GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Daybreak is brought to you this week with help from the folks working to relocate the Norwich Farmers Market. Better parking, more space, and a year-round facility to celebrate our region’s agriculture are just some of the benefits—but they need your help with this once-in-a-generation opportunity. Check out their website to learn more and to donate.
Heat starts to build in. You’ll want to gird yourself for tomorrow, but today will actually be pretty nice: highs in the mid 80s, not too much humidity, partly to mostly sunny skies. Lows tonight in the low or mid 60s. Enjoy it while it lasts!
Little jolts of color. As Jim Block writes about his most recent blog post, his yard in Etna has been busy: “SCARLET Tanager, INDIGO Bunting, RED-shouldered Hawk, YELLOW-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern BLUEbird, RUBY-throated Hummingbird, RED-eyed Vireo, American GOLDfinch, and even a BLACK Bear.”
Prouty tops $12 million in fundraising record. In all, the Friends of the Dartmouth Cancer Center say on the big event’s website, the annual effort to support cancer research and services for patients and families has raised $12,037,585 (right now). “The milestone marks the most successful Prouty in the event's 45-year history,” the group says in its Saturday press release (at the burgundy link). It goes on to outline some of the research being funded by the Prouty, including “ways to reduce cancer-linked PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in the body” and “efforts to improve access to life-saving lung cancer screening for women in rural communities.”
For Upper Valley high school and youth sports teams, ref shortage is becoming an issue. Despite the headline over Michael Coughlin Jr.’s story in the Valley News, Mascoma High athletic director Stephen Stebbins says it’s not a crisis yet—but he thinks one is not that far off. Aging officials and refs who are tired of putting up with low pay, high gas prices, and the disagreeable behavior of fans and some coaches all have contributed to what Coughlin calls “a growing scarcity of rule enforcers.” Add in the current shortage of bus drivers, and Hartford High’s Jeff Moreno says, “It’s like you’re trying to create this Venn diagram of the other school, the buses, and the officials.”
SPONSORED: One conversation can change the whole path forward. A person walks into the Haven not sure where to start, maybe a housing application, maybe a job search. A Haven Service Coordinator sits down with them and works through it, one step at a time. "Any challenge you have, you don't have to face alone," one guest said. "The Haven is like having a backup team." Today is the Haven's Day of Giving. Click here or the burgundy link to support Community Service Coordination. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Haven.
Northern Rail Trail in Andover is back open—for now. On Friday, the NH AG’s office announced that the state has “secured a temporary agreement resulting in the removal of the physical barriers that blocked access to the Northern Rail Trail.” You probably remember that it has sued landowner Leonard Caron, who back in May blocked the Lebanon-to-Boscawen trail where it runs near his property in a dispute over who has right to the land. The agreement is in place while the two sides duke the legal issues out in court. The barriers blocking off the one-mile section of the rail trail were to be removed by 6 pm Friday.
Developer hopes to build 38 housing units in Enfield. What Boston-based developer Adam Grounds is aiming for is the next step after an apartment. While there are plenty of apartment units being developed in Lebanon and elsewhere, he tells the VN’s Liz Sauchelli, “What I don’t see a lot of is, when someone outgrows an apartment, where are they going to live if someone wants to put down roots in a community?” His proposal for a mix of single-family, cottage-style homes and multi-family buildings off Main Street goes before the Zoning Board of Adjustment tomorrow as he seeks a variance for the project. Ironically, Sauchelli notes, he could build a “three-story, 65-unit apartment building” without one.
SPONSORED: Ted Levin invites you on his 10th Costa Rican natural history adventure! Remote yet hospitable, the country sports old-growth jungles, cloud forests, volcanoes, lakes, remote beaches, and twisted timberlines. Last year's trip recorded 321 bird species, including hummingbirds, parrots, macaws, and a nest of resplendent quetzals. Also, mammals (including fresh puma tracks), reptiles, and amphibians (including 15-foot-long American crocodiles). Experience the beauty and remarkable diversity of Costa Rica! You can get a sense of it from Jim Block’s photos of last year’s trip. Email for more info here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Ted Levin.
Definitely not your usual NH Fish & Game rescue. As they put it, “A weekend hike up Mount Kearsarge took an unexpected turn on Saturday when a New Hampshire woman suffered a severe leg injury—and gained a fiancé just moments later.” Tim Dupere had planned to propose to Sandown’s Alexis Hardy on their hike—only to watch in dismay as she fell and injured her leg so badly they had to put in a distress call. “As rescue efforts got underway and Hardy was being treated,” Fish & Game reports, “Dupere seized the moment, dropped to one knee, and presented an engagement ring. Amid the pain and the unfolding rescue operation, Hardy happily accepted the proposal.” And she got a carry-out and trip to Concord Hospital afterward.
NH tourism officials see an uncertain summer ahead. Two years ago, Julie Schloezel of the Greater Monadnock Collaborative went to a Montreal travel show and handed out several hundred brochures about the region. Last year? 50. This year, she tells BusinessNH Magazine’s Scott Merrill, it was maybe 75—though Canadians told her they “definitely plan to [come] again someday.” Meanwhile, Merrill reports, high gas prices are cutting into trips by domestic tourists. “People are still coming, but they’re spending differently,” says the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce’s president, noting that visitors are “buying less, bringing more food from home, and maybe heading home earlier.” Merrill digs into prices, staffing and other issues.
Vermont dairy farms “are being left in the dust” by competition from other states. There may be lots of “national investment in dairy amid a craze for protein,” reports VTDigger intern Tsehai Alfred, but Vermont isn’t seeing it. Faced with aging infrastructure and high overhead, three large dairy processors over the last few months announced plans to shutter their facilities—in St. Albans, Barre, and Enosburg Falls—while an analysis of USDA data found that dairy farming costs “exceed sales by the largest margin in Vermont compared with 18 other states.” Says Corinth’s Kassie Stannard, “Vermont is definitely at a tipping point, and it’s heartbreaking to see.”
The Monday Jigsaw: The Last Covered Ledyard Bridge. It was taken around 1899, writes Cam Cross on his Curioustorian blog, and it looks east from the little Vermont hamlet of Lewiston toward the hill in Hanover. “It came to me as a faded blue cyanotype, and I walked it back to black and white and then all the way into color,” he writes. “Linger on it and two things surface: the vanished Hanover high school up on the ridge, and a raw sandbank that turns out to be the bottom of an Ice Age lake.” More on the high school, more on the sandbank, and a photo of what that view looks like now, all on his blog post.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
HEADS UP
Tick Talk at the Kilton Library in West Leb. Lynne Labombard and Josh Hunt, who’ve both had Lyme disease, will talk over tick-borne diseases (including Alpha-Gal and Lyme), how to prevent tick bites, how to remove a tick the right way, and more. 6:30 pm.
And for today...
Andrew VanNorstrand, usually seen around here with his brother Noah, performing “Handsome Molly” solo a few years back at the Anonymous Coffeehouse in Lebanon, filmed by Chad Finer.
See you tomorrow.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on Daybreak’s homepage.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.
Thank you!
