GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, a bit warmer. In fact, we're at the start of a three-day warming trend, with temps on Saturday possibly reaching the low 70s as a ridge of high pressure settles in for a day and then, eventually, air starts moving in from the south. Today, though, we're looking at highs around or slightly above 50 with gusty winds from the northwest. Lows tonight in the upper 20s.A bobcat. Looking watchful but also regally at home, in this brief video by Thomas Wetmore.Time for Dear Daybreak! A slight departure in this week's collection of tales from around the Upper Valley: There are just two. First up, yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the day that Doug Tifft's heart suddenly stopped working as he was on his bike across from Jesse's; a random group of strangers saved his life, and today he recounts what happened as "a testimony to all those who help strangers in the Upper Valley." Then Keith Quinton checks in with a photographic memory of back when Dartmouth ran a dairy.For Upper Valley birders, a duck mystery. The common eider is a seagoing bird, and it's extremely rare to see one in this region—only eight have ever been spotted in Grafton County. So you can imagine the excitement when someone spotted one some time ago by the Wilder Dam—only to realize it was a common eider decoy. As Catherine Holland writes in a thoroughly engaging letter to Daybreak (with photos and speculation), several decoys have now been spotted at the dam and upstream at Hewes Brook. "Local birders are desperate to know why," she writes. "Who is putting these decoys out?"Grafton County Attorney won't pursue charges against Leb Public Works employees. As you probably remember, Douglas Boisvert and Damian Hetzel had been charged by the Lebanon Police Department with "using city equipment and materials to do work at city cemeteries and charging families directly for the work," as Clare Shanahan writes in the Valley News. But county attorney Marcie Hornick says the report the charges were based on provides insufficient evidence. Outgoing city manager Shaun Mulholland says he stands by the city's investigation. Shanahan details the case.Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team, DHART aid in intense Walpole rescue effort. Tuesday evening, an 18-year-old hiker from Bellows Falls fell some 30 feet off a ledge on Mount Kilburn. A DHART copter and a drone eventually located him, and an NH Fish & Game officer "was able to scale down steep cliffs" to reach him, the agency says in a press release. With his serious injuries and the dangerous terrain, a chopper from the Army National Guard was called in, while members of the UVWRT hiked in from below, packed him in a litter, and carried him to a clearing. He was flown to DHMC.SPONSORED: Exceptional specialty care is closer than you think. As a member of Dartmouth Health, Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital offers expert care in orthopaedics, general surgery, gynecology, neurosurgery, podiatry, sports medicine, and more right here in your community. From advanced pain management to sleep health and integrative medicine, our specialists are here to help you feel your best. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital.The Mark behind Marko. Marko the Magician, that is. In a profile for the Journal Opinion, Elise Coyle of UVM's Community News Service profiles the brilliantly engaging tableside performer and hypnotist—his real name is Mark Gagnon—and especially his decades of performing at Bradford's Colatina Exit. He grew up in Caribou, Maine, eventually moved to Essex, VT to work for Citizen's Oil—and then discovered that his sideline as a performing magician was bringing in more income than his actual job. “He’s funny, he's quick, quick-witted, just a whole package," says Colatina's Vic Wendell.A comma in Lyme. An eastern comma, to be precise, a butterfly species with a silvery marking on its underwing that gives it its name, writes Northern Woodlands' Jack Saul in this week's "This Week in the Woods". "We often see adult eastern commas flying both before other butterfly species in the spring and later in the year, because they overwinter as adults," he explains. Also out there this third week of April: an "iconic, feather-duster-like" American elm that's hung on in Topsham despite the ravages of Dutch Elm Disease; and, of course, wood frogs, which spent the winter in "in glucose-infused torpor."SPONSORED: Learn about planting native to support backyard biodiversity. Eleven local organizations are presenting free pre-recorded talks by entomologist Doug Tallamy of Homegrown National Park at the Nugget Theaters on Earth Day, 4/22, from 6:30-8:30pm. Plus, VT Center for Ecostudies conservation scientists Desiree Narango and Ryan Rebozo will join ecological gardening expert Alicia Houk for a live Q&A. They will discuss native plants, creating insect and bird habitats at home, and strategies for yard rewilding. Details at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Hanover Garden Club.VT Law & Grad School president to step down. Rodney Smolla, who's led the S. Royalton school since 2022, will move on from his post July 1, reports Liz Sauchelli in the VN. “I am very much looking forward to returning to a full-time life as a teacher, scholar, and advocate on pressing issues of national concern,” he tells her in an email. Law school dean Beth McCormack and grad school dean Dan Bromberg will become interim co-presidents in addition to their current roles. With the school calendar starting up July 1, “It’s too short to do a search now for the next academic year," McCormack says.Proctor Academy investigation finds past sexual misconduct. The school in Andover, NH hired an outside law firm last May after an alum approached administrators about "interactions of concern" with a former employee three decades before. Now, reports WMUR's Imani Fleming, after an 11-month investigation, the firm has found "that seven former Proctor