GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, a bit cooler. There's low pressure centered north of the border that's drooping this way, and it's going to keep things unsettled a good bit of this week. For today, we get gusty winds from the west, a high around 40, and clouds as well as sun. Lows tonight in the upper 20s, chance of snow showers.Lights above.
"It's that special time of year," writes Daisy Hebb from S. Strafford, "when from a smattering of points across the Upper Valley, one can see 'The Star on Smarts.' Star? Yes, but it's the reflection of our closest, special star, the Sun as it reflects across the glass windows of the fire tower on Smarts Mountain for a few minutes before it sets with finality behind the hills." From that direction, it happens around the two equinoxes.
Meanwhile, in W. Fairlee, the moon early yesterday morning was so bright it awoke Tom Masterson. To be sure, it was a double glow: the moon itself, and its reflection below, lighting up the surrounding darkness.
Inside the Lebanon school lockdown. “My biggest takeaway is that the system worked,” Naomi Wimett Hastings, a Grantham mom with two students at Leb High School, tells John Lippman in the Valley News. Lippman reconstructs what happened Friday afternoon: As police worked to take into custody a Vershire man with four guns in his pickup outside LHS and the Hanover Street School, students inside—warned not to make phone calls—texted friends and family members. Leb police chief Phil Roberts credits the school's resource officer with a key role. The man involved is out on bail.Dartmouth won't bargain with men's basketball team. The decision, announced yesterday, lays the groundwork for a federal court case challenging a National Labor Relations Board official's ruling that members of the team are employees. The college is appealing that call to the full NLRB, and in a statement yesterday, spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote that if the board upholds the ruling, then the college's refusal to bargain would likely lead the union to file a grievance, which the college could appeal. “This is the only lever Dartmouth has to get this matter reviewed by a federal court," she explained.“Inside of our body is literally a musical instrument… Anyone can sing if they can speak." Annie Arrington directs the community chorus at Upper Valley Music Center—and she runs "engaging and joyful chorus groups, helping members relax as they learn the mechanics of singing," Matt Golec writes in a Daybreak article on the many groups that offer Upper Valleyites a chance to sing with others. Matt gives a glimpse of the Community Chorus, Bringalong Singalong in Bradford (next session on Thursday), the Dartmouth Gospel Choir, and the Choral Arts Foundation, which helps it all tick.SPONSORED: Plan for a stress-free summer with Local Meal Kits. Honey Field Farm in Norwich is back with local meal kits to keep your summer meal prep easy and tasty all season long! Featuring organic produce grown on the farm and local ingredients from Upper Valley food-makers, this culinary adventure is sure to keep your summer cooking hassle-free and delicious! Omnivore, Vegetarian, and Salad Share options available to fit your family’s needs. Not ready for a full meal plan? Try HFF’s flexible CSA or their stunning cut flower subscriptions. Signups until May 1. Sponsored by Honey Field Farm.Towns go separate ways on short-term rentals. In Saturday floor voting, reports Liz Sauchelli in the VN, residents of Haverhill and Enfield turned back proposed ordinances regulating the practice, while in ballot voting last week, Sunapee and Springfield approved more regulation. The Enfield floor meeting, Sauchelli writes, discussed the issue thoroughly, with some residents questioning the need for regulation, others arguing it would be a way for the town to protect itself. In the end, it failed by just seven votes 124-117.Moving up fast into sixth place for Best Small College Town in the US: Hanover, NH. It was down at #19 of 20 nominees on USA Today's list not long ago, but the town and its boosters have gotten active putting out the word that people get to vote once a day until March 31. The burgundy link takes you to USA Today's "leaderboard"; the paper writes that Hanover "features a thriving arts and culture community, while easy access to the Connecticut River and White and Green Mountains make it a great base for outdoor enthusiasts." In the lead right now: Oxford, OH, home to Miami University of Ohio. Vote here.SPONSORED: Ready to cash in on unwanted treasures? The price of gold is nearing an all-time high and Dutille's Jewelry is once again offering our gold buying service. Have old jewelry lying around? Broken pieces you’re unsure what to do with? We’ll evaluate your items and give you a fair, no-obligation offer for immediate payment or to use as trade towards another piece or a custom design. To schedule an appointment, message us on Facebook or Instagram, text/call us at 603-448-4106, or click the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Dutille's Jewelry.The King Arthur Café's first-ever photo exhibit: Vermont female farmers. You've probably seen at least a reference to JuanCarlos González's years-long project of documenting the lives of nearly 50 farmers, which popped up here and there last fall. Now, reports NBC5's John Hawks, it's getting a high-traffic airing: at King Arthur Baking's café in Norwich. “As bakers, we use a lot of wheat,” says KA's Amy Driscoll. “So, our passion for baking is very closely tied with our love for the land and the work that farmers do. It seemed like a really natural fit to bring it here.” Hawks talks to González about how it came about.Being a town tree warden in Vermont sounds bucolic. It's anything but. For starters, there was the whole fracas over what constitutes a "shade tree"—which tree