GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Clouds, sun, and showers. Which is pretty much the theme for the week. The good news, according to the weather folks: A system arriving from the west late today or tonight will bring "beneficial rain totals." So: a chance of rain this afternoon, a likelihood overnight, temps getting to around 80 in the afternoon, upper 50s tonight. Winds from the south today.And without those showers...
Actually, let's let Jenn Megyesi of S. Royalton's Fat Rooster Farm put it in her own words: "Yes without the rains / We would bathe in sunlight but / There'd be no rainbows."
Or at Rush Meadow Farm in Brownsville, either -- from Cynthia Siegler.
A look back at May, with birds everywhere. In his latest blog post, Jim Block documents the astounding diversity of the birds that flew, hung out, built nests, and in other ways plied their trades around the Upper Valley last month. In reverse alphabetical order, from wrens to Baltimore orioles, with stops off for a solitary sandpiper, raptors, and lots more.As a new president takes over at Dartmouth, her predecessor looks back.
Sian Leah Beilock officially starts work today, though as the college's communications office points out, "she has already held hundreds of conversations over the past year with members of the Dartmouth community." Her inauguration won't be until September.
Meanwhile, in the Valley News, Alex Hanson talks to outgoing president Phil Hanlon, who presided over his last graduation yesterday. He leaves on a high note, Hanson writes: a successful capital campaign, an endowment that's more than doubled since he took over, more students accepting offers, a larger faculty, and his focus on creating what he calls "academic excellence in service of the world"—that is, that address real-world challenges. At the same time, Hanson points out, that expansive vision has created tension with neighbors "who like Hanover’s small-town way of life."
Apartment, retail plan for downtown Leb falls through. In the VN last Friday, Patrick Adrian reported that the proposed 94-unit residential/commercial/retail project proposed for the city's one-time public works facility on Spencer Street is no more: In April, Stowe-based developer Ken Braverman told the city that it's no longer financially viable and he's withdrawing. The city still owns the property, and is back out looking for proposals.Catalytic converter thefts in Cornish, Plainfield. You may have thought you could rest easy after that big bust in April when the feds announced the arrests of seven western Mass. men charged with stealing converters from at least hundreds of vehicles in NH and MA. Nuh-uh. WMUR's Matt Leighton reports that police in Cornish and Plainfield are investigating a series of converter thefts along the 120 corridor that occurred early Friday. Officials are hoping to identify the owner of a car thought to be an older model Hyundai Elantra.
“I don’t want to call him a genius, but he’s a genius." That's N. Pomfret's Will Wright reminiscing about Dick McCormack—who's now a state senator but was a folk singer when the two met in the '70s and joined forces to perform around the state. Wright was the force behind Rooster Records, an independent Barnard-based label that recorded VT-based musicians in the 1980s—folk, old-time, bluegrass, and more, most of them Wright's friends. In VTDigger, Ethan Weinstein profiles Wright and Rooster, which ended in 1987 when the rental house he was in burned down and he had to choose between using the insurance money to rebuild Rooster or build a house.It's graduation season... And the Valley News sent its writers out to give an overview of the speeches, high spirits, and hoopla around the region.
Here's Patrick Adrian's writeup about Lebanon High's optimism-filled ceremonty Thursday night;
Kaeli Bennett caught Thetford Academy's on Friday;
While Alex Hanson was at Hanover High's Friday ceremony;
And Nora Doyle-Burr was at Woodstock Union's on Friday;
Meanwhile, Ray Couture caught Rivendell's graduation Saturday morning;
And Frances Mize returned to her alma mater yesterday to detail the speech by filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller at Dartmouth's graduation.
The rosy maple moth, the giant birch sawfly... and the blackfly. And boy, those blackflies, they're a menace, writes Kent McFarland in the VT Center for Ecostudies' "Field Guide to June"—not so much to us (they're just an annoyance), but to nesting birds and their chicks and nestlings. Meanwhile, writes Jason Hill, June is peak flying time for the hot pink and electric yellow Rosy Maples, and those sawflies are out, eating—well, no one's quite sure what they eat: maybe tree sap, maybe pollen. Meanwhile, also out there: cowbirds, carpenter bees, and nest predators.With pandemic-era protections for Medicaid gone, at least 45,000 Granite Staters have lost coverage. Many of the people who've lost coverage earned too much to qualify once the protections expired, reports Paul Cuno-Booth for NHPR; others were closed out because they never returned paperwork or for other procedural reasons. The state's Medicaid director says some of those who've lost coverage have already renewed, and the state is trying to reach out to others to tell them how to go through the process.As VT's medical-aid-in-dying law hits the news, a look from the inside hits the stage. Last month, the state became the first to extend Act 39's provisions to non-residents. Next week, Rob Mermin's play, Act 39, premieres at Goddard College's Haybarn Theater. Back in 2015, Mermin's friend and neighbor in Montpelier, Bill Morancy, asked the Circus Smirkus founder to help him die, using the act's provisions. Mermin did so (here's his non-fiction version of the story on Erica Heilman's Rumble Strip). Now Mermin's turned those events into a play, and talks to the Times Argus's Jim Lowe about how it all came about.Think you're a monster hiker? Odds are you've got nothing on Alden Partridge. You may know him as the founder of what's now Norwich University, but he was also, literally, a trailblazer. Even more remarkable, writes historian Mark Bushnell in VTDigger, he climbed New England's mountains by getting to them on foot from Norwich—including bushwhacking up Camel's Hump, then walking to Stowe and doing the same up Mansfield the next day. In 1821, he led a group of 13- and 14-year-old Norwich cadets, along with some Dartmouth profs and students, on foot to Crawford Notch then up Mt. Washington. In his mid-40s, he hiked 152 miles in three days so he could climb Mount Monadnock.The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
This evening at 6 pm, a team of Dartmouth computer security researchers will be at the Montshire Museum for a "hands-on night of learning" about smart home devices, their vulnerabilities, and how to protect yourself from common security and privacy threats. There's no tech background required. Though there's no cost to go, you'll need to register in advance, which you can do here.
And to ease us into the week...Harpist Rachel Clemente was at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon last fall for a concert of traditional Scottish and pedal harp, and Chad Finer was there to film it. Two nameless tunes and then one of her own, "The Return."See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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