GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Hot. Muggy. Thank goodness for this morning's fog layer, which kept things reasonable for a bit, but temps are going to soar into the mid and even upper 90s today, and with dewpoints (and hence humidity) rising, we're looking at heat index temps over 100. Tonight will offer only a bit of respite, with lows in the low 70s. We get two days of this, before a cold front arrives late tomorrow.Do what you can to stay cool. The VT health department has an online map of cooling centers and pools, which includes area libraries, senior centers, and municipal buildings (plus the Lebanon Airport terminal building). Burgundy link goes to that interactive map. For NH, you'll need to call 211.Morning rainbow. Sherry Haydock's horse, Titan, seems unimpressed, but the rest of the Pomfret landscape looked aglow the other morning.In Grafton County, disquiet continues on sheriff's collaboration with ICE. Back in March, Grafton Sheriff Jill Myers signed an agreement with the federal agency to train at least one officer in "specified immigration officer functions." Myers tells the Valley News's Emma Roth-Wells that one sheriff's deputy has since gone through that training—and that it wasn't funded by her office. Two of Grafton's three county commissioners are pressing Myers to pull out of the contract; the third, Enfield's Wendy Piper, disagrees. Meanwhile, Myers has remained silent on a May petition calling for her office to end the agreement.Thetford fears state will abandon it on leaky Post Mills landfill. There's a long story behind the old Barker landfill in the village—which, you may remember, locals had hoped might be turned into a solar array. That seems increasingly unlikely and now, in Sidenote, Stuart Blood recounts the landfill's history—including waste from Bennington County that turned out to be laced with PFAS. Which have since migrated into surrounding groundwater. The state agreed to take responsibility for it, with a near-$1 million fund. Now, Blood reports, the fund's almost tapped out while water quality problems remain.SPONSORED: Celebrate the launch of the Hop’s reopening season! Enjoy free snacks, ice cream, and live music at the Maffei Plaza (weather permitting; rain/excessive heat location is the lobby of Loew Auditorium) on Wednesday, June 25 at 5:30 pm. Stop by the merch table where all stylish Hop swag will be discounted by 20 percent, or become a Hop Member to pick up a free gift. Then grab a glass of prosecco and head into the Loew Auditorium to toast the exciting new season and learn about upcoming event highlights. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.The Oak Hill Music Festival: "Playing chamber music with friends in the woods." This week marks the fourth season for the gathering of world-class musicians organized by Hanover native (and bassoonist) Leah Kohn and her husband, violinist Niv Ashkenazi. They've got three concerts and two open rehearsals (the first of those is this afternoon; see below), and in Image mag, Susan Apel profiles Kohn—it all began in third grade at the Ray School when she first heard a bassoon—and the musicians and instruments she and Ashkenazi have pulled together from both near and far.After three decades, Leb girls' lacrosse coach calls it quits. When Sara Ecker first took on the gig, writes Tris Wykes in the VN, it was a club team, she got $500 for the season, and some players were still using wooden sticks. Though the stats tell a bit of her story—258 wins, 195 losses—her real impact, Wykes writes, has been on her players over the years. "The kids go to her like she’s the Messiah," says longtime assistant Rob Fett. "She gets the most out of [them] because she’s more than a coach. She’s a confidant, another mother.” Ecker tells Wykes there's no single reason to leave. "It just felt right this year."SPONSORED: Tickets on sale now for the Trumbull Hall Troupe's SIX: the Musical—Teen Edition. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. From Tudor queens to pop icons, the SIX wives of Henry VIII take the mic to remix five hundred years of heartbreak into a euphoric celebration of 21st-century girl power! This is the global sensation that everyone is losing their heads over: a full-length adaptation of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’ international phenomenon SIX, modified for teen actors and family audiences. At the Briggs Opera House Aug. 15-17. Sponsored by Trumbull Hall Troupe.Teams of rescuers carry hypothermic hiker off ridgeline trail in the Presidentials. Conditions on Friday were brutal for a summer hike, NH Fish & Game writes: 120 mph winds atop Mt. Washington, along with temps in the 20s. "Multiple calls reporting hypothermic hikers were received by officials during the day throughout the presidential range." This particular rescue involved a Texas woman on the Gulfside Trail, which is entirely above treeline: Two search-and-rescue teams relied on the Cog Railway to get to within a mile of the woman, who was unable to move or communicate.Another rural birthing center to close. Copley Hospital in Morrisville, VT, announced Friday night that its trustees voted last week to shutter its maternity center, despite a heavy lobbying campaign by midwives, nurses, and health care workers over the last few months aimed at keeping it open. In Lamoille County's News & Citizen, Aaron Calvin reports that in a press release, the hospital says it was losing $15,000-$30,000 per birth. The northern halves of both NH and VT have lost multiple birthing units at smaller hospitals in the last two decades, requiring longer drives for women in labor.VT's loons set nesting-pair record—but relatively fewer chicks surviving. There were 123 nesting pairs in 2024, compared to 108 the year before, reports Izzy Wagner for VTDigger, but the VT Center for Ecostudies says that just 65 percent of chicks survived through the end of last August, compared to a 2004-23 average of 76 percent. VCE biologist Eric Hanson tells Wagner that it's actually a sign the loon population is stabilizing: though part of the issue is habitat loss, "chick loss" also stems from more territorial conflict between adults, and adults nesting on smaller lakes with fewer protective features.Lyman Orton's collection of VT art will get a permanent home. That's because the VT Country Store magnate is helping fund the construction of a two-story addition to Manchester’s Southern Vermont Arts Center to hold his extensive collection, reports VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor. Orton began amassing it when he was 20, "not knowing he was seeding a lifelong mission to 'repatriate' Vermont art sold and scattered over the decades across the country and around the world," O'Connor writes. It got a temporary display in 2023—which spurred Orton to push for a forever home.The Monday jigsaw. It's of Harvey Moses, Bill Bulling, and Jere Robinson of Dartmouth's Class of 1922 at "Ye Candle Glow Tea House" in Norwich's Hatch-Piesch house by the entrance to town on Main Street, writes the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross. "Note the stylish beanies," he adds. Here's a postcard of the tea house from the 1920s, and here's the original Hatch Farm in the 1800s.Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
The festival's musicians will gather at the Roth Center for Jewish Life on the Dartmouth campus today at 2 pm for a free showcase of what they're up to. "You will see how a professional chamber group rehearses, have deeper understanding of the music, and have the opportunity to ask the musicians questions while enjoying a preview of our upcoming performances," they write.
Given today's weather...Seems about right: Ella Fitzgerald, with Louis Armstrong on trumpet, for "Summertime".See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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