GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
That thing up there they tell us we're going to see later? It's called "sun." There's high pressure that should be moving into the region from the north this morning. But there's also an upper-level disturbance to the northwest and moisture from the east, both of which bear clouds. The result is cloud cover first thing, which—fingers crossed—will clear out fairly quickly and then everything turns sunny. Guess we'll see. Highs in the mid-50s today, lows below freezing, winds from the north.Sometimes you just need to put things in perspective early. Which Greg Greene did the other day, catching sunrise over the fields and woods of Woodstock from Mt. Tom.If you can possibly avoid South Main between the 12A strip and old West Leb today, do that. There's going to be paving going on, and as the city puts it, "Please expect very long delays...from 7am to 6pm with one-way alternating traffic." Surely you can put off that Halloween shopping until the last minute.Dartmouth launches planning effort for development along Lyme Road. The area in question stretches along the former golf course, where planners will look at long-term development options, building undergraduate housing (possibly on the east side of the road where the varsity golf practice facility currently sits), and finding ways to "support" the varsity golf program. Surveying and soil sampling will begin this fall. "Members of the Dartmouth community and Lyme Road neighbors will have opportunities to share their thoughts on the project and proposed designs this winter," the Office of Communications writes.SPONSORED: An enriching home-share opportunity is available for a reliable, compassionate, and companionable part-time care provider in Wilder, VT. A young man with Down syndrome is seeking part-time assistance from Saturday through Tuesday. He works throughout the week; weekday shifts will start in the morning and resume in the afternoon through the evening. (Approximately 25 hours a week.) The ideal candidate will be excited to foster a friendship and provide supervision while working collaboratively with a skilled support team.New climbing gym appears headed for the Upper Valley. There hasn't been anything since The Wall closed some years back, creating what Josh Garrison calls a "dead zone" for climbing gyms in the Upper Valley, writes Thomas White in The Dartmouth. Garrison and his partner in the project, Noah Lynd, have been working out details of The Notch Climbing Gym with local climbers through an online forum and newsletter and hope to "break ground" next spring. One unknown detail: Where it'll actually be. NH corporate records show that Lynd registered The Notch in Meriden in April.Ever noticed how few paintings there are of fathers and children? Susan Apel has. "Two paintings I saw at an exhibition recently at AVA Gallery intrigued me. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Then I realized I had seen few like them," she writes on her Artful blog. The paintings, Jonathan Rose's "Loving Arms" and Joseph Saginor's "Protective Custody" are of paternal figures holding children. There are centuries-worth of depictions of mother and child. Men? Not so much. As Susan says, "May we see more."Ever been out late and noticed a crowd in the Domino's parking lot in Hanover? In an article in The Dartmouth that's mostly about the dearth of late-night food options on campus ever since Collis Late Night closed during the pandemic, Molly Stevens notes that Domino's in Hanover is open to 3:15 am on Friday and Saturday nights, and that the store's sales have skyrocketed since students returned. Manager Michael Chevalier "has observed a makeshift late night social scene as groups of students come to Domino’s together," she writes, "congregating in and around the store and 'chilling in the parking lot.'"NH Exec Council goes for a slice of federal vaccine funding. You'll remember that it rejected $27 million at its last meeting. But yesterday, writes NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins, it opted to accept $4.7 million to help vaccinate kids 5-to-11. The difference lies in the source, the American Rescue Plan, which unlike the earlier CDC funds doesn't include language anti-vax protesters objected to. The problem is that while the money will help about 20,000 kids, it will not support sites that would vaccinate another 100,000.Council also approves spending $15.1 million to buy Hampstead Hospital for inpatient psychiatric care. Specifically, minors and possibly young adults. The approval, Timmins writes, comes as 25 children wait in hospital emergency rooms for inpatient beds to open up. The challenge, health commissioner Lori Shibinette told the Council yesterday, will be finding employees to staff it fully. The hospital has been using only 40 to 45 beds of the available 111, Timmins writes, and it will take months before contracts with staffing agencies that can do the hiring are even ready.At NH Public Utilities Commission, changes are afoot. Yesterday, the Exec Council approved the resignation of the PUC's chair, Dianne Martin, who has presided over a backlog of major decisions. Dan Goldner, who worked at Texas Instruments before joining the PUC in May, was nominated to replace her. In addition, Pradip Chattopadhyay, who used to work for the consumer advocate, has been nominated to a seat, as has Carleton Simpson, an energy lawyer for Unitil. “I think this particular configuration is well poised to clear [the] backlog,” Consumer Advocate Don Kreis tells NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee.Early Covid success may explain VT’s current case surge. The most vaccinated state in the US was a model of how to curb the virus’ spread. Now health officials are trying to explain VT’s alarming infection rate. Seven Days’ Colin Flanders suggests VT "may be falling victim to its own