GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting warmer... More clouds today thanks to a weak cold front, but also more heat, thanks to winds from the west, with a sharp climb from the mid-30s first thing to a high that could reach the upper 60s or even 70. Otherwise, partly cloudy, gusty this afternoon and evening, low in the upper 40s.Holding the light. Or that's what it looks like this cairn is doing, anyway, out in the late-afternoon woods near Pout Pond in Dorchester, NH, from Jay Davis.If you use VA Cutoff Road... You might want to be aware this week that trucks will be entering and leaving a construction project to create an access road for bridge work scheduled for next year—though VTrans expects minimal impact to traffic. This week's work will focus on the access road and installing erosion and sediment control systems on the south side of the river near Mill Road and Old River Road.It took a while, but Leb Police track down crypto scammer. After a presentation at a senior living facility last June, a resident approached members of the LPD's cyber crimes unit to report she'd been defrauded trying to invest in digital currency. Officers traced the victim's transactions to a Nigerian suspect's cyber wallet, which they then were able to freeze—and get money back to the victim, though the Valley News's John Lippman reports she still came up short. Tracing the funds took 15-20 hours, Lippman writes; the rest of the time went into documenting transactions and legal processes.SPONSORED: The SpongeBob Musical comes to Northern Stage starting tonight! Plunge into this stunning, all-singing, all-dancing stage show by Northern Stage’s Youth Ensemble Studio (YES) students! When the citizens of Bikini Bottom discover that a volcano will soon erupt and destroy their humble home, SpongeBob and his friends come together to save the fate of their undersea world. As lives hang in the balance and all hope seems lost, an unexpected hero arises. The power of optimism really can save the world! Thru 4/16. Tickets from $19 at NorthernStage.org. Sponsored by Northern Stage.And hey, there's a sale on wintertime Daybreak swag! Hoodies, hats, sweatshirts—all at cost, thanks to Strong Rabbit Designs. Details down below, but the long and short is: It's this week only, then time to get back to t-shirts and maybe some new stuff.One of the region's most intriguing dramas right now is on Dartmouth's baseball fields. The college's team finished third in the Ivies last year and coming into this season, writes the Valley News's Benjamin Rosenberg, "optimism was understandably high." Instead, the team has lost 16 games in a row, tying the longest losing streak in its history. It stands at 1-23 overall, as both its pitching rotation and hitters struggle to gain traction. “Obviously, very little has gone according to plan,” says coach Bob Whalen, who's in his 34th year steering the team.Ninety decibels out of a half-ounce bird. Let's just note that 90 decibels, about equivalent to a lawnmower, is the threshold for wearing ear protection. It's also how loud male winter wrens can get. And, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, they're back. Also out there in the woods this second week of April: male wood frogs, the early blooms of speckled alders, downy rattlesnake plaintain — and, out in the fields, tom wild turkeys getting all puffed-up and strutty as they spread their tails and try to impress flocks of hens.And let's not forget garter snakes. They're starting to emerge from winter dens, writes Mary Holland in her latest Naturally Curious post. After spending the winter in the cavities and burrows dug by other animals, she writes, "males appear first in the spring, sometimes in groups as large as several hundred snakes. Females tend to emerge singly and over a longer period of time."One of the first Thermos plants in the UK is just up the road from Norwich, in Thetford. That, anyway, is what a Redditer just posted on the NorwichToTheWorld subreddit. An eagle-eyed Susan Apel writes about the subreddit—for anyone who lives in a place called Norwich—in her latest Artful post. And about a Lebanese photographer's project of visiting and planting a cedar in every US town named Lebanon—though memories are hazy. People think that "maybe [he] had been here in the Upper Valley, and maybe there was a tree that maybe has since died." She'll let us know.And while we're place-name free-associating, no, there isn't a Springfield in every state. In fact, according to the USGS, it appears in a mere 34 states, as opposed to Riverside, which shows up 186 times in 46 states (including NH and VT). As for the most frequently appearing community name in the country? Fairview. Which makes multiple appearances in multiple states, but around here seems only to be a little speck of a spot just down from the Lincoln Sewage Lagoons in northern Grafton County.Don't light up those burn piles right now. As of yesterday, most of VT and NH have been put in the high fire-risk category, as lack of rain, disappearing snow cover, and bare trees combine to keep humidity extra low and grasses and vegetation at risk. Throw in wind forecasts, and fire officials are getting nervous: The weather folks put out a red flag warning for today, meaning that any fire that starts can spread quickly.
Here's VT's current fire danger map, which shows high risk along the CT River valley and moderate risk in south-central VT and the Northeast Kingdom.
NH doesn't provide the same daily update online, though the Division of Forests and Lands tweets out status every day. To get your bearings, towns in the Upper Valley are in Fire Danger Rating Areas (FDRAs) 2, 3, and 4.
