GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Heads Up: No Daybreak this Friday. Or next Monday, for that matter. Back with CoffeeBreak next Tuesday.Getting sunny, warmer. Last night's system is on its way eastward and though clouds will linger a little bit, they're expected to clear out over the morning as temperatures climb toward the mid 60s. High pressure and dry air are moving in tonight and we'll get down to about 40 under partly cloudy skies.Another sign of spring. Despite chillier weather last week, people out fishing in the Ottauquechee, near Woodstock. From David Doubleday.Quechee Club grass clippings among Hartford brush fires over the weekend. The town's firefighters faced two brush fires on Sunday, reports the Valley News's John Lippman. The first broke out on Route 14, burning two-thirds of an acre—most likely after winds re-ignited embers from an earlier controlled burn. No sooner had that one been quelled than they were called to the site where the Quechee Club dumps its clippings—"I’m talking it would fill the back of a couple dump trucks,” Chief Scott Cooney tells Lippman—where there'd also been a controlled burn a few days before.West Leb's Blue Mountain Guitar closes. It was sudden and unforeseen, reports Marion Umpleby in the VN. The morning of April 12, she writes, staff got "a group text from owner Barbara McKelvy explaining that 'the store’s closed (and) the locks have been changed,'" according to longtime employee Chris Decato—who added, "We were blindsided." McKelvy cites finances, telling Umpleby that the store's indebtedness "effectively sealed off the opportunity to ever achieve a satisfactory level of growth and profitability." Store manager Tyler Geno says the move came after a relationship with McKelvy ended.SPONSORED: What kind of hiking shoes should I be wearing, anyway? Your hiking questions, answered! From footwear to poles to water and fitness, get started out on the right foot with this Healthy Hiking Guide. Tips for a long and fulfilling hiking season courtesy of the Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy team in Lebanon and Grantham. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy. Wood anemones are emerging. The early spring ephemeral goes by a fine variety of names, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog: Windflower (it trembles in the breeze), European Thimbleweed, and Smell Fox (the leaves have a musky smell). It tends to grow in thick mats, she writes, but a single plant may take five or more years to flower, "so often only a few flowers may be seen among the leaves. These offer food to pollinators, primarily hoverflies, searching for nectar early in the season."SPONSORED: Gather at the Montshire to celebrate science! Join us on Friday, May 2nd for an ’80s-themed bash with good food, great company, and a whole lot of science love. Mingle, bid, and support science in our community while enjoying throwback fun. Bid on one-of-a-kind experiences, like: A private dinner for 8, cooked and served in your home by Brownsville Butcher and Pantry; a gravel ride with pro cyclists; getaways, wine packages, and a museum sleepover for 20! Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.Newbury VT man who shot, killed daughter won't stand trial. That's because doctors have found that James Perry was “floridly psychotic with paranoid delusions and hallucinations” when he shot his 38-year-old daughter in 2021 when she came by with cookies to check on his welfare, reports John Lippman in the VN. He was initially found competent to stand trial, but a second evaluation—which both prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed on—contradicted that conclusion. Perry believed he was being pursued by Seal Team 6 and his daughter was in cahoots, the judge in the case writes.Burke receiver seeks court's go-ahead to sell. You may remember that a few weeks ago, word broke that a local group of investors had agreed on an $11.5 million sales prices with Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver in charge of Burke Mountain Resort. On Friday, reports VTDigger's Habib Sabet, Goldberg asked the federal judge overseeing the receivership to okay the sale to Bear Den Partners, led by Ken Graham, the son of former Burke owner Donald Graham. The resort faces years of deferred maintenance, and the group says it plans to put $30 million into developing it.Want to see how federal cuts are showing up at the state level, all in one place? Here's a tracker for VT. VT Public's got an ongoing list that includes the name of the program, its status (cancelled or paused), the date it took effect, and the impact. The latest to disappear (as of last Tuesday) is a USDA program that funded projects like planting trees, cover cropping, and low-till practices designed for flood mitigation that had over 50 VT farms enrolled. Also on the list: the end of local food purchases, money for EV chargers, help for young people with serious mental health conditions, and more.A way to connect VT's two east-west bike trails. There's the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, which runs between Swanton and St. J on an old rail bed, and farther south, the Cross Vermont Trail between Burlington and Wells River. Now, reports VTDigger's K. Fiegenbaum, Wells River's Michael Thomas, who