GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
You knew it had to end, right? The forecasters' models don't quite agree on how much rain will materialize today, but they agree there'll be showers, possibly thunderstorms. The low pressure that was headed our way yesterday is now passing to our northwest, and it's pulling a series of fronts through. Chance of rain rises through the day and into tonight. High in the low 80s around noon, then temps drop some.DailyUV rebrands. Call it HereCast now. The local news and information site is headed beyond the Upper Valley, so is casting off its UV label. It aims to spread through VT and NH this year, "but we are also interested to see how other communities around the US will use this resource," says a post explaining the move. Better re-bookmark if you use it -- "dailyuv.com" will work a bit longer, but soon you'll have to go to "herecast.us".D-H has opened a new fitness trail. The trail, eight years in the making, was officially launched yesterday. It runs for a mile around the hospital's perimeter, and includes 10 different exercising and stretching stations. Even so, says Bob McClellan, the retired medical director of D-H's Live Well/Work Well initiative, "In addition to getting your heart rate up and stretching and toning your muscles, it's also meant to be relaxing."Opera North joins forces with St. Gaudens and the circus arts again this season. The company's worked with the national park the last two seasons, but this is the first for which the historic farm will host main-stage productions. Hoedown at Blow-Me-Down opens on Friday, essentially a variety show: circus acts plus music. "It’s...a family-friendly mash-up of great artists and great music," ON's Evans Haile tells the VN's EmmaJean Holley, "where you can bring a picnic...and listen to Oklahoma or Rhapsody in Blue." (VN, sub reqd) A first of an entirely different sort also coming this weekend: Leb's Colburn Park will host a vegan festival. Music, samples, demos and classes on cooking... and, of course, a message. “We want to do what’s best for human health, for the environment and for the sake of animals,” says organizer Mike Young. Keynote by Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace and founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who now lives in Woodstock. (VN etc)VT, NH rank 14th/15th as best places to retire. That's Bankrate.com, which weighted measures of affordability, wellness, weather, culture, and crime. The two states both ranked at the top for low crime, and VT also topped the country for wellness, but dang, that weather.... Affordability also dragged them down. The two best states to retire in? Um, Nebraska and Iowa. Because Bankrate doesn't do mountains. VT's got one of the 100 best hotels in the world, according to Travel + Leisure. And no, it's not Barnard's Twin Farms. It's the Rabbit Hill Inn, which is in Lower Waterford, just east of St. J. The inn, which ranks 27th in the world (and tops the list of best resort hotels in the Northeast) is "both homey and luxe, with a sense of refinement that gets to the heart of the New England experience," the mag writes. Tops in the world? India's Leeland Palace Udaipur. In party-line vote, NH Executive Council refuses to confirm AG Gordon MacDonald as chief justice of the state supreme court. Democrats hold a 3-2 majority on the council, and that's how the vote broke down. The Dems cited his lack of experience as a judge and involvement in conservative circles, but were also peeved that Gov. Sununu refused even to discuss it with them. The move sent shockwaves through the state's legal community. Here's a climate adaptation you hadn't thought of: We need to thicken the paving on roads. Researchers at UNH are recommending that the state invest in thicker asphalt. Basically, warmer springs and summers will cause more damage. The study projects the "winter pavement season" will end by mid-century, with "seasonal pavement damage, currently dominated by the late spring and summer seasons, projected to be distributed more evenly throughout the year."Yesterday's item on Kirsten Gillibrand drew a few heated ripostes to the "one-dimensional" label. "I challenge the notion that issues like paid family leave and pay equity are women's issues. These are issues that affect men and children and seniors, especially if we are an equitable society. She might not be my top choice, but she shouldn't be taken out by gendered characterizations," said one. Gillibrand on the issues at the link.A Vermont export to get excited about! No, not Phish. Maple creamees. A new food truck in Portland, ME -- somehow, it has the... chutzpah?... creativity?... to call itself the Maine Maple Creamee Company -- is bringing VT summer to Vacationland. They'll also be doing a Maine Wild Blueberry Creamee. "‘Creemee‘ is the term for soft serve in the regional vernacular of Vermont. It is traditionally maple flavored," Portland Food Map helpfully explains.SO HOW ABOUT TONIGHT?The Canaan Meetinghouse Readings kick off. The highly popular series generally pairs prose and poetry. Tonight, Lyme author W.D. Wetherell will read from his latest collection of short stories, Where We Live. Poet Wyn Cooper -- whose poem, "Fun," became Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do" -- will read from his latest collection, Mars Poetica. Starts at 7:30, but two things to know: Get there early because it fills up fast; and fair warning, no air conditioning.Or if you feel like being literary on the Vermont side of the river, Katherine Arden will be at the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock. Arden's Winternight Trilogy, which uses medieval Russia as the springboard for a rich and complex fantasy world, has amassed a huge and enthusiastic national following. "Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the unseen, where readers will hear echoes of stories from childhood while recognizing the imagination that has transformed old material into something fresh," Kirkus writes. Starts at 6 pm.Meanwhile, Vermont's Bread and Puppet Theater will cross the river to Haverhill. Their latest production, The Diagonal Life Circus, "explores the bewildering, beguiling, and downright funny possibilities and implications of diagonality with the help of state-of-the-art papier-maché and the riotous Bread and Puppet Brass Band." They'll follow up with sourdough rye and aïoli. At 6 on Haverhill Corner Common.There's also music, of course:Bow Thayer will be at Feast & Field in Barnard: rock, Americana, experimental rock, indie... Paul Asbell will be at The Skinny Pancake in Hanover: veteran jazz-and-everything else guitarist on steel stringAnd local fiddler Jakob Breitbach has launched a series of acoustic jazz jams at Café Renée in WRJ. They'll be on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month.Okay, up and at 'em... See you tomorrow.
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