GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Patchy fog to start, getting sunnier over the course of the day, calm. Temps will be maybe a touch warmer today than yesterday, high 60s to low 70s again depending on where you are, with clouds yielding to sun by about midday and light winds from the north. Clear skies tonight, lows around 40. If you're in a hollow in the NEK or northern NH, there could be some patchy frost.Blossoms
"The lilacs are really nice this spring," writes Rich Cohen from Norwich. "So the other night I dragged some lights outside and photographed this one." The result is both slightly eerie and a full-on feast for the eyes.
And also from Norwich, Lisa Johnson sends in a photo of a blossoming medlar. "It's a funny tree," she writes. "It puts out small apple-type fruits, which need to sit on the tree until after the first freeze, to let the fruits 'blet' (half-rot!), and then you sort of suck out the fruit from the skin."
Nighttime paving at Exit 19 will require ramp closures. NHDOT crews are continuing to work on both the northbound and southbound exits off I-89, which will require closing the on- and off-ramps on various nights through Monday. Tentative dates and times at the link.Second time around, Hartland voters reject school budget. You probably remember that the $11.1 million budget passed by just nine votes last month in a low-turnout election. That spurred two residents to petition for a re-vote, and on Tuesday, reports Christina Dolan in the Valley News, nearly 1,100 voters turned out; the budget went down 551-537. The school board holds an emergency meeting tonight to discuss options. "There are very few cuts the board can make and those small cuts will have very little impact on the tax rate but will impact the kids,” board chair Nicole Buck told reporters in a statement.Hanover to get three electric school buses. The federal EPA yesterday announced the latest round of grants and rebates to 530 school districts across the country for the purchase of electric buses and chargers. In all, nine districts in NH will get funding, including Hanover. This adds to the four buses that recently went into use in Henniker and Weare. In Vermont, six districts are getting funds for clean school buses; none are in the Upper Valley.Trying to "build back better" as Ottauquechee River Trail gets prepped for reopening. The three-mile trail along the river in Woodstock was devastated in last year's flooding. "A very active river took away all of our bog bridges, our benches, our picnic tables, trail signage," Tom Weschler tells NBC5's John Hawks. The challenge, the Upper Valley Trails Alliance's Randy Richardson says, is that as weather events grow more extreme, "any trail that's not designed almost perfectly is getting hit more often"—especially alongside a river. The trail is slated to reopen June 15, though work will continue after that.SPONSORED: Cantabile presents "Early Voices" this weekend. Join us for two captivating performances! Cantabile presents a choral program exploring music and texts from the Baroque and earlier, including Vivaldi’s Beatus Vir performed with a string quartet and works by Tallis, Monteverdi and Handel. This Saturday at 4 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, Sunday at 4 pm at the Norwich Congregational Church. Ticketless admission, more information here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Cantabile."I could tell some folks around me had selective memory.” Etna innkeeper and comic storyteller Cindy Pierce started writing down stories about her extended family at a young age, all becoming grist for her one-woman show, Keeping It Inn. The show's back at the Briggs next weekend, telling the story of her family, Pierce's Inn—the Etna spot her parents took over in 1971—and especially her mother, Nancy, through Nancy's voice. In her latest Artful post, Susan Apel talks to Pierce about how it came about and the ground it covers. "As entertaining as [it] is," Susan writes, "Keeping It Inn is not a rom-com."Between NH Senate and House, a difference of 100 feet on wakesports legislation. At the moment, writes Claire Sullivan in NH Bulletin, the state requires wake boats to remain at least 150 feet offshore—less than even the 200 feet the trade group representing boat makers recommends. A Senate bill proposes adopting that distance as the state's standard; the House, meanwhile, wants to set it at 300 feet—which would make 285 water bodies in the state open to wake surfing, versus 290 under the Senate's version. For comparison, VT's new rule sets a 500-foot limit. The Senate considers its options today.SPONSORED: It's time to JUMBLE! The St. Thomas Jumble Sale is this Saturday, June 1, 8am-2pm, 9 West Wheelock Street in Hanover. Join us for fun and bargains, a live band, lawn games and a donkey, and FREE ice cream, too! Return on Sunday at 11:45 for the $1 Bag Sale and on Monday at 10am for the Free-For-All. See you there! Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.After judge's ruling on "divisive concepts" law, NH officials ponder what's next. In particular, reports NHPR's Sarah Gibson, they're “currently reviewing the court’s order and will consider next steps including whether to appeal" to the First District Court of Appeals in Boston. NH "is one of at least 25 states that passed laws in recent years restricting certain K-12 lessons or books," Gibson notes, but it is the first to have such a law ruled unconstitutional, as US District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro did on Tuesday.Vermont leads US in year-over-year house price increase; NH in middle of New England pack. In a new report, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says that VT's home prices rose 12.8 percent from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024, far outpacing the national average of 6.6 percent. NH checked in at 9.4 percent, behind CT's 9.6 percent, but ahead of ME (9.1), MA (8.8) and RI (8.5). VT was followed in the top five by NJ, NY, DE, and WI.With bear encounters on the rise, VT Fish & Wildlife passes along some composting recommendations. "We have been receiving lots of reports of bears on decks, tearing down bird feeders, wrecking beehives, killing chickens, and getting into trash, compost and garbage containers,” bear biologist Jaclyn Comeau says in a press release. With that in mind, the agency has some suggestions for how to compost without attracting bears. Their first suggestion: take compost to a drop-off station. But if you're composting at home, they've got tips: brown vs. green material, turn it regularly, and more.In three VT courtrooms, "a judicial system plagued by delays" on vivid display. The courtrooms in question are in Burlington, where Seven Days' Derek Brouwer and VT Public's Liam Elder-Connors spent five days watching the state's busiest—and most backlog-burdened—criminal court at work. With a ringside seat to attorneys, defendants, juries, judges, and court staff, they describe a litany of technical difficulties, no-shows, frustrated lawyers and judges, and a court process that "appeared by turns futile, exhausting and farcical." But also, in encounter after encounter, very human.For sale: 186 acres not far from Charlotte, NC. Also: three tigers, a bunch of lemurs, a binturong, a carousel... Okay, maybe you're not in the market for that small town in southern California. But how about a zoo in North Carolina? For a mere $16 million, Zootastic could be yours. The private zoo is actually one of two in the state up for sale (Fayetteville's Aloha Safari Park seems like a bargain at $4.5 mil). You'll need to show you're qualified to handle exotic animals (eye-popping list here) and get a federal license.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
Water on Fire: A Memoir of War—a book talk by Tarek El-Ariss, chair of Dartmouth's Middle East Studies Department.
Today at 12:30, the Dartmouth Libraries host El-Ariss for a conversation about his new memoir, told in a dozen essays that trace his life from Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese civil war—“Perhaps the only way we can talk about war is when we can write it as a spy novel and insert ourselves into its pages," he writes—to his early studies in west Africa to his embrace of an intellectual community. In Berry 180A and despite what it says at the link, registration is recommended but not required.
What began as a conversation among friends is now a long weekend of films, a drag brunch, trivia night, a high heel race along Elm Street, and more. It all gets going at 5 pm with a screening of Madeleine Olnek's comedy,
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
at the Billings Farm Theater, then at 7:30 with Pentangle's screening at Woodstock Town Hall Theater of
The Birdcage
. Schedule at the link,
.
At 5:30 pm today, Sustainable Woodstock hosts Emily Ruff, director of the Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary, a 600-acre tract in Orange, VT founded by herbalist Rosemary Gladstar to protect and restore habitat, as well as to help conserve surrounding wildlife corridors and plant communities in central Vermont. Ruff will be talking about all that, as well as ways individuals can support corridor ecosystems at a level as small as a backyard.
The trio of Mexican brothers and their band, Upper Valley favorites, blend Mexican folk, jazz, and classical music into an exuberant whole. They're back in the area for a bit and starting at 6 pm today (gates open and food starts at 5:30) they get Feast & Field, at the Fable Farm Fermentory in Barnard, going for the season. If you miss it, they'll also be helping to inaugurate the new Claremont Creative Center on Saturday. Don't forget that the bridge to Royalton Hill Road off Route 14 is closed.
Today at 6:30 pm, both in-person and online, Dartmouth Earth Sciences prof Erich Osterberg will talk about his ice core research, and about the latest we'll explore the latest work on how melting snow and ice at both poles raises sea levels, changes storm patterns, and may accelerate changes in the New England climate. In the Mayer Room (no registration needed) and via Zoom (register via the link at the link).
Babij was in Kyiv when Russia launched its invasion in 2022. She stayed to chronicle the war from there via a Substack newsletter, and the result is her new book,
A Kind of Refugee
, published last month. She'll be at Bethany Church in Randolph, in conversation with Dartmouth visiting prof Lada Kolomiyets and grad student Sophie Shields.
The Grantham Historical Society hosts writer and Upper Valley historian Steve Taylor, talking about the 1953 fire that burned over 1,500 acres of the mountain. Taylor, a young man at the time, helped fight it, and will give a first-person account of what it was like.
They're JAM's highlights for the week: Dartmouth PhD student Joseph Savage talking ticks at a recent VT Center for Ecostudies "Suds and Science" session (in fact,
); the Leb High orchestra concert with
Brian Balmages' "Love and Light" and Steve Danyew's "Into the Silent Land"; and poets Laura Jean Gilloux, Hatsy McGraw, April Ossmann, Ivy Schweitzer, and Diana Whitney at the Hartland Library.
And today...
Hungarian pianist and composer Peter Bence doesn't just put pianos to new and original uses in his wildly popular covers. He also puts them to conventional—if demanding—uses for his own compositions.
for pianists who've already got some classical chops.
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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