chairs the Cross Vermont board, has spearheaded a move to map out a 19.7-mile connector trail using town roads between Danville and Wells River. “Eventually, the idea is that we’re all connected — and not just by car,” he tells Fiegenbaum, who adds a quick history of connector trails around Wells River.So if you leave Vermont, does it stick with you? Singer and VT Public host Myra Flynn lives in LA, which is where she met her husband... who also grew up in Vermont, though the two didn't know each other back then. "When I drive around Los Angeles and I see a Vermont license plate, I always try to sneak up and see if I know them somehow," he says. It's the intro to Flynn's nuanced piece for Brave Little State on how Vermonters feel about their identity once they leave. She talks to VT expats—black, white, and brown, and including JP Candelier, who grew up in Bethel—about what VT means to them and how coming back sometimes isn't what they hoped it would be.Birds as research assistants. The job market is robust for candidates with specific skills … and wings. In Audubon, Ashley Stimpson posts job descriptions for birds with attributes researchers covet. Great Frigatebirds, which can soar high and stay aloft for weeks, qualify as aerial survey pilots; they’re fitted with GPS trackers relaying data on weather patterns and air quality. Cormorants, the world’s deepest diving seabirds, are ace marine mapping technicians. Solar-powered sensors measure water temperature, salinity, and pressure, and relay info on speed and direction of the current. Ever wonder what it would be like to run a race against an Olympic sprinter? You can imagine how other parents felt last week when gold medalist Shelly Ann Fraser-Price lined up with them during field day at her seven-year-old son's school in Jamaica. Even the drone filming it couldn't keep up. Oh, also, her son won his race, too.The Tuesday Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Daybreak tote bags! Thanks to a helpful reader's suggestion. Plus, of course, the usual: sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
VT Center for Ecostudies science coordinator
Dana Williams will talk it all over: which species live near you and how to help them thrive year-round.
4 pm.
Africa specialists Susan Stigant, who ran the Africa program at the US Institute of Peace, and U of MD prof Michael Woldemariam join Dickey's Victoria Holt to talk about militarization and instability across the Red Sea region. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
It's an intro to Vermont's flood hazard mapping, impacts, and community resilience with Ned Swanberg, the state's flood mapping coordinator, and Tessa Yip, the state's Engagement & Community Support Floodplain Manager. 5 pm.
Godine's 2023 book of the same title explores the history of Black settlement in the region, focusing partly on the offer of farmland during the 1840s by an abolitionist hoping to give up to 3,000 settlers a leg up. 6 pm.
The Hanover Garden Club is hosting two video talks by entomologist Doug Tallamy of Homegrown National Park on how biodiversity is declining, what you can do to help, and effective ways to create habitat and support wildlife. Afterward, two VT Center for Ecostudies specialists and a local gardening expert talk over native plants, creating insect and bird habitats at home, and strategies for yard "rewilding." 6:30 pm.
He'll be talking phenology, of the study of the annual timing of biological events. "When will the trees leaf out this year? When will warblers return to the Upper Valley? How do they decide and how well do they choose? Are summers getting longer in the Upper Valley? What would be the consequences?" It's the first of three discussions sponsored by the Howe. 6:30 pm. You'll need to register.
Lebanon-based financial advisor Karen Shapiro talks over the options and the scenarios. 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
Clark Neily, senior VP for legal studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, will talk over the 2024 Supreme Court ruling that revoked the Chevron decision of four decades earlier and its deference to federal agency experts in interpreting the law. Neily looks at the real-world fallout. 7:30 pm in Rocky 1.
The inventive and playful early-music ensemble is joined by flutist Emi Ferguson and violinist Rachell Ellen Wong to perform
Strawberry Fields
, a program featuring works by Handel and Ignatius Sancho. 7:30 pm, not many tix left.
The Tuesday poem.
In the workshop, students analyzewhat each poem wants, what each onestrives to be. Well, this poem isa layabout with limited ambitions. It wantsa drink.This poem doesn't give a damnfor rhyme or reason. It only singsoff-key. It has no rhythmin the jukebox of its soul.It grew up without symbols.It doesn't know from assonance.Give it mambo lessons, and itstill won't learn to dance. It hasnot one stanza with a lyric pedigree.It's late, and getting later, and this poemwants a drink.Call it gray and tired. Even call ita cliche. This poem's lived long enoughto know exactly what it meansto say: Don't be stingywith the whiskey, baby. Yes, the nighthas been a cruel one, and this poemcould use a drink.
"The Poem Wants a Drink" 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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