GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Light snow likely. A system in a hurry began moving through last night, bringing us the bit of new snow you see on the ground, with the potential for more showers—especially in higher terrain—the first part of today. Meanwhile, we'll probably see some decent sun as the day wears on, with temps rising toward 30...before cold air moving in from the north and west sends them plummeting into the low single digits overnight.And a quick note about poetry. Down at the bottom today you'll find a message from poetry editor Michael Lipson about some plans we've got that involve you. Once you get there, don't skip over it, okay?My, covered bridges look good in snow. "The snow was coming down at a fast and furious rate when I photographed the Taftsville Covered Bridge" last week, Quechee photographer Lisa Lacasse writes. "The test was to not slip down the slope towards the river as I lined up my shot." The bridge, which dates to 1836, is the second-longest covered bridge in VT—and as Lisa's interior photo shows, it's pretty darn striking on the inside, too.Jason Chin, illustrator who grew up in Lyme, wins Caldecott. Chin worked with writer Andrea Wang on the 2021 book, Watercress, which yesterday won the immensely prestigious Caldecott medal from the American Library Association and was named a Newbery honor book. Watercress explores the complex feelings children of immigrants hold about their parents and the past. "The themes are universal: the themes of being ashamed of your parents," Chin, a Hanover High grad, told NPR last year. "I remember walking 20 feet behind my parents... pretending that I didn't belong to them." The two talked over their creative process last year in Publisher's Weekly. (Thanks, GK!)An action plan for old West Leb. Last week, the seven-member advisory committee aiming to revitalize the Main Street corridor presented its ideas to the city council. Its big-picture priorities include boosting public access to the Connecticut River, getting the Mascoma River Greenway connected up to Boston Lot (via, um, Wesboro Yard), gussying up the Bridge Street "gateway" to town, making the area much more pedestrian- and bike-friendly, improving the streetscape, bringing some of downtown Leb's vibe (like the farmers market and live music) to old West Leb, and more. Lots of detail in the fine print. College moving ahead with Garipay Field dorm plans. There's concern and opposition from neighbors, but Dartmouth is hoping "to enter the permitting phase by summer and break ground by the end of the year" on the project, Parker O'Hara reports in The Dartmouth. “We’re planning for the whole area, not just thinking about where we put housing, but also as we think about...what future development would look like out there," campus services vice president Josh Keniston says. He adds that the dorm project will recognize “the importance of the outdoors and recreation space."SPONSORED: This Valentine’s Day, #LoveLocalUV! Treat your sweetie and your whole community by spending in businesses rooted in the Upper Valley. Post-Christmas and mid-Omicron, they need our help; in return, they recirculate that money into the local economy to benefit us all. From now through February 14, join the #lovelocaluv social media campaign and be entered in a drawing for one of 30 free “Upper Valley To Go” restaurant coupon books from the Upper Valley Business Alliance! Details about that and other LoveLocalUV ideas at the maroon link. Sponsored by Vital Communities. Cornish man held after allegedly shooting at car that tried to pass him. The incident happened on Saturday afternoon just south of downtown Lebanon, John Lippman reports in the Valley News. Donald Delisle of Cornish was apparently driving below the speed limit on Meriden Road as he and the car behind him approached Lebanon; when the car tried to pass him, the driver told police, Delisle tried to run him off the road, then after he dropped back fired at him through the rear window. Delisle told the arresting officer he believed the people in the other car had tried to poison him and were shooting at him.On the milfoil front lines. Again. The Lake Fairlee Association plans to treat the lake with herbicide this year, reports Li Shen in Sidenote. It did so back in 2010, after milfoil problems on the lake grew so overwhelming that less dramatic approaches no longer worked. But "the milfoil is again getting out of control," Li writes. She explores the herbicide likely to be used, florpyauxufen-benzyl, which degrades quickly in water and can be applied at lower doses than others, and details the process of applying to the state for permission to use it.UV schools struggle to fill administrators' jobs. In the VN, Nora Doyle-Burr reported over the weekend that nearly a dozen principal and assistant positions are open—from Hanover High to Mt. Lebanon Elementary to HACTC, Woodsville, and Stevens High in Claremont and White River Valley High in Royalton. Hiring challenges are nothing new for rural schools, but the pandemic has made things worse, says SAU 70 Supt. Jay Badams: Principals have to act as "sort of comforter-in-chief,” he tells Doyle-Burr. It's “almost like prolonged crisis communication. That’s a lot to shoulder."
