GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Fog to start, then sunny and warm. You never really want to say, "We deserve this weather," but... We deserve this weather. There's high pressure over the Northeast for the first part of this week, and things are peaceful and sunny out there. Highs today in the mid or upper 70s, partly cloudy skies tonight with lows in the lower 50s. Winds from the northwest.Though there are a few things all that rain's been good for. Like...
This bumper crop of morels in S. Strafford, from Jason Schumacher;
The (mostly) lush surroundings for the Civil War-era grave markers at Hartford's Maple Street Cemetery yesterday, decorated for Memorial Day by Veterans Council and American Legion members. By Mary Kay Brown.
This double rainbow over Mascoma Lake, taken from the 4A boat launch by Maureen McNulty;
And this E. Thetford rainbow, from Tom Monego, who writes: "pot of gold seems to be in Lyme."
"Having your name on a swamp doesn't seem like a good thing, does it?" Mired in Gowing's Swamp (one of Thoreau's favorite spots), Auk and Eddie ponder what ol' Gowing did to get his name on it in this week's new installment of Lost Woods. Plus: depth and leeches. Nationally known author and illustrator D.B. Johnson (Henry Hikes to Fitchburg) has revived his Lost Woods strip. Here's an easy way to catch up.Giant harvester veers off Route 5 in Hartland, plunges 100 feet down gorge; teen driver injured. 19-year-old Joseph Ferris of Braintree was part of a convoy of farm workers headed to a hay field in Hartland yesterday when he tried to make room for a car, struck a retaining wall, then veered across a section of Route 5 just past Lulls Brook and down a steep embankment. He was thrown out of the near-27-ton piece of machinery, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak, sustaining "substantial to serious" injuries. Off-duty Hartford Fire Captain Shawn Hannux happened to be behind him. “This was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen happening,” he tells Eric, who's got the story and photos.Brocklebank plots handoff. The nanobrewery deep in the Tunbridge woods is celebrating 10 years of brewing this year, and next Sunday it marks another milestone: Owners Ben and Anne Linehan take on Brooke and Billy Martin as partners with the goal of turning over the entire business to them over the next five years, writes Maryellen Apelquist in The Herald. The Martins chose VT to settle in after stints in the Navy (Brooke) and Marines (Billy); they've become Brocklebank's "most regular regulars," Ben tells Apelquist. "It feels like you just get to go and hang out with your friends two days a week," says Brooke.NH denies Claremont waste recycling permit. The highly controversial request by Recycling Service, owned by MA-based Acuity, would have meant 500 tons a day of construction and emolition debris entering its facility, notes Patrick Adrian in the Valley News. In a letter explaining the decision, the head of NH's Waste Management Division wrote last week that the proposed 48 trucks a day entering the facility "would cause a total of up to about 192 obstructions of traffic in the road each operating day."SPONSORED: OH CANADA! Journey north with Cantabile Women's Voices. It's a trip through music and time as the chorus explores the wild wonders of Canada. Experience the beauty of the great northern wilderness, rich culture, and colorful history of our northern neighbors. The program features works by contemporary Canadian composers, including Donald Patriquin. At the Congregational Churches: Saturday, May 31 in Norwich, and Sunday, June 1 in Lebanon, both at 4pm. Details at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Cantabile.Some excellent summer news: E. Thetford's Red Clover is adding maple creemees. Susan Apel buries the lede in her writeup about her rainy-Saturday excursion, but doesn't stint on the praise. She admires the freshness of the food at the Red Clover Café and Creamery, along with its variety, broccoli slaw, the friendly atmosphere created by owners Janet and Tom Call—and then breaks the maple creemee news. Then she heads up the road to Norwich's Honey Field Farm, and then to Hanover to check out the alley next to Ledyard Bank that will become an open-air events space.Hartford pushes back school demolition plans. As you know, the school district had been talking about tearing down about 60 percent of the high school and adjoining career and tech center because of PCB contamination. But after school and state officials met to talk next steps, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, the district is extending the timeline "a little," in the words of facilities director Jonathan Garthwaite, while it further investigates the contamination, decides how best to deal with it in a way that's