GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Clouds, sun, showers. And maybe even a little thunder. Hey, we can have it all! Though probably not at once. That low pressure's still around, but we should see less cloud cover as the morning wears on. Slight chance of rain this morning, a chance this afternoon. Highs today in the mid 50s, winds from the southwest. Mid 30s tonight.Some beavers have no respect. Every year, Alan and Brigid Guttmacher, who live by the CT River in Thetford, take in their dock for winter and loop the two lines that help restrain it around a couple of trees, to keep them out of the winter ice. Here's what they found the other day. "At least they left a stub so the line stayed put," they write.WRJ mural project gears up. Prep work has started on COVER's south-facing wall, with the wood primed (pic here) and the brick wall ready for sealing ("if ever it will stop raining," jokes director Helen Hong). In Artful, Susan Apel reports on the background: It's a joint project between COVER and Dartmouth's Energy Justice Clinic, with the artist Ragko turning community ideas into reality. "Many Upper Valley residents know and live with energy insecurity every day," Susan writes, "trying to cope with ever-rising energy costs, substandard housing, poor insulation, windows that rattle in the wind." Community members are signing up to work on the mural: do that here at the "volunteer" button.Mt. Ascutney school board chooses new member. The spot on the board came open after longtime member Amy McMullen, who was also Windsor town clerk, stepped down following a public controversy over her decision to remain near the school district voting machines on election day despite being one of the candidates in a contested contest. On Friday, reports the VN, the board chose 39-year-old Megan Reed, a school parent and a dementia specialist at DH, to replace her. It passed over two other candidates, including McMullen's March opponent.Mike Pride, stalwart of New Hampshire journalism, dies at 76. He "succumbed to a longstanding blood disorder" last night while surrounded by family in Florida, reports his longtime friend and colleague Mark Travis in the Concord Monitor, the paper Pride led for a quarter century. "He was a man of home and community," Travis writes in an obituary that doubles as a biography, as well as a man of words: in his friendships with and attention to New Hampshire poets and an unrepentant killer, his nurturing of an entire generation of journalists, a newsroom that on the one hand "could feel like graduate school" and on the other rise to meet the tragedy of the Challenger disaster."To survive in my condition is a constant dance with my body and its needs." That's how New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren described his state a few weeks before his recent death of lung cancer. In one of his last public conversations, he spoke to veteran radio host Christopher Lydon for Lydon's long-running podcast, Open Source. "Ed Koren stood for the elusive strands of humanity that do not die," Lydon says in his intro, and he and producer Mary McGrath headed up to Koren's studio in Brookfield to prove it: The two men talk about cartooning, stoicism, dying, being a volunteer firefighter, and much more.SPONSORED: Do you know your ADU ABCs? Accessory dwelling units, built onto or near existing homes, can create affordable housing that our communities need while offering existing homeowners rental income and opportunities to age in place. Interested in building one? Co-presented by the Town of Hartford, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission, and Vital Communities, the May 6 Home Creators Expo offers the answers and experts to help you move from dreaming to doing. Free! Click the link to learn more and register. Sponsored by Vital Communities.Dinner date. Though in the photo of two kestrels that Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast includes in "This Week in the Woods," it's a hard to tell exactly what's for dinner. Still, here we are in the fourth week of April and kestrels are, as Elise puts it, feeling flirty—while, as you've no doubt noticed, leaf buds are bursting, red maples are flowering, early wildflowers like red trillium and bloodroot are out, and mourning cloak butterflies should be putting in an appearance just as soon as the sun does, too.Of course, it's not all fun and games out there. We speak, of course, of ticks. 14,252 of them, to be exact. That's how many seem to have gotten mailed in to BeBop Labs in Plymouth between 2018 and 2021, writes David Brooks in the Monitor (here via the VN). In a new paper, the nonprofit lab's Kaitlyn Morse and her colleagues report that deer ticks, the most prevalent disease-carriers, are showing up earlier each spring. Also, deer ticks peak in May and October, dog ticks in June. Also, deer ticks are everywhere, but "reach high abundance," the report says, on the coast, in central NH, and here.SPONSORED: Light Up The Night for the Montshire! This year’s Fiddlehead Fling Gala is full of once-in-a-lifetime auction items, science surprises, and delicious, exclusive treats! Gather with us for an evening of celebration, community, and philanthropy to support the Montshire's mission of forging and empowering lifelong learners through engagement with science. Get tickets now! Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.NH DCYF director: "Families are incredibly messy." That's Joe Ribsam, who runs NH's Division of Children, Youth, and Families. He's stepping down in June, and in an "exit interview" with NHPR's Julie Furukawa he talks about the state's child welfare system: what's improved (there's now a system in place for dealing with kids' mental health); what needs improvement (there aren't enough people to staff it and pay needs to be better for frontline staff); what really needs improvement (getting families help early on); and big emerging problems (like, parents are dying of fentanyl overdoses).NH needs a lot more housing units than it thought. For years, writes NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt, the state's housing authority, New Hampshire Housing, has said NH needs 20,000 new units to meet its needs. But in a new report that takes into account demographic growth before 2040, the figure stands at 90,000. To meet that need, annual housing construction will have to grow by more than a third. Also in the report: housing prices are outstripping wage growth, fewer couples and families who could afford to buy a place are leaving rental housing, and vacation rentals are displacing residential housing.Thinking about building a house? It might be cheaper in VT. Depending, of course, on what you pay for land. A new study by Today's Homeowner, writes Kristina Zagame, looks at the cost in each state, factoring in everything from surveying to framing to flooring and appliances. Nationwide, the average cost per square foot is $158, which comes to $332,376 for a 2,100 sq ft spec home. In VT, that home would be $322,652, or $152 per sq ft, versus $172 per square foot or $361,098 in NH. You can check out all the details and play around with a "what would it cost me?" calculator at the link."I'm stuck in a system that is determined not to help me get out of the system." Radio producer Erica Heilman has once again picked up her series on class in VT, and in a new installment yesterday, she talks to Derby's Kathleen Patrick, who tells her "I can't afford to be middle class" because earning more would cost her the food stamps, housing assistance, and Medicaid she relies on every day. While in today's installment, Montpelier attorney Mike Donofrio, at the opposite end of the spectrum, says, "I don't think things are working. I don't have any faith in the big institutions that I see as...shaping society and shaping the conditions that we live in."VT State University reverses course, rescinds librarian layoffs. And, writes Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days, it's also reversed itself on changes to athletics programs at the Johnson State and VT Tech campuses. All of this comes in the wake of the sudden resignation of president Parwinder Grewal earlier this month; Grewal had stoked bitter controversy after announcing plans to turn the university's five campuses' libraries all-digital. Although the librarians will stay, the collections they oversee will be "streamlined," interim president Mike Smith told trustees yesterday.What do a Chilean Flamingo and a Cessna 172 have in common? They fly at 4,330 meters, where air temps are a balmy 6 degrees F. You’ll meet them as you travel ever upward on Neal Agarwal’s Space Elevator. A Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture, the highest-flying bird, hangs out at 11,600 m. On the way, cue the elevator music, don a space suit (you’ll need it), and watch out for Felix Baumgartner at 36,345m; he’s plummeting to Earth in freefall. Scroll through the mesosphere, where sound travels slowly and meteors burn up, into the thermosphere, crossing the Kármán line into outer space. (Thanks, RG!)The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
There's more for spring/summer on its way, but in the meantime, t-shirts, mugs, long-sleeved tees, and sweatshirts are there for you. Check out what's available and wear it (or drink from it) proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
This evening at 6, Live Band Karaoke returns to Sawtooth Kitchen, as Here in the Valley's Jakob Breitbach and his band of all-stars bring hundreds of songs to choose from. Family friendly, all ages welcome.
Today and tomorrow, Dartmouth is hosting a series of talks on food, disordered eating, weight, and race with registered dietitian and eating disorder specialist Jessica Wilson. At 7:30 this evening, the Black Caucus and the college Health Service will present a public fireside chat with Wilson about the relationship between weight bias and racism and the experiences of black women in dealing with diet culture, disordered eating, and wellness. It will focus in particular on her new book, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies. In-person in Filene Auditorium and online. Registration required for the Zoom link.
Anytime today through Friday, Sustainable Woodstock and Pentangle are streaming A Plastic Ocean, Australian journalist Craig Leeson's 2016 documentary on the impact of plastic on the marine environment. There'll also be a live screening on Thursday at 6 pm in the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre.
And the Tuesday poem.
Let them not say: we did not see it.We saw.Let them not say: we did not hear it.We heard.Let them not say: they did not taste it.We ate, we trembled.Let them not say: it was not spoken, not written.We spoke,we witnessed with voices and hands.Let them not say: they did nothing.We did not-enough.Let them say, as they must say something: A kerosene beauty.It burned.Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,read by its light, praised,and it burned.
— Jane Hirshfield, "Let Them Not Say". And
, including a reading by
On Being
's Krista Tippett.
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.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page
, or if you're a committed non-FB user,
.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! Subscribe at no cost at:
Thank you!