Daybreak Tuesday, 3/31/26

Rain, definitely cooler. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Today the high will be in the low 50s, and with low pressure riding along a cold front that’s stalled over the region, rain is at least a likelihood all day (especially this morning and evening), with locally heavy downpours also likely and a chance of thunder this evening. Temps will drop into the mid 40s the first part of the night, then rise slightly before dawn.

Who needs a trail cam when you’ve got a front-porch cam? And the local turkey flock is going about its business? From Laura Pulaski in Post Mills.

Which came first, the frog or the frog’s egg? This week in DB Johnson’s Lost Woods, Auk and Eddie are hanging out by the pond, talking eggs, tadpoles, the difference between a pollywog and a tadpole…

“When you eat a vegetable that someone used to grow 100 years ago, you are tasting what someone used to eat 100 years ago.” It’s a new week for Upper Valley Stories in Sound, the collection of audio stories by members of Sophie Crane’s podcast/radio class at Dartmouth. Today, Maya Beauvineau tells the story of seed-keeper Heron Breen’s years-long search for the seeds of a specially bred Vermont Hubbard squash—how he finally found some, and what happened when he planted them, harvested the squash, brought them to an Upper Valley Seed Savers potluck—and locals here tried to grow them. It’s a lesson, as iconic seed saver Sylvia Davatz says, that “the plants are really the ones who are running the show.”

Hanover officials seek stalking orders against resident. All five members of the selectboard and Town Manager Robert Houseman filed the petitions in mid-March against longtime resident David Vincelette, reports Alex Ebrahimi in the Valley News. At a February board meeting, Ebrahimi writes, Vincelette accused officials of crimes “against me and my family,” including polluting Mink Brook, along which he lives; he went on to draw attention to an armed police officer and said, “you do need protection.” Houseman later wrote that his “comments and the way they were delivered were perceived by those present as a direct threat.” The cases are in Leb District Court.

SPONSORED: Don’t miss one of jazz’s rising stars at Lebanon Opera House! Join us on Friday, April 10 at 7:30 PM for a performance by Lucía, a 23-year-old vocalist from Veracruz, México. Her incredible vocals and singular artistic vision bridge the gap between jazz, Latin, and pop music. Sponsored by Lebanon Opera House.

After 17 years, Drummond Cycles closing its doors. The hobby that Dick Drummond started in his Enfield home and eventually turned into his Drummond Custom Cycles shop—his wife, he tells the VN’s Michael Coughlin Jr., said ”‘You really need to get out of the house because there are too many people coming to the house for your little hobby business,’ so that prompted me to get the space over here”—will close after an April 11-12 sale, though he’s already selling off inventory. It’s time to “move on to the next thing,” he tells Coughlin—like building houses. Here’s his announcement a couple weeks ago to his large and loyal following.

What’s a little compass confusion between friends? The VN article mentioned yesterday about plans for Hanover’s S. Main Street says the town wants to retain diagonal parking on the east (Lou’s) side of the street. But selectboard member Jennie Chamberlain writes it’s actually planned for the west side of the street (Molly’s). “The parking spaces that were too close to intersections and driveways by modern engineering standards are now eliminated,” she writes. “According to Hanover Police reports, backing out of a parking space near a crosswalk has already led to a pedestrian crash and injuries.” Schematics at the burgundy link (you want p. 8), VN article here.

SPONSORED: At the Hop: A captivating music-theater work about race, intimacy, and moving forward in the aftermath of slavery in America. Reconstructing is a lively, thought-provoking new play by internationally renowned theater collective The TEAM. It comes to the Hop April 2 & 3 following a sold-out five-night run at NYC’s Under the Radar Festival in January. The play jumps across centuries and around the country, encountering people grappling with America's fraught history. Get tickets today at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

All those Asian ladybugs overwintering in your house? They’re not in the least dangerous to “people, pets, or the structure of the home and do not breed or lay eggs inside of buildings,” says Emma Erler, host of NHPR’s Homegrown NH, and unlike a lot of invasives, they can actually be beneficial: They prey on “soft-bodied insects like aphids, mealybugs, and scales in fields, forests, and gardens, similar to their native counterparts in North America.” On the other hand, native ladybugs don’t mind hibernating outdoors, and the newcomers can be kind of annoying, and to keep them out you need to seal door, window, and siding cracks.

Remember how NH conspicuously did not join the Northeast Public Health Collaborative? Not so fast. As NH Bulletin’s William Skipworth writes, the 10-state and several-city collaborative was set up as a response to “seismic changes within the federal government’s public health apparatus” under the Trump administration. Unlike the rest of New England, NH never officially joined. But thanks to a large public records dump, Skipworth reports that NH state health officials “were heavily involved in the group’s formation and that the state was considered part of the collaboration.” Skipworth traces the group’s evolution, and NH’s behind-the-scenes role.

Big ants, little ants, stinging ants, predator ants, all ready for their closeup. In the NYT (gift link) Ari Daniel reports on a new project that’s created a database of ants, in all their diverse glory. Almost 2,200 specimens were placed in a synchrotron particle accelerator and scanned in record time. The resulting “entomological catwalk” of high-res, 3D images (many fine ones at the link, though it kinda depends how you feel about ants), allows scientists around the world to work with examples from museums and collections that had previously been hard to access. The project is a model for other imaging, say the study authors in the journal Nature Methods.

The Tuesday Crossword. Slip into the day with the “mini” from Dartmouth librarian and puzzle artist Laura Braunstein. If you’d like to catch up on her past puzzles, you can do that here.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
At the Howe Library, Beth Malow and Doug Teschner talk about Beyond the Politics of Contempt. By now you’re probably familiar with the political bridge-building book and, as the description goes, its focus on “ways to mend relationships torn apart by politics and empower people when difficult conversations arise.” Malow, who lives in Quechee, and Teschner, from West Leb, will talk it all over both in-person in the Mayer Room and via Zoom at 6:30 pm.

At the Norwich Bookstore, Keiselim Montás reads from and talks about his new book, Immigration to Transtierro. Montás—poet, essayist, and head of Dartmouth Safety & Security—takes on the immigrant experience, and in particular “the condition of transtierro (living a duality of languages, cultures, and national loyalties for two nations which never fully accept you).” 7 pm.

And just so you know: This is the last week to donate used books to the Five Colleges Book Sale. Donations will be accepted through this coming Sunday from 9-4 daily (9-7 on Wednesdays and 12-4 on Sundays) at the former Rite Aid in the Shaw’s Plaza, 10 Benning Street, West Leb.  Note: Books must be clean and in good saleable condition, and no encyclopedias, textbooks, former library books, magazines or vinyl records or VHS tapes.

The Tuesday poem.

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken…

— From “When Great Trees Fall” by Maya Angelou.

See you tomorrow.

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