GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, still warm. A cold front came through last night, but its influence was short-lived: mostly clouds overnight and for a bit this morning. Otherwise, we've got dry, decently sunny weather on tap, highs reaching the upper 70s or even 80, gusty winds from the west. Low 50s tonight.Blossoms. It's time!
A close-up of an oriental poppy, from Barbara Woodard in Thetford;
An amaryllis in Lebanon the other day from Kathy Thompson, who writes, "I have five very old amaryllis plants which I dutifully summer outside in hopes that they will bloom at Christmas. They are like family now. I was shocked that one decided to reward my efforts TODAY!"
And a rhododendron in Thetford from Rebecca Lafave, who writes, "This rhododendron was planted in a spot that doesn’t give it room to grow properly. It’s too close to the driveway. I find this flower, growing on the trunk because the branches have been broken, is encouragement to persist and be beautiful in the face of adversity."
It's also time for Dear Daybreak, with a quartet of Upper Valley stories. Cynthia Crawford writes in from Norwich about the recent deluge that took out a section of Mitchell Brook road—with video; Perry Allison thinks back to the heartbreak and "pure country joy" of keeping chickens after seeing a pair strolling along by the river the other day; Emily Boren reflects on a stunning post-rain view during a date-night hike with her husband (and without their kids) up Mt. Cube (with photo); and Laura Abrahamsen on a chance encounter at Lou's that told her, after a long time away, that she's back home. Upper Valley arts groups look toward the future with hope and wariness. Struck by Revels North's decision to shut its doors after 50 years of community-anchored performances, Daybreak summer reporter Duncan Green got curious about how Upper Valley arts organizations as a whole are faring. What he found are lots of challenges, especially funding cuts and, in some cases, audiences still rebuilding from the pandemic. But there's also optimism—in part because mutual aid ties are stronger than ever, and in part because of resilient Upper Valley community support. His story is at the link.Hopkins Center announces grand October re-opening: Yo-Yo Ma, Pilobolus, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Shonda Rhimes, Mindy Kaling all on hand... It'll be a full-on weekend for the arts from Oct. 16-19, the Office of Communications said yesterday, as Dartmouth fêtes the return of the Hopkins Center after a two-and-a-half year, $123.8 million expansion project. Ma, alum Mali Obamsawin, and others will perform an evening of songs and stories paying tribute to the Connecticut River; Broadway star Goldsberry (Rent, Hamilton) will give a concert and Pilobolus will perform a "site-specific adventure" in the new building. Lots more details at the link.SPONSORED: Ever wondered what happens when injured birds are brought to VINS? The video at the link takes you behind the scenes at our Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation & Ambassador Care. Our staff treated a record-breaking 1,254 injured birds last year, giving them a second chance at life. When you visit us at the Nature Center, your ticket or membership directly supports every rescue, making you part of each bird's journey back to the wild. Sponsored by VINS.Lyme selectboard decides town shouldn't be a landlord; longtime Pike House renters to move out. The house, which sits by the town offices and police station, has been in town hands since 2008—and has been rented out ever since. As Emma Roth-Wells writes in the Valley News, Jackie Carter and her two kids have lived there for the past nine years; Carter's sister rented it before that. The town will use it for storage and office space, board member Ben Kilham tells Roth-Wells. Carter hopes to be out in August: “I’m to the point where I want to have nothing to do with the town of Lyme,” she says. This week in the swamp. Well, wetlands, anyway, where Northern Woodlands' Jack Saul gives a tour of what's blooming. There's yellow lady's slipper, which fools bumblebees with its scent but no actual nectar; swamp saxifrage and northern blue flag, the Northeast’s most common native iris (which often shares turf with cattails—the latter are edible, the former, poisonous); a bit uphill, Canadian bunchberry (which for a glorious bit of time held the record for fastest-opening plant ever recorded, until it was eclipsed by the white mulberry); and an ever-charismatic cedar waxwing.SPONSORED: Plan to explore and celebrate the new Timotheus Pohl Conservation Area in Hartland, Sunday June 22, 2-5pm! The Upper Valley Land Trust and Hartland’s Conservation Commission welcome all: join a nature walk, find Vermont’s largest black birch tree, learn about hay-making, hike Hartland Winter Trails, bring your family for a treasure hunt, practice using iNaturalist and eBird, share stories, meet friends. Refreshments by Mac’s Maple. Details here or at the burgundy link. Registration not required, but will help us have a maple creamee treat for you! Sponsored by UVLT.Mayhem on Manchester streets! Sort of, anyway—but if you're the city's emergency services, it was not a good day yesterday. First, an ambulance responding to a call got into an accident near Elliot Hospital—and rolled over. The medics were trapped in the front seat and had to be pulled out through the front windshield by fire crews. Then, a police cruiser on the way to that accident collided with another car—which rolled over. Its occupants also had to be extricated by fire crews and taken to the hospital. And then, a fire truck was involved in a third collision with a car. WMUR's Maria Wilson has the video.In Montpelier, Phil Scott signs and vetoes. A cannabis bill and cap on hospital drug prices got the go-ahead; reforming the state's approach to homelessness, not so much.
