GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A heads up about next week. Daybreak will be off next week and the week after—for both a break and some long-delayed back-office work ahead of the runup to Thanksgiving. Those of you who could use a rest from the daily whirl, this is your chance! Vordlers: If you signed up for the vacation version in June, you're all set. If you didn't or are new to it, we'll keep it going using a word that's in the local news, and you can sign up to get a reminder and link in your inbox each day. Do that here.Rain at some point. "Tropical-like rain is evident in thunderstorms over the Ohio Valley early this morning," the weather folks write, and that weather — along with a warm front and extremely muggy air — is on its way. The upshot: Chance of showers this morning, then we're likely in for a soaking this afternoon and tonight, with possible thunderstorms. The rain will cool the air—high today might or might not reach 80, but just down to the mid-60s tonight.So that's what those are called. Pontederia... or pickerelweed. At North Hartland Lake the other evening, from Zooey Zullo.“We need to make different decisions about how we’re cooking our scrambled eggs in the morning.” That's Marc Morgan, who's Lebanon's solid waste manager, talking to the Valley News's Frances Mize about a new study that's found four PFAS compounds leaching from the city's landfill. The chemicals are used in a wide array of household items—including non-stick frying pans. NH regulates them in drinking water, but not wastewater or surface water; with the study, the city hopes to prep for any regs coming down the road.Departure of community health dentist highlights dental care challenge for Upper Valley Medicaid patients. The Mascoma Community Health Center is being forced to shut down its dental services, writes Nora Doyle-Burr in the VN; the Canaan clinic has been searching for 12 weeks for a replacement, to no avail. The chief problem, Doyle-Burr writes, is that older dentists are retiring and younger dentists aren't moving to rural areas. "All the money in the world to help people pay for the service will do nothing if there’s nobody to pay to do the service,” says the Public Health Council's Alice Ely.SPONSORED: Addressing the Challenges to Our Democracy: Osher at Dartmouth’s 2022 Summer Lecture Series. The series is now under way, and this week, political scientist Niambi Carter presents “Redefining the Meaning of Race in the 21st Century”. The Summer Lecture Series runs through August 11, 9:00 – 11:30 AM on Thursdays. Sessions are $25 per person. You can register to participate via livestream or attend in-person at Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover, NH. Sponsored by Osher at Dartmouth.Making dance like learning the alphabet. That's Ruth Mayer's approach: first letters, then words, then sentences and paragraphs. Mayer "is one of Thetford’s well-kept secrets," Li Shen writes in Sidenote, a soloist with NYC's American Ballet Theater for 15 years who's remained a dancer and teacher since moving to the Upper Valley. She'll be part of the new Junction Dance Festival in WRJ this weekend, founded by choreographer Elizabeth Kurylo: a three-day extravaganza of workshops, classes, and performances.And coming tomorrow: Rhiannon Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble. The ensemble was founded in 1998 by Yo-Yo Ma, built on the notions of cultural collaboration and exchange embodied in the ancient Silk Road. Giddens, the famed singer and folk musician, took over as artistic director in 2020, and on Saturday they launched a tour of the Northeast. They pull into the Hopkins Center tomorrow, writes Susan Apel in Artful."Getting the magic of talking about books out to a wider audience.” Since April, the Norwich Bookstore's Sam Kass and Emma Nichols, Still North Books' Allie Levy, and the Yankee Bookshop's Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski have gotten together once a month with Book Jam blogger Lisa Christie to record Shelf Help, their CATV-hosted podcast of book recommendations. It's part of a growing collaboration among the area's bookstores, writes Liz Sauchelli in the VN. “We’ve all had to fight so hard to continue to exist. You celebrate every single other bookstore that’s able to exist,” Meutsch tells her.It's osprey nesting season. And even with chicks in the nest, adults are out there continuing to hunt for building materials, writes Mary Holland in Naturally Curious. Her photo is of an osprey that had just picked up a clump of mown grass, but ospreys will use pretty much anything: "among other things, paper, plastic bags, rope, nylon mesh bait bags, dried cow manure and beach toys have been documented," she writes.Three parts brown to one part green. You probably know the leaf/straw-to-kitchen-scraps ratio for composting, but with lots of