GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Don't let today's sun fool you. Though don't get me wrong: It'll be nice to see it again. But last night's cold front ushered in colder air, with today's highs staying square in the 30s. We're also likely to see some blustery northwest winds, at least this morning. Still, it'll be nice out and the cold won't last too much longer. Lows tonight in the lower 20s.Extremes.
On the one hand, here's Skip Jenkyn's pic of four male hooded mergansers celebrating spring by courting a lone female, just where Grant Brook joins the Connecticut River in Lyme yesterday.
And on the other, here's Annemieke McLane's pic from Strafford of the eerily lunar landscape of ice that greeted her on her car windshield the other morning.
The pathbreaking theater company is in a bind, reports Alex Hanson in the
Valley News
. Although the Shaker Bridge Theatre's agreement to lease the Briggs Opera House in WRJ for 25 weeks a year theoretically leaves room for other theater companies to mount productions, JAG's Jason Schumacher says, "There’s just no four-week period on their calendar that we can slide into." And the company has been told by King Arthur Baking that its Theater on the Hill of the past two summers is a no-go this year.
That's from a February report by the state health department looking into the death of an unnamed resident, writes the
Valley News
's Nora Doyle-Burr. The state's Dept. of Justice is now conducting a criminal investigation, and the facility has been fined $176,000 by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. An autopsy found the resident "had unexplained injuries" (a fracture and dislocations to both shoulders) "that contributed to their death.”
You'll remember that the city's acquiring three parcels on Main Street, and for a variety of reasons wants to use them in part for a new fire station. And that at a March 15 meeting, residents pushed back on that idea, arguing, as one of them put it, that a fire station would be "a big waste of the downtown Main Street of West Lebanon.” One thing fueling their approach is at the burgundy link: a draft vision laid out by Lyme Properties president Chet Clem pressing for new retail and residential development on the site.
Come experience Palm Sunday at St. Thomas in Hanover. Join us this Sunday at 10:30am for a donkey-led procession. Spend Holy Week with us as we prepare for the most joyful of days, Easter.
Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
E. Thetford's Peter Graves inducted into US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. At a ceremony in Montana last weekend, Graves, who over four decades has called hundreds of Olympic, World Cup, and World Championship skiing events, was made a member of the Hall's Class of 2021 (delayed because of the pandemic). In its writeup, the Hall notes, "From calling the closest cross-country ski race in Olympic history at the 1980 Lake Placid Games...to serving as the stadium announcer at the dramatic, post-9/11 Olympic opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City, Graves has provided the soundtrack for many of the biggest moments in the sport."New London approves zoning amendments, Charlestown nixes an elected fire chief, and other voting news. A series of NH towns held elections Tuesday for matters to be decided by ballot, and the VN has rounded up results from New London, Lyme, Springfield NH, Grantham, Charlestown (where the fire department wanted to let its members elect the chief, rather than have the selectboard appoint one), and the Kearsarge School District.
Hanover Selectboard agrees to $1.7 million budget jump. Most of that increase, which brings the total town budget to $33.3 million, will go to boosting salaries and wages for town employees, reports the VN's Patrick Adrian. In an online summary preparing for Tuesday night's meeting, Town Manager Alex Torpey explained, “We have fallen behind competitive market rates for various positions (and) have lost many employees throughout the year, including for better commutes, better wages, and the private sector." In all, residents face a 6.5 percent municipal tax increase; they'll vote on the budget May 9.Dartmouth study finds striking rise in child mental health hospitalizations. And that was before the pandemic, notes Ellen Barry in the NYT (gift link). Especially notable in their analysis of 4,767,840 pediatric hospitalizations between 2009 and 2019, the researchers at Geisel and DH found, was that the proportion of pediatric mental health hospitalizations stemming from suicidal or self-harming behavior rose from 31 percent in 2009 to 64 percent in 2019. “You have got a whole system failure here that is registering itself in suicidal kids,” a psychiatrist not involved in the study tells Barry.Audit faults VT regulators for shortcomings in oversight of assisted living, residential care homes. Those eldercare facilities are more loosely regulated than nursing homes, writes Seven Days' Derek Brouwer, but VT State Auditor Doug Hoffer's report finds that the state agency in charge of inspections does not carry them out frequently enough, and tends to be too lenient when inspectors do discover problems. The report suggests those problems should be addressed as aggressively as at nursing homes. “In both cases, vulnerable Vermonters are at risk,” Hoffer writes.Boiling sap at Christmas. Fat