GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
It should be getting sunnier as the morning wears on, then cloudier again -- though warming up nicely. Highs somewhere in the higher 60s. It'll be another balmy, pleasant day. And let's enjoy it, because there's a cold front sweeping in tonight, bringing widespread rainfall along with it. "Cold front" doesn't hold quite the terror it did a month ago, but still.... Nighttime lows will take a hit -- tonight's getting down into the mid-40s, 30s the rest of the week -- and days'll be cool but seasonable.Part of 12A in Plainfield washes out. A section of the Connecticut River's bank fell apart thanks to the weekend's rain, undercutting a portion of 12A just south of the Leb town line, near the intersection with River Road. The southbound lane will be closed for a few weeks. And in case you're headed the other direction, on the other side of the river, Route 5 north of Newbury VT is still closed due to flooding. (VN, subscription reqd.)An ode to the Lyme Country Store. Town crier, deer-weighing station, morning coffee and breakfast sandwiches, loaner ice skates, fresh fish, Thai Fridays.... Oh, and let's not forget the wedding in the aisles. Dave Celone is up with a profile of a town's heartbeat.Mars greenhouse plan has its roots at Cedar Circle and Long Wind farms. Today and tomorrow, eight Dartmouth students will be at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, competing in a space-agency engineering challenge with their proposed design for a greenhouse on Mars. They looked for inspiration to local farms, but have some challenges terrestrial farmers don't -- including fitting the entire thing in a 6-by-9-meter box. What would astronauts grow? Kale, soybeans, sweet potatoes, potatoes, broccoli, strawberries, dwarf wheat, and a fat-dense grass called chufa. (VN...)And speaking of today, a second possible GOP challenger to Donald Trump is showing up in New Hampshire. Move over Bill Weld? Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will be in Manchester this morning, speaking to the "Politics and Eggs" breakfast at St. Anselm College. It happens to be a stop on the presidential circuit. Hogan's pitched the speech as all about how Maryland is a beacon of bipartisan civility, but as former AG and Republican operative Tom Rath says, "There’s only one reason to come up here at this point. This is our brand. This is what we do. You don’t come up here just to see how the Sox are doing.”Let's stay presidential for just one more minute: Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the CNN Democratic forum hosted by St. Anselm last night. It got big play among those who like to tune into primary politics 10 months before the first vote even gets cast. Five presidential candidates, CNN bigwigs, Harvard's Institute of Politics as a co-sponsor -- just imagine the egos filling up the space. Logistics included separate green rooms for the candidates, because, as NHPR notes, "It’s not like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders get their makeup done side by side." VT Senate is weighing whether to boost funding for childcare, and advocates are worried it won't. There's a childcare shortage in the state, they say, and the House last month passed a measure devoting $10 million more to subsidies for parents and boosting reimbursement rates for providers. The Senate Appropriations Committee takes it up this week, but the session's drawing to a close and its leaders are non-committal. "I think at this point in the process, I can’t give you an affirmative answer," says Jane Kitchel, the committee's chair.Fisher Cats partner with Stonyfield to go organic. The ball club's field in Manchester plans to go pesticide-free over the next two years, becoming the first in professional baseball to do so. Stonyfield Organic, the nearby yogurt-maker, has been working with public parks and playing fields to help them figure out how to stop using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. "We had been managing the pastures where our cows graze and the fields where we grow our ingredients organically for so long," says Stonyfield's PR head. "But what about the places where our kids and our families spend so much time?"VT renewable energy entrepreneur launches used and refurbished equipment business. RENewed Wind and Solar is the brainchild of David Blittersdorf, the Williston-based businessman who founded NRG Systems and served as board president of the American Wind Energy Association. You just know that we've hit some sort of milestone when there's a secondary market for recalibrated anemometers, second-life solar panels and the like for customers who want "eco-conscious shopping experience by reusing underutilized renewable assets." That's, like, double the karma, right?Jane Lindholm tours the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. Say that ten times fast. VPR's Vermont Edition went up to Laurierville, QC, to see the converted furniture warehouse that now houses half the world's reserve supply of maple syrup. It's a dagger to the heart to have to say this, but Quebec produces 70 percent of all syrup (the real kind, that is), and it's got to get stored somewhere. It sits in 600-pound barrels, each worth $1,800 Canadian (that's 20 times the price of a barrel of oil), and there are 80,000 barrels in the facility. You do the math. And don't forget the exchange rate.IT'S TUESDAY NIGHT, TIME TO BE EARNESTBecause for starters, Steve Long is going to be at the Bugbee Senior Center talking about the Hurricane of 1938 and its devastating impact on New England. Long, the co-founder and guiding spirit of Northern Woodlands magazine, wrote the book on the storm a couple of years ago. He'll be talking about people's and trees' resilience back then, and the lessons we can take from their experience in the face of extreme weather today. The talk's hosted by Resilient Hartford. Or maybe you prefer to think about the woods -- and what's in them -- as they are now. Nathaniel Sharp, who's the Vermont Center for Ecostudies' "Citizen Scientist Outreach Naturalist," will be at Lyme's Converse Library to talk about tools for ordinary folks to help crowdsource natural data. In particular, he'll be introducing eBird and iNaturalist, which can be used for everything from tracking the migratory patterns of birds to pinning down locations for hard-to-find species. There's a followup on Sunday to put those skills to work.Or you could get over to Woodstock for Wasted! The Story of Food Waste. I know, right? But here's the thing: It's not somber and gloomy. It's hosted by the late Anthony Bourdain, who starts out by saying he "hated the whole idea of this movie." The film goes on to subvert "the usual eco-doc formula, spending only enough time on problems to establish their importance, then traveling around the world to prove how satisfying the solutions can be," per the Hollywood Reporter. Bourdain, Dan Barber, Jahmal Hurst -- cooks and activists alike talk about how they make great food out of the stuff most people throw away. Starts at 6, Woodstock Town Hall Theater.Or forget Earnest, maybe you just need some Aretha right now. It's a drive, but hey, we might never get to see this around here. The Red River Theatre in Concord is screening Amazing Grace, the film version of two unbelievable 1972 performances by Aretha Franklin at a Baptist church in LA. Sydney Pollack, the fancy-pants director, caught them on film... but didn't do what he needed to synchronize the sound with the visuals. The album sold millions. The footage sat on a shelf for four decades, until new technology made it possible to synch everything up. "Listening to Franklin, you feel like you could ride that voice into the heavens," Variety writes in its review. "She’s not just a singer, she’s a human chariot."Wow. See you tomorrow.
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