A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Hope you've had a good couple of weeks. And believe me, it's such a relief to be able to say that today's going to be...
In fact, amazingly for this summer, that's pretty much the forecast for the next few days. There's a weak cold front keeping temps a bit below normal with clouds in the skies this morning, but things will clar a bit this afternoon and we'll be heading toward the mid 70s. Breezes from the northwest, down into the mid or lower 50s tonight.
looks pretty darn exquisite on the ground, too— specifically, in E. Thetford, where the late-summer fieldscape caught Robin Osborne's eye.
The Plainfield police want to get him back home.
The idea was that the bakery, which was shut down by flooding, use the kitchen at Peace Field Farm—since, for the moment, the farm is still unable to open a farm-to-table restaurant. But, reports Tom Ayres in the
Standard
, the state Natural Resources Board chair, Sabina Haskell, has refused to assure Peace Field owner John Holland that he won't be penalized for an Act 250 violation by lending out the space; Holland's decided not to go ahead.
Hanover officials propose lowering speed limit on Lyme Road near Richmond School. The idea comes from
an informal advisory group organized by Town Manager Alex Torpey, reports Patrick Adrian in the
Valley News
, and would drop the limit from 30 mph to 25 mph except in the school zone, where it would dip from 20 mph to 15 mph. "Though available data does not indicate a significant speeding problem on Lyme Road," Adrian notes, "town staff have general safety concerns due to the heavy flow of pedestrian and vehicle traffic at Richmond Middle School."
In ruckus over art teacher's departure, Strafford parents come face to face with state licensing regs. Parents at The Newton School had spent the summer organizing to seek the re-hiring of popular art teacher Aurora Berger—"An artist who is willing to teach our children that art is joyful," in the words of one parent—after rumors spread that she'd been let go following a complaint from a parent at The Mountain School, where she also teaches, about nude portraits on her website. At a meeting last week, reports the Herald's Darren Marcy, the school board acknowledged the complaint but said the issue was solely that Berger lacks a full teaching license from the state.If you're looking for PYO apples, the options are few. As Frances Mize reported in the VN last week, Riverview Farm in Plainfield lost much of its pick-your-own apple crop in the May freeze, though other fruits survived; at Poverty Lane in Lebanon, the trees used for making hard cider did okay but its eating apples were decimated. In fact, Patch Orchards will be one of the few pick-your-own spots in NH to open this year, thanks to its generally higher elevation, which kept temps from dropping as far as they did lower down.Meanwhile, the region's hay crop has taken it on the chin. Which, of course, is bad news for dairy and livestock farmers, horse owners, and anyone else with hoofed animals in their care. “I’m freaking out,” a VT sheep owner tells Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen. “There have not been two days back-to-back with no rain." The result is that farmers have been unable to get into their hay fields; people who normally get three cuttings in a season have been lucky to get one. “This is going to cost people a tremendous amount of money,” says an Addison County farmer, as farmers and others seek to buy feed or import hay.For Mt. Washington rescuers, it was a busy Saturday evening. There was steady rain in the mountains, winds reached 58 mph, wind chills were below freezing—and plenty of hikers were unprepared for the weather. Rescuers first helped two from Nashua who were soaked through and struggling to walk. While that was going on, Fish & Game officers got two emergency calls, one about a hiker possibly suffering from hypothermia, the other involving an 83-year-old hiker who'd slipped and fallen twice, suffering head injuries. "People venturing out into the backcountry, even in August, are reminded to pack for survival situations," Fish & Game writes.Okay, time to do a little catching up...
The new Barnes & Noble is open on 12A, and in Artful, Susan Apel writes that it has both what she expected—"walls of books attractively displayed"—and what she didn't expect, including vinyl albums and a "robust" Manga section.
The Leb City Council has nixed a proposed trail-for-road swap with Patch Orchards.You'll remember that Patch wants to close the four historic roads that cross the property, which are used as trails but also traverse the farm's sap lines; it had offered to create a new trail in their place. A bunch of residents and the town of Enfield objected, and last week, city council members decided the idea needed revisiting.
VT has a new invasive insect. It's the elm zigzag sawfly, and, reports WCAX's Cat Viglienzoni, it "can be devastating to Vermont trees." So far, there's evidence of it in Alburgh, North Hero and Milton; here's the Vermont Invasives page with more info.
In case you were hoping to hike in to see that giant wooden troll in S. Londonderry, VT, the landowners have temporarily closed the trail. That's because so many people were trekking in to see Lost Finn, Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo's 30 by 7 foot sculpture—his 117th worldwide—that their vehicles were getting in the way of traffic, VTDigger's Tiffany Tan reported last week. The owners say they hope to start again... sometime.
And yes, in case you're keeping track: Another truck got stuck in Smugglers' Notch last week. The driver told state police that "he ignored all of the signs leading up to the notch as he believed he could make it through." He was fined $2,347 for figuring wrong.
The Monday Vordle. With a word from the regional news.
And to set the music going for the week...
Let's go with Magos Herrera, born in Mexico, now living in NYC, and one of the leading lights of the Latin American jazz scene as a
lush-voiced, elegant singer-songwriter and producer. Here she is a few months ago with the NYC-based orchestra collective The Knights, and "The Calling." 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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