RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
It'll be unseasonably mild today. The warm air mass that arrived yesterday is still here, as are the remnants of yesterday's system. Mostly cloudy with scattered showers, high in the upper 50s around noon, maybe some sun in the afternoon, temps falling as cold air returns. Winds from the south. The low will be around freezing by early tomorrow. Which way is up? Bill Hamlen was walking along the river trail in the Mink Brook Conservation Area this past weekend when he got this intriguing shot of the river, mist, and dramatic clouds above. Once you've admired it, turn it upside down. Leb, Enfield, Canaan facing rises in water, sewer rates. Canaan's proposing a 40 percent jump so it can upgrade its 130-year-old water main and pay a part-time employee, reports the Valley News's Tim Camerato. It's also putting in place a new "base fee" that would have small users paying more each quarter. In the meantime, Lebanon will hold a public hearing tomorrow night to talk over an 8 percent increase in water rates and 7.2 increase for sewer, affecting 3,300 customers in the city and in Enfield, which uses the W. Leb treatment plant.There's so much to see under that water. You may remember that, for the second year in a row, the state's been working on the dam at Grafton Pond (the one in Grafton, NH) and the water level is unusually low. You can walk between islands, check out stone walls that are usually submerged, go look at the dam itself... And that's what photographer Travis Paige and his son did over Thanksgiving weekend. He's just posted a wealth of photos to his blog, so if you haven't been able to make it there yourself, now you can see it.Mink tracks in thin ice, hoarfrost... yep, it's December. The last month's first week, and out in the woods there's bur-reed—much loved by muskrats—and the yellow sepals of witch hazel. Pine grosbeaks have barged south for a visit. There's a nameless fungus popping up in the woods the past week that looks like shiny black dog noses on stalks. And, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, all the damp weather has made this a good time to see rock tripe, a lichen that can be fermented to make purple dye and that some Arctic explorers survived on, though others "preferred to eat their boots."SPONSORED: Looking for some light in your life? St. Thomas Episcopal Church Hanover invites you to experience faith, hope, and love this Advent. We offer interactive services via ZOOM, including Sung Compline on Tuesdays, and Sunday worship throughout Advent to lead you deeper into the mysteries of this season. Find out more at the maroon link. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.It's a Wonderful Life: For ears only. Northern Stage's holiday production will be a radio-play version of the Frank Capra classic, Susan Apel writes on her Artful blog. It features a raft of Northern Stage favorites, including Max Samuels, Brittany Bellizeare, Jacob Tischler, and director Carol Dunne herself. "It was a privilege to record with socially distanced actors in our empty theater. We all had a sense of hope that live theater will survive and thrive after the pandemic," Dunne says. Tidbit: Seneca Falls, NY claims to be the inspiration for Bedford Falls, but Susan's got her doubts. Starts streaming Dec. 8."Calling it, like, ‘Bloody Skull Dagger Tattoos’ seemed like it would be aggressive....” That's Brian Barthelmes, whose more tamely named Standard Company Tattoo opened back in the fall of 2019 in WRJ—it adjoins the new Funkalicious deli. Barthelmes, a former folk-rocker and offensive lineman for the Patriots' practice squad, talks to Junction mag's Taylor Long about tattooing during the pandemic, running his own business—"I’m quirky. So it is nice to have a space where if I want to listen to weird Italian ‘80s disco music and dance for 10 minutes, I can do that"—and his favorite Upper Valley businesses.VT, NH, ME among worst offenders for diesel tampering. A new report from the EPA is drawing attention to the practice among diesel pickup owners of using illegal devices to disable their emission-control technology. Nationally, about 15 percent of trucks have been altered, and the practice amounts to 9 million extra trucks on the road. ME and VT rank 4th and 5th for tampering, with 13.5 percent of their 2016 fleets affected; NH is ninth, with 12.7 percent. Maroon link takes you to David Brooks' synopsis in the Monitor, and here's the report itself thanks to the NYT, with state rankings on p. 18.Meanwhile, GOP legislators want NH to "indefinitely postpone" new energy efficiency plan. In a letter to the Public Utilities Commission yesterday, incoming House Majority Leader Dick Hinch and colleagues argue that a proposed plan for gas and electric savings by the state's utilities would impose too high a cost on businesses hit by the pandemic, reports NHPR's Annie Ropeik. A key PUC deadline is this week; the commission "declined a request for comment" yesterday on a response to the letter.Pandemic-migrant upticks unlikely to save VT's small schools. The long-term trends for smaller school districts remain dire, reports VTDigger's Lola Duffort—Vermont had over 93,000 pre-K-12 students in 2004, she notes, and just under 80,000 this year. Meanwhile, jumps in enrollment due to families moving in from other states haven't been quantified yet, Duffort writes, but "anecdotal reports from superintendents suggest any