GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Clouds or sun, depending on where you are. The clouds came in last night ahead of a trough of low pressure that's making its way across the region today, but the sky to the east will be clearer than toward the west. Highs today only around freezing in most spots, winds from the west. Lower 20s tonight, with a slight chance of snow showers in western parts of the region.Police search for hen-killing dog crosses state lines. If you read the Norwich listserv, you may have noticed Eric Picconi's Nov. 18 post about a dog he believes was at neighboring Huntley Meadow that tore into his chicken coop and left four hens dead. Now, reports John Lippman in the Valley News, based on audio from a home security system town police have "requested the names of all dogs licensed under the name of Ruby" in Hanover, Hartford, and Lebanon—and gone to their owners' homes to check up on them. “The investigation is ongoing," says interim chief Sgt. Simon Keeling.Emerald ash borer spotted for first time in Windsor County. VT's Department of Forest, Parks, and Recreation has put out the word to foresters and loggers that the devastating invasive pest has been detected in Hartford—as well as in Brookfield. The agency has expanded it's "Slow the Spread" recommendations to Pomfret, Sharon, and Thetford, as well as to Bethel, Braintree, Chelsea, Randolph, Rochester, and Tunbridge.Taxes up a bit, water/sewer rates more under proposed Leb budget. The proposed 8 percent increase for water and 7.2 percent boost in sewer rates—similar to increases last year—are due to debt service on various infrastructure projects the city has undertaken, reports the VN's John Gregg. City manager Shaun Mulholland has also proposed a 2.75 percent spending increase in the general fund budget, based on higher wages for city employees, a jump in health insurance costs, and in particular, large increases in the city's contributions to the NH Retirement System.SPONSORED: Celebrate the holidays with music in Upper Valley Music Center’s annual Holiday Music Festival. Sing your favorite holiday carols around the tree in downtown Lebanon or in free online classes for kids this Saturday, December 4. The festival wraps up on December 19 with Handel’s Messiah, featuring an aria recital and outdoor Hallelujah-sing. Whether you sit back and enjoy, or sing and play along, UVMC invites you to join the celebration! Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center."An excellent source of organic pest control." That would be skunks, who are fond of beetle larvae, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast. This (almost!) first week of December, her apple orchard nocturnal wildlife cam caught a striped skunk taking exception to the flash. Also out there in the woods: ferns and lots of fungi, including the aptly named lemon drops (to look at, that is) and the various wood-recycling brown rot fungi. Also, a pointer to how to tell the difference between streamside otter and raccoon tracks.“Gone away is the bluebird…”—but was it ever really blue to begin with? Naturalist and photographer Mary Holland continues to reshape our perception of nature. In her latest Naturally Curious post, we learn that something of an optical illusion is at play when we catch sight of a blue jay through the window. Unlike red or yellow birds, whose feathers get their color from pigments, all blue birds are blue “by the way light waves interact with the feathers and their arrangement of protein molecules, called keratin.” It explains why, at some angles of light, an indigo bunting might look brown. Hate your commute? Dartmouth researchers will back you up. If you drive to work, anyway. A team led by computer science prof Andrew Campbell used wearable technology and a remote-sensing smartphone app with 275 workers over the course of a year (before the pandemic) to look at stress levels and other physiological and behavioral responses to a commute and how they affected the workday. As Campbell puts it in Science Daily, "Your commute predicts your day." Most of the people they studied drove; people who walked or biked or were otherwise active were more productive during the day.NH starts distributing free at-home Covid tests. It and Washington State are the first to join a program in which the National Institutes of Health provide the tests and Amazon distributes them. NH plans to make 1 million of them available (in batches of four kits, each with two tests). The program opened yesterday at 9 am, and by early afternoon, WMUR reports, over 35,000 requests had been processed. Maroon link takes you to the registration page.Federal judge blocks health-care worker vaccine mandate in NH—but hospitals shrug. Yesterday's decision also applied to nine other states and ruled that the Biden administration needed congressional approval for the mandate, which it labeled "arbitrary and capricious." However, reports NHPR's Alli Fam, NH health care facilities had already begun implementing the mandate or—as with DHMC—imposed their own. One nursing home administrator, she reports, "believes his staff need to be vaccinated and says he has no intention of waiting until the battle plays out in the courts."You'd think the bright flashing lights driving parallel to you would be a tipoff. NH State Police are looking for help from anyone who happened to be on I-93 northbound between Windham and Manchester Sunday night around 10:30. That's when, for 14 miles, they tried to stop a late 2000's Ford SUV that was traveling the wrong direction. For a long stretch, troopers drove parallel to it on the southbound side, lights blaring. They lost sight around the Windham weigh station when trees in the median got in the way. The car either got off the highway or turned around before it reached troopers set up near Exit 3.“Those are still amazing approval ratings." That's VT pollster and Castleton University political scientist Rich Clark describing Phil Scott's numbers in some recent surveys. Earlier this month, a UNH poll of 1,500 Vermonters pegged him at 69 percent approval, reports VTDigger's Lola Duffort—with the strongest numbers coming from Democrats and just a slight drop from his 75 percent standing back in April. This support comes despite Vermont's rising Covid numbers, and, Duffort writes, "likely reflects in large part Vermont’s experience of the pandemic contrasted with the rest of the country."What do you get with 3 feet of snow, a country inn, and karaoke? A jolly good time, that’s what. Last Friday night in northern England, the BBC reports, a popular secluded inn drew a decent crowd for an Oasis tribute band, and while they rocked and rolled, an absolute Wonderwall of snow formed outdoors, stranding everyone there for days. But no one’s complaining or (ahem) looking back in anger. Inn staff quickly broke out the games, singalongs…and ale. Says the innkeeper, “It’s just been lovely and everyone is in really good spirits. They’ve formed quite a friendship, like a big family.”
