GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, a tad warmer. We start the day still under yesterday's high pressure, though that's moving out, and at the very beginning of a warming trend, though it sure won't feel like it first thing, down here in the minuses. Temps today will quickly climb toward the mid 20s, and clouds will come in over the course of the afternoon as a low pressure system moves up the coast. Winds today from the northwest, down into the mid or low teens overnight.Cool whip... The scene on Maple Hill Road in Norwich, by Amy Stringer.Time for Dear Daybreak! This week, AnnJane Kemon reflects on full-circle sledding, Rose Loving finds a message in a chunk of ice, and Beth Hilgartner tells the story of a tree across the road, no chainsaw in sight, and a sudden moment of inspiration. And hey, Dear Daybreak needs stories! Send one in!In all sorts of ways, the Upper Valley is feeling the bird flu pinch. The flu may mostly be affecting flocks elsewhere, but on local farms, in restaurants, and at food pantries, reports the Valley News's Marion Umpleby, they're seeing the results. Finding hens for eggs has become a challenge. Leann Briggs at the Four Aces in West Leb says egg prices have jumped almost 30 percent since last month and Lou's general manager says wholesale egg prices "have at least tripled"—both, for now, are trying just to absorb the cost. Willing Hands, meanwhile, has had to turn to locals for egg donations.Dartmouth announces plan to build housing in West Leb. The 21-unit development will be on five acres on Oak Ridge Road, across Route 10 from Sachem Field. The modular homes for faculty and staff—constructed off-site—will include 14 two-story, three-bedroom homes; three duplexes; and one single-story, three-bedroom home designed for accessibility, the college's Office of Communications says in its press release. The project is being spearheaded by Occom Path, a real estate company owned by Dartmouth grad Jeff Shapiro.SPONSORED: Looking for a free, community-friendly activity next month? Lebanon Opera House, sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital and Dartmouth Health, invites you to a special free screening of RENT as part of the Come as You Are Film Series. The film will be shown on Thursday, March 20, at 7 pm at the Lebanon Opera House, 51 Park Street. Everyone’s welcome. Just show up and enjoy the show! Sponsored by APD.Rural life at the Chandler in Randolph, from the Smithsonian and a collection of VT artists. You may have encountered the traveling Smithsonian exhibit "Crossroads: Change in Rural America" elsewhere in the Upper Valley -- it's been around since last fall. In Seven Days, Alice Dodge writes that it's got plenty to offer, though it strikes her as "a bit patronizing." A bigger reason to visit the Chandler's gallery, Dodge suggests, comes from the "more nuanced and creative approach to rural identity in the excellent local additions to the show," from paintings to photos to a hooked rug. Dodge offers up a tour.After discovering its foundation walls are cracking, Windsor Diner's owner hopes to be able to move. Which, ironically, is thanks to a different type of foundation. In the Valley News, Liz Sauchelli tells the story: What began as work on a new kitchen floor last month got complicated when contractor Greg Blanchard discovered that the historic railroad dining car is sitting on a foundation that, in Blanchard's words, "is just slowly caving in." Enter the Guy B Vitagliano Foundation, founded by Blanchard, which recently cleared a dilapidated property in town. Now plans are afoot to move the diner..."What spirited volunteers can do": Pt. II. You might recognize that line from yesterday's item about the Hartford voting guide created by Ally Tufenkjian. That brought in the new video at the link—essentially a public service announcement about volunteering in Lebanon created by Sherry Boschert. "With the budget crisis that we're facing in Lebanon, volunteers are more important than ever," she writes. The video highlights a variety of Leb residents talking about what they do, and why. "I think it's a good thing to be involved. That's how you feel alive in the community," says Bise Wood Saint Eugene.With house prices in NH still at record highs, who's buying them? Well, writes Jon Decker for the Granite State News Collaborative, they're "being gobbled up almost exclusively by high-income earners from out of state, prior homeowners, and people with access to generational wealth." Says a Conway realtor, "Most are coming up from Massachusetts, because that’s where the money is. Local people are pretty much priced out of the market.” The same's true in the Lakes Region, where people—or short-term-rental investors—are paying cash. Manchester, meanwhile, is seeing returning snowbirds.Education Freedom Accounts: “New Hampshire has absolutely joined the list of