gains were small and likely concentrated in tuitioning towns and affluent districts."Butterworks Farm's Jack Lazor dies, leaves organic, local-food legacy. Lazor, who died Saturday, owned the Westfield, VT farm along with his wife, Anne, grew up in CT and discovered farming while in college at Tufts. He and Anne raised Jerseys and were pioneers in both in developing a product—organic yogurt and cream—and then turning to the raising of organic grain. VPR's Mitch Wertlieb talks to ag secretary Anson Tebbetts about Lazor and his impact on Vermont agriculture."We're hoping they're temporary." If you've driven on I-91 or I-89 in VT recently, you've no doubt seen some of the $600,000-worth of federally funded signs that VTrans has put up at highway exits and the state's borders. With a vivid red bar across the top, they direct motorists to the state's website to check quarantine requirements. “We’re trying to get people’s attention,” chief VTrans engineer Wayne Symonds tells VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor. He also notes they're made of aluminum, so they're recyclable. Here's hoping.The color of impermanence. In The Paris Review, Katy Kelleher delves deeper into verdigris—"Before there was turquoise, there was verdigris"—than you'd imagine the color merits. But it does! It's what copper becomes—the Statue of Liberty was originally copper-brown—and it has a long if unstable history among painters. "To use verdigris was to accept that your lovingly rendered scene would one day sour," she writes. "The bright cloaks would turn dark, the soft grass would fade, the foliage turn." With a diverting detour into Farrow & Ball colors—Mole's Breath?—and the people who adopt them.
And some numbers to start off December...
Dartmouth is down to 1 active student case and remains at 7 among faculty and staff. There are 12 students and 3 faculty/staff in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 1 student and 12 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 514 additional cases yesterday; its official total is now 20,994. Deaths remain at 526, while 160 people are hospitalized (up 14), while the current active caseload is at 5,145 (up 190). Grafton County is at 109 active cases (up 2), Sullivan has 59 (down 3), and Merrimack has 462 (up 16). In town-by-town numbers, Newport remains at 21 active cases, Hanover has 16 (down 1), Claremont is at 13 (down 2), and Charlestown remains at 8. Sunapee's at 6 (down 1), while Newbury remains at 6 and Grantham at 5. Haverhill, Warren, Orford, Wentworth, Canaan, Enfield, Lebanon, Plainfield, Grafton, New London, and Springfield all have 1-4. Dorchester's off the list.
VT added 68 cases yesterday, bringing its official total to 4,172, with 1,580 of those active (up 41). There were 2 new deaths, which now stand at 69, and 21 people with confirmed cases (up 5) are hospitalized. Windsor County gained 2 cases (53 over the past 14 days) to stand at 205 for the pandemic. Orange County gained 5 cases (with 100 over the past 14 days) and is now at 211 cumulatively.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
This evening at 7, Vermont Humanities is hosting students from Randolph Union HS, Woodstock Union HS, and Mt. Mansfield Union HS in a Zoom panel on "Growing Up Black in Vermont." It's moderated by the Rev. Arnold Isidore Thomas of Jericho's Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
Also at 7, the Norwich Bookstore is hosting master gardener Bill Noble, talking about (and showing slides of) his garden in Norwich, which is included in the Smithsonian's Archive of American Gardens. He'll first trace its evolution and sources of design inspiration, then talk it all over with bookstore co-owner Penny McConnel. "Bill’s main goal has always been to create a garden with a sense of place where the emotional response comes first. He shows how he uses a wide variety of trees, shrubs and perennials to create planting compositions that deepen the sense of being rooted in place," the bookstore writes.
Also at 7, but a bit farther afield, Gibson's Bookstore in Concord is hosting former Concord Monitor editor and Pulitzer Prize administrator Mike Pride talking about his newly published history of the Union bastion on Key West during the Civil War and the ill treatment of Black residents in the Keys both during and in the century after the war. in a field whose every detail seems to have been turned over repeatedly, Pride's Storm over Key West has found a rarely told story.
Finally, today's Giving Tuesday, the annual response to... well, all those other days of the week devoted to consumption. There's no single place to send you that rounds up all the nonprofit organizations in the Upper Valley that are participating, but my guess is that if you've got a favorite cause and you decided to contribute something today (or tomorrow...or Thursday...) they wouldn't mind.
Thank you for drawing the open skies.Thank you for adding colorin the form of a tangerine drift of birdsmoving away toward the sound of a harpthat embodies a heaven I can only imagine.I love this picture.
From "A Poem of Gratitude from Vermont," a new poem by state poet laureate Mary Ruefle. In the runup to Thanksgiving, the NYT asked poets laureate from around the country "what the people in their states had to be thankful for in this difficult year."
(Thank you, ES!)
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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