GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
And what a pleasure to see you A huge thanks to all of you for indulging that time away. It was lovely to have. I could gush more, but we should get to it...Since there is a storm wandering around out there, after all. Though Henri's pretty much expected to be a bust in these parts. The storm's remnants are veering off toward the coast well south of us, and though southern towns in the region still have a flood watch in effect and will get some decent rain and thunderstorms later today and tonight, northern parts are due a partly sunny day with showers likely toward evening—though things could always change, so keep an eye out. Highs in the upper 70s, lows in the upper 60s tonight.Oh, so that's Osceola! Last week, Etna photographer Jim Block documented his latest climb up Cardigan (he took the lesser-traveled South Ridge Trail). He includes a link to this 360-degree panorama from the top, stitched together from 58 photos and, most importantly (click on the first image, then zoom in), labeling many of the peaks and features you can see up there. Me, I'm bookmarking it. Oh, and as a bonus: He also just did Welch-Dickey, one of the truly great hikes in the Whites, with some view-labeling there, too.Fastest-growing town in the Upper Valley over the last decade? West Windsor. Though everything's relative: It added 245 people in that time, notes John Lippman in the Valley News. Overall, 2020 Census results show the region's population spreading out, with Grantham, Plainfield, Sharon, Thetford, and other towns all notching growth, though the region's geographic core—especially Hartford, Lebanon, and Hanover—saw some of the region's biggest absolute gains. Lippman runs down the trends: (slowly) growing diversity, a stark economic divide, and decline in Claremont, Springfield, and elsewhere. It's also been a decade... since Norwich's Root Schoolhouse, out Union Village Road, was closed for public use. At a celebration this coming Saturday, however, it's reopening with a new foundation, improved wiring, a newly painted exterior, restored windows and a new ramp for accessibility, reports Susan Apel on her Artful blog. The new space, which will be available for public use from May-October, is "pretty rustic," board president Courtney Dobyns tells her. "It is a simple venue reminiscent of the old days. It is a chance for families to unplug and entertain each other."SPONSORED: Registration is open at Upper Valley Music Center for Fall lessons, classes, and ensembles! We’re offering indoor, outdoor, online, and hybrid instruction to help you achieve your music education goals. Whether you’re a total beginner, resuming an old hobby, or looking for new musical friends, we welcome students of all experience levels and ages, from 0-100! Tuition assistance is available for Fall programs, starting September 10. Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center.Lyme's Evan Nichols nurtures winter Olympic hopes...despite a sprained ankle. The sprain came in a training drill in February, when Nichols—just 17 and an incoming senior at Hanover High—was competing for a spot on the senior national team in nordic combined (from which the US's 2022 Beijing Olympics squad will be chosen). His ski jumps placed him 23rd; he needed to reach a top-15 finish after the nordic races to make the senior team. On his Octopus Athletics blog, Tris Wykes recounts what happened next. One note: W. Fairlee's Tara Geraghty-Moats would be a shoo-in for the women's team...except there is no women's nordic combined Olympic competition.About that Leb landfill agreement... As you may know, the city is asking the 23 towns that make up the Greater Upper Valley Solid Waste Management District to sign a new agreement that would allow their residents to drop waste off at the landfill directly. In Sidenote, Nick Clark lays out the choices towns face in how they issue permits. Most, he reports, are opting to let residents who want a permit to get one directly from Lebanon—thus sidestepping the city's requirement that town clerks who issue permits comply with Lebanon's "Welcoming Ordinance."Global Village Foods almost triples its space with move from Windsor to Quechee. Mel, Damaris, and Wangane Hall's prepared-African-food company has seen strong growth over the past five years—its meals are now sold in Whole Foods and natural food stores around the Northeast, writes Lippman in the VN. The move from the former McDonald’s on Route 5 in Windsor into the former Singleton's on Route 4 in Quechee is "what we needed to grow," Mel Hall tells him. Lippman also writes that after losing its lease last year, the China Moon Cafe on Sykes Mtn. Ave. in WRJ is reopening next door.Glad you got here, Ryan! So... You remember Guster frontman Ryan Miller's Weird and Wonderful World blog, in which he explores the offbeat around VT (and elsewhere)? Well, he's discovered the Upper Valley. While Windsor's Path of Life Garden may "sound a little bit tutti frutti, I found the whole experience heady," he reports. The Hartland Diner is the UV's "weirdo food oasis," the WRJ outpost of the Phnom Penh Sandwich Station gets raves ("I could hug you extraneous H’s"), and