GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Grumble. There's systems out there and warm, moist air streaming in from the southwest, and the result is just...annoying, right? The day starts with a slight chance of flakes and freezing drizzle, then a slight chance of rain. High today bumping up toward 40. Cloudy or mostly cloudy all day. Mid-teens tonight.Yeah, it's going around. A pointed, icy reminder of the season anytime you look out the window, that is.
And the one from Janice Fischel's. Who writes, "I am looking forward to spring."
A couple of hours ago, NH State Police reported a tractor-trailer rollover at mile marker 51. The tractor-trailer "is down a steep embankment and is going to take an extended amount of time to recover. Minor injuries have been reported. Expect possible delays in this area," they write on Facebook. They've been responding to crashes and rollovers all night, due to icy driving conditions.
The NH, VT, and ME departments of transportation joined forces a few years ago to create a constantly updated map of road conditions in all three states, with incidents and closures listed in a column down the left-hand side. You'll find it at the maroon link.
"You're born into it, you marry into it...or you work a while in tech first." That last bit isn't part of the old adage about how young farmers get a toehold, but in Sidenote, Li Shen adds it to help illustrate how tough it's become for farmers to find land (and compete for it with all the deeper-pocketed folks moving to the region). She focuses on Mike Snow, who's been raising wheat, oats, rye, and dry beans on land he rents in Fairlee and is now looking to expand his business. And it's not just land—he's also trying to figure out how to build a market for what he grows. Li explores it all.It's February, there's a lot going on out there! For one thing, writes the VT Center for Ecostudies in their "Field Guide to February," we've just hit 10 hours of daylight. And: it's Eastern Screech-Owl courtship season; by now there's an extensive network of tunnels and and openings beneath the snow (the subnivean zone) where small mammals travel and shelter; coyotes are breeding; we're in the midst of a winter finch invasion, while early spring migrants (including red-winged blackbirds, and brown-headed cowbirds) are about due. Plus Kent McFarland's video of a huge crow roost in W. Leb.SPONSORED: If anything can get you through a pandemic, it’s the transformational power of love. Just ask the 25 Dartmouth students who are bringing the Broadway hit “Rent” to glorious life at the Hop. Known for its extraordinary pop/rock score and deep social commentary, the musical is the perfect story for our time, focusing on the hopes and dreams of young people in the face of hardship and hate during the turmoil of AIDS-ridden 1980s New York. Sound familiar? “Rent” runs at the Hop February 18-27. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.World’s glaciers are packing less ice than previously thought. A new study coauthored by Dartmouth earth sciences prof Mathieu Morlighem draws on data gathered from over 800K satellite images, yielding a comprehensive 3-D atlas that sharpens our understanding of earth’s glacial mass—and how it’s changing. Glaciers in the South American Andes, for instance, contain 23 percent less freshwater than earlier believed—akin to CA’s massive Mono Lake suddenly going dry. While some regions, like the Himalayas, “gained” ice in the research, it’s a net loss globally. And the glaciers are melting.Kilhams get some tiny new guests. A homeowner somewhere in NH was clearing a brush pile yesterday when he or she "inadvertently destroyed a bear den," according to NH Fish & Game. The mother bear ran off, leaving three cubs behind. Fish and Game officers decided to gather up the cubs, and took them to the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme. (Via Facebook)"We need governmental support..." In his testimony to a House committee yesterday, Andrew Pinard, who runs the Claremont Opera House, wasn't asking for money; he was arguing, with other NH venue directors, that they need the state to back them up if they put mask and vaccine requirements in place for patrons. They've been hemorrhaging money and want help making patrons feel safe. But there's plenty of opposition, writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, including bills that would prohibit them from imposing requirements even if performers demand it.So there's this tap-dancing fairy in an ice cream shop in Bedford, NH... Which is the premise of a new kids' book by Aaron Tolson, who grew up in Manchester and is a professional tap dancer, though of the human sort. He talked yesterday to NHPR's Rick Ganley about how the book came about (short answer: his kids); why Bedford ("A lot of people don't live in big cities. So I want it to be in a setting where many, many people can relate."); and tap's roots and future ("You know, more people tap dance now than ever before in history.")Mixed results so far for Olympians with VT ties. Nina O'Brien, who went to Burke, crashed in her second giant slalom run. Her fellow alum, Mikaela Shiffrin... well, you know. Snowboarding great Jamie Anderson, whose mom owns an alpaca farm in Hartland, didn't repeat her slopestyle medal. Jessie Diggins missed a skiathlon medal... but did that four years ago, too, before winning her gold, VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor points out. But! Ryan Cochran-Siegle takes silver! And the biathletes? Best US mixed relay finish ever, while VT National Guard member Deedra Irwin posted the best individual U.S. biathlon finish in Olympic history.“February is the worst month of the year.” But besides being mercifully short, it makes no bones about what it really is. And if you ask St. Louis reporter Kevin Killeen, February is just the pits. Back in 2016, Killeen brought a camera crew to the city streets to survey a monolithic gloom—of grayness and fog, slouched pedestrians and broken umbrellas—expressing pure deadpan contempt for everything he sees. Now the video’s resurfaced and gone viral. Because of late-pandemic blues? Or is it just February? Whichever, mutters Killeen. “Something great happened here, but it’s over with.”
