GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Well, that was nice while it lasted, wasn't it? But now we've got back-to-back systems coming through. The first arrives today, bringing a chance of rain much of the day, a likelihood later in the afternoon, and a certainty tonight. In general, temps will range through the 40s today, then drop all the way into the upper 30s overnight. Winds from the south, could be gusty this afternoon.Three sure signs of spring...
The ice thinning to the barest sheet on Eastman Lake, from Terri Munson...
And breaking up on Lake Fairlee, by John Pietkiewicz;
And the bluebirds are back in a nesting box at photographer Ian Clark's in W. Newbury—he's got a video camera set up and will be updating as they progress.
Former Kleen laundromat bites the dust. Valley News photographer Jennifer Hauck caught it in mid-demolition Monday. Originally, she writes in the caption, the interior was to be rehabbed for a new Domino's going in there, but cracks in the foundation made that impossible. Owners Keith Bell and Robert Keith will propose an entirely new Domino's to the city's planning board.DHMC volunteers start readying 1,000 medical kits for Ukraine. "I knew that the soldiers and civilians that were actually on the ground fighting, they were not going to have access to medical supplies or medical care,” supply chain site director Hunter Fifield, who served in the 82nd Airborne, told WMUR's Ray Brewer yesterday. In all, reports the Union Leader's Meghan Pierce (possible paywall), the DHMC volunteers packed 600 kits (with 600 cards of support from area schoolkids); Tuck volunteers will pack the remaining 400 today. DHMC is funding the effort to the tune of $180,000.NH Marine Patrol, area fire departments search for missing fisherman in the Connecticut north of Woodsville. Yesterday afternoon, state police got a 911 call reporting two people stranded on an island and a third who had gone underwater near Nine Island at the junction of the Passumpsic and Connecticut Rivers. "The victim noticed their boat was drifting away and attempted to enter the water to retrieve it," the NHSP says on their Facebook page. "Despite attempts to throw him a life jacket, he went underwater and did not resurface." The search was suspended last night and will resume this morning.SPONSORED: A live donkey, palms, and a faithful community. Come experience Palm Sunday at St. Thomas in Hanover. Join us this Sunday at 10:30 am for a donkey-led procession. Spend Holy Week with us as we prepare for the most joyful of days, Easter. View our full schedule of services and learn more here. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.Have a hankering to do your weeding underwater? Then the Lyme Conservation Commission might want to talk to you. Eurasian milfoil has been a problem in Post Pond since it was first discovered there in 2010, writes Claire Potter in the VN, and the commission now wants to find volunteer divers willing to haul it up by hand—in addition to using herbicides to keep it at bay. They hope to replicate the success of a similar effort on Mascoma Lake. Volunteer divers will get trained by the NH Department of Environmental Services.Dartmouth prof’s “Encyclopedia Galactica of problem-solving” keeps soaring. That’s the pedestal on which a colleague places retired computer scientist Thomas Cormen’s essential text, Introduction to Algorithms, just out in its fourth edition, reports Harini Barath in Dartmouth News. Cormen co-authored the first edition with his professors as a grad student at MIT, and over 30 years the textbook has achieved legendary status (remember the Jeopardy! question?), with over a million copies in print. The first update in 13 years includes new chapters and, says Cormen, “the writing is a little more personal.”"My dog made up my mind to live in Hanover." So begins an essay from seven decades ago by the humorist Corey Ford (he was also a rugby enthusiast—that's his name on Dartmouth's rugby house). Hanover's dogs are news-adjacent, what with the town's current leash-law machinations, and Robin Carpenter sends along Ford's article—a fine reminder that the town has seen some changes. Back then, Ford wrote, Hanover was "the kind of town where dogs wander unescorted up and down the street" and could hang up a Dartmouth baseball game for ten minutes. You can read more about Ford here.If you use the Everett Turnpike to get to Nashua or the Boston area, heads up. For the next few years. NH's Exec Council yesterday approved the contract for a $20 million project to widen 1.7 miles of the major artery, reports the Concord Monitor. The work, which is due to end in 2024, will stretch from just north of the interchange for I-293 and Route 101 and run southward to near the Bedford toll plaza.Avian influenza confirmed in NH Canada geese. Over 70 geese were found dead in Strafford County, NH Fish & Game reports in a press release, and testing has confirmed the presence of the Eurasian H5 strain of influenza that has been spreading through the US since it was first found in South Carolina in January. "This type of HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) is considered a low risk to humans, and sickness and mortality is usually low in wild birds, but larger die offs such as this one do happen," Fish & Game writes.VT snowfall was below average this winter. Most regions in the state got between 75 percent and 90 percent of normal, reports VPR's Abagael Giles, though parts of northern Vermont did better. This puts a high premium on precipitation this spring, since the state's been in a drought for the past couple of years. "If we run into a dry April and May with tons of sunshine and warmer-than-normal temperatures, that will allow for a lot of evaporation," National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Whittier tells Giles, putting the state back in a moderate drought.VT's legislative maps are now official. Gov. Phil Scott signed them into law yesterday, cementing