Little Istanbul and the Precision Museum come in for glory, too. There's more to come about WRJ, he promises.As VT breakthrough cases rise, public health experts fret. On Aug. 14, the state reported that 288 fully vaccinated Vermonters tested positive out of 725 new cases overall. State officials insist there's no need for new mandates. But VTDigger's Lola Duffort reports that public health experts believe the state's high vaccination rate is not enough to keep community transmission down—especially among unvaccinated children under 12. “Vermont children under 12 don't look different from Louisiana or Florida children," says Dartmouth's Anne Sosin. "If we fail to employ adequate mitigation strategies in schools, we can expect the same results that we're seeing in other states.” Peace Corps "built on ideals" of Sharon/Tunbridge camp. In VTDigger, historian Mark Bushnell takes a look back at Camp William James, the voluntary-rural-service camp set up in 1940 by a group of Dartmouth students, Harvard grads, and Dartmouth prof Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, who'd written, “American life is barren because the city and the farm have become separate.” It drew the interest of both First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband's political opponents, and closed in 1942 as the demands of the war intensified, even as its ideals of community service proved more tenacious. Boy, can you imagine what he'd do to a jet ski? Let's say you're an 1800-pound walrus out for a swim and you need to come up on land to rest, but you don't feel like swimming all the way to shore and there are all these little... islands... floating around. You'd climb up on one, right? Which is how it's come to be that Wally, an arctic walrus, has been wreaking havoc on pleasure boats off the coast of Ireland. Though some boats do survive, giving Wally a chance to lounge genteelly, as here in the Irish Examiner. (Thanks, SL!)And what has to be one of the more unusual Hurricane Henri pics out there... From astronaut Megan McArthur.
So much catching up to do...It's been a while, eh? The weekend Covid figures won't come out from the states until later today, so let's just see what's happened since the last time Daybreak published, five weeks ago.
NH has gone from a 7-day average of 28 cases per day to, on average, 252 cases per day as of last Friday—with 332 cases reported that day. In all, the state has seen 4,696 new cases since mid-July (a 4.7 percent jump), for a total of 104,571. There have been 16 deaths over those five weeks (a 1.1 percent increase); as of Friday they stood at 1,397. The active caseload has risen from 238 five weeks ago to 2,191, and hospitalizations have gone from 13 to 82. As of Friday, the state was reporting 136 active cases in Grafton County, 81 in Sullivan County, and 188 in Merrimack County. In town-by-town numbers reported by the state on Friday, Claremont had 45 cases, Hanover had 24, Lebanon had 10, Enfield and New London had 5 each, and Orford, Wentworth, Rumney, Lyme, Canaan, Grafton, Plainfield, Sunapee, Newbury, and Charlestown had 1-4 each.
Meanwhile, VT has seen 2,395 new cases, a 9.7 percent increase, with 132 new cases Friday bringing it to a total of 26,924. There have been 12 deaths (a 4.6 percent increase), for a total of 270. As of Friday, 23 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized. Windsor County has seen 74 new cases over the past two weeks (123 over the past five) and now stands at 1,650 for the pandemic; Orange County has had 26 cases over the past two weeks (58 over the past five) and stands at 883 for the pandemic. In town-by-town numbers as of last Wednesday, Springfield saw 15 cases over the previous three weeks, Hartford 13, Royalton 12, Hartland 11, Newbury 9, Randolph 6, Bridgewater and Sharon 5 apiece, Reading 4, Corinth, Bradford, and Weathersfield 3 each, Bethel, Windsor, and West Windsor 2 apiece, and Barnard, Cavendish, Killington, Norwich, Strafford, Tunbridge, and Woodstock 1 each.
Dartmouth on Friday reported 2 cases among faculty and staff and 21 among students, including a large cluster at Tuck. In a community conversation last Wednesday, interim provost David Kotz reported that in 21 of the positive cases identified on campus between Aug. 1 and Aug. 17, 19 were in fully vaccinated individuals—"Some had no symptoms, some had mild symptoms, all have isolated themselves and are recovering well," he said.
A note on these Covid reports: After today, I'm going to limit them to Tuesdays and Fridays. If the situation changes and it makes sense to return to daily numbers, I'll do so.
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What better way to come back than to watch a group of musicians doing what they do best: creating something remarkable by sitting around and noodling? Back in 2014, blues rock standouts Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks and their band did a three-night show at NYC's Beacon Theater...with Taj Mahal and guitarist/dobroist Jerry Douglas on hand. Ahead of time, they gathered in the green room
Remarkably, we get to sit in...
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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