GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, warmer. There's high pressure dropping down from Canada, and we'll get back to more normal temps for the season: into the lower 60s by late afternoon, down into the low 40s tonight. Light winds from the northwest—though the air will remain dry, so fire concerns continue. It'll cloud up tonight ahead of a warm front headed our way.What that mine rescue looked like. Saturday night's rescue of a Utah man who fell into the abandoned Eureka Mine in Corinth may only have taken an hour, but it had plenty of visual flair. The Hanover Fire Department has put several photos on its Facebook page, which you should be able to see even if you don't have an account. Frozen ground and ice surrounding and inside the mine, Hanover Chief Martin McMillan tells the Valley News's Anna Merriman, made the rescue difficult.Dartmouth Provost Joe Helble to become president of Lehigh University. Helble, who graduated from Lehigh in 1982 with a degree in chemical engineering, spent 16 years at Dartmouth, the first 13 of them as dean of the Thayer School. He became provost in 2018 and—in a development no one could have predicted, much less desired—became both the public and internal face of the college as it grappled with the pandemic and its reverberations. "Joe is the personification of calm leadership," Pres. Phil Hanlon said in a statement. Helble will make the move to Bethlehem, PA in mid-August. In case you're headed through Woodstock... A state-funded paving project on Route 4 through town began on Sunday—with work extending to Routes 12 and 106, as well. Crews will work on milling this week from 5 pm to 7 am, reports Gareth Henderson on his Woodstock-area Omni Reporter blog. On Friday, Village Trustees Chair Jeff Kahn told Henderson that the nighttime work, with its noise and light towers, will be tough on residents. "On the other hand, it's going to be faster to get the work done that way," he added, since crews will have less traffic and fewer parked cars to deal with. SPONSORED: You're invited! To the Montshire Museum of Science's benefit event, the Fiddlehead Fling Reimagined, next Friday, May 7, from 7-8pm. Enjoy an exciting evening of virtual engagement, the opportunity to support science in a unique way, plus dino facts and games with the Dinosaur Whisperer, Dustin Growick, whose unique blend of knowledge and humor will guarantee an evening to remember. Learn more or RSVP at the maroon link. Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.A "bright splash of spring" in downtown West Leb. If you look up near the Kilton Library, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, you'll find a set of brightly painted birdhouses hanging from the trees, the start of a public art project launched by artist and yoga instructor Kim Wenger Hall and local developer Chet Clem. More than 100 people signed up to build the birdhouses, and more are expected to take to the air in over time. Says Wenger Hall, “West Lebanon needs color. It needs foot traffic. It needs art.” “The difference between Main Street and the side streets is like night and day." Bryan Smith would know: At the start of April, he reopened his old International DVD and Poster store—now called Records, Memorabilia and Posters New Hampshire—on Main Street in Hanover. It was originally slated to share the old Morano space with The Nest, the Blue Sparrow outpost slated to open in May. But, reports Andrew Sasser in The Dartmouth, Nest owner Amber Boland approached Smith to ask if she could use the entire space, and Smith was able to get a good deal on his new larger quarters by the Nugget Theater. In the Upper Valley, "it seems like the need for mental health far outweighs the mental health care providers that we have." Lisa Gardner is a therapist in Norwich who, as the pandemic took hold a year ago, launched an effort to connect people in need of counseling with licensed therapists for free. "I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm a therapist. And...this is a time when people are really going to need mental health support," she tells NHPR host Rick Ganley. Access remains a challenge, she says: Mental-health agencies deal with people in crisis, but people grappling with anxiety or grief often have to wait."A raccoon glamour shot and a male yellow-bellied sapsucker with boundary issues." That's how Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast describes what's up this fourth week of April in "This Week in the Woods." Raccoons are "incredibly dexterous," she writes, and one happened by a game camera, most likely on its way to a vernal pool to look for frogs. The sapsucker was one of a pair of males in a territorial spat that took exception to humans passing by. Also out there: trillium, dutchman's breeches, and an uninspired garter snake.It's been "vicious" underground for red fox kits. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland writes that the kits we're seeing out and about (even if only in photos) have spent a busy last month in their dens: growing a new coat of fur, getting teeth, getting weaned, and above all, fighting amongst themselves to establish hierarchy—which, among other things, establishes who gets the largest share of solid food. "Peace now reigns and we get to enjoy the kits’ playful antics as they are introduced to the world above ground," she writes.NH sees second-highest growth rate in New England; VT outpaces ME, CT. The Census Bureau yesterday released its 2020 population figures for the purposes of reapportionment, the decennial re-jiggering of congressional seats. NH grew 4.6 percent since 2010, trailing MA's 7.6 percent jump (which matched the national average) but easily surpassing VT's 2.4 percent growth. In all, NH added about 61,000 residents, with all of that growth coming from people moving into the state. VT gained about 17,000 residents. Maroon link takes you to the state-by-state table, and here's percentage change by state.