GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Some sun, but also a chance of showers and thunderstorms. This doesn't happen very often during the summer: weather from the southeast. The remnants of a storm off the coast are venturing into the region today, bringing that chance of rain—especially this afternoon—and a blast of marine air that will keep temps moderate (either side of 80) and clear out the haze from western wildfires that's marked the skies the last few days. There's a lot of uncertainty about where the sun/overcast boundary will set up today. Tonight, more humid air starts filtering in again, lows in the low 60s.Just hanging out gathering nectar. From Woodstock, Brooke Beaird sends in a great closeup of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. Unlike many other butterflies, they don't migrate, overwintering instead in chrysalis form.At Hurricane Flats Farm in S. Royalton, "It’s like there are no absolute truths anymore.” Ashley Loehr and Antoine Guerlain bought Hurricane Flats, which lies along the banks of the White River, in 2021; since then, it's seen flooding, this month's deluge, and lots of other odd weather. In the NYT (gift link), Jenna Russell details how the farm has responded to this age of uncertainty: planting trees along the river, reorganizing fields, planting rye and clover to anchor soil. “We’re doing things we’ve never done before, because things are happening that have never happened before,” Loehr says.It's not just restaurants any more: Indian food expands in the Upper Valley. There's takeout at Baker's Store in Post Mills and the Plainfield Country Store, for instance. And, writes Kate Oden in the Valley News, WRJ-based chef Manjit Singh's dishes at the Hartland, West Hartford, and Woodstock farmers markets. “The food we serve at the markets is what we would make for ourselves at home," says Singh's daughter, Parminder Kaur. Oden traces the families behind the flourishing new scene, checks in with Surjit Kaur of Jewel of India—and notes a new Indian restaurant is in the works for the Miracle Mile.SPONSORED: Are you an organizational wizard? Upper Valley Music Center is looking for a full-time Administrative Director. Primary responsibilities include registration, calendar oversight, office management, and reception. Additional bonuses: working with a great team, having lovely background music while in the office, and discounts on classes and workshops. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by UVMC.Why there's an above-ground tomb and a special row for students in the Dartmouth Cemetery. The Sawyer tomb is above ground because "his daughter was terrified of being buried alive," cemetery trustee Petra Sergent tells The Dartmouth's Emilia Williams. And before the railroad arrived in these parts in 1848, there was no way for students who died to be shipped back home; "their classmates really went above and beyond to make sure they got headstones that really told the story," Sergent says. She and Williams talk over the cemetery's history, the volunteer work it takes to maintain it, and more.NH Supreme Court justice placed on administrative leave. The state's judicial branch is staying mum on why, reports NHPR, but in an order dated Thursday and approved by the court's four other justices, Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi has been "relieved of her judicial duties" for 90 days. NHPR notes that she is married to Geno Marconi, director of the New Hampshire Port Authority, who himself has been on administrative leave since April—at which time Hantz Marconi began recusing herself from cases involving the NH AG's office. Superior Court judges will step in as needed to create a quorum.On Lake Winnisquam, sculler killed by pontoon boat. 76-year-old Thomas Mead of Tilton was out for a row early yesterday morning when he was struck by the boat, which was operated by a 17-year-old male, NH State Police say in a press release. The pontoon boat operator was able to get Mead on board, where he began CPR; Mead was then taken to Concord Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. "Pontoon boats sit a little higher in the water, and it kind of sounds like this was a much lower-than-normal boat. So, it certainly could make the sight angles difficult," a Tilton-Northfield fire captain tells WMUR.For Emily Sotelo's parents, "hiking isn’t the enemy. Underpreparedness is." Sotelo was the young woman who went missing during a day hike on Mt. Lafayette in November, 2022; her body was found three days later. In the Monitor, Sofie Buckminster traces what Olivera Bogunovic and Jorge Sotelo have done in the near two years since: start a foundation dedicated to hiking safety, raise funds for search and rescue teams, develop a safe hiking course for teens—and hit the trails themselves. “I’m going to try to stay connected to her and think, ‘What else would she want us to do?’" Bogunovic says.In VT, a patchwork of emergency communications to residents in an age of emergency events. The state does maintain the VT-ALERT platform, which can send out information, write VTDigger's Emma Malinak and Theo Wells-Spackman, but only 64,000 residents have signed up and many smaller towns don't send in updates. Instead, residents rely on everything from Front Porch Forum and Facebook or Instagram to word of mouth or, in the case of Bridport, VT, the general store. Malinak and Wells-Spackman talk to officials about their frustrations with the current state of affairs.Can VT towns slow the loss of ash trees? A map of emerald ash borer infestations in the state is shifting from looking "like Swiss cheese, with little pockets of infestations, to being completely covered,” a state official tells VTDigger's Emma Malinak. All of the state's ash trees, 150 million of them, will be exposed, and this year, trees infested a few years ago are starting to die en masse. The challenge: dealing with the problem is expensive, and towns are mostly on their own. Malinak looks at what they're doing, from diversifying species to insecticides to creating "trap trees" that die so others can live.How do you get a bear out of an attic? Remember last Friday's item about the spate of "brazen bears" in Stowe? Well, one of them climbed into a condo attic, drawn by an empty bird feeder, and it fell to state game warden Jeremy Schmid to figure out how to get the bear out. In the Burlington Free Press, Dan D'Ambrosio tells the story: Schmid had the police evacuate nearby units, then peered into the attic—and tried firing a non-lethal rubber round in hopes the bear would climb out the way it came in. It didn't. D'Ambrosio writes about what happened next; and Schmid provides the video.The Monday jigsaw. It's the old Junction House/Hotel Coolidge (on the left) in downtown WRJ. "This is the second hotel on this site across the tracks from the busy railroad station," writes Cam Cross for the Norwich and Hartford historical societies.
And to ease us into the week...
"Earl Gaddis plays violin and viola in Bare Necessities, a well-known English country dance ensemble," writes veteran dance caller and traditional music historian David Millstone. "During Covid, he was living in Michigan, far from the other members of that quartet, and he created this video as part of an online band concert. The tune, 'Fair and Softly', was published in 1726 in T
he Dancing Master
, a collection of English country dance tunes and instructions."
(Thanks, DM!)
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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