GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
And it'll be a fine start to the week. Yesterday's front is mostly gone and we've got high pressure dropping by from Canada, giving us a dry day with clouds eventually clearing out this morning. Highs into the mid-70s, mostly sunny, winds from the northwest. Down to around 50 tonight.Since we're talking sky... The Post Mills Airport this weekend hosted the annual Experimental Balloon and Airship Association gathering again—but without its most illustrious member, Brian Boland. Instead, the event was in his honor, and it drew balloonists from around the region and the country. Some of the balloons that went up were Boland's, some were the balloonists'—and all were very cool.
Here's what has to be one of the more unusual hot air balloons you're ever going to see, by Ann Holbrook.
And this is a short video of many of the balloons inflated and ready to launch, from Sherry Merrick.
And here's Li Shen's writeup of the whole thing, with more photos, in Sidenote.
...Though not everyone got down smoothly. Yesterday morning, after taking off from Post Mills, a New Jersey balloonist and his Massachusetts passenger went into the treetops in Ryegate. Balloonist Keith Sproul had tried to slow the balloon by brushing the treetops, but instead was "pushed forward from [his chariot-style] seat and unable to control the balloon," according to a VT State Police press release. He talked his passenger, Olivia Miller, through landing the balloon. It was damaged; they were uninjured.“The more things there are here, the more reasons there are for people to get off at Exit 20." That's Eric Roberts, who owns Lui Lui in the Powerhouse Mall, talking about the anticipation along 12A as Target and Sierra prepare to open in the former Kmart space. It's unclear exactly when that's going to happen, reports John Lippman in the Valley News, but after being "beaten down for a long time," Lippman writes, businesses along the strip are hoping traffic through their doors picks up as the two major retailers reel in customers.SPONSORED: Finally! The Hop is swinging its doors open and pulling up its curtains with a full, live '21-'22 season. From premieres and commissions of stirring dance theater works and new music, to expressions from across cultures and immersive experiences, the season features visiting and resident artists such as Ragamala Dance Company, Terence Blanchard, Urban Bush Women, Gidon Kremer and Roger Guenveur Smith. Tickets are on sale now. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.Co-op, Hartford plan to go net-zero in the next nine years.
The Co-op's board announced last week that it intends to reduce the stores' carbon emissions to nothing by 2030. "Every store update or renovation, every replacement of equipment or vehicle, has this goal in mind,” general manager Paul Guidone said in the announcement—though a specific plan of action will come later.
Hartford, too, is aiming for 2030, reports Claire Potter (originally in the VN, here via VTDigger). The Selectboard last week made official what townspeople mandated a couple of years ago, starting with amending its procurement policies to take greenhouse emissions into account. It will also pursue group purchases of heat pumps for businesses and residents and allow higher-density development.
Why you're going to be hearing the word "Bindle" a lot. The Lebanon Opera House and the Hopkins Center have posted new Covid safety protocols for audience members, and both involve not just mask-wearing, but proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test within 72 hours before the event. You're free to show your paper vaccine certificate, but both venues are looking to streamline things by asking patrons to use an app called Bindle, which encodes that information, and which performing arts orgs around the country are starting to rely on for proof of vaccination.“If they are not wearing a face mask we just assume it’s because of a medical condition and let it go at that. Otherwise I’d lose half my customers.” That, from a Lebanon Pet & Aquarium Center assistant manager, pretty much sums up the calculation Lebanon merchants are making as they navigate the city's renewed mask ordinance. In a meander along 12A, the VN's John Lippman found that some stores have signs saying it's required, others that it's optional, and some have no signs at all. "People are very confused" says a TJ Maxx cashier.Making eye contact in conversation shows you're in synch—and may also disrupt it. Which, say Dartmouth grad student Sophie Wohltjen and brain sciences prof Thalia Wheatley, is actually a good thing. "Conversation is the platform where minds meet to create and exchange ideas," they write in a new study, and argue that eye contact during a conversation both signals "synchrony", or shared understanding, and may, Wheatley says, "usefully disrupt synchrony momentarily in order to allow for a new thought or idea.”NH hospitals getting fuller. A year ago, David Brooks writes in the Monitor, the state had about 40 people in the hospital with Covid; there were 149 as of Friday, the last time the state reported numbers. Statewide data shows 11 percent of ICU beds are still available, and more than three-quarters of ventilators—though "some hospitals are close to running up against shortages," he writes, "partly because health care workers are leaving due to burnout." Of Concord Hospital's 19 Covid patients, 15 are unvaccinated. Hound hunting in VT spotlight after viral video. You may have run across Morgan Gold—he's the Peacham farmer who's documented his farm (remember "All ducks go to bed"?) on social media. Last week, he posted a TikTok video of an encounter with hunters whose dogs had treed a bear on his property. Gold, who hunts, objects to others' dogs harassing animals on his (posted) land. "I’ve never actually met a dog who is able to read a sign,” he tells VTDigger's Grace Benninghoff, who details the incident and efforts to change state laws on hound hunting, now that hunters use GPS to track their dogs."Sweetness, airiness, moistness, crispy fry-ness, and sponginess." That's the perfect cider-doughnut-balance Alex Schwartz looks for... and he's done a lot of looking. He's on a "life-long mission to try every cider donut," reports NPR's Nell Clark, and he's built a map of his travels around New England so far, taking photos of each spot and giving their doughnuts a review. He's gotten to Patch Orchards in Lebanon (4.9 stars) and Riverview Farm in Plainfield (4.8 stars). His advice: "Take a single bite and pause. Close your eyes. If you feel like you want to scarf down the rest of the doughnut, that's a good sign, but savor it if you can." (Thanks, ES!)In the mood to feel insignificant? It's pretty much impossible not to when you happen on Mitch Dobrowner's storm photography. In his late teens, he stumbled across the works of Ansel Adams and Minor White, and was, he once said, "floored" by how they used light in the environment. He works in black and white... which, given the massive storms he likes to chase, seems exactly right. Link goes to his storm portfolio, but you can see landscapes and other works via the "menu" at the top left.Sure, any old duck can say "You bloody fool." But sound like a door? Musk ducks, which are large Australian waterbirds, learn to communicate at a young age from their flock mates. But it turns out that, raised alone in captivity, they learn to imitate the noises around them—a cage door, an irate keeper, a snorting pony. New Scientist's Christa Lesté-Lasserre posts a recording made by Australian researcher Peter Fullagar years ago, and the background story of how it came to light.
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If you like heading into the woods, you may have run across Tom Wessels' classic guide to "forest forensics," Reading the Forested Landscape. Now the former Antioch New England ecology prof is out with a new book, New England's Roadside Ecology, which officially debuts tomorrow and digs into 30 different New England ecosystems and their flora, fauna, and fungi—most no more than a two-mile walk from the road. This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore will host Wessels' online reading and talk about the book, his research, and what you'll find if you get out there.
"Country music for grown folks." That's how Brent Cobb describes what he does. He grew up in south Georgia, made his way to Nashville by way of California, is cousins with superstar Nashville producer Dave Cobb, and veers toward the philosophical in his songwriting. Every so often he teams up with fellow country singer-songwriter Nikki Lane—who's sometimes called "The First Lady of Outlaw Country," though she grew up listening to everything from Motown to mountain dulcimer.
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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