GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Daybreak is brought to you this week with help from Good Neighbor Health Clinic & Red Logan Dental Clinic, celebrating the 34th year caring for the Upper Valley! If you need care or want to make care possible for your neighbors, visit our website here. Access to care is changing, but Good Neighbor is always here to help.
Rain. Here it is, and you can bet the people who fight wildland fires are breathing easier after a wildfire around Ripton burned some 56 acres in the Green Mountain National Forest and a brush fire in Westminster shut down Route 5 for a time. The front coming through will bring pretty steady showers throughout the day, tapering off toward the end, though we could see showers into the night. Temps will be cooler than they’ve been, with a high today in the low or mid 50s, lows tonight in the upper 30s.
How you know it’s spring—whatever the weather’s doing. There’s been lots of talk of spring ephemerals this week (and more below), so here’s Julie Dolan with a photo of bloodroot in Hanover’s Pine Park.
No Dear Daybreak this week. The larder needs some restocking, so if you’ve got an anecdote or a reminiscence or a poem or a sidelong look about life in the Upper Valley, just send it in via the form at the burgundy link or here, or email [email protected].
VT Principals’ Association will pay $566K to Quechee’s Mid Vermont Christian to settle lawsuit. It’s been three years since the VPA banned the school from interscholastic competition after it forfeited a girls’ basketball game rather than play against a team with a transgender player. The school sued. Now, reports WCAX’s Adam Sullivan, the VPA is trying to put things to rest. The decision to settle, one of its lawyers tells Seven Days’ Alison Novak, is “based primarily on the costs and burdens imposed by ongoing litigation.” Mid Vermont Christian has been back in competition since a federal appeals court issued an injunction late last year.
Hartford faces deadline to create Twin Pines safety committee. Its formation and the safety and monitoring plans it’s expected to create for nine Twin Pines properties, were conditions of selectboard approval of a $1 million grant application for affordable housing Twin Pines wants to build off Sykes Mountain Ave. “If the committee’s work is not underway by mid-June,” writes Clare Shanahan in the Valley News, “the town will pull the grant application.” The task force idea came about after “a wave of tenants and community members” complained about Twin Pines properties, and is the first step in a broader look at tenant safety in Hartford, Shanahan reports.
Hunting for spring wildflowers? Here’s a spot. Or three. Yesterday, there was the link to that sheet from VT State Parks. Up above, there’s Julie Dolan’s photo of bloodroot. And now? The Hanover Conservancy’s got a spring wildflower scavenger hunt, with not one, but two PDFs you can print to help you out (one’s got the flowers labeled, the other you have to match the name to the flower), another version using iNaturalist, and trail maps to the three tracts where you can find them right about now: the Mink Brook Nature Preserve and the Tanzi Tract, Balch Hill Natural Area, and Greensboro Natural Area. You’ll also find paper copies of those PDFs at the trailheads.
SPONSORED: Cedar Circle Farm & Education Center opens for the season tomorrow! Come visit us—we’re open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and weekends 8–4. The Hello Café is serving up coffee, teas, and treats from 8 to 2 daily. Our greenhouses and nursery are bursting with color: beautiful flowers, native perennials, and organic veggie and herb starts, ready for your garden. Inside the farmstand, you'll find certified organic greens, spring veggies, and a selection of local goods. See you soon! Sponsored by Cedar Circle Farm & Education Center.
Punishment: Not your typical cartoon topic. But then, Center for Cartoon Studies co-founder James Sturm is a big proponent of what CCS calls “applied cartooning”—tackling significant subjects visually. And as Alice Dodge reports for Seven Days, his latest is the US prison complex—though Beyond Punishment actually begins with Adam and Eve before moving on to the Code of Hammurabi, medieval wickedness trials, the Jim Crow era, and eventually current times—in which, Sturm reports, 45 percent of Americans have an immediate family member who’s been behind bars. Yet, he says, “By the time you get to the end of the comic, we’re offering solutions.”