biking instead of xc skiing: New England small businesses adapt to changing winters. "I don’t think we should assume that every winter from 2023 forward will be this warm," Dartmouth geography prof Jonathan Winter tells the Christian Science Monitor's Sara Lang. But they are becoming more common. So businesses that rely on winter cold are shifting how they operate. “The more that we can offer... the greater the draw to get people to stay here,” says the director of Maine Huts & Trails. “That’s a shared strategy of all the participants of the winter economy up here.”Oh well, it was a nice dream while it lasted. Back in January, the James Beard Foundation announced its semifinalists for this year's James Beard Awards, and they included several chefs and bakers in VT and NH, though none in the Upper Valley. Well, the finalists were announced yesterday, and the Twin States were shut out. Last year, of course, Nisachon "Rung" Morgan of Randolph's Saap was named best chef in the Northeast; this year, that honor is going to go to someone in MA, CT, or RI.“The first thing I always do is look at their hands. If they are well-manicured, they do not want to travel with us.” Sandy Hazelip and traveling partner Ellie Hamby are hard on anyone they know who asks to travel with them. They don’t go first class. But boy, do they go. On My Modern Met, Regina Sienra writes about the pair’s trip around the world in 80 (ish) days—while in their 80s. Tangoes in Argentina, museums in Madrid … camels, hot-air balloons, rickshaws. Follow along (and be inspired to plan your own trip) on their blog. A few days ago, they were in Bali. Now it's Australia.And speaking of seeing the world... You don't actually have to leave home, thanks to the winners of Smithsonian mag's photo contest. The grand prize winner, of two Norwegian mountain hares fighting at nighttime, is riveting enough. But so is Rory Doyle's early-morning photo of a lone voter in Atlanta patiently waiting for the polls to open before the 2022 midterms. And Prabir Kumar Das's pic of two rhinos in India at full charge headed right for his car...The Thursday Vordle. With a fine little word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 10 this morning, Pentangle Arts presents a show for kids pre-K to 3rd grade, Pete the Cat's Big Hollywood Adventure. The production, put on by TheaterWorksUSA and co-hosted by Woodstock's Yankee Bookshop, is based on the Pete the Cat books by Kimberly and James Dean. The title pretty much says it all, though for some reason it doesn't mention Ethel the Apatosaurus. In the Woodstock Town Hall Theater.
Today from 5:30 to 8 pm, Art New England magazine hosts a party at AVA Gallery in Lebanon to celebrate AVA's 50th anniversary. It's also the final two days of the two shows at the gallery curated by Hood Museum director John Stomberg, the group exhibition "From the Heart" and a solo exhibition by writer and artist Tom Fels.
At 6 pm, both in-person at the Norwich Public Library and online via Zoom, the NPL hosts a conversation with two Vital Communities staffers, housing program manager Ellen Hender and Sarah Danly, who manages the White River Valley Consortium project. They'll be talking about the Upper Valley's housing crisis and the various ways in which individuals, towns, and organizations around the region are trying to address it.
At 6:30 pm, the Etna Library hosts Mary Kronenwetter, reading from and talking about her new historical novel, Pauper Auction. The book takes its title from the early practice in New Hampshire towns of auctioning off indigent residents to work for bidders who'll take them into their homes in exchange for town funds; it centers on a young widow and an abandoned child taken in by a farmer in 1805. Plenty of period detail on food, blacksmithing, stone walls, needlework, and cider-making. Via Zoom.
It's looking like Hop Film's screening of the won-everything-in-sight blockbuster Everything Everywhere All At Oncemay be sold out, but it's always worth a shot by calling 603.646.2422. If you do score tix, it's at the Loew.
Today marks the kickoff for PoemTown Randolph's 10th anniversary celebration of National Poetry Month, when almost 100 poems go up on windows all over town—as well as down a forest path to the river and, in a first, on the Whale Dance sculpture up by I-89. Ahead: Readings by Vermont poets, a poetry with music event, a poetry open mic, and this Saturday, the ever-popular Farmer Poets night at Silloway Sugarhouse.
And anytime, you can check out JAM's highlights for the week, including a point/counterpoint on VT's proposed Affordable Heat Act between Hartford state Rep. Becca White and newsletterer and former Ethan Allen Institute president Rob Roper; US Sen. Peter Welch talking in committee about the challenges facing VT organic dairy farms; and David Briggs reminiscing to the Hartford Historical Society a few years back about growing up in WRJ.
And to start the day...
There's a decent chance you've run across Miley Cyrus's new hit, "Flowers." After all, it's racked up 339 million views on YouTube and ranks #5 globally on the site.
, featuring rising-star singer Stella Katherine Cole and a wailing sax solo by PMJ's Ben Golder-Novick. It's gotten 1.1 million views in just six days. Think it'll catch up?
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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