GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warming up. Nice fog out there this morning! But the sun's emerging and temps will climb steeply, with a high getting into the upper 80s or low 90s. Winds from the south, clouds moving in overnight as a low approaches, with a chance of rain starting up toward daybreak. Lows tonight only in the mid 60s.Early morning wake-up whoosh. The other morning, writes Sara Burnet from Lake Fairlee, "I was woken to the unmistakable sound of a hot air balloon and was drawn to go see why I kept hearing it hanging out so close. Seeing a balloon rise above the lake continues to be a magical sight and my heart is full knowing that Brian Boland’s legend lives on at the Post Mills Airport."What is it with Comcast? Not as a cable provider, but as an email provider: On Friday, the company's oppressive algorithms blocked hundreds of you with comcast.net email address from getting Daybreak. Fingers crossed on today. At the burgundy link, you'll find Friday's Daybreak, in case you missed it. But I also have a request: If you're a Comcast email user, you know how persnickety it's been with Daybreak. So if you have a second email address and are willing to receive the newsletter there, feel free to switch. You'll find the "update your preferences" link at the very bottom of this newsletter.West Leb Main Street Revitalization Project starts up—Tracy St. down to one-way. For the next two weeks, crews will be installing new drainage pipes and catch basins along the street, cutting traffic to a single lane that runs from Maple St. to Main St. In addition, the Advance Transit stop labeled "Opposite Church St." near Montshire Automotive will be out of use—riders can use the Church St. or Kilton stops instead. City's details at the link.Lyme names new police chief: Plainfield's former chief. Tony Swett took the post last week, and as John Lippman writes in the Valley News, the handoff from retiring Lyme chief Shaun O'Keefe "was hardly a surprise." Swett worked for the Lyme department for a dozen years before moving on to Plainfield and then returning as a sergeant earlier this year. Swett had resigned his Plainfield post last August after a quarrel with the chair of the Plainfield Selectboard. O'Keefe tells Lippman, “I and the board, we did our due diligence and looked into everything as we should have. And we were not at all concerned."SPONSORED: Here's your chance to own a magnificent mini work of art and support the Justin Morrill State Historic Site! Join the Friends of the Morrill Homestead on July 4th, 5:00-7:00pm at an opening reception for "Minis for Morrill," an auction of over fifty 4"x4" paintings donated by local artists at the Morrill Homestead in Strafford, VT. Online bidding runs from July 4 - 11. And check out the varied collection of art around the theme "Finding Joy" at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Friends of the Morrill Homestead. Dartmouth researchers find jet stream was "wavy" before climate change. Those wintertime plunges in recent years into a deep freeze in the southern US? They're caused by undulations in the jet stream, and as Morgan Kelly writes for Dartmouth News, climate scientists have pegged them to a warming atmosphere. But now, ice and climate specialist Jacob Chalif and earth sciences prof Erich Osterberg have taken a look at the jet stream's behavior since 1901, and found that it's "in the latest of several wavy periods [during that time], many of which were more pronounced than what is seen today." For Tunbridge's Mary Lake, the first time she sheared a sheep "was like a body reaction. Like, my body wants to do that.” Lake's had a varied career, from newspaper copy editor and reporter to working on vegetable and sheep farms to years of learning the fine points of butchery, and these days, Marion Umpleby writes in her profile of Lake in the VN, she's shearing royalty. Especially after winning third in the blade-shearing division in the US shearing championships in Oregon. “She’s the most well-known name (in Vermont) and it is incredible that she’s built that,” says a fellow shearer. Lots more at the link.SPONSORED: Join the Willing Hands Board of Directors! Deepen your commitment to reducing food waste and expanding equitable, reliable access to fresh food in the Upper Valley by joining the Willing Hands board. Individuals of all backgrounds are welcome to apply. No prior board experience necessary. Submit your application online by July 20. Sponsored by Willing Hands.Colorado runner beats Cog for a second time. It took Joseph Gray 39 minutes, 54 seconds to run from the Cog Railway's base station to its final stop near the Mt. Washington summit on Saturday—and he did it through fog and rain. Northeast Delta Dental President and CEO Tom Raffio (his company sponsors the annual race) tells WMUR's Stephanie Fournier that a runner's beaten the Cog in the Race the Cog only once before. And that was Gray, in 2022. He's also an eight-time winner of the longer Mt. Washington Road Race.One key to getting NH's budget through: ending mandatory car inspections. The move to eliminate inspections had been given up for dead earlier this year after it passed the House but got sidetracked in the Senate, but last week it was suddenly added to the budget by negotiators trying to win over a libertarian-leaning bloc in the House, reports Kevin Landrigan in the Union Leader (paywall). “People on the street weren’t asking me about funding formulas or Medicaid eligibility," says majority leader Jason Osborne. "It was all, ‘Hey, when are you going to get rid of these inspections?’”And hey, the NH legislature did other stuff, too. As NH Bulletin's William Skipworth and Ethan DeWitt write, though the state budget was front and center, lawmakers also voted on other legislation last Thursday. They passed bans on gender transition surgery and medication treatment for minors; passed a measure requiring public libraries to make children’s borrowing histories available to their parents or legal guardians upon request; moved to forbid public schools, colleges, and universities from housing immigrants; made it harder to vote absentee; and more. All now go on to the governor.School cell phone bans signed into law in NH, VT. As Alex Nuti-de Biasi writes in today's Journal-Opinion newsletter, Govs. Kelly Ayotte and Phil Scott both gave their okay to bans on Friday. The NH version was attached to the two-part state budget bill in the end-of-session horse-trading that also produced the end of mandatory auto inspections (above). VT's version passed in the spring; it requires school districts to create school-day bans by the start of school in 2026. "We need kids to be focused on learning, interacting with their peers, teachers, and friends while they’re at school," Scott said in a statement.As weather gets warmer and wetter, VT farmers turn to peaches, rice, saffron. Some 35 years ago, writes Maeve Fairfax for UVM's Community News Service, Shelburne Farms' Nick Cowles "saw a bedraggled peach tree at a hardware store and bought it on a whim." Peaches were rare in orchards then. Now, VT has become "a more peach-friendly place," Fairfax writes, especially with cold-hardy varieties. Meanwhile, a Ferrisburgh farmer has turned his hay fields into rice paddies (rice does okay with flooding). And saffron can be stored long-term if dried properly, so it's immune to erratic weather. The Monday Jigsaw. It's a quartet of restaurant photos. The Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross explains: "At first, I was convinced the Golfside Restaurant was across from the golf course pond on Route 10 in Hanover, where the old driving range tee used to be. But after digging further, I found a Golfside Restaurant ad...placing it at the current location of the 45 Lyme Road office building." There's also the former Starlite Drive-In in Orford, which opened June 1, 1952, with the final photo showing the interior, with owner “Mrs. Robt. Whitney” on the left. Here's the original.Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
And to start off the week:Momo Boyd first came to attention as part of her sibling soft-rock group, Infinity Song. But she's also striking out on her own, and a couple of months ago went up with her debut video, "American Love Song"—with a string quartet in the background and set picturesquely at a horse and cattle ranch in the Catskills.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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