The cannabis bill is a "tweak" to industry regs, writes Kevin McCallum for Seven Days. It "clarifies that cops can confiscate illegally grown weed" and requires labeling with harvest and packaging dates. But growers complain that the measure doesn't include reforms they hoped for, like the ability to sell direct to consumers. McCallum explains.
The drug bill caps the price that hospitals in the state can charge for drugs they inject or infuse into patients at 120 percent of their average sales price, reports WCAX's Laura Ullman. Vermont has the highest hospital markups on drugs in the country, and reporting earlier this month, VT Public's Lexi Krupp noted the measure will save Blue Cross Blue Shield an estimated $46 million a year—but likewise hit hospitals' bottom line, leading some hospital officials to warn they may need to cut services.
The bill Scott vetoed "would have regionalized and privatized Vermont’s homelessness response system," reports Carly Berlin for VTDigger and VT Public. In a message to the legislature late yesterday, the governor said it “does not adequately reduce the size or cost” of the state's motel voucher program and would require more spending—though as Berlin points out, it would have dissolved the motel program and given "funding and decision-making power for emergency shelter to five regional anti-poverty nonprofits and the statewide domestic violence organization."
In a Burlington courtroom, two doctors face off over addiction treatment. It was "an uncomfortable scene," writes Colin Flanders for Seven Days: "A respected doctor suing his own employer over the care that an experienced colleague had provided his son." The case stemmed from the 2020 overdose death of Peter Krag, a Burlington musician. His father, David, is a surgeon at UVM Medical Center—and after learning that Peter's primary care doc had let him stop taking anti-addiction medication, sued the hospital and his colleague. Flanders gives a blow-by-blow of the trial and the events leading to it."I don't think that [arguing] is going to spark a love of being civically active." That's Plainfield, VT high school civics teacher Chris Sheehan, who's pioneering a new curriculum called "The America I Want Is...," in which his students have learned how to ask friends, relatives, neighbors and total strangers about what they want their country to be. Sheehan got interested in it after noticing that it had become increasingly tough to talk politics in class; he's working with a Northfield, VT foundation that created the curriculum. Seven Days' Ken Picard went to Plainfield to watch it in action.The least likely “mechanical work of art”? You guessed it: a gas pump's fuel nozzle. OK, you probably didn’t guess that. But Primal Space's new video will explain why. When the world’s first gas station opened in 1913, in Pittsburgh, it made refueling much safer. Until then, drivers funneled kerosene into their own tanks or attendants dispensed it on city streets. Gulf’s novel station stored fuel in underground tanks. But gasoline replaced kerosene in the 1920s, and its low flashpoint meant, well, kaboom! Now, gas pumps are highly engineered for safety, with air returns, ball bearings, and negative pressure.Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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It's a duo of central VT music veterans: singer-songwriter and guitarist Patti Casey, and singer and banjo player Tom MacKenzie. As Shady Rill "they explore everything from French Canadian dance tunes, to Tin Pan Alley, to Old Time Country, and a healthy dose of originals," BarnArts writes. As always, gates and food at 5:30, music starts up at 6.
The society will hold a brief annual meeting starting at 6:30, then Rule, the NH storyteller and host of
Our Hometown
on NHPBS, for an evening of humorous tales of New England life—with an invitation for members of the audience to chime in with their own stories. At the Orford Main Street Church.
They'll be setting up—as they will every Thursday evening—in the bandstand on the South Royalton town green for a concert of marches, jazz, Dixieland, tangos, novelty tunes, music from Broadway musicals, and more. 7 pm.
At the Norwich Bookstore, Deek Diedricksen and Tree Houses within Reach: 30 Lofty Cabins, Playhouses, and Getaways You Can Actually Build!
The title says it all: Diedricksen, who lives in MA, is well-known micro-builder who, among other things hosted and designed for the HGTV series
Extreme Small Spaces
and
Tiny House Builders.
He'll be showing photos and telling the stories behind the tree houses he features. 7 pm.
NH Sen. Jeanne Shaheen visited the Upper Valley recently, and JAM producers filmed her at West Central Behavioral Health taking about Medicaid cuts and at the Kilham Bear Center on legislation to help conserve the Connecticut River; Lebanon High School's graduation ceremonies last week; and a chance to check out the recent winners of JAM's 48-Hour Film Slam, "where attendees laughed, shrieked, and cried at short films ranging from spaghetti western
A Pocketful of Pasta
, to techno-thriller
Planned Obsolescence
, and best-in-show winner parody
The Wizard Guffaws."
It's been a week, '60s-music-wise...
Sly Stone and Brian Wilson both died this week, Stone on Monday, Wilson yesterday. Both were 82, and both were plagued by health issues in later years. But both were also musical geniuses whose influence has carried on through generations of musicians who followed them—as suggested by just how difficult it is to choose a single song by each to showcase. But oh well, let's go a little deeper than the obvious.
from their 1967 debut album,
A Whole New Thing
. And
off 1966's
Pet Sounds
. They were such
interesting
times, though, weren't they?
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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