The first bridge connecting Lyme and Thetford was built around 1839. And no, though the current bridge may look like it's that old, it didn't last. Another was built in 1896; it was destroyed by ice floes and flooding in 1936. The current bridge was built a year later, Nick Clark writes in his Sidenote history of the bridge. It was funded by the Works Progress Administration—but unlike a lot of WPA projects, the federal agency didn't have much else to do with it. Instead, the bridge was designed by two NHDOT engineers.Even local-er rooting interest in Beijing. Now that the final roster is set, it looks like eight athletes with ties to Dartmouth, including a current student, will be competing. Alpine skiers include first-timers A.J. Hurt '23 and Nina O'Brien '20, along with seasoned Olympians Tricia Mangan '21 and Tommy Ford '12. Rosie Brennan '11 and Julia Kern '20 will compete in cross-country skiing. Veteran competitor Susan Dunklee '08 will help anchor the biathlon team, and Laura Stacey '16 will skate for Team Canada's hockey team.“The fact remains that we’re almost too accessible to the Everyman, and as a result, we’re starting to beat the snot out of the trail systems." That's John DeVivo, general manager of Franconia Notch State Park, talking to Adirondack Explorer's Gwendolyn Craig about the park's effort to keep hikers from parking on I-93 by offering shuttle service instead. It's in abeyance right now, but when operating it was a money-losing proposition for the hugely popular park. Officials may start it up again—and are planning to charge $10-$15 at the most popular parking spots for the Franconia Ridge Loop.Loons catch a lift to the ocean. Not that they intended to, of course. A group of 10 loons rescued from an iced-over Lake Winnipesaukee on Saturday were released at the beach in Rye yesterday by members of NH's Loon Preservation Committee, WMUR reports. “It could just be that they stuck around a little bit too long because the lake was still open, the fishing was good, and then they molted those flight feathers and as the water started to come in it was too late for them to be able to leave,” the LPC's Caroline Hughes explains.“As a person of color with a disability, [I’m] trying to really just showcase this is what humans look like.” That’s UVM grad and adaptive athlete Vasu Sojitra, talking to David Goodman on The Vermont Conversation. Sojitra’s right leg required amputation when he was an infant. But as early as age 10, he learned to ski. At UVM, his skiing pursuits took off, leading him to barrier-breaking achievements: In 2021, he became the first adaptive skier to descend Denali. Now he co-runs an organization that promotes equity and inclusion in outdoor sports. His next big descent? The jewel of the Alps: Mont Blanc.Got stuff? Think it might be valuable? For the first time ever, Sally Pollak reports in Seven Days, PBS's "Antiques Roadshow" is headed to Vermont. It'll set up shop at the Shelburne Museum in July to appraise art, antiques, and other objects that lucky visitors with tickets bring by. As Pollak writes, it's a natural spot for the show: "The 45-acre museum has been displaying roadshow-like objects since 1947, when founder Electra Havemeyer Webb made a home for her father-in-law’s carriage collection—and never looked back." You've got 'til March 21 to enter the drawing for tickets. Forget hell freezing over. Check out these images of snow in the Sahara. One of the hottest, driest places on the planet recently got blanketed in the white stuff—for only the fifth time in nearly half a century. Granted, in this northernmost part of the Sahara, cool temps aren’t unheard of during the winter, even if precipitation is generally scarce. But as Sam Anderson writes on Explorersweb, on January 17 it dipped below freezing in northern Algeria and the moisture turned to flakes. Rare as it is, recorded snowfall has become more frequent there, with previous reports in 2016, 2018, and 2021.Staged? Not staged? That was the debate over last week's snow report by the social media manager for the Seven Springs Ski Resort in western PA, who's exuberant and earnest as she talks up the resort's snow dump while in the background... Turns out it was a clever—and planned—bid to go viral. Which it did. Kudos!
And the numbers...
Dartmouth drops again, down to 541 total cases after hitting 783 on Friday. The college's dashboard yesterday reported 424 active undergrad cases (-189 since Thursday), 47 among grad and professional students (-21), and 70 among faculty/staff (+3). There have been 920 combined new cases among students over the previous seven days, as well as 123 among faculty/staff. 376 students are isolating on campus, 95 are isolating off-campus, and 79 faculty/staff are in isolation.
NH reported 2,258 new cases Friday, 2,905 Saturday, 2,316 Sunday, and 975 yesterday, bringing its total to 265,140. There were 22 deaths reported over that time; the total now stands at 2,145. The state reports 15,641 active cases (-4,385 since Thursday) and 411 (no change) hospitalizations. NH tallies 1,192 (-215) active cases in Grafton County, 468 (-70) in Sullivan, and 1,842 (-353) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, the state says Hanover has 445 (-88), Claremont has 174 (-21), Lebanon has 131 (-11), Newport has 109 (+13), New London has 96 (+15), Haverhill has 77 (+7), Enfield has 52 (+14), Charlestown has 47 (no change), Canaan has 38 (-10), Grantham has 30 (-24), Sunapee has 27 (-21), Plainfield has 17 (-21), Newbury has 15 (-7), Wilmot has 15 (+4), Orford has 15 (-2), Unity has 14 (+at least 10), Rumney has 13 (-2), Warren has 13 (+4), Grafton has 12 (-7), Springfield has 10 (+2), Lyme has 9 (+2), Wentworth has 7 (+at least 3), Cornish has 6 (-2), Piermont has 5 (+at least 1), and Dorchester, Orange, and Croydon have 1-4 each.
