GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunnier, but not much warmer. This morning's clouds will give way as the day goes on, but with low pressure overhead and a stiff wind—plus gusts—from the northwest, we're unlikely to get out of the 40s today. If for any reason you have to travel through the mountains, expect it to look more like mid-winter. Down below freezing tonight.Now that is an appraising stare. Photographer Cynthia Crawford was at the Windsor Grasslands conservation area Tuesday, focusing her camera on an Eastern Towhee in mid-song. Suddenly, she writes, "this gorgeous red fox appeared and stared at me for about 30 seconds. I stared back! When I moved slightly, it turned and trotted back downhill." Fortunately for us, 30 seconds was long enough to get this photo.A bit more on the challenge of getting Elixir re-opened. Co-owner Skip Symanski writes that chef Chris Brewer "has signed a three-year lease for the restaurant. He is in the process of raising money for opening and initial operating expenses. As you can guess, there are quite a few: deposits, licenses, product, etc. It adds up quickly. And, as with any 'new' business, he will be cash-on-delivery with almost all purveyors for the first year or so. Payroll will be a big chunk of his expenses." At the moment, Brewer's raised about $15,000 of his $25K goal. You make a difference, Daybreak readers.Meanwhile, Lebanon becomes an outdoor-dining Mecca. The city, writes Darren Marcy in the Valley News, "has made a concerted effort to work with restaurant owners to expand and improve outdoor dining around the downtown pedestrian mall." Court Street is closed for Three Tomatoes' tent, of course. And Salt Hill again has its spot on the parking spaces alongside. In addition, Marcy reports, Lalo’s Taqueria will have outdoor seating on the Mall, Village Pizza may as well, and the Lebanon Opera House may use the walkway next to its building for outdoor seating during intermission.“There’s no rushing your way out of the pandemic.… We’re going to come out of this so much stronger and better than we were before.” That's Hanover Strings' Duncan Carroll on the economic challenges the town's businesses are facing. In The Dartmouth, Angus Yip writes that they're struggling with the twin dilemmas of inflation and labor shortages. The cost of shipping has quadrupled, Lemon Tree's Melissa Haas tells him, and she's no longer buying some items because their costs have risen so much. She adds that “labor shortage” is the “understatement of the century.”Hartford Planning Commission gets an earful on Twin Pines proposal. Feelings on both sides of the affordable housing developer's proposal for an 18-unit complex next to the Haven haven't settled down at all since the commission's February denial of the idea, reports the VN's Darren Marcy. In response to earlier concerns, Twin Pines has made design changes, but the larger issues remained in public comments at a four-hour Monday night meeting: worries about public safety and a sense among some neighbors that their concerns haven't been taken seriously.Claremont schools chip in to help a Ukrainian family resettle in France. Retired Claremont teacher David Hardy found out his uncle Wayne, who lives in France, was offering one of his homes to Ukrainian refugees. Wanting to do his part to help them start their new life, writes Josie Albertson-Grove in the Union Leader, Hardy enlisted his old colleagues in a community effort to raise money for the family. A friendly competition between students and teachers raked in $1,200 of the total $2,000 donated. “If we can get them to be able to have some financial assistance in this time of need, that’s the key,” says Hardy.After months-long investigation, five locals charged with deer poaching. The men, all in their 20s, are from Sharon and Hartford, and face a combined 78 criminal charges for illegally taking 14 deer, according to the VT Game Warden Service. They also face charges filed by conservation officers in NH. “It will take 3-4 years for the deer population in Windsor County to recruit additional mature bucks and replace those that were illegally taken this fall,” said VT Fish and Wildlife's Mark Scott. Game officials said "conservation-minded hunters...alerted game wardens to poaching in their communities.”Wardens are also investigating the shooting of a Tunbridge German shepherd. The VT Warden Service opened its investigation after owner Steve Mortillo found the remains of his 11-year-old shepherd, Scout, near his home last weekend, reports the VN's John Lippman. It's being led by Jeffrey Whipple, a game warden who lives in Vershire and responded to the scene Saturday. In a post on the Lost and Found Pets of the Upper Valley Facebook Group, Mortillo says "we are not taking media inquiries until [the wardens'] investigation is complete."Suddenly, Gov. Sununu's paid family/medical leave program looks like it might survive. His approach, part of last year's state budget, would let private employers opt into a paid leave policy provided by a private insurance carrier. House Republicans earlier this year voted to axe it, arguing it could prove too expensive. But yesterday, NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt reports, a key Senate committee recommended passing on the House's move this year. “A lot of work has been put into standing up this program,” said on GOP senator. “I see no reason that we should just repeal it.” Same with NH's gray squirrels. Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but on Tuesday, a Senate committee essentially deep-sixed a House bill that would have created year-round open season on them. Gray squirrel-hunting season runs Sept. 1-Jan. 31. The House sponsor of the bill argued that they're a "nuisance pest" and pointed out that NH allows open season on other rodents such as porcupine, groundhogs, and red squirrels, reports the Keene Sentinel's Rick Green. But opponents, including the Fish & Game department, argued the state should leave well enough alone.New NH congressional map advances. Staring at a promised gubernatorial veto of their first attempt, Republicans on the House redistricting committee yesterday used a party-line vote to pass another proposal opposed by Sununu: a plan that groups communities along the I-93 corridor, produces a more Democratic 2nd District and more Republican 1st District, and, in their eyes, has the added benefit of placing Democratic US Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas in the same district. The bill goes to the full House next week, reports NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee, then to the Senate.If your electric company is Green Mountain Power, almost a third of your electricity comes from nuclear power. Yeah, given that