employees engaged in sexual misconduct with former students between the 1960s and the 2000s." In all, the firm conducted 42 interviews; Proctor, Fleming adds, "is not aware of any legal action being taken by the survivors."US Dept. of Justice steps into Bow parents' legal case. In response to the ruling by a federal judge siding with the Bow school district's no-trespassing order against parents wearing wristbands to protest the participation of transgender students in girls' sports, US Attorney General Pam Bondi posted Tuesday night, "I have asked my @CivilRights Division to examine this matter." A lawyer for the school district, reports the Monitor's Sruthi Gopalakrishnan, writes that he's "confident" the review will find the decision "focused solely on protecting students from harassment by adults on school grounds."Three NH businesses try to navigate tariffs. NHPR's Todd Bookman visited three Monadnock-region firms to get a sense of what the local impact of tariffs looks like. Keene's Douglas Company sells stuffed toys it uses Asian manufacturers to produce; it's now paying 145 percent tariffs on each container and has paused construction of a new warehouse in Keene. Greenfield's American Steel Fabricators may get a boost from tariffs on steel in the long run—only right now American producers of raw steel are raising their prices. And at the Keene International Market—well, you can imagine.In VT, local option sales taxes gain steam as towns look to secure revenues. In all, writes VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor, 37 municipalities have approved some sort of local option tax—six of them at town meeting in March after legislators made it possible without a town charter. “A lot of towns are looking for ways to increase revenue" as they face uncertain state and federal funding, says Ludlow's municipal manager. One intriguing thing: The state collects them then returns 70 percent to towns. There's a move to up it to 75 percent, which would add $150K to Hartford's revenues, O'Connor reports.DH radiologist: "It's always there — the possibility that it all might come crashing down." Tom Burdick grew up on a ranch in northeastern Utah before putting himself through college and then med school. In a new VT Public installment of radio producer Erica Heilman's series on class, she talks to Burdick about growing up always aware of life on the margins—"just a bad water year might be something that...could just kind of wipe you out," he says—and what he wants for his kids: the drive "to change their circumstances, no matter what circumstances they end up."A little squid is a very big deal. It's only about a foot long, but that's because it's young. Eventually, if its luck holds, it'll grow into what's known as a colossal squid—a species that's never been seen alive in the wild before, but has shown up in the bellies of sperm whales and, occasionally, dying on fishermen's hooks. First discovered in 1925, only eight adults—which can grow to 23 feet long, according to estimates, with eyes the size of basketballs—have ever been reported. But last month, a Schmidt Ocean Institute remote vehicle filmed a juvenile and it's just gone public. Video at burgundy link, NBC News story here.The Thursday Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Gorman currently has an exhibition, "Not for Sale", of photos of Inuit life in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic at the Anderson Yezerski Gallery in Boston. Sponsored by the college's North Park House, he'll be showing slides and talking about it all today at 12:15. Open to the public.
Part of the college's 100-Days Speaker Series, the four-term governor will take part in a conversation focused on "federalism, the Trump administration's policy priorities, and the impact Trump's policies are having on state-level governance" with government prof and vice provost Dean Lacy and students representing Dartmouth Conservatives and Dartmouth Democrats. 5:30 pm in Filene and online.
If you read Dear Daybreak, you're familiar with Dover's ability to mine the everyday and the whimsical for deep insight into the human condition. He has a new collection out,
Flamingo Nation
, and will be reading from and talking about it at 5:30 pm at the Bethel library.
along with poet Ina Anderson for a PoemTown Randolph reading. For a taste,
on Tuesday (the 8:30 mark).
Downey, a consulting forester, is the last speaker in the series hosted by the Thetford Conservation Commission and the town's historical society. The title pretty much sums up the talk. 7 pm in the Martha Jane Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.
In her new book, Lange, a VT-based journalist and author who grew up in northern Germany, traces—on foot and by bike—the 1,400-km border that divided East and West Germany during the Cold War. She plumbs lots of questions, including, "How come over 1,200 rare animal and plant species found refuge in the highly militarized border strip?" 7 pm.
: a tour of last fall's Twin State Comic and Zine Fair; last month's Mudroom at AVA, with eight storytellers doing justice to the theme of "Cringe Worthy"; and a conversation from earlier this year at WRIF on
Far Out: Life on & After the Commune
, a film about radical journalists who left cities to live communally as farmers in 1968.
And for today...
If you've got a long Daybreak memory, you might recall Roxane Elfasci, a French classical guitarist who's shown up in this space a couple of times. For the last little while, she and fellow guitarist Baptiste Erard have been working on an ambitious effort to rearrange Philip Glass's piano études for two guitars. The album's coming out soon, and they've released a couple of examples.
. Elfasci writes that it's "
the shortest piece on the album, but also the most intense. It’s pure Philip Glass: hypnotic pulse, minimalist vibes, and undeniable power packed into just a few minutes.
" Yep.
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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