And the numbers...
Dartmouth's numbers are diving, down to 146 total active cases (from 266 Thursday). The college's dashboard yesterday reported 100 active undergrad cases (-97), 13 among grad and professional students (-20), and 33 among faculty/staff (-3). There have been 347 combined new cases among students over the previous seven days, as well as 63 among faculty/staff. 87 students are isolating on campus, 26 are isolating off-campus, and 37 faculty/staff are in isolation.
NH's new cases continue to drop, with a 7-day average now of 804 new cases a day, compared to 1,093 at the end of last week. The state reported 1,127 on Friday, 1,144 Saturday, 121 Sunday, and 779 yesterday, bringing its total to 284,180. There have been 21 deaths reported since Monday; the total now stands at 2,260. Hospitalizations continue to trend downward: 206 people are currently hospitalized (-51 since Thursday). The state reports 6,277 active cases (-3,035 since Thursday) and that there are 546 (-290) active cases in Grafton County, 270 (-108) in Sullivan, and 632 (-357) in Merrimack. In town-by-town numbers, the state says Hanover has 141 (-118), Claremont has 125 (-35), Lebanon has 68 (-37), Newport has 44 (-29), Haverhill has 35 (-8), New London has 21 (-7), Enfield has 16 (-14), Grantham has 18 (-19), Canaan has 18 (-19), Charlestown has 26 (-9), Sunapee has 14 (-6), Plainfield has 9 (no change), Grafton has 7 (-1), Newbury has 6 (+1), Orford has 6 (-4), Springfield has 6 (+at least 2), and Warren, Wentworth, Rumney, Lyme, Orange, Wilmot, Cornish, and Unity have 1-4 each. Piermont, Dorchester, and Croydon are off the list.
VT's cases fell over the weekend, which isn't unusual, but they were lower than previous weekends.The state reported 531 new cases Friday, 284 Saturday, 311 Sunday, and 149 yesterday, to bring it to 107,478 total. It reports 5 additional deaths since Thursday, bringing it to 553. Hospitalizations are still dropping only modestly: As of yesterday, 88 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (-3 since Thursday), with 21 of them (-2) in the ICU. Windsor County has seen 52 new cases since Thursday, with 7,010 for the pandemic and 267 new cases over the previous two weeks; Orange County gained 29 cases during that time for a total of 3,107, with 144 over the previous two weeks. Upper Valley towns in VT are seeing sharply dropping case numbers, with 323 new weekly cases reported at the end of last week, vs. 692 the week before: Hartford +54; Springfield +40; Bradford +31; Randolph +25; Windsor +16; Thetford +15; Newbury +14; Corinth, Hartland, Norwich, and Royalton +13; Sharon +12; Woodstock +10; Bethel, Cavendish, and Fairlee +7; Weathersfield +6; Strafford and Tunbridge +5; W. Windsor +4; Killington and Vershire +3; Barnard and Chelsea +2; and Bridgewater, Reading, and W. Fairlee +1. Pomfret had no new cases.
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At 5:30 today, the Hop hosts an online HopStop family workshop on making hezi, a Chinese pocket pie, from scratch. Led by artist and chef Cai Xi of Cai's Dim Sum Catering and the Asian Cultural Center of VT. No charge, but you'll need to register and line up some flour, eggs, spinach, and ginger on your own (full ingredients list at link).
It may be "the world's worst weather" atop Mt. Washington, but the people who record and observe what's going on up there have it downright cush these days compared to weather observers of the 19th century. At 7 this evening, Peter Crane, who curates the library at the Mt. Washington Observatory, is giving a Zoom talk—"They Led the Way"—on the Huntington-Hitchcock Expedition that spent 1870-71 atop the summit, and the two decades of the U.S. Army Signal Service weather station that followed.
Also at 7, Phoenix Books is hosting an online reading and discussion with historian and author Willard Sterne Randall about his latest book, The Founders' Fortunes: How Money Shaped the American Revolution. Randall, who teaches American history at Champlain College and is the author of biographies of Jefferson, Washington, Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen, and others, looks deep into the financial affairs of the founders and how their interests helped shape both the Revolution and the constitution.
Finally, anytime you like, check out what CATV's got up and running this week, including two productions featuring Jon Appleton, the electronic music composer and pioneer (he helped invent the synclavier) who taught at Dartmouth for decades and died at the end of January; a roundtable discussion led by Bernie Sanders on the lessons of the Reconstruction Era for our times, with profs Cornel West, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Eric Foner; the December circus show at Thetford Hill's Grange Theater by multi-talented duo Liam Gundlach and Ripley Burns; and Noam Chomsky's talk to the Dartmouth Political Union last fall.
Once again, my deep life is rustling louderas if it were flowing between wider banks. Everything feels ever more related.I’m more deeply within all I see. I’m friendlier with what has no name. Like birds, my senses reachinto the windy heavens from the oak. And my feeling, as if on fish-back,dips down through the pond’s troubled light.
—"Progress," by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Michael Lipson.
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.
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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