the most permissive states in terms of what taxpayer dollars can be spent on." That's an expert on school choice programs talking to the Monitor's Jeremy Margolis (here via NHPR). The Monitor has put together a database of how families in the EFA program spent $3.9 million in non-private-school-tuition dollars in 2022-23 (the most recent available spending data). In addition to curricular materials, the spending included ski lift tickets, martial arts programs, equestrian facilities, dance schools, and other extracurricular activities.With USDA cuts, VT loses researchers studying flood resilience and the transition away from dairying. More than half the members of a 17-member team at the federal agency's Agricultural Research Service at UVM appear to have lost their jobs, reports VTDigger's Klara Bauters. The nine people laid off include six scientists, "stripping the team of years of institutional knowledge focused on building a more sustainable agricultural future," Bauters writes. Says one former employee: “I really believed in the research. We were doing such good work, and it’s devastating. It just doesn’t exist anymore."Abenaki forum at VT statehouse quickly becomes "shouting match." As Kevin McCallum reports in Seven Days, a Burlington state rep organized the event so that members of the Odanak and Wôlinak First Nations in Québec could explain why they've challenged VT's tribal recognition process. "All of the evidence indicates that the four self-identified Abenaki tribes in Vermont are not descended from Indigenous people," he said. Not surprisingly, members of VT's four recognized tribes took exception. “What you’re saying is pretty arrogant,” said Chief Don Stevens of VT's Nulhegan Band. McCallum recounts events."The people of Vermont probably cannot afford to give Vermont children the education to which they are entitled if we try to give [it to] them in our present town school system." The Scott administration's education reform proposal? Nope, a 1963 state task force on creating regional school districts. In other words, writes Seven Days' Alison Novak, the state has been here before—most recently with a 2019 proposal from then-Ed. Secy. Dan French to create a single statewide school district administered by four locally elected regional school boards. Novak goes into past reform efforts, and why they've foundered.“I find it to be beautiful, in a way that art is beautiful.” Though this one's sorta beauty/eye/beholder: slow-motion video of the tongues of reptiles and amphibians. Aeon hosts a Science mag video featuring Kurt Schwenk, an evolutionary biologist at UConn, and lots of lizard tongues in slo-mo action. New high-speed, high-resolution cameras, he says, produce astonishing images and allow for intense study of the ways reptile and amphibian tongues evolved to stick to, grasp and pick up their prey. He sees lab research as a creative process, and discovery as a true high.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
The law professor, attorney, educator and advocate will give the Rockefeller Center's William H. Timbers '37 Lecture in the Hanover Inn Ballroom starting at 5 pm today, holding a conversation with actress, playwright, teacher, and author Anna Deavere Smith. The two will talk over the 2024 election, women's rights, and gender politics. Registration is required for both the in-person and livestreamed versions, both of which are open to the public.
The monthly session moves to the library's mezzanine "with its great acoustics and baby grand piano," Interplay writes. "Starting at 6:30 pm, we encourage instrumentalists to participate in free flow tunes to develop new material (music) and play together. Continuing at 7:30, singers may wish to join in. Bring well-known jazz standards, popular songs or an original tune in your key to play with the instrumentalists."
MacArthur fellow Alex Rivera's 2008 "near-future dystopian sci-fi film" tells the story of a Mexican worker who finds a job in a Tijuana factory "where humans are wired to a cybernetwork through nodes attached to their bodies in order to complete virtual work across the border in the US." It'll be introduced by Rivera himself, along with
Latino & Caribbean Studies
prof Matthew Garcia. 7 pm in the Loew Auditorium — it's the opening screening for a conference on how speculative fiction sparks discussion about climate change, human displacement, and social conflict.
And let's just float into the day today...
Vega Trails (it takes its name from Carl Sagan's sci fi novel
Contact
) began in 2022 as a two-person "chamber jazz" project spearheaded by London double-bassist and composer Milo Fitzpatrick. With a new album coming out next month, the band's numbers have expanded, but it remains reflective, melodic, and conversational.
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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