68-game winning streak snapped? Blame the Journal-Opinion! Editor Alex Nuti-de Biasi was being tongue in cheek yesterday when he cited the JO “front-page curse,” but it’s indisputable that the Oxbow High softball team hadn’t lost a game since the Lyndon Vikings beat them in 2022, and then the JO wrote a front-page story about the team having the longest winning streak in the country, and then, on Tuesday, the Vikings beat them 17-7. “To atone, your editor promises not to use the words ‘winning streak’ in a headline for the rest of the month,” Nuti-de Biasi writes. You can read Michael Coughlin Jr.’s inning-by-inning recap in the VN here.
SPONSORED: Fabric lovers, this one's for you! rePlay Arts has been collecting fabric all year—and this Saturday, May 2, they're pulling their entire stash out of storage for a huge one-day spring sale! From 10am-3pm, come and shop their enormous selection of fabric, sewing patterns, ribbon, trim, notions, pre-cut quilting pieces, and much more. Everything is pay-what-you-can, and all proceeds go to support rePlay Arts' community programming—so treating yourself also means giving back. See you there! Sponsored by rePlay Arts.
Has anyone noticed people in suits hanging around Grafton’s Ruggles Mine?Ruggles was once the site of mining for mica. But what they were really digging up were pegmatites, “a term for coarse igneous rocks formed when hot magma cools,” writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog. And you know what some pegmatites contain? Lithium. As in the stuff that goes into lithium-ion batteries. And you know what else? The US Geological Survey on Tuesday released a report contending that the eastern US contains enough “economically recoverable lithium…to replace 328 years of U.S. imports at last year’s level.” The big concentrations of it are in the three northern New England states (especially western Maine).
SPONSORED: Tomorrow, May 1, celebrate the Montshire Museum of Science's Golden Anniversary at the Glitter & Gold Gala - tickets on sale now! Can't attend? Support the next 50 years of science in your community with a $50 raffle ticket. The top prize is a stunning pair of 18k yellow gold and emerald earrings valued at $4,800, from Von Bargen's Jewelry. Donations, reservations, and well wishes gratefully accepted! Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.
Here’s a startling little fact: The number of children born in VT these days is smaller than before the Civil War—when the state had half its current population. Not only that, reports Seven Days’ Colin Flanders, but for more than a decade, the state has had the lowest birth rate in the country. There seem to be any number of reasons why, but overwhelmingly, Flanders reports, young couples are holding off because they don’t think they can afford to have kids, what with high housing and health care costs. Flanders digs into these and other issues with young couples, including one mother of an only child. “Love is not a finite resource,” she says. “But time, money and attention do seem to have a spending limit.”
“Likely one of the most technical helicopter rescues in the history of the High Sierra.” It might seem there was nothing fortunate about this situation: Two brothers were climbing Mount Baxter in Sequoia National Park when a patch of loose rock and snow gave way. One fell 500 feet and landed on a ledge, writes Martin Kuprianowicz on SnowBrains. Broken bones meant they couldn’t self-evacuate, and treacherous conditions meant rescuers couldn’t reach them on foot. But fortunately, they carried a satellite communicator and the helicopter pilot and rescue crew were supremely skilled. After a freezing night at 12,000 feet, the pair were plucked from the ledge with astonishing precision. (Contains link to SF Chronicle article with heart-stopping video.)
The Thursday Crossword. Time for ace puzzle artist Laura Braunstein’s “midi”—your chance to dive into words for a few minutes. And yes, I’m still chuckling about that comparison in 10 Down.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
A VINS virtual talk doubleheader.
First up is the Arizona-based raptor rescue group Wild at Heart with a presentation on burrowing owls, which live in the western US and large swaths of Mexico and South America. That’s at 5 pm via Zoom.
Then at 6 pm, it’s “Snags and the Owls Who Rely on Them” with Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute, who’ll relay new research findings not just on the ecological importance of standing dead and dying trees to the owls that rely on them for breeding, but details on species and habitat characteristics that affect success. That’s at 6 pm.
Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts veteran NYT reporter David Sanger on “New Cold Wars: A Journalist's view of Geopolitics”. Sanger, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who’s spent four decades covering both world events and the US security and foreign relations apparatus, “intensifying rivalry among the United States, China, and Russia; the growing role of technologies like AI and cyber warfare; and the shifting priorities of U.S. strategy across recent administrations.” 5 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
“Tinker Tunes” at Court Street Arts. An evening of “hands-on family fun where music meets making. Families will play with sound, rhythm, and invention using upcycled cardboard and simple circuits to create their own instruments and collaborative tunes.” 5-8 pm at Alumni Hall in Haverhill.
At the Howe Library, “Inviting Everyone Into Nature”. The Howe, the Hanover Conservation Commission, and the Hanover Bike Walk Committee host three speakers talking about how they’re using design, planning, and adaptive equipment to make trails more accessible: Abigail Johnson, a planner who’s a former president of the Dartmouth Outing Club; Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports’ Jeff Alexander; and Upper Valley Trails Alliance executive director Russ Hirschler. Moderated by Hanover Selectboard member Jennie Chamberlain. 5:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
Poet John Barger with “Poetry and Pie”. As local poet Matthew Olzmann writes about Barger’s latest collection, Resurrection Pie, “John Barger has an absurdist’s heart, and it’s a vast heart, full of grief, heartache, and enchantment. In these pages, you might find yourself in a duel with Elvis, or chatting with a ghost named Marcus Aurelius.” Barger—and pie—will be at Dartmouth’s Literary Bridge for a reading starting at 6 pm.
Affordable housing in the Upper Valley. In the second of the talks they’re sponsoring on housing in the region, Homes for Norwich and the Norwich Public Library host Twin Pines Housing Trust executive director Andrew Winter for a talk about their work, the impacts on residents, and “what it takes to make all this happen in a place not typically prioritized by policymakers or funders in either state capital.” There’ll also be an intro to the VT statewide group, Let’s Build Homes. 6:30 pm in the NPL’s community room.
At the Norwich Bookstore, “An Evening With The Vermont Book Awards Finalists”. It’s a pretty astounding literary evening at the bookstore, with poets, novelists, children’s literature writers, and non-fiction writers Tyler Alexander, Chard DeNiord, Kristin Dykstra, Makenna Goodman, Carlene Kucharczyk, Jeff McRae, Aaron Starmer, Mima Tipper, and Helen Whybrow talking about writing, what inspires them, and what their writing process is like before the awards ceremony Saturday. 7 pm.
We The People Theatre’s production of The Spitfire Grill opens. Based on the 1996 film of the same name, the musical follows a young woman starting her life over after prison who takes a job in a small-town Wisconsin diner and decides to boost the owner’s prospects of selling it—bringing the town itself a fresh start along the way. At the Grange Theater on Thetford Hill tonight through Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 3 pm, then the weekends of May 8-10 and May 15-17.
Hop Film screens Pillion. Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in what the Hop calls “this charming BDSM gay rom-com, like Love Actually with leather.” 7:30 pm in the Loew.
Comedian Gary Gulman at Lebanon Opera House. Gulman’s show Grandiloquent ran for five weeks off-Broadway last year, his HBO stand-up special, The Great Depresh, “is a tour de force look at mental illness that is equal parts hilarious and inspiring,” and his most recent HBO special, Born on 3rd Base, “lent his comedic craft to a reflection on his childhood growing up in poverty and tackles the country’s wealth gap.” 7:30 pm.
And anytime: JAM’s highlights this week mark the end of Poetry Month.
And for today...
L’Arpegiatta, the European ensemble founded by theorbist and harpist Christina Pluhar, is best known for its dynamism in bringing early music to contemporary listeners’ ears. The group’s latest album is a bit different. It traces the connections between Spain and Central and South America—especially Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile—from the 1500s to today. Here are singers Luciana Mancini and Vincenzo Capezzuto with
"Yo vengo regando flores", traditional words set to a tune by the Venezuelan songwriter Agustín “Chupa Caña” Rivas.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
