GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, still cool. Yesterday's winds heralded a mass of cold, very dry air that'll stick with us until things start turning around tomorrow. Today's highs in the upper 40s or low 50s are about 10 degrees cooler than normal, but they'll be under brilliantly sunny skies. Winds today from the northwest, back into the low 20s tonight.Pink Moon rising. The April full moon, of course, is named more for the season's early flowers than for its own color—though this year's version was plenty colorful.
Here's the full moon rising, from Hartland, by Tammy Willens.
And from Thetford, by Robin Osborne.
And here's the near-full moon rising during daylight next to Smarts, from a reader who prefers no names.
The Mascoma Slalom kayak (and occasional canoe) race was held Saturday, as it has been every year since 1963. Etna photographer Jim Block was there (as
he
has been at least four times in the past) and in his latest blog post, catches us up on the action, both before-hand and during. He offers a lesson on why, with action shots, a slow shutter speed is more interesting than a fast one. And also why learning to recover from a dunking is as important as learning how to maneuver.
Rescue crews from Hanover, Lebanon, and Hartford were out on the river yesterday practicing swift water drills, swimming techniques, and how to deploy motorized craft. As Hanover fire captain Josh Merriam told WCAX, the practice is taking on new urgency as the weather grows more troublesome. “The unique thing that we are noticing now...is the increase in severe weather events [that] are happening," he said. Even with protective gear, that water has to have been
cold!
Leb city council approves money for road widening, landfill gas-to-energy project.
At last week's meeting, reports the VN:
Council members backed money for changes to Trues Brook Road. The work, which will replace the bridge over Bloods Brook with a wider version and also widen the roadway on either side, is due to start up next year after the city council approved partial funding last week, reports the VN. Federal money will cover most of the $4 million cost, while the city will pay 20 percent of the $500K engineering cost and the state the rest. Officials say a temporary bridge will carry traffic while the new version is under construction.
They also approved an additional $725,000 for the delayed, $6.6 million effort (so far) to convert from the city's landfill into electricity. As Frances Mize reported last week, the project is behind and over budget in part because of a 16-month study requested by National Grid for its Poverty Lane substation, "which will play a role in moving the electricity from the project’s turbines onto the grid." It's due to be finished this summer and once construction begins at the landfill, the VN writes, "the project could be generating electricity within six months."
Jim Barry isn’t like most people who come into the Physical Therapy clinic for a specific issue. He has been coming to Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy in Lebanon for the past decade to help improve his quality of life after a major biking accident. Years of perseverance have resulted in slow, steady improvement and an incredible return to outdoor sports. Read Jim’s story in his own words via the link above.
Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.
New wheelchair-accessible nature trail opens in Norwich. A joint project between the Dresden school district and the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, the 1,600-foot, $50K trail behind the Marion Cross School actually was finished last fall, but got its official ribbon-cutting yesterday. “We are making sure that this trail network, which is in such a beautiful place, such a great resource for our students, is actually accessible for every single child and every member of the community,” SAU 70 Superintendent Jay Badams tells WCAX's Adam Sullivan.Hartland will vote again on school budget. Voters on April 2 approved the $11.1 million school budget by 320-311, but two residents have gained enough petition signatures to force a re-vote, reports the VN's Christina Dolan. Because the school vote happened after town meeting day, turnout was significantly lower—631 votes cast on the school budget, vs. 1,624 in March; the two also cite the close margin and questions they have about corrections on a tally sheet. School board chair Nicole Buck tells Dolan the board plans no changes. "Any further cuts will really hurt our children’s education,” she says.SPONSORED: Let us take meal planning off your plate this summer! Enjoy the season's bounty with Honey Field Farm’s biweekly Salad Share CSA. Find new ways to incorporate fresh local veggies into your meals and reimagine what a salad can include (and how tasty it can be). Featuring certified organic produce from the farm and ingredients from Upper Valley food-makers, this culinary adventure will keep your summer cooking hassle-free and delicious! Looking for a weekly option? Omnivore and Vegetarian meal kits also available. One more week to sign up (by May 1). Sponsored by Honey Field Farm.Feds fine Bradford's Colatina Exit for labor violations. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division yesterday announced that an investigation found the restaurant had included managers in its tip pool and failed to pay workers time-and-a-half for overtime. A worker who was fired for refusing to share tips with a manager will get $50K in punitive damages and $829 in back pay, while the restaurant will also pay $119,605 in back wages and an equal amount in "liquidated damages" to 43 employees affected by the tip and overtime violations. Press release at the link.For renters and landlords, incentives on energy savings don't always align. The problem, reports VT Public's Abagael Giles, is what's known as the "split incentive": If renters pay for utilities, landlords don't have a spur to pay for efficiency or other improvements; if landlords pay, the result may be higher rents. In VT, there are programs that support weatherization by landlords, and Efficiency Vermont hopes to roll out a rebate program for renters that would provide portable heat pumps for heating and cooling. Giles also offers up five tips for renters and landlords to lower energy costs and emissions.VT Senate committee votes 3-2 to approve new education secretary. Education Committee chair Brian Campion, a Democrat, and the committee's two Republicans voted in favor of Zoie Saunders' nomination, reports VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein; two other Democrats opposed it. The vote came a day after a 90-minute hearing that gave a full airing to questions about Saunders' background and relative lack of experience in public education and statewide education policy, detailed here by Seven Days' Alison Novak. The full Senate is expected to vote on confirmation next week."The path to making government work is that government has enough money." The VT legislature has come in for plenty of scrutiny recently for its inclination to raise taxes—most notably the property tax mess around education funding, which has fueled a voter backlash, and a set of tax-raising bills coming out of the House Ways and Means Committee aimed at the wealthy. The force behind both of those is committee chair Emilie Kornheiser, a Brattleboro Democrat, and in Seven Days, Anne Wallace Allen profiles Kornheiser, her beliefs, the opposition she's aroused, and the power she wields.VT Public names host of flagship TV news program. The host's seat for the news roundup show "Vermont This Week" has rotated over the past year, ever since longtime moderator Stewart Ledbetter stepped down last May. Now, reports Rachel Hellman in Seven Days, former VPR "Morning Edition" host and current podcaster Mitch Wertlieb will take over May 10. He tells Hellman he'd like to "bring Vermont’s creative community" into the mix, but that he's "still getting used to the basics of broadcast television: using a teleprompter and remembering that people can actually see me when we're recording.”VTrans moves to keep tractor-trailers from getting into Smugglers Notch. In what can only be interpreted as a bid to rob the state's reporters of one of their great pleasures in life, the transportation agency this week starts in on a project to install barriers—known as "chicanes"—aimed at making it impossible for big rig drivers to drive into the Notch and get stuck. Or, to use the term of art, create a stuckage. "Each stuckage," the agency notes in its press release, "closes the highway for a few hours to several hours." Temporary chicanes will be in place for a year or two, and are due to be operational by mid-May.Don’t scroll hungry. The Food Photographer of the Year shortlist is out, and anyone who loves to eat, or cook, or admire beautiful images will enjoy it. Cakes feature prominently—wedding, Christmas, birthday—as do people: from hundreds gathered for celebrations in Bangladesh, Burgundy, and China to a single elderly man sipping wine in Italy. There are beautiful landscapes, too: gleaming, snowy vineyards in Germany and fog-dusted grapevines in the US. A team of builders lunching in Jordan, a toddler eying melon in Spain… Categories range from Food at the Table to Bring Home the Harvest.
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At 4:30 today, Dartmouth's religion department hosts Harvard religion prof Tracey Hucks for "Religion, Race, and Love: James Baldwin at 100 Years". Her talk, which commemorates the centennial of Baldwin's birth, will focus on Baldwin's explorations of religion and "the importance of his thought for theorizing African diaspora studies." In Haldeman 41.
Today at 5 pm, the Hood Museum presents a talk (followed by a reception) by artist Titus Kaphar. Kaphar has four works in the current Gilded exhibition, all from his Jerome Project, which grew out of an extended conversation with his father when Titus was 35 that led him not only to his father's prison record, but to the records of 99 other men who bore the same first and last names; Kaphar found them, explored their personal histories, and painted their portraits. His talk is "Personalizing Mass Incarceration: Exploring American Justice and Injustice".
This evening at 7, Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover hosts Never Too Late, the local band made up of Hilde Ojibway, Adam Sorscher, Bethany Nafziger, and Eric Bronstein. They'll be playing and singing their blend of new and traditional folk, along with originals by Ojibway, in the intimate listening room at the back.
Also at 7, Hop Film screens When My Sleeping Dragon Woke. It centers around actor (Joker, Michael Clayton, Law & Order, and a lot more), Tony-nominated playwright, and Dartmouth alum Sharon Washington, who grew up in a public library in NYC, where her father was custodian. Years later, Washington set out to write a one-woman play about that fairy tale—and awakened a "story under that story," a deeper and darker one, that also needed telling. The film, by director Chuck Schultz, traces Washington's struggle to write that one. Discussion afterward with Washington and Schultz. In the Loew.
And also at 7, the Thetford Historical Society presents the first in a series of three spring talks on the theme, "Uncovering the Details". This evening's is by Lana Leggett-Kealey, "Are You Getting the Most From Your DNA? An Introduction." Leggett-Kealey, trained as a chemist, began exploring DNA testing and its applications to genealogy back in the early days; she now helps clients all over the world with its ins and outs. In the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.
And at 7:30 pm, the Neukom Institute's play-reading festival gets under way with a free reading at Northern Stage of Dominic Finocchiaro's play, angel's share: "In the (not too) distant future, where a deceased loved one can be 'archived and digitally 'resurrected' via another person, a couple grapples with the consequences of using this technology for their son, who has recently passed." That'll be followed tomorrow evening, also at 7:30, by a reading of the Neukom Award-winning Instagirl, by Jessica Moss, which focuses on a house of Instagram influencers, their "perpetual struggle in pursuit of fame and success," and the arrival of an AI influencer. The readings will repeat on Saturday at 2 (angel's share) and 7:30 pm (Instagirl) in Filene Auditorium at Dartmouth.
And anytime, you can check out JAM's highlights for the week, including: fire safety expert and consultant Nick Artim on protecting Plainfield's town hall and renowned Maxfield Parrish stage set; Boston University communications prof Michelle Amazeen's 2022 talk to Osher on how to be a critical consumer of media; and, um, Daybreak's Rob Gurwitt in a 2020 online talk to the Hanover Rotary Club about Daybreak's then-short history and emerging models for local news.
Well yes, of course!
You had the same thought, right?
, from the 1972 album of the same name.
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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