GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
I can barely bring myself to type the words... We're due the whole nine winter-storm yards today: snow, sleet, freezing rain, even a chance of just plain rain later this afternoon. Temps mostly in the 20s today but getting up into the mid-30s mid-afternoon. Tonight it all freezes solid, getting down into the low teens. Winds from the east.Daybreak where you are:
Rosy first light on Braintree Ridge, from Braintree, VT, by Dona Meltzer;
And yeah, it's an ugly winter storm our there, so let's go check out Crescent Beach in St. Augustine, FL, from Bob Sletten.
A life-and-death tale. All in one pic. Jesse Casana, an archeologist who chairs Dartmouth's anthropology dept., was over on River Road in Norwich last Friday helping set up the new Dartmouth Archeology Station (at Lewiston), from which he and his colleagues will run a series of regional archeology projects. There in its yard he found this remarkable set of prints in the snow, probably laid down the night before and involving what's most likely an owl and... any thoughts on the victim from the prints? (Thanks, JP and CR!)Pomfret school, closed since 2018 because of mold, will reopen. The Prosper Valley School shut its doors that summer as it faced mold and moisture issues and declining enrollment. Its students were shifted over to Woodstock Elementary. Now, after renovations, the mold's been dealt with and Woodstock is facing a surge in enrollment, reports WCAX's Olivia Lyons. So, starting in the fall, the district's proposing that fifth and sixth graders from Pomfret, Reading, Bridgewater, and Woodstock go to Prosper Valley.Dartmouth team finds teen sun and planets. Remember DS Tuc Ab back from the summer of 2019? That was the exoplanet found by a team led by physics and astronomy prof Elisabeth Newton. Now she and her colleagues have identified a planetary system similar to ours, but younger. Its sun, Newton says, is "like a teenager compared to our own sun. That means its planets are still changing and evolving," giving scientists a chance to compare their development, knowing that they formed and evolved around the same sun, writes Dartmouth News's David Hirsch.SPONSORED: Get away to Highland Lodge! Take a break and visit this ideal destination for a Covid-friendly, local getaway. We are located on the Craftsbury Outdoor Center's 100km groomed trail network. With four winterized cabins and five rentable suites in the Lodge, enjoy a full day of skiing (or snowshoeing or fat biking) followed by a relaxing evening in your own private living area. Call or email to book your winter staycation today! Sponsored by Highland Lodge.More town meeting previews. The Valley News continues its town-by-town review for VT, laying out major topics for debate, noteworthy warrant articles, contested races, logistics, etc. Here's their look ahead at:
Hey, it's peak winter stonefly mating season! Around now, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, stonefly nymphs are emerging from the water (where they can), becoming winged adults, and, with only a few days to live, definitely scoping for other stoneflies. Also out there in the woods: ruffed grouse hiding in "snow roosts" they created by diving into them; why barred owls can fly so silently (and sneak up on small mammals, see above); tree burls; and what may be the most widely distributed tree in the world: common juniper.Eat the invaders! In The Dartmouth, columnist Max Teszler says it's time for Dartmouth Dining to start sourcing and cooking invasive species, from Asian carp to garlic mustard. Among other things, he points out, garlic mustard has surged in the region, "with each small plant capable of producing thousands of seeds and choking out native vegetation." Turns out, though, it tastes like garlic and makes a fine pesto. "This solution cannot solve the problem in its entirety," he writes, "but consuming edible invasive species is a powerful tool—a tool which Dartmouth Dining has ample power to employ.""History, we're constantly producing more of it, right?" Dartmouth history prof Matthew Delmont talks over Black History Month with VPR's Mitch Wertlieb. Who asks how he feels about people learning history from pop culture, as with the 1921 Tulsa massacre in Watchmen. Says Delmont, "I think everyone has to learn something for the first time, somewhere." As for History Month, the question is what you do with knowledge. "While we can celebrate the legacies of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, the things they were fighting for haven't been won yet. Those races haven't been finished."“In my career I’ve dealt with 9/11, Katrina, marathon bombings, recessions. Nothing I’ve dealt with has had the shelf life of this crisis." Patrick Tufts is CEO of Granite United Way, and for the third time in less than six months, writes Sheryl Rich-Kern for the Granite State News Collaborative, he's had to go back to donors. As the pandemic wears on, writes Rich-Kern, United Way and other organizations have stepped up their efforts, as have donors, but needs at social service organizations, performing arts venues, and others haven't slackened. Rich-Kern surveys the scene in NH.Remember the "community power" bill that an NH House committee held hearings on last Friday? They're going to continue: 26 people signed up to testify but only a few got to, reports NHPR's Daniela Allee. One of them was Leb's assistant mayor, Clifton Below, who argued that the original 2019 community power bill “allows for innovation and adaptation to local conditions," while the bill before the House now "would...get rid of those things." Utilities backing the bill say they're trying to sidestep disagreements with communities during the administrative rule-making process on the original measure.