multi-member House districts and Chittenden County's ever-growing political clout in place for the next decade. The Senate map also moves Stowe, which is in Lamoille County, into the Washington County district, notes Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. The maps now go to the Secretary of State’s Office, which can finally begin creating ballots tor this year's elections. You'll find the Senate map here, and House map here.So is the chance for Vermonters to amend gender identity on birth certificates. Scott also signed into law a measure that sreamlines the process by which state residents can change the gender on their birth certificates—including identifying by X, an option offered in 14 other states and Washington, DC, writes VTDigger's Sarah Mearhoff. Where the change process at the moment involves doctors, judges, and extensive documentation, Mearhoff writes, the new law allows Vermonters to attest to their own gender identify."We built less housing because this project became so expensive." That's Nancy Owens, copresident of the nonprofit housing developer Evernorth, talking about Woodstock's mixed-income Safford Commons—which broke ground after eight years of legal wrangling. She's one of the people in VT who believe the state's regulatory hurdles—especially aspects of Act 250—are standing in the way of meeting its desperate need for affordable housing. In Seven Days, Chelsea Edgar explores the issues in depth, from local zoning to Act 250...and the touchy politics of messing with where people live."All of a sudden I’m ‘Satan’s Spawn.’” Ever since VT's Catholic diocese called for vaccinations and masks (since relaxed), Bishop Christopher Coyne has been enmired in a social media storm. He tried the someone's-been-writing-me-emails-in-your-name gambit, but that backfired, reports VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor. Now the diocese responds, "We’ve received and read your message, God bless." Most VT Catholics, Coyne told an online forum, are understanding. “It’s like having 10 children in the room. One of them is screaming the loudest, but there’s another nine there who are just going along."Long before Spotify, streaming music had a moment in 1930s Seattle. And even before that, an 1887 novel imagined a future in which concerts could be heard from home, connecting “your house-wire with the hall where it is being rendered.” As Ted Gioia writes on his blog The Honest Broker, although some early 20th-century visionaries tried to make a go at on-demand music, technology lagged and, well, then came the radio. In Seattle, one guy came up with a small jukebox-like device tied to a phone line, and for a nickel you’d connect to an operator who could spin one of up to 300 songs!And on a tree branch a long, long way from here... David Weiller, a French photographer who specializes in rainforests, likes to post examples of what he calls "meditation biology." Just up: Male Lance-tailed Manakins in Costa Rica, birds that form long-term, two-male alliances and, when a female approaches, perform a duet of coordinated leaps and flights. Weiller—whose rainforest jaunts are a hobby—is a prolific YouTube poster. If you need a break from a gray day check out his channel, awash in color and tropical sounds.
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Today at 4, the Hop and DHMC host Wendy Whelan, former principal ballerina with the New York City Ballet, for an in-person and Zoomed conversation with a panel of medical experts on the wisdom of the aging body. They'll be talking, in particular, about which "lessons of the body are shared between a ballet dancer adapting and maintaining their technique and a person grappling with neuro-muscular challenges in everyday activities?" Whelan, who's in town for performances at the Hop tomorrow and Saturday, will lead a movement workshop following the discussion. In DHMC Auditorium E and online.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts novelist and Arizona State U creative writing prof Matt Bell in an online conversation with novelist and Northeast Kingdom resident Melanie Finn. Bell's new book, Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts, is "a generously packed guide to this undertaking that effectively balances literary thinking with actionable advice," reviewer Noor Qasim wrote in Tuesday's NYT. Like, for instance, when you're rewriting (rather than merely revising) Bell advises, look for "the presence of new typing … and the absence of merely copying and pasting.”
And also at 7, PoemTown Randolph presents poets Jim Schley, of Strafford, and Taylor Katz, of Chelsea's Free Verse Farm, for an in-person reading at the Silloway Sugar House in Randolph Center. And if that's not enough to get you out the door, Silloway will be serving maple creemees.
Finally, also at 7, Sharon's Baxter Memorial Library presents a Zoom conversation (and reading) with VT writer Bill Mares. Earlier this year, Mares and cartoonist Don Hooper (they first met as freshman legislators in the '80s, and together were eventually responsible for legalizing this newfangled thing called a "brewpub") published I Could Hardly Keep From Laughing, their illustrated guide to Vermont humor and the people (both contemporary and in times past) who've created its distinct brand of dryness. The book, wrote Mark Saltveit in Seven Days last month, "arguably paints a more accurate sketch of the Green Mountain State than any sociology textbook."
Compay Segundo was 77 when he wrote "Chan Chan" in the mid-1980s. A decade later, after Ry Cooder and his buddies showed up in Cuba with some high-tech recording equipment and the idea for what became the Buena Vista Social Club, Segundo and his fellow musicians recorded a new version—which went on to open the album and became the group's signature song.
, with the musicians and Cuba itself sharing the spotlight.
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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