wardens are obliged to oversee, writes Li Shen in Sidenote. That was the subject of a three-year legal battle starting in 2017 in Ferrisbugh that was eventually settled by mediation—but also prompted legislation giving statutory definition to "shade tree." Then there's the emerald ash borer, which has tree wardens making life and death decisions about huge numbers of ash trees, including whether or not to pump them full of pesticides.An ode to a newspaper publisher and to a bygone era. John Kuhns, who served as the Valley News's publisher from 1993 to 2008, died in February at the age of 77. In an appreciation, the VN's Alex Hanson notes that when Kuhns arrived (he'd worked at the Washington Post before that), the paper had just made the momentous move to shift from afternoon to morning publication, and was about to launch its Sunday edition. It had a newsroom of over 30 reporters and editors, and Kuhns presided over what Hanson calls its golden age—and then had to navigate the pressures that came with the digital onslaught.Winnipesaukee: From latest ice-in on record to earliest ice-out. In all, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog, "winter" lasted 37 days on the lake, from Feb. 9, when pilots from Emerson Aviation declared that most of the lake was ice-covered, to Sunday, when it became clear the MS Mount Washington can reach its five ports of call on the lake as well as navigate its customary route. For what it's worth, Joe's Pond in the NEK is still hanging tough, with 20 inches of "white, porous ice" reported on Saturday.Well, that's a wrap for this year on hand-counts vs. voting machines in NH. Over the weekend, reports the Globe's Amanda Gokee (via MSN, no paywall), eight more towns rejected a conservative group's bid to require that balloting be hand-counted. In Walpole, the vote was 172 against, 5 in favor. That makes 20 towns that cast their lot with machines; one, Danville (pop. 4400+), will require hand counts for future presidential elections.What if they gave an emergency shelter and nobody came? Of the hundreds of beds VT officials rushed to create at four temporary shelters last week, 13 were occupied Sunday night; at the Brattleboro site, no one arrived all weekend, reports Carly Berlin for VTDigger/Public. The scant uptake wasn't because people didn't need shelter—several hundred lost motel housing on Friday. But an all-out push by social service agencies secured some a stay of eviction, while others were unaware the beds were available or were unable to get there. “The low usage," says a Burlington official, "is a reflection of how they are being operated, not of the need for shelter.”“People have this idea in their head that we’re all just these bums and we’re living it up. We’re not." That's one of the Vermonters featured in filmmaker Bess O'Brien's new documentary, Just Getting By, which focuses her lens on what VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor calls the "personal stories found at local food banks, soup kitchens, emergency shelters and social service agencies." The film builds a portrait of the people struggling with homelessness and hunger around the state—and the state's inability to meet the scale of the challenge. It heads out on tour this month (with an April stop in Randolph).Change afoot at WDEV as it preps for ownership shift. General manager Steve Cormier, a longtime VT radio host who joined the station in 2015 and became manager in 2017, has left, reports VTDigger's Habib Sabet—though no one's talking about whether it was of his own accord. The keystone central Vermont broadcast station has been in the Squier family's hands for nearly nine decades, but is being sold to VT businessmen Myers Mermel and Scott Milne. Ashley Jane Squier, who announced Cormier's exit in an email to staff, acknowledged there have been "a couple" of other departures.Around the world in 60 photos. That's how many finalists there are in Smithsonian mag's photo contest, and readers are being invited to vote (winners announced 3/29) on an astonishing array of images, from a Balinese dancer to Huli tribesmen in Papua New Guinea to glacial caves in Canada to pink flamingos in Kenya and a cheetah mom with her cubs. Plus 55 more.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 5 pm, Sustainable Hanover and Dartmouth's Sustainability Office hold a public forum at the Howe Library on the college's energy future. It focuses on plans for a transition from "steam-based cogeneration to a hot water system powered by several renewable sources, upgrading existing infrastructure, and implementing energy efficiency strategies." Sustainability director Rosi Kerr will explain the project and take questions. In the Mayer Room or via Zoom.
At 7 pm, the Norwich Bookstore co-hosts a virtual evening with four writers associated with NYC publisher Four Way books. Poets Andrea Cohen, John Gallaher, Rodney Terich Leonard, and Sasha West will read and talk craft.
Also at 7, Fairlee Arts hosts a VT Humanities lecture by Norwich University historian Rowly Brucken, "Double-Talk on Doubleday." As the description runs, "It is becoming more widely known that [Abner] Doubleday had no connection to baseball, but why, and for what purposes, did baseball’s boosters construct an origin story with him at the epicenter?" Brucken will touch on everything from baseball's actual origins to Victorian scandals to New England and Vermont sports history. In Fairlee Town Hall.
And the Tuesday poem...
My words to you are the stitches in a scarfI don’t want to finishmaybe it will come to be a blanketto hold you herelove not gone anywhere— "
by
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.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
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 Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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