Daybreak Tuesday 5/19/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

And hey: Good sleeping weather! Things are going to get so boring around here for the next few days. Sunny, temps in the mid-60s or higher today, 70s tomorrow and Thursday... There'll be wide swings between day and night, though, with lows getting down into the 30s tonight, possibly some frost in isolated spots. Still, it's very hard to find anything to complain about, so let's not even try.No wonder the little guy's looking bedraggled. Within 24 hours of hatching, Mary Holland writes in her latest Naturally Curious post, Hooded Merganser ducklings have hurled themselves out of the nest (in a tree cavity) and are swimming, diving, and feeding on diving beetles, water boatmen, and other aquatic invertebrates. Mom, meanwhile, paddles sedately and regally ahead.Sticking around home has some benefits: You get to see when nature comes to you. Steven Atkins counted 27 different birds in his Hanover back yard over the weekend, including indigo buntings and rose-breasted grosbeaks. Oh, right: And recently, this ma bear and her two-year-old cubs.Let's catch up a little.

Pandemic lockdown? Try two months underwater in a submarine when no one, not even the Navy, knows where you are. Tom Gillen was a crew member on the USS Snook, an early nuclear sub that patrolled the western Pacific in the mid-1960s. He's retired these days and the lockdown's brought back a series of memories from his time underwater. He jotted them down and sent them in to Daybreak. Two points: food matters, so be grateful you're not eating instant potatoes at every meal; and remember that there are still men and women out there facing long stretches of enforced isolation (and MREs).Dartmouth creates $20 million scholarship fund for increased student needs over next two years. That's on top of $120 million already budgeted for the upcoming year. But on Friday, president Phil Hanlon said the college had seen a "surging number of appeals" from students' families in the last two months, and expects it will need an additional $8-10 million per year to meet needs. It also plans to raise the family-income threshold for full-tuition scholarships from $100K to $125K.

King Arthur instructors pass the 5,000-loaf mark for those in need. With their baking school no longer holding classes, KAF's baking instructors took on a new task in late March: making bread for food shelves and other organizations that need fresh loaves. Yesterday, they topped 5,000 (even better: they hit 5,019). All baked, sliced, bagged, and then either delivered or picked up. The project "has been a 'silver lining'" for those involved, says Amber Eisler, the baking school manager. "It's given us a real sense of purpose and satisfaction during these trying times." Letter to Daybreak at the link."The State Emergency Operations Center is working to provide porta-potty support, in addition to providing bottled water for those in line." The Abbey Group, which is coordinating the emergency food distribution effort around VT, learned some things from last Friday's event at the state airport in Berlin. Ahead of Thursday's distribution at Thetford Academy, it's got an update on plans, including adding signage and traffic control. "We ask that you keep in mind that this program is entirely new due to COVID-19’s impact on all of us," they write. (Facebook)"The reality of playing in the dirt is ahead of me. The anticipation is so much fun." That's Norwich's Jacqueline Springwater, who's participating in a community-wide "Victory Garden" effort in the town. It's organized by resident Melissa Scanlan and a group of volunteers who've obtained topsoil and are advising new gardeners, a carpenter who's made raised beds, and Dan & Whit's, which has helped distribute it all. Meanwhile, Lyme gardeners are donating excess produce to Willing Hands, and Woodstock gardeners have taken to Zoom to offer advice. The VN's Nora Doyle-Burr rounds it all up.Ice cream spots start to open. There's a crowd-sourced list growing in the Upper Valley VT/NH Facebook group: Twice on Sundae on the Leb Mall, of course, since it's open year-round; Ava's in WRJ; Gladstone Creamery in Fairlee opened over the weekend; Dan & Whit's ice cream window just opened; Mickey's in Enfield; the White Cottage in Woodstock. And it looks like Leb's Dairy Twirl is getting ready. No word yet on Fore-U.“You guys are part of history!" That's how bar-band rocker Tim Theriault welcomed the drive-in concert crowd to Tupelo Music Hall in Derry on Saturday. "Elsewhere in America, recent days had seen armed protesters storming state houses, a nasty argument outside a Waffle Shop and, in Arkansas, officials blocking a Travis McCready gig," writes The Washington Post. "There was no noticeable tension in Derry, where town leaders blessed what was thought to be the first, post-coronavirus sanctioned concert in the country." The food? Delivered by golf cart.