“The vaccination is sort of our ray of sunshine, our hope that the tables are going to turn in our favor.” Dr. Dawn Barclay runs the ICU at Portsmouth Regional Hospital, and the last few months there and at other NH hospitals have been brutal, reports NHPR's Todd Bookman. “It feels senseless to me. It really does. And it can at times bring you really down, because you feel powerless,” Barclay tells him. But with the number of Covid inpatients shrinking and vaccinations under way, hospitals feel like they're turning the corner.VT Democratic Party's revolving door keeps spinning. The party announced last night that its executive director, who took over in September 2019, is leaving. At the time he was hired, Scott McNeil was the Democrats' third director in a year. His resignation, reports Seven Days' Colin Flanders, comes just four days after the party's outreach director quit and blistered the organization as having "no vision, no plan, and no structure." A 3SquaresVT explainer. Since the pandemic began, about one in three Vermonters has struggled to buy groceries, but only one in ten has signed up for the program best able to help. Why? “So many people are eligible for it, and they don’t realize it. They have this idea that they have to be at rock-bottom to access these programs, and that’s just not true," says Faye Longo, who manages 3SquaresVT community engagement for the Vermont Foodbank. Seven Days' 7D Brand Studio, their content marketing arm, guides you through how to apply and how it works."People are celebrating our arrival. They don't usually do that.” That's Drew Hazelton, an EMT, talking to VTDigger's Katie Jickling about the effort to get Covid vaccines to elderly homebound Vermonters. He and his colleagues have covered 3,500 miles across Windham, Orange, Windsor and Bennington counties over the last week in what amounts to a race against the clock: getting doses into arms before they're unusable. The race starts each morning in WRJ, where they reconstitute, dilute, and mix the vaccine—then have 6 hours to deliver it. Jickling profiles the effort."As humans, we're capable of tremendous change, really throughout our lives." Impossible to summarize. Last year, NHPR's Sam Evans-Brown talked to E. Corinth's Laura Waterman for an episode of the podcast Outside/In. Waterman and her late husband, Guy, "helped create the very way people think about the outdoors today," Evans-Brown says, and their conversation—unlike a lot of the coverage when Guy was alive—focuses on Laura, her life as a pioneering rock and ice climber, homesteader, close observer of nature, writer, companion, and serial self-reinventer. It's just been re-posted.Portland, ME journalists strike out in bid to unmask Valentine's Day Phantom. Since at least the mid-1970s, writes the Press Herald's Rob Wolfe (formerly of the Valley News) persons unknown have been placing hearts—some on paper, some on large banners—around the city. Reporters once staked out a possible site, only to be pelted with snowballs by phantoms hiding on a roof. “You’re going to put a stake through the heart of Portland by unveiling this,” someone told a reporter last year. So once again, the hearts appeared on Sunday, and once again, no one's talking. (Thanks, SP!)
So...
NH reported 258 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 71,017. There were 2 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,135. Meanwhile, 125 people are hospitalized (down 1). The current active caseload stands at 2,953 (down 412). The state reports 131 active cases in Grafton County (down 46), 60 in Sullivan (down 16), and 217 in Merrimack (down 44). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Claremont has 29 active cases (down 10), Newport has 12 (down 1), Lebanon has 10 (down 3), Charlestown has 8 (up 1), and Rumney has 6 (no change). Haverhill, Warren, Wentworth, Dorchester, Hanover, Canaan, Enfield, Plainfield, Cornish, Springfield, New London, Unity, Goshen, and Newbury have 1-4 each. Grantham is off the list.
VT reported 126 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 13,862. There was 1 new death, which now number 190 all told. Meanwhile, 40 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 5). Windsor County gained 12 new cases and now stands at 988 for the pandemic, with 108 over the past 14 days. Orange County had 9 additional cases and is now at 476 cumulatively, with 32 cases over the past 14 days.
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At 5 pm, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts writer Jonathan Katz and Claire Peyton, a visiting scholar at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the U of Virginia, talking about the 2010 hurricane and earthquake that devastated Haiti and the successes and failures of the global aid response that followed.
Also at 5 pm, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts former Sony Music exec and Dartmouth grad Monica Delores Hooks, who now runs Atlanta’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, with a lecture and conversation on “Women, Entrepreneurship, and Atlanta in the New South," which looks at that city's policy initiatives focusing on economic mobility for women.
This evening at 6:30, the Green Mountain Club presents an "Introduction to Winter Hiking." It's a Zoomed workshop offering winter-specific information on what you'll need to venture into the backcountry: what to wear and what to bring, covering everything from clothing to layering to socks, footwear, traction, dealing with sweat, keeping your hands warm, how to navigate, trail-finding, keeping hydrated, and more. Free, but they'll take donations to support the Long Trail.
At 7 pm, the Upper Valley Music Center moves on from its popular "Tis' the Session" event back in December to "Valentunes," bringing together traditional music faculty Tristan Bellerive, Amy Cann, Carol Compton, Jeremiah McLane, and Ben Van Vliet to lead listeners in Bluegrass, English, Irish, Old Time Appalachian, and other music. Participants are welcome to grab their instruments and play along, or just sit back and enjoy the performances.
Also at 7 pm, the Brattleboro Museum hosts a panel conversation, "Ice Fishing: Culture, Community, and Conservation." It's in conjunction with its ice-fishing photo exhibit, and brings together: Clay Groves, NH fishing guide, "Fish Nerds" podcaster, and the guy who in 2011 set out to catch and eat every kind of freshwater fish in New Hampshire; Rich Holschuh, a member of VT's Commission on Native American Affairs; Roy Gangloff, who's been ice fishing his whole life; and Paige Blaker, who manages a state fish culture station on Grand Isle and has spent her winters ice-fishing in Maine, Wyoming, and Vermont.
Also at 7 pm, Dartmouth's history department hosts historian Ed Balleisen, talking about how his 2017 book, Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff, sheds light on the current moment. He'll be in conversation with sociologist Brooke Harrington, historian Stefan Link, political scientist Brendan Nyhan, and historian Elizabeth Lhost.
Finally, at, um, 7 pm the Vermont Studio Center hosts a reading by poet Joy Priest, whose first collection last year, Horsepower, won the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for best first book in any genre. The website's a little confusing—hit the link in the second line to register for the reading, not the link down below for the $100 one-on-one manuscript consultation (unless you want to do that, too).
...Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.
—From
by Maggie Smith.
See you tomorrow.
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