VT stayed just shy of the 100K mark, reporting 525 cases yesterday to bring it to 99,651 total. But that figure includes 5,044 cases tallied in recent days as it caught up to its data problems at the end of last week. The state reports 14 additional deaths since last Thursday, bringing it to 521. As of yesterday, 105 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (-10), with 23 of them (-4) in the ICU. Windsor County has seen 358 new cases added to its total since the middle of last week, with 6,578 for the pandemic and 837 new cases over the previous two weeks; Orange County gained 195 cases during that time, with 419 over the previous two weeks for a total of 2,873. In town-by-town numbers that went up on Friday, Hartford gained 178 cases over the week before; Springfield +166; Randolph +87; Bradford +49; Windsor +46; Hartland +36; Bethel +33; Royalton +32; Thetford +30; Chelsea and Corinth +29; Newbury +25; Fairlee and Woodstock +24; Norwich +21; W. Windsor +18; Sharon, Tunbridge, Vershire, and Weathersfield +17; Cavendish +16; Strafford +14; Killington +13; Reading +6; W. Fairlee +5; Bridgewater +4; and Barnard and Pomfret +3. The total for UV towns in Vermont is down slightly, from 992 the week before to 959 last week.
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Today at 12:15, Dartmouth's Irving Institute hosts an online seminar on what happens now in the wake of last year's international climate talks in Glasgow, COP26. Scott Foster, director of sustainable energy at the UN's Economic Commission for Europe; Victoria Holt, who directs the Dickey Center at Dartmouth; and Jennie Stephens, who directs Northeastern's school of public policy will look both ahead and behind with Irving Institute director Elizabeth Wilson.
Today at 5:30, all the way from Burlington, Outdoor Gear Exchange and City Market present no less than an hour-and-a-half livestreamed class on how to make coffee in the backcountry. They'll talk over a variety of methods, as well as how to pack properly and best approaches for cooking in the cold. No charge but you'll need to register.
This evening at 7 online, the Norwich Bookstore hosts NYC-based author (and rock climber) Keila Vall de la Ville, talking about her novel, The Animal Days. The English translation of Los días animales, her fast-paced, life-on-the-brink story about love and rock-climbing, first published in 2018, came out last year. She'll be in conversation with author, poet, translator, and lecturer in Spanish at Dartmouth Kianny Antigua.
Also at 7 this evening, the Lebanon Opera House kicks off two nights of the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival. Things actually get rolling at 6:30, when Thal Alyward and Colin McCaffrey play banjo and fiddle tunes from a mix of traditions. As always, the films span the world: skiing from a zeppelin in the Alps, paragliding in the Himalayas, aerial silks in the mountains north of Vancouver, BC, the journey of a 65-year-old piano tuner from London to the Himalayas—with a hundred-year-old upright piano. Plus, of course, plenty more hair-raising exploits. Festival preview here. Proof of vaccines (plus booster if eligible).
Finally, anytime, you can check out what CATV's highlighting this week, including: Ben Silberfarb's short 2015 film, Cycles of Change, about both the decline and resilience of farming in Norwich; the Rockefeller Center's panel earlier this month on reproductive justice and US law; the NH Humanities lecture on the ethics of "converging" technologies; the Hanover Historical Society's retrospective on two pioneers who "brought dance, movement, and fitness to Upper Valley women"; and more.
I don’t remember how it began.
The singing. Judy at the wheel
in the middle of
Sentimental Journey
.
The side of her face glowing.
Her full lips moving….Forgetting
the rent, the kids, the men,
the other woman. The sad goodbye.
The whole of childhood. Forgetting
the lost dog.... The car
an immense boat cutting the air
into blue angelic plumes. Singing
Blue Moon
and
Paper Moon
and…
Nobody Knows
the Trouble I’ve Seen.
And a note from poetry editor Michael Lipson:
With this poem excerpt, the last for January, it is time to reveal that there was a hidden theme behind this month’s selections: they all included references to beginning.
February’s selections will also have a hidden theme. See if you can guess it—while enjoying the snippets for their own sake, of course. That’s how we’ll proceed through the year, with a hidden connection between each month's poems. For March, though, we’re going to try something different. Please send in your suggestions from poems published by authors other than yourself. Excerpts should be no longer than 6 lines. I’ll choose five of them to include in the five (!) March Tuesday Daybreaks. Please include publication details and an online link to the poem in question, and send it all to [email protected]. He'll forward it to me.
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.
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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