GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cool, rain ending east to west. Showers may linger this morning, but we should see an end to them as the day wears on. It'll be cloudy for a good bit of the day, holding temps down somewhat: Highs today in the mid or upper 60s. Winds from the northwest, lows tonight in the mid 50s.Up close and personal at Billings.
Well, yeah, a cow, of course. With attitude.
And a thistle serving double-duty as a bee magnet. Both photos by Lauran Corson.
DH to require at least a first Covid booster for employees by Nov. 4. The news came via a video released Tuesday, in which Dr. Michael Calderwood, DHMC's chief quality officer, said that given the booster's ability to protect against severe disease, it will now become "a condition of employment." DH will require proof of one booster, but encourage individuals to follow CDC guidance for their circumstances. One nurse questions the announcement's timing, writes the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr. “We are absolutely bleeding for help,” the nurse says. “... It seems like a terrible time to tick staff off.”Progress in WRJ, but businesses still on hold. In a phone conversation last night, Hartford Fire Marshal Tom Peltier told reporter Eric Francis that a structural engineer has found nothing amiss with the integrity of the flooded Gates Briggs Building. Today, Eric reports, fire department officials will meet with the state’s electrical inspector and based on that conversation "will probably start the ball rolling on temporary occupancy permits for at least the easiest spaces in the upper floors of the building." Peltier expects to know more this afternoon about a likely timeline for returning to business as usual. (No link)Dartmouth library lands National Endowment for the Humanities grant to digitize important NH newspapers. The $298K is for the NH Digital Newspaper Project, led by digital humanities librarian Laura Braunstein, and will go toward digitizing 100,000 pages of "significant historical newspapers" published in NH between 1756 and 1963, reports the communications office. It's one of three projects winning NEH funding. A collaboration with the U of KY will enhance a digital platform for managing and indexing oral history archives, and a new project will explore the history of the US Information Agency.SPONSORED: Ivan Tomek, MD is one of the Upper Valley’s best total hip replacement surgeons. At Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, Ivan Tomek, MD, delivers personalized and professional care to all. One of his patients shared, “Dr. Tomek's attention to my needs was impeccable. He answered all my questions and was patient with me. I started to understand what was going on with my hip, and he provided me with hope about the future.” Call (603) 442-5630 to schedule an appointment. Sponsored by APD.“It’s going to be so much fun." That's JAG Productions founder Jarvis Green talking to the VN's Alex Hanson about the second season of Theatre on the Hill, JAG's collaboration with King Arthur Baking, which kicks off tomorrow. JAG is bringing in Tony winner Britton Smith and his "funk liberation" band, Britton and the Sting. The band has been working on a reinterpretation of musical theater in “what will probably be a Broadway musical," Green says. He talks to Hanson about JAG's growth and its place in this region. "This is literally how I see the future…artistic rigor, rooted in humanity and trust and love,” he says.In bid to make NH less of an "EV charging desert," regulators approve utility's infrastructure plan. The Public Utilities Commission has approved a proposal by Eversource to spend $2 million on upgrading poles, wires, transformers, and other infrastructure to make it more suitable for EV charging stations, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian. The money, Hoplamazian notes, will "work in tandem with a pot of money from a Volkswagen legal settlement dedicated to building charging stations across the state."With no new monkeypox cases reported in the last week, NH holds off on recommending widespread vaccination. “In this current state where there’s limited vaccine and the risk factors are so clearly clustered … a person who doesn’t have those risk behaviors doesn’t need to access the vaccine,” Deputy State Epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Talbot said in a DH webinar yesterday. Those risks, writes David Brooks in the Monitor, are mostly among "men having intimate contact with other men" and cleaning staff in hotels and elsewhere who handle used sheets and towels, since the disease can be spread via material.NH group looks to "the art and science of seed saving." In the first of two articles on the subject, NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee profiles the Moose Mountain Seed Savers, over on the eastern edge of the state. The group has multiple goals—a hedge against seed shortages, returning control over what gardeners grow to their own hands, and ensuring that seeds are adapted to local conditions as the climate changes. “This seed is going to grow better here because it was created here," says one member. Mobile home parks gain new respect in VT as "one of the most accessible paths to homeownership." In central and southern VT, it's rare for a mobile home to cost more than $80,000—though inventory's no looser than the rest of the market. In Seven Days, Anne Wallace Allen, Colin Flanders, and Rachel Hellman write that the state is spending money to upgrade water and sewer, and a movement to transform parks into coops has taken off. The trio profile several mobile home communities around the state, including Quechee's Tall Timbers—"one of the parks that everyone wants to get into," says a resident.It’s called Fluffy the Floating Cloud Bank, and you can ride it for free. Only if you’re headed to this year’s Burning Man, though. Fluffy is a 40-foot-long bus undergoing a radical transformation in Charlotte, VT, led by festival stalwart Duane Peterson and about 100 other locals, including welders, engineers, and pyrotechnicians. Seven Days’ Cat Cutillo gets a peek at Fluffy—now covered in hand-constructed clouds, LED lights, and a flamethrower—before it rolls out for Nevada’s high desert this weekend. The nim-bus will join 800 other “art cars” providing public transport for Burning Man’s 70,000 temporary residents.The world’s oldest potted plant is almost 250 years old and weighs a metric ton. If you’ve visited the Palm House at Kew Gardens in London, you’ve seen the giant cycad as it has been since 1775, when it arrived from South Africa. Horticulturalist Brie Langley, in The Guardian, shares what it’s like to care for this “very spiky, very stoic” plant, not unlike “a grumpy grandfather, who sits by the fire and doesn’t say much.” It’s hard not to personify plants, she says, especially when they’re difficult—because “plants will decide whether or not they want to grow. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”That's a heck of a windup... The Savannah Bananas play baseball in the Coastal Plain League, a set of collegiate-level summer clubs in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia. They're known for Banana Ball (with rules to speed up the game), their exuberant yellow-clad fans, and... a dance known locally as 3-2-2, because it happens on the second pitch to the second batter in the third inning. How the batter can even swing after that is a mystery. Man, if the Nighthawks did this...The Thursday Vordle. Go for it!Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
At 7 this evening (gates open and food starts up at 5:30), BarnArts' Feast and Field brings in longtime, Burlington-based singer-songwriter (and more recent Vermont Public producer) Myra Flynn. She "embraces the dichotomy of her half Irish and half African-American ancestry to craft highly original songs that blend soulful vocals with a delivery that doesn't let one get too comfortable," she writes on her website.
And at 8 this evening, the Lake Morey Resort hosts its final lakeside concert for the summer, with Session Americana, the Boston-based collective that got its start in a Cambridge (MA) bar years ago and continues to channel those raucous rock/Americana roots in its concerts.
Meanwhile, anytime, you can check out CATV's highlights for the week, including a full set of videos of the Lebanon Opera House's NEXUS Festival in downtown Leb last weekend; veteran political reporter Bernard Nossiter talking about covering democracy at Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center; AVA's Mudroom storytelling event in June (live after a couple of years away); and an NH Humanities conversation about the First Amendment in the age of social media.
And to start the day...
Young Brazilian classical guitarist Plínio Fernandes and British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason
by Brazilian composer
and
cellist
and
classical guitarist Heitor Villa-Lobos.
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.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page
, or if you're a committed non-FB user,
.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! You can subscribe at:
Thank you!