studio, the Hood Museum and other Dartmouth College partners.
That's mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother Marcia Colligan, who is stepping down next month from steering Classicopia—the month she turns 90. She and pianist Daniel Weiser co-founded it in 2001, after Colligan began taking piano lessons. Its early days were in Colligan's house—just a few friends for food, drinks, music, and, always, "a few words about the composer," reports the VN's Frances Mize. In the years since then, Classicopia has hosted 82 musicians in 95 venues for 915 concerts.
The problem with the "once-unthinkable sum" of $89 million that lawmakers plan to give the system, reports
VTDigger'
s Lola Duffort, is that most of it is a one-time deal, and faculty and staff argue that without a long-term commitment from the state, the colleges won't be able to lower tuition—among the highest in the country for state-funded colleges—and address the declining enrollment that's dragging the system down. In addition, legislators want $25 million in austerity measures over the next five years.
Turns out, the larvae have a mouth that looks like a harpoon—just one of the features that Dartmouth's scanning electron microscope has revealed. The ticks—larvae, nymphs, and adults—got their portraits taken back in February, and the photos are now part of a sixth-grade science-education program grad students are leading at Claremont Middle School, Canaan's Indian River Middle School, the Barnet Middle School, and Tunbridge Central School, writes the
VN
's Liz Sauchelli. The images are wild, though the captions could be more detailed.
“
Steven Strong is an Upper Valley solar engineer who five years ago hired a dowser to help him replace a well gone dry, after the driller he'd hired couldn't figure out where to put the new one. The dowser, from the Northeast Kingdom, found the right spot and predicted exactly how much it would produce. In
Outside
, Dan Schwartz looks into the dowsing world. "Yeah," one dowser tells him. "There are wormholes." But then, up in Barnet, a dowser hands Schwartz a rod and tells him to try for himself. And he feels the tug.
Time to catch up.
NH reported 213 new cases Friday, 197 on Saturday, and 130 yesterday for a cumulative total of 96,624. There were 4 new deaths, which now number 1,315, while 74 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 14). The current active caseload stands at 1,577 (down 272). The state reports 94 active cases in Grafton County (down 27), 62 in Sullivan (down 1), and 129 in Merrimack (down 27). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 22 active cases (down 4), Newport has 15 (up 5). Lebanon has 13 (down 6), Hanover has 9 (down 4), Charlestown has 7 (down 4), and Sunapee has 5 (up at least 1). Haverhill, Wentworth, Rumney, Lyme, Canaan, Enfield, Plainfield, Grantham, Springfield, Cornish, Unity, and Newbury have 1-4 each. Warren, Orange, and New London are off the list.
VT reported 100 new cases Friday, 64 Saturday, and 6 yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 23,486. Deaths remained at 249 over the weekend, while 12 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 7). Windsor County gained 13 new cases over the weekend and stands at 1,392 for the pandemic, with 79 over the past 14 days, while Orange County added 12 cases and stands at 779 cumulatively, with 64 cases in the past 14 days. In town-by-town numbers released at the end of last week, Springfield gained 9 cases over the week before; Newbury added 7; Randolph gained 6; Hartford and Hartland each added 5; Windsor gained 4; Bradford, Cavendish, and Vershire each added 3; Killington, Strafford, Thetford, and Weathersfield gained 2 apiece; and Bethel, Chelsea, and Woodstock each gained 1.
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The pandemic's been tough on bands everywhere—and
really
tough on bands that get together regularly to play dances... like Bare Necessities, which does English Country Dances all over New England and the US. "The music we play for ECD sometimes sounds classical, but it’s completely improvisational, like jazz," writes violinist Earl Gaddis. "You are given only a short melody line that you repeat for each round of the dance, and you’re then expected to weave a continuously-evolving set of spontaneous variations into an extended performance." So how do you do this when you can't join up with your bandmates, let alone play for an audience? Why, you do it yourself.
(Thanks, DM!)
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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