Daybreak Tuesday 3/23/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

If you liked yesterday, you'll like today. High pressure remains in control, and we're in for another cloudless day (though some may filter in just before sunset). As with yesterday, we'll start out in the 20s then rise into the mid-60s. Breezes from the south. Down to around freezing tonight.Before it's all gone... The shift to spring is pretty much unstoppable now, though we'll no doubt have a hiccup or two. Here's what the transition looked like over the weekend:

And speaking of fleeting windows... In case you missed it, the Mt. Washington Observatory snagged a photo of the northern lights Friday night before the "viewing oval" shifted westward. They write: "The green, reds, and blurple stretch from Mt Clay (left) to the lights of Berlin, NH (right)." That orange light on the horizon to the left is Canadian light pollution. And the light in the foreground? The night meteorologist forgot to turn off his headlamp.Dartmouth identifies Tuck cluster. In an email to the business school's students and faculty yesterday, Dean Matthew Slaughter said that nine cases have been identified "as a part of the school’s return-to-campus protocol following its spring break," The Dartmouth reports. As you'll see below, Dartmouth is currently reporting a total of 10 active cases. Tuck had already planned to hold its first week of classes after spring break remotely.Two former Dartmouth students off the hook for $4.5 million. That's how much Factory Mutual Insurance Co. wanted to ding Daniel Ro and Sebastian Lim for leaving their hibachi unattended and starting the 2016 fire that damaged Morton Hall. However, the NH Supreme Court recently ruled that the two men—who were expelled from Dartmouth—had been coinsured under the college's policy, reports the Valley News's John Gregg. Factory Mutual, the court wrote, "knew that it was insuring a college dormitory" and presumably adjusted its rates to take student negligence into account.I-91 "took everything he had. Where was he going to put his barn and his farm...and his tools?" Rodney Spaulding was one of the first firefighters on the scene when Romaine Tenney died in a blaze he'd set in 1964. Last week the "memorial tree" on what used to be Tenney's land came down, and VT and Weathersfield are trying to figure out how to memorialize Tenney "respectfully and appropriately, while acknowledging his suicide," reports VPR's Howard Weiss-Tisman. Tenney set the fire the day construction began on I-91 through his property. (Note: In crisis? Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741.)Lebanon will close down street, parking area for restaurants. As it did last year, the city is shutting Court Street and the parking area alongside Salt Hill on W. Park Street to make them available for outside dining. The closure will begin on Friday (if the weather cooperates, which right now it's looking like it might not) and continue into the fall. This will make getting to and from the municipal lot behind City Hall and various other bits of downtown maneuvering somewhat more complicated. Link takes you to the city's map of how to go about it.Also, new picnic tables in Colburn Park. On her Artful blog, Susan Apel notes that with the official arrival of spring we also get outdoor dining options again—Three Tomatoes, Salt Hill, and Lucky's (and Lalo's and food trucks) in Leb, whatever configurations Hanover dreams up, streetside in WRJ... "Turns out that using streets and parking lots to provide outdoor dining options was not just sensible in the face of a deadly virus, it brought life and conviviality to towns across the Upper Valley," Susan writes. Also: Artful just crossed the 1,000-subscriber line. This is a big deal for arts coverage in the Upper Valley!Four minutes of Upper Valley faces. Kata Sasvari began photographing locals a year ago as part of a national "Front Steps Project" to raise money for nonprofits by taking photos of families, individuals, kids, sibs, and anyone else spending the pandemic together. She's put many of those photographs together in a video...and notes the project raised over $5K for local nonprofits. “You can make a lot of syrup in two weeks if you have the right weather." That's Jeff McNamara, owner of Mac’s Maple in Plainfield, talking to the VN's John Lippman—and he and sugar makers all over the region are hoping for the right weather. February was cold, the snow back in the woods has been deep, and until recently temps weren't all that warm—all making for a much slower than usual start to the season. Plus, last fall's drought has contributed to lower-than-usual sugar content. “We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there,” says Pomfret's Jeff Luce. Fingers crossed.As if you needed any more spring proof... There are "thaw circles" even on shady, north-facing slopes, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast. Plus, three-leaved goldthread is emerging through the snow, male red-winged blackbirds are back, male wild turkeys are out there performing spring courtship displays (although, Elise notes, "so far, hens don't seem impressed"), and perhaps most convincing of all, life has started appearing in vernal pools, even under the ice. It's the fourth week of March, and there's life in those woods.Blue Sparrow to nest in old Morano Gelato space. Lippman also writes that after three successful years in Norwich, Amber Boland's Blue Sparrow Kitchen will open a second front in Hanover and add dinner hours there. Boland is hoping to open The Nest Kitchen & Café May 1, with hours until 9 pm—aiming for evening strollers and the post-movie crowd once the Nugget reopens. "We're going to be offering a lot of desserts," Boland tells Lippman.Now it's VT and MA's turn to challenge railway sale. The two states, reports NH Business Review's Michael Kitch, are opposing the sale of Pan Am Railways to CSX in part on the same grounds as VT Railways' filing last week (you were paying attention, right?): It will reduce competition. NHDOT has also filed notice that it intends to comment, but hasn't yet submitted anything. In particular, VT officials worry about CSX's plan to reduce the freight carriers linking to VT Railways in WRJ and Bellows Falls from two to one.The downside of vaccinating all your teachers at once: Many of them get side effects at once. School yesterday was cancelled in several NH towns, including Concord and Hopkinton, as teachers called in sick after getting vaccinated over the weekend. The teachers got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, writes the Monitor's Eileen O'Grady; health department spokesman Jake Leon says that the state did not see a similar situation arise after 12,000 people got the same vaccine at the NH Motor Speedway two weeks ago and at recent school clinics.And hold those homages to VINI. NH opened the vaccine gates yesterday to people over 50, and the state's new vaccine-registration site—which had debuted flawlessly last week—struggled to keep up with the crush. Though complaints poured in, by 5 pm the state was saying that 75,000 people had been able to register, report NHPR's Todd Bookman and Alli Fam."We heard this already. So why do we need to study this further?" Joseph Lascaze works for the ACLU in NH and sat on last year's LEACT commission on police accountability. He talks to NHPR's Emily Quirk about the vote in the state Senate last week to eliminate provisions in a new police reform bill requiring police to record and report the race of people they stop, search, or arrest. Instead, the bill now calls for a new study commission—a move, Lascaze argues, that "makes no sense. That's exactly what the governor's commission was established to do."A pickup truck for science. That's how Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute engineer Eric Gallimore describes the underwater drone he and colleagues have been testing under the ice of Lake Willoughby—the deepest lake entirely in Vermont. VTDigger's Justin Trombly joined the team about a mile out on the ice to talk over what they're up to. Why test on a lake? "If the team lost the vehicle under the ice on Willoughby, the worst-case scenario would be having to wait until the ice melted in the spring to get it back," Trombly writes. "In the ocean, the device would be lost for good."And speaking of drones... Sorelle Amore is an Australian artist, photographer, and filmmaker who lives in Iceland and has been documenting the volcanic explosion of Fagradals Mountain, which had been dormant for 6,000 years before erupting Friday night. Amore isn't content just to get dramatic footage from far away; she also likes lava up close and personal.

Now, we've got some catching up to do!

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These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river, But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods - Let them think twice before they use their powers To blot out and drink up and sweep away These flowery waters and these watery flowers From snow that melted only yesterday. 

-- "Spring Pools," by Robert Frost

See you tomorrow.

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