reports coming in of bears getting into bird feeders, chicken coops, and compost bins, VT Fish & Wildlife has just come out with a reminder of how not to attract them. Besides the obvious—no birdfeeders until there's a foot of snow on the ground—they include a variety of tips for composting.From Hanover High to NH attorney general via "a great work ethic.” Those are the words Democratic state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro uses to describe Republican AG John Formella. In NH Business Review, Michael Kitch profiles NH's 35-year-old chief legal officer, who's been handling everything from the decades of abuse at the Youth Development Center to the tension between Gov. Chris Sununu and GOP legislators over pandemic mandates and his own department's objections to the GOP-sponsored Parental Bill of Rights. He's able "to work with everybody on all sides of an issue," one attorney says.Why 1-833-710-6477 might be better than 988 for some NH residents. The new national hotline for people in a mental health crisis went into effect Saturday. But in NH Bulletin, Annmarie Timmins notes that calls are routed to state crisis centers based on the caller's area code, not physical location. So if you've got a cellphone with a non-603 area code, your 988 call will wind up at a center in another state that can't dispatch a response team or make a local appointment. That's why NH recommends the longer number for those users. VT doesn't have a single number for help. Instead, it's got a list of numbers. "We recognize that many in Vermont have out of state cell phone numbers and the system does not have the ability to transfer between Lifeline Centers at this time," VT Dept. of Mental Health spokesperson Alexander Raeburn writes in an email. "The transition to 988 is just beginning. It will take time for this service to develop and become a fully comprehensive crisis response platform." The state offers a list of regional crisis numbers "that can connect callers to local response teams if needed." At the link.That NH rapid response phone number is part of a larger change in how it handles mental health emergencies. The system is aimed at helping the state move away from 911 calls, relying so heavily on a police response to mental health crises, and strain on hospital emergency rooms, reports NHPR's Alli Fam. It's still "a work in progress," Fam says, with inconsistent response times and interactions with dispatchers. Still, says Jenny O’Higgins of the state's Division of Behavioral Health, “You can both celebrate that we have a better system than we did and say it's not good enough.”"Water has a memory. Where water once was it will fill up again.” And these days, with climate change and rising seas and king tides, that's the basements of the buildings of the Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH. NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee is looking at the impact of climate change on (or in this case under) the ground in the state. At the museum, mold, mildew, deteriorated mortar, wood rot, and crumbling foundation stones all are undermining its historic buildings. Despite expensive efforts, facilities director Rodney Rowland expects some basements will be lost entirely."The audience is still there. They're just buying single tickets." It's been tough for Northern Stage to rebuild its subscription audience, sales and marketing director Ryan Klink tells VTDigger's Fred Thys. Thys surveys a variety of Vermont theater companies and finds a mixed picture: audiences are returning, but there are wrinkles. At Northern Stage, subscriptions last year were down by half compared to 2019-20 and they haven't recovered; single-ticket sales, on the other hand, have made up for the some of the drop.Boom and bust in the Gulf of Maine has one young lobsterman on edge. Warming waters last year contributed to the biggest poundage haul by Maine lobstermen since 2018. But, writes Ben Speggen in a Craftsmanship Quarterly profile of 19-year-old Elijah Brice of Eastport, those waters are also bringing huge uncertainty. "The old-timers had it down to a science when the lobsters would be in and when they’d head out,” Brice tells him. Now? “It’s been different each year I’ve been out there.” He's hedging his bets by building boats.The Monday Vordle. For all of you who've signed up recently, the Vordle is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word that relates to an item in the previous day's (or, in this case, Friday's) Daybreak.
Since tomorrow's poetry day in this spot, here's Rhiannon Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble a couple of months ago, with Silkroad's take on Giddens' take on Bessie Jones' take on the traditional Appalachian folk tune, "O Death." (Thanks, JJ!)
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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