As rent delinquencies rise, NH housing advocates worry about eviction crisis. Though there's a moratorium on rent evictions and mortgage foreclosures, that will end, they warn. “There are a growing number of renters who have the inability to pay,” Elissa Margolin, director of Housing Action NH, told the legislative advisory board to the governor's emergency relief task force yesterday. “There is going to be a pent-up demand for evictions from property owners as we approach the end of the moratorium.” They're proposing a short-term rental assistance program.Faced with state budget shortfall, will NH change its tax structure? As NH Business Review's Bob Sanders writes, "There is no expiration date for the coronavirus, and economic hardship is likely to continue for many months. Tax revenues aren’t done falling. New Hampshire will need to patch a hole in the budget." He runs down the major options: higher tobacco taxes; a business-tax rate increase; a capital gains tax; legalizing marijuana sales; a road usage fee.Among NH recipients of federal relief money: Sununu allies. NHPR digs into several no-bid contracts that the NH guv put on the Executive Council's agenda this week—though the Council has no say over the spending. The Capital Hotel Company, owned by former state GOP chair Steve Duprey, is getting $453K for housing the state's Covid-19 operations center. Duprey says he had "no contact with anyone in government about this." Two contracts involve Convenient MD, owned by a Sununu benefactor. "Let me tell you about Clinton County, NY." That was VT health commissioner Mark Levine at a press conference yesterday, pointing out that the county just across Lake Champlain had been following 46 people who'd come in contact with Covid patients. Over the weekend, 9 new people tested positive, so the county had to add 27 more who came in contact with them at parties. That, Levine said, is why despite Vermont's low case numbers, social distancing, masks, and hand-washing continue to matter. At the same briefing, Gov. Phil Scott said he'll announce a new economic package Wednesday, but gave no details.Judge forces VT gym owner who defied closure orders to close. The ruling on Friday, which came shortly after Attorney General TJ Donovan filed a civil lawsuit, involves Club Fitness gyms owned by Sean Manovill in Rutland and Castleton, which he opened on May 1. “The vast majority of Vermonters have done the right thing," Donovan said in a press release. "It’s not fair to them or other businesses to let Mr. Manovill openly violate the order.” "I'm a fitness guy, man," Manovill tells Seven Days. "I think health and wellness — other than faith and family — is the most important thing we all have to have.""Still don't use slower friends as bear bait." That's none other than the National Park Service on one of a new gallery of social distancing posters it's created for park behavior—both with animals and people. In cool retro graphics and with a tinge of humor amidst admonitions updated for the pandemic era, it's got a whole set of them. Six feet from people, 300 feet from bear and moose, don't wave at buffalo... 

Young quaking aspen is leafing out, three-leaved goldthread is starting to bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit are everywhere... and fox kits are out and about. It's the third week of May, and Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast has her weekly rundown of what to look for out in the woods right now. Violets are going mad, male goldfinches are bedecked... Oh, and also, sweetgale, which is sometimes used in brewing beer and ales as part of a combination of herbs known as gruit. Just a heads up: The I-93 to I-89 northbound ramp will be closed again on Thursday. NHDOT contractors will be doing final paving of a drainage repair trench that crosses the ramp, carrying an unnamed stream under I-93. The ramp will be closed from 9 am to 2 pm, and they'll be detouring traffic onto 3A south, then over to 89.Ransomware attack shuts down VT Legal Aid's computer system. The attack, which locked all the organization's data, took place May 10, VTDigger reports, and affected the network linking Legal Aid offices in Rutland, Montpelier, Springfield, Burlington and St. J. It looks like no client data was compromised, but it'll be weeks before everything's running again. "Look at the size of this Lexus... Such a futuristic-looking design, but still needs to do a 27-point turn to change direction." Among the little sleeper hits to emerge in the past few months is "Ogmios School of Zen Motoring," a set (well, two so far) of dashboard-cam drives through London narrated with calm wit by British rapper Ogmios. He collected the footage in February and March, sets the tour to music by the volume settings folder—an Italian ambient soundscape artist—then lays down his north London-accented  commentary on what he sees. And you get to see what it looks like to drive on the left. 

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