“How can there be equity when one kid is having to sit outside the library in the rain when another kid can sit inside their house and still be able to do the same thing?” That's Meriden's Kara Toms talking to the NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee about broadband access in town, which is spotty. As the state prepares for an influx of money from the feds, towns are pretty much on their own when it comes to expanding access, and though there's legislation pending that would make spending broadband money run more smoothly, it's unclear whether towns will have the capacity to take on projects, Gokee writes.VT prepares to take bald eagles off the endangered list. It was the last state in the lower 48 to have a successful breeding pair, but since the first was reintroduced in 2008, reports VPR's John Dillon, they've taken hold: There are now 52 (including pairs that commute across the CT River, Lake Champlain, and Quebec), and they produced 64 chicks last year. "The population just keeps growing and growing,” says Doug Morin, the bird project leader at VT Fish & Wildlife. Looking for some altitude during mud season? You can still get in a good hike without heading up trails that aren't quite ready yet, reports Maleeha Syed in the Burlington Free Press. The Green Mountain Club offers plenty of tips for alternatives: the Mt. Ascutney parkway instead of climbing Killington—"long mileage, nice views, and the elevation gain that can be hard to find during mud season," they write—or a linked set of Stowe Land Trust trails that match Camel's Hump's distance. Suggested alternatives to climbing Mt. Abe, Mt. Ellen, and the Mansfield summit, as well."Tell me what you comfort eat and I’ll tell you who you love." In the international food blog Vittles, writer and psychologist Andrea Oskis "hijacks" Brillat-Savarin to make the point that the foods we crave in times like the pandemic have less to do with fat or starch or sugar and more to do with time and place and association with the people who bring us comfort. Using her Cypriot expat father as an example, she writes that whatever that food is—kimchi or soup or lamb kleftiko—it "satisfies the same appetite for connection, belongingness, security, and love that is deep inside all of us."
So...
Dartmouth is down to 3 active cases among students, with 1 among faculty/staff. There are 3 students and 2 faculty/staff in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 3 students and 7 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
Colby-Sawyer reports 3 active cases among students and 1 faculty/staff case. All told, 4 people are in isolation and 4 in quarantine.
NH reported 138 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 93,935. There were 2 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,286, while 86 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 5). The current active caseload stands at 2,717 (down 243). The state did not update its county or local data yesterday.
VT reported 35 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 22,617. Deaths remain at 244, while 22 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 1). Windsor County gained 9 new cases and stands at 1,320 for the pandemic, with 74 over the past 14 days, while Orange County added no new cases and remains at 713 cumulatively, with 73 cases in the past 14 days.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
Today at 1:45, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts a panel led by Dartmouth government prof Deborah Jordan Brooks on how "gendered meeting dynamics minimize the role of women in foreign policy and beyond." Taking off from the February comments by the (now former) head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee that women weren't included in meetings because they talk too much, the panel will look at meeting dynamics and how they result in women getting "less voice."
At 6 pm, the Connecticut River Museum, down in Essex, CT, hosts an online talk by Harvard Forest ecologist Neil Pederson, "The Memories and Lives of Old Trees and What They Can Tell Us About Climate History." "The oldest trees," he writes in the lecture description, "often have the best stories. As a person curious about trees, forests, and how they survive over time, the memories of trees, as embedded in their rings, are a great natural database to learn about history. In this lecture, I will share how we have learned to recognize and 'interview' the eldest trees in the forest. $5 for museum members, $10 otherwise.
And at 7 pm, Audubon VT and the VT Land Trust co-host "The Birders Dozen: Twelve Birds Who Need Our Woods." It will be a beginner-level exploration of the dozen forest birds for which the state's woods serve as globally important habitat—and a chance to to learn how to identify their songs and habitat needs as well as things you can do to improve their foraging and nesting habitat. No charge, but you'll need to register.
Nature's first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower;But only so an hour...
-- Robert Frost, from
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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