GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still sunny, warmer. There'll be more clouds around than yesterday, thanks to a weak disturbance attached to a cold front that's trying to drop down from the north but is unlikely to get very far. Highs today in the upper 40s, more sun than clouds, winds continue to come from the south. Lower 30s tonight.Maybe it's time to put those bird feeders away? Given the black bear print in the snow on Anne Charron's deck in Quechee and all.In fact, yep. That's exactly what VT Fish & Wildlife just said.Teevens' injuries "critical." The Valley News's Tris Wykes spent yesterday digging into the Florida bike accident involving Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens last week. Teevens was trying to cross a busy beach thoroughfare at night when he was struck by a car. “He has sustained serious injuries,” his wife, Kirsten, told Wykes in a text. “He is a healthy man and hopefully he will have a full recovery." As support flowed in from around the football world, the team was also struggling with the cancer death of offensive lineman Josh Balara. “It’s a pretty helpless feeling right now," offensive line coach Keith Clark tells Wykes. "You never know what can be snatched away in an instant.”Forest Service approves lakes Tarleton/Katherine logging, land management project. You may remember that last year, the USFS and residents of Piermont and Warren found themselves at odds over a plan to log 880 acres by the lakes, with residents fearing disruption to the area’s natural ecosystems. In yesterday's Journal Opinion newsletter, Alex Nuti-de Biasi reports the plans are going ahead—though the Forest Service has trimmed them to 690 acres. Pemigewasset District Ranger Brooke Brown wrote that she "appreciated the personal connection people have with this landscape."SPONSORED: No time for foolery! Open Fields School in Thetford is holding an online April Fools' Raffle to benefit energy efficiency and ventilation upgrades to its 1800s-era building on Thetford Hill. Raffle items include local farm goodies, gift cards to Upper Valley businesses, a kayak, kids' toys, tools, and much more. Support a great cause and make your bid before these raffle items disappear! Use the burgundy link to go directly to the raffle site, or visit www.openfields.org to learn more about the school. Sponsored by Open Fields.About that Enfield vote... Voters at town meeting this past weekend didn't "nix" the proposed creation of a 100-acre town forest on town-owned land, writes Paul Vianco. "Rather," he says, "it was sent to the Selectboard, who are to establish a planning committee to address the details of the proposal and potential impact on residents along Methodist Hill Road, including Fieldstone Ridge directly across the road from the acreage."Fairlee town administrator stepping down. Tad Nunez, who served in the role for five years after his nearly three-decade stint running Hartford Parks & Rec, will retire in August, Liz Sauchelli reported in the VN yesterday. “My wife and I… she has 40 years of teaching I will have 42 years of municipal management, we’re celebrating our 40th anniversary this April and we decided this was a good time to retire,” Nunez tells Sauchelli. Bette Nunez has been a kindergarten teacher at Thetford Elementary for nearly 30 years.SPONSORED: Come see 2022's best global independent cinema! The White River Indie Film festival (WRIF) celebrates its 18th birthday March 23-26 with first-time features from Sundance, Venice, and Toronto, and top-tier works by local filmmakers that you won’t see anywhere else. Panel discussions and talkbacks with directors are back, along with brunches and after-parties for mingling with fellow film lovers and filmmakers. If you love film and want to see where it's headed, there's no better place to be this week. Sponsored by WRIF.The face in a butternut leaf scar. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland is up with a pic—and explanation—of what happens after a leaf falls off a butternut twig. The xylem and phloem, which transport water to the leaves and food to the roots, are darker than the rest of the scar. They're "arranged in such a way...that the leaf scar resembles nothing more than the face of a monkey," she writes. "A fuzzy 'brow' completes the likeness. (Black Walnut, a close relative, has leaf scars that also look like monkey faces, but they lack the furrowed brows.)Snowfall, temperatures, winds, snowflake shapes: the art in forecasting avalanches. Spurred by last week's skier-triggered avalanche at Carter Notch, the Monitor's David Brooks caught up with the Mt. Washington Avalanche Center's Jeff Fongemie to talk about what goes into each day's forecast. “Our avalanche problems tend to be surface problems: new snow sitting on an existing snowpack," says Fongemie. "Given time, new snow will tend to settle, shrink, and the snow particles bond..." And