The numbers...Daybreak reports Covid numbers on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Dartmouth's dashboard reports 15 active undergrad cases (down 14 over the last week), with 4 cases among grad and professional students (+3) and 16 (+2) among faculty/staff. The dashboard also reports 80 combined new cases among students over the past seven days, as well as 24 among faculty/staff. 19 students are in isolation, along with 25 faculty/staff.
NH reports 6,353 new cases in the week since last Monday, bringing its total to 160,287—though it also reports a 7-day average 17 percent lower than the week before. There were 22 deaths over that time, bringing the total to 1,694; the state reports 7,078 active cases (-888 over the last week) and 377 (+34) hospitalizations. It tallies 451 (+9) active cases in Grafton County, 377 (-83) in Sullivan, and 751 (-86) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 159 (-45 over the past week); Lebanon 88 (+45); Newport 85 (+6); Hanover 76 (+30); Haverhill 36 (+2); Sunapee 33 (-4); Charlestown 23 (-24); Enfield 22 (+9); Canaan 17 (+8); New London 14 (-9); Rumney 13 (no change); Grantham 11 (+4); Plainfield 10 (+2); Croydon 10 (-1); Wilmot 10 (+at least 6); Newbury 9 (+at least 5); Warren 6 (-8); Grafton 6 (+at least 2); Cornish 5 (-8); and Piermont, Orford, Wentworth, and Lyme 1-4 each.
VT has seen 2,177 new cases since last Monday, bringing its total to 49,801. There were 5 deaths over that time; they now number 410. As of yesterday, 68 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (+15 over the past week). Windsor County has seen 268 new cases during that time, for a total of 3,648 for the pandemic, with 499 new cases over the past two weeks; Orange County gained 58 cases, with 137 over the past two weeks for a total of 1,727 for the pandemic. In town-by-town numbers published last Wednesday, Springfield added 90 cases over the week before, Hartford +24, Hartland and Windsor +14, Bradford +12, Sharon +9, Weathersfield +8, Cavendish +7, Bethel and Bridgewater +6, Corinth, Fairlee, Royalton, and Woodstock +5, Newbury and Tunbridge +4, Norwich, Randolph, and Thetford +3, Killington, Strafford, and W. Windsor +2, and Barnard, Chelsea, Pomfret, and Reading +1.
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This evening at 7, you've got a chance to snag a screen-side seat for Pages in the Pub, in which an enthusiastic panel of presenters gives brief descriptions of their current favorite books just in time to buy them for the holidays or for yourself. In years when the gathering happens downstairs at the Norwich Inn it sells out well in advance. This time around it will be online, presented by the Book Jam blog, the Norwich Bookstore, and the Norwich Public Library—with proceeds from the $20 tix going to support the library. Tonight's presenters are Norwich library director Lucinda Walker; poet and publisher Peter Money; cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies instructor Tillie Walden; fellow cartoonist Emma Hunsinger; the Norwich Bookstore's Sam Kaas and Emma Nichols; and the Book Jam's Lisa Christie and Lisa Cadow.
If you find lots of books dizzying and prefer to concentrate on just one, Phoenix Books is hosting Middlebury poet, biographer, and novelist Jay Parini online (no charge), reading from and talking about his latest, Borges and Me: An Encounter. Which pretty much sums it up: It's Parini's memoir of a 1970 road trip through the Scottish Highlands with Jorge Luis Borges—and, wrote Michael Greenberg in the NYT last year, "it brings Borges more sharply to life than any account I’ve read or heard."
And anytime, you can check out CATV's highlights for the week: Amanda Rafuse's interview with choral director and musical innovator Patricia Norton (you may know her from Pocket Songs or her A Breath of Song podcast); a video of the Veterans Day observances at the VA in WRJ; the Hanover Garden Club's Susan Edwards talking you through the Howe's virtual garden tour and flower show; and a new series of authors' book talks thanks to the Norwich Bookstore.
After many strange thoughts,Thoughts of distant harbors, and new life,I came in and found the moonlight lying in the room.Outside it covers the trees like pure sound,The sound of tower bells, or of water moving under the ice,The sound the deaf hear through bones of their head.We know the road; as the moonlightLifts everything, so in a night like this,The road goes on ahead, it is all clear.—"
After Working" by
. Bly died at the age of 94 on Nov. 21. Over 50 books of poetry, a steady stream of translations and essays, poetry magazines... not to mention founding a men's movement and delving deep into myth, fairy tale, and mysticism. "He worked a lot," writes Daybreak poetry editor Michael Lipson.
See you tomorrow.
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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