VT Yankee shut down eight years ago, I was surprised to read that, too. It's thanks to a deal that GMP cut with the Seabrook plant a few years before Yankee closed, reports Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. And statewide, 28 percent of VT's electricity is nuclear-powered. Which is one reason the state's electricity portfolio can be 94 percent carbon-free, but only 69.5 percent renewable.You kinda knew this was coming, right? Remember yesterday's item about the proposed 25-bed inpatient psychiatric unit that's been on ice at Central VT Med Center? Well, at a hearing yesterday, UVM Health Network leaders told the Green Mountain Care Board that they won't build it until they're in better financial health—and, reports VTDigger's Liora Engel-Smith, blamed the delay on the care board's decision to deny them the bulk of a mid-year price increase they'd requested. “The ball’s in your court,” CEO John Brumsted said.Mike Pieciak to step down. Vermont's financial regulation commissioner shot to public prominence during the pandemic, when he became the face of the Scott administration's Covid modeling and metrics efforts. Pieciak, who was first appointed deputy commissioner by Democrat Peter Shumlin, tells Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen in an interview that he wants to take some time to consider next steps: "I think it's important to step away from the department before making a decision on something else. I just want to go with a clear mind."Faced with the housing shortage, VT employers are pulling out all the stops. Things have come to a head as new hires back out of job offers and businesses and nonprofits can't expand their workforces—or decide to expand in other states, reports Seven Days' Allen. In a sweeping look at the issue, she finds that some, like Northern Stage, UVM Med Center, and Vail Resorts are building their own housing for workers. Evernorth, the three-state affordable housing developer, is creating a shared funding pool for housing projects with businesses' contributions. Allen surveys the various efforts.Forget wood-fired. Have you had pizza cooked on lava? You’d have to hop on a plane to Guatemala and hike 90 minutes up a volcano, to be greeted by the chef who made your pie on top of lava rocks easily twice as hot as a typical brick oven. As Atlas Obscura’s Sam O’Brien points out, cooking with geothermal heat is nothing new: evidence suggests our prehistoric ancestors steamed their meat over naturally boiling water. And today, in Iceland, a man bakes a pot of rye dough in the sands of a hot-spring lake. Or visit a Canary Islands restaurant for a meal of roast chicken inside a volcano, if you dare.The Thursday Vordle. You're getting the hang of this, people! As always, the word relates to an item in yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 4:30 today, Dartmouth's Dickey Center brings in writer (and former Tulane football coach) John M. Barry for a conversation on lessons learned from the pandemic. Barry, author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, will sit down with medical school and engineer prof Kendall Hoyt, who's the new Faculty Director for the Dickey Global Health Initiative's Pandemic Security Project. They'll be talking over the origins of Covid, looking at how well we were prepared, and then turning to ways to prevent the next epidemic
Today at 5 pm, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts Wesleyan government prof Sonali Chakravarti for a talk, "How Woke Can a Juror Be?" Chakravarti looks at how the jury selection process for the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd was a major departure from the past, especially in the ways it changed how prospective Black jurors were treated, laid out new standards of impartiality, and underscored the importance of "practical wisdom" on a jury. Both in-person and livestreamed.
Also at 5 today, and ahead of her Hop concert tomorrow, global powerhouse singer Angélique Kidjo will sit down with Tuck School Dean Dia Draper for a "fireside chat" to talk about her career, her work over many years on behalf of children's rights and childhood education, and her charitable foundation supporting girls' education in Africa. In-person in the Georgiopoulos Classroom in Tuck's Raether Hall. No charge, but you'll need a ticket.
At 6 pm, WISE presents its first livestreamed event. It's a look back at what the team that put together the WISER podcast (focused on the non-profit's 50-year history and the evolution of work addressing gender-based violence) learned and at the themes that emerged that hold relevance for the future. With podcast producer Jess Chayes and WISE's Peggy O'Neill and Kate Rohdenburg. You'll need to register for the link.
At 7 pm, PoemTown Randolph closes out its season with a performance at Chandler Music Hall by Sam Sanders and Aaron Marcus. Sanders, a former audio engineer and host at VPR and Marcus, a pianist and composer, collaborated last year on a collection of work by Vermont poets (they also threw in Emily Dickinson and Tennessee Williams) set to music. In the Esther Mesh Room at the Chandler.
Also at 7, in Grantham Town Hall, John Harris of Franklin Pierce U's Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture will give a talk on "Returning North with the Spring: Retracing the Journey of Naturalist Edwin Way Teale." Teale, a popular naturalist bookended by Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, spent four months in 1947 following spring as it advanced from the Everglades to the summit of Mount Washington. Harris retraced his route a decade ago, documenting the changes both for the better and the worse. Presented by NH Humanities.
And also at 7, Hop Film brings in Distant Constellation, neuroscience-student-turned-filmmaker Shevaun Mizrahi's closely observed 2017 documentary portrait of the residents of a Turkish nursing home: older men and women—pianist, news photographer, pranksters who joyride the elevator, child of an Armenian family that lived through the 1915 genocide—who share both the past and their present. Followed by a conversation between Mizrahi herself and comp lit and film prof Gerd Gemünden.
"Easy on the ears, heavy on the heart." That's how the Lubbock, TX country/Americana band Flatland Cavalry describes itself. Formed by bandleader Cleto Cordero while he was at Texas Tech, the band cut its teeth on the dancehall circuit, quickly came to Texas music enthusiasts' notice, and these days split their time between Lubbock and Nashville.
part of their return-to-their-roots acoustic
Far Out West
project.
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 and writers who want you to 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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