success,” having eased many early restrictions, like mask mandates, that Gov. Phil Scott is hesitant to reinstate while it also carries a smaller proportion of people with past infections. Unvaccinated people get most new infections, but breakthrough cases are rising, too.Standup comic, international health worker, pandemic health official, director of VT's refugee office. Those aren't four different people. They're Tracy Dolan, who will be front and center as the state prepares to resettle up to 100 Afghan refugees. In Seven Days, Ken Picard profiles Dolan—from her upbringing as one of six kids in a double-wide in British Columbia to her time overseas (including Afghanistan) to her recent stint as deputy health commissioner to her gigs at comedy clubs to the challenges she'll face over the next few months. "Vermont is a very welcoming state," she said recently, "but it is not always a welcoming state for everyone, right?""The men moved with deliberate slow grace, a kind of tree-felling ballet. The entire operation was pervaded by a sense of melancholy." That's novelist Annie Proulx, who lives in southern NH, describing the takedown of a massive ash tree at the end of her driveway. In the New Statesman, she writes about the the emerald ash borer and its cost, both to the humans who use ash for cutting boards and canoe paddles and baseball bats—"I have heard a rumour that baseball bat manufacturers are cramming their warehouses with ash," she writes—and the birds, frogs, and other animals that depend on them.And one more thing on leaves... and ticks. Julie R yesterday emailed to note that keeping leaves out of landfills is a good idea, but piling them in the yard creates a good site for ticks. She forwards a UVM post on research suggesting that "the common practice of raking or blowing leaves to dump...where lawn meets woods can result in three times as many blacklegged ticks in these areas the following spring." With VT's health department yesterday noting that "ticks are particularly active” now, the post's advice that you mulch leaves or dump them far away from sitting and playing areas seems pretty sound.Pumpkin-growing champ says it's all about the “magic seeds.” They start out tiny and end up, writes The Guardian’s Gabrielle Canon, “as heavy as a walrus.” And few grow gourds as consistently huge as Leonardo Urena does. A production manager at a Napa Valley winery, Urena found the passion when he was gifted prize-winning pumpkin seeds years ago. He held the world record until last year—broken by a MN grower’s 2,350-pounder. The seed it grew from? One of Urena’s. But no hard feelings, he says. “It’s like seeing part of your family being number one.”
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With Afghan refugees on their way to the Upper Valley, as well as elsewhere in VT and NH, this seems like a good time to make sure you know about Hearts You Hold. The nonprofit, based in Thetford, was started by former Mount Lebanon Elementary principal Eloise Ginty. Its premise is simple: It supports refugees, migrants, and immigrants in a tangible way by asking them what they need or want—we're talking things like boots and raincoats and winter jackets. Then it gives you a chance to help out by, essentially, buying that item for that person. Some of the requests are local, some are from far afield, all are needed.
You may remember an item a few days ago about the eight local artists who meet monthly to talk about and critique one another's work. The members are all current or retired professionals who work or have worked in the fields of science, architecture, higher education, travel, and psychology. They've currently got a group show on at AVA Gallery, called "What You Get is What You See," and this afternoon at 5 they're giving an online and in-person discussion and talk from the galleries about their work and collective efforts over the years.
At 7 pm, the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock is hosting an online "Ghost Night" with film expert Rick Winston, who used to own Montpelier's Savoy Theater and directed the Green Mountain Film Festival's programming for 14 years. He'll explore unusual films that explore the supernatural. Only 20 slots available. Email [email protected] if you want one.
Still North Books & Bar recently began staying open until 9 pm on Thursdays for what it's calling "Still North After Dark." They're not just offering half off beer and wine and 10 percent off books in the evening, but from 7 to 9 pm this evening they're hosting Sunday Table, a local jazz quartet made up of people who work at DHMC. This will be the first live music there in almost two years... Masks required unless seated and actively eating/drinking.
And at 7:30 pm, the Hop presents singer, performance artist, and writer Joseph Keckler for "an informal evening" in the Moore Theater. Keckler's known especially for...singing? delivering?...arias that plumb the absurdities of life. "While their content is quirky," NPR's Marissa Lorusso wrote earlier this year, "it's not quite right to call them strictly funny; they're infused with a kind of intimate, observational detail that makes them simultaneously comedic and affecting." He'll be joined by pianist Matthew Dean Marsh to present highlights from his extensive body of work.
"We want to say, 'Thank you, William Shakespeare!' Absolutely free lyrics for us. It's not bad lyrics." Though as Marko Halanevych of the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha told a San Francisco audience a few years ago, "It's in old English and you will not understand it." It's a little hard to describe DakhaBrakha—they've been called everything from "punk ethnic" to "ethnic chaos," but you get the overarching theme.
And if nothing else, do go check out that cello.
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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