A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Remember how just last week there was frost? And today's going to be the