then there's the monkey wrench thrown in by the sleet/hail known as graupel, which undermines later layers.NH health dept hopes to use $15 million from feds to help build a second psychiatric hospital. The request is expected to go before the Exec Council tomorrow, with an eye toward underwriting construction costs on a $55-$60 million hospital in a yet-to-be identified southern NH location, reports NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins. The hospital has been proposed by SolutionHealth, which owns Elliot Hospital in Manchester and Southern NH Med Center in Nashua. The hospital would add 81 beds to the state's supply.Former VT state trooper turns himself in at Royalton barracks on 13 charges, mostly for stealing items from police storage. Giancarlo DiGenova, 44, of Essex, had resigned in February after the VSP began investigating him in the disappearance of $40,000-worth of items such as a gold Rolex men’s watch and diamond earrings. Then police discovered more cases of misconduct, including taking a bag of seized cellphones and ADHD meds from a private home. Burgundy link goes to the VSP press release; statement from VSP Col. Matthew T. Birmingham here.“We had permission to kick the children … But today I know we don’t have permission.” After spending six years on the 2018 Buzzfeed story that exposed decades of abuse—and at least one allegation of murder—at the now-shuttered St. Joseph's Orphanage in Burlington, journalist Christine Kenneally went on to devote another five years to expanding her reporting. Including tracking down a former nun in Québec. The book officially comes out tomorrow (Kenneally's doing readings at Phoenix in Burlington and Gibson's in Concord); in VTDigger, Kevin O'Connor writes about her efforts and what she found.VT education secretary to step down. Dan French, who replaced Norwich's Rebecca Holcombe in 2018, will become chief operating officer at the Council of Chief State School Officers, reports Seven Days' Alison Novak. Among other things, French spent the past three years front and center as the state navigated the pandemic. Deputy ed secy Heather Bouchey, who also stepped in after Holcombe left the job, will serve as interim secretary.The ski season that just won't quit. That's the title on David Goodman's NYT article about... well, exactly that. Though let's put things in perspective. The great March storms dumped about three feet of snow on Stowe and four feet on Mt. Snow; Brighton in Utah, on the other hand, is reporting over 62 feet total. Goodman, veteran ski writer that he is, revels in it, but also digs into the complications: the long dry spell that preceded it, the struggles out west to deal with so much snow. Still, as one boarder at Stowe tells him, "This is by far the best week I’ve ever had riding.” (Gift link, no paywall.)“Miserable place to spend an extended period of time.” But wait! There’s a veranda. And shriveled antique seal blubber! And a latrine (aka ripped-up floorboards)! On Out There Learning, Lizzie Meek of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, which is restoring and conserving five explorers’ huts in the Ross Sea region, gives a tour of the hut built on Robert Scott’s first expedition to Antarctica in 1901. Un-homey it may be, but “when this is the only shelter in the landscape, it suddenly takes on a whole new significance and meaning,” says Meek. “Even though it’s dark and gloomy, it represents safety.”The Tuesday Vordle. With a fine word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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This evening at 7, the Thetford Arthouse Cinema (in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy) kicks off its week with Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her, which follows two men who are in love with two women in comas—one a female bullfighter, the other a dancer. "A pleasure to watch even as it invites us to think," writes TAC's Arthur Kahn.
Also at 7, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover brings in writer, illustrator, and Center for Cartoon Studies teacher Dan Nott for the launch of his new book, Hidden Systems. It's a "nonfiction science graphic novel" about the infrastructure—electric, water, the internet—that shapes our lives. As publisher Penguin-Random House writes, "This graphic novel provides a guided tour through the science of the past--and reveals how the decisions people made while inventing and constructing early technology still affect the way people use it today." Presentation, Q&A, food and drink, and interactive drawing.
And the Tuesday poem...
The budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing...
— From "Saint Francis and the Sow" by Galway Kinnell. Here he is in the late '80s,
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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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