acceptable to the school board, and then—potentially—seeks public input.SPONSORED: Wm. Smith presents a Memorial Day live auction tomorrow, May 28! This sale offers over 1,000 curated lots of fine antiques, art, estate jewelry, silver, Oriental carpets, and vintage automobiles, along with designers such as Hans Wegner, Niels Otto Moller, Judith Brown, and Adrian Pearsall. It features the contents of an exceptional Greenwich, CT estate, one of the few surviving grand Arts and Crafts homes in CT's Fairfield County. Auction begins tomorrow at 10 am with both online and in-house bidding. Previews today, 10 am to 4 pm. View lots and place bids here. Sponsored by Wm. Smith Auctions.In case you were wondering: Yep, people were speeding on NH highways on Memorial Day. In fact, the NH State Police report, a 22-year-old MA guy in a white Corvette hit speeds of about 140 mph on I-93—"across all lanes of traffic"—before he was pulled over and busted in Windham. In all, the NHSP report, an airborne trooper logged 111 violations, including "excessive speed, cell phone use, following too closely, 'Move Over' law violations, and reckless driving. 42 drivers were observed traveling at 90 mph or faster, and six drivers were observed driving recklessly at 100 mph or faster."The average annual sales price nationwide for one cancer drug is $1,357. At UVM Med Center, it's $95,000. That eye-popping difference is unusually extreme, but on average, reports VTDigger's Peter D'Auria, the cost of outpatient pharmaceuticals in VT is five times what manufacturers charge—the highest markup in the country. Legislators are taking note—"How is this not price-gouging?" the chair of the House health committee asked last week. That committee passed a measure to cap drug costs, which is now part of a larger drug-pricing bill that's heading to the Senate."There’s a bunch of people in the world...that wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that night at the barn dance." The earliest mention of a community dance in Vermont was for a "kitchen tunk" in 1868, writes Kate Lewton in her entertaining history of tunks, dawn dances (you danced all night), and barn dances for UVM's Community News Service. She talks to people who remember the old barn dances—"to go off to a dance was pretty special," recalls one, given how much time was spent on the farm—and notes a resurgence, both of barn dances, contra dances, and more."Pro tip: Do not point a microphone at a dog, especially not a 170-pound English Mastiff named Potato." Okay, that actually has nothing to do with the subject of Josh Crane's latest Brave Little State episode, which dives into widespread frustration with VT's annual car inspection requirement. Potato's the shop dog (w/pic) for an auto mechanic in Burlington, one of the people Josh checks in with for his engaging piece: that mechanic, for instance, agrees that some shops happily run up your inspection bill, and that the state's rules are too open to interpretation. On, say, rust. Which, with road salt, comes up a lot.The Monday jigsaw on Tuesday. "This photo shows the newly built Hartford Grammar School in 1907, replacing the original wooden structure that once housed The Hartford Academy," writes the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross. "It remained in use as a school until 1993, when Dothan Brook School was constructed. The building still stands at 49 School Street in Hartford Village, seen just as you turn north on Christian Street from Route 14." Here's the original image.
The Tuesday Wordbreak. With a word from an article that happens to be in today's Daybreak. though the word itself is not.
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Geza Tatrallyay at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, with The Purple School Bus Murders.
In the middle of a deep Vermont winter, a lone walker discovers a body in an abandoned school bus, and the trail leads, eventually, to a Russian paramilitary outfit... Tatrallyay, a poet, memoirist, and nonfiction writer who divides his time between Woodstock and SF, will read from and talk about his first mystery novel. 6 pm.
The Tuesday poem.
In the end, my father couldn’traise his arm to feed himself.Couldn’t sit. Could barely openhis eyes. But damn, could he love.He still could curl his thickfingers around my hand.Could still say my name.And though I had never knowna moment when I was not surethis man loved me, in those last daysI knew it more. Somehow, barelyable to speak, he drenched mein his devotion. In those last days,all was reduced to love. Or was itall was expanded to love? Eitherway. Somehow I hadn’t knownhow love can take over a body.A life. The purity of it. The gift.
— "Last Days" 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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