The finalists for the VT Book Awards were just announced. Right there in the mix: Peter Orner. The essayist, short story writer, Dartmouth prof, and Enthusiasms contributor is one of three finalists in the awards' creative nonfiction category. Overall, 14 finalists were chosen from among 50 VT-based writers nominated by librarians and independent booksellers in the state, along with publishers. There will also be awards for fiction, poetry (one of the finalists is Bianca Stone, who just read at Dartmouth on Friday), and children's lit. Awards will be announced May 6."What better way to make a dig at Vermont than to film a movie about it in New York?" Saratoga Springs, to be exact, which as Vermont Public's Mikaela Lefrak notes, is where Owen Wilson's new movie, Paint—about a Vermont painter who more than passingly resembles Bob Ross (who lived in Indiana)—was filmed. Lefrak points out 10 ways in which director Brit McAdams pokes fun at the state's stereotypes. Including vanity plates, sweaters, and the name of the Burlington paper (the Bonnet). Though as Lefrak says, "who are we to point out the perceived shortcomings of a local news outlet's name?"It’s the rare urban wildlife encounter where the wildlife doesn’t act wild at all but, rather, smug and superior. In The Walrus, Tom Jokinen writes about the effort to prevail over—or make peace with—Canada geese in Canadian cities. The tyrants, which produce up to a third of their weight in droppings a day, have it all over us. “I’ve seen them stare down a Subaru and win,” Jokinen writes. Trying to rid the campus of geese a few years ago, one university misstepped (it involved eggs and baseball bats). The result? A program called Respect the Goose: "Keep calm, carry on, stay away from one another."Double-A team throws no-hitter, loses 7-5. The Rocket City Trash Pandas should win every game with a name like that, but on Saturday they made history: Leading 3-0 going into the final inning, the Angels affiliate gave up no hits (depending on how you count a dropped fly ball), and still allowed seven runs. Yahoo!Sports blogger Jack Baer has the play-by-play that lays it all out. Afterward, the team tweeted, "Well, we did not give up a hit in the first game of today's doubleheader. Unfortunately, we also did not win. So, there's that."The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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The good folks at Strong Rabbit Designs are offering sweatshirts, hats, and hoodies at cost: $16 for a cuffed hat, sweatshirts from $25, hoodies from $31. It's all there at the link this week, then it disappears from the lineup. Check out what's available and wear it (or drink from it) proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
At 5:30, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts an online book talk and conversation with UC Davis legal scholar Mary Ziegler, "The History of Roe & the Implications for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America." Ziegler, an expert on the law and history of abortion and the politics of reproduction, came out earlier this year with Roe: The History of a National Obsession and, not surprisingly, has been much in demand as a commentator on the Dobbs decision's impact on both the legal and social landscape. No registration needed.
At 6, the Baxter Memorial Library hosts Alan Haehnel and his mixed poetry, music, and visual performance, "My Ode to Joy."
At 6:30 this evening, Hanover's Howe Library brings in writer, former NH ag commissioner, founding director of the NH Humanities Council, and Upper Valley and NH scholar Steve Taylor for a talk, "New Hampshire Roads Taken or Not." He'll be talking about the politics and history of New Hampshire highway decisions in the state in the 20th century, and the economic and social impacts that followed. In-person in the Mayer Room and online via Zoom.
This evening at 7, via Zoom, the Mount Washington Observatory continues its "Science in the Mountains" series with a talk on "The Aurora Borealis and Other Atmospheric Optics." Plymouth State meteorology prof Lourdes Aviles and observatory meteorologist Ryan Knapp will talk about the science behind those breathtaking displays, why Mt. Washington is such a fine spot for viewing them, and what went into capturing all the pics that Knapp has managed to take of various phenomena.
Also at 7, it's the Thetford Arthouse Cinema's final screening of its spring session (it starts up again in July) at Thetford Academy's Martha Rich Theater. Tonight features The Lives of Others, the 2006 Oscar winner for best foreign film, about a captain in East Germany's Stasi who eavesdrops on a poet and his girlfriend (and their circle) in a search for disloyalty to the regime—of which the poet displays none. For a variety of reasons, things get tense. Discussion afterward will be led by Alex Elder, who was born in Soviet Leningrad and eventually gained political asylum in the US.
And also at 7, Here in the Valley's Tuesday Jukebox takes over the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover with three area musicians: Brandon, VT-based singer-songwriter Breanna Elaine; Royalton native Ali T; and southern VT folk musician Dylan Patrick Ward. Both Breanna Elaine and Ali T have new albums out, and all three will be performing and talking about their music with HitV's Jakob Breitbach.
The Tuesday poem
That man in the field staring at the skywithout the excuse of a dogor a rifle—there must be a reasonwhy I’ve put him there.Only moments ago, he didn’t exist.He might be claiming this fieldas his own, centering himself in ituntil confident he belongs...I think he must have come to grievea good friend’s death, and just wantsto stand there, numbly, quite surethe sky he’s looking at is vacant.But I see that he may be smiling—his friend’s death was years ago—and he might be out there to savorthe solitary elation of having discoveredwhat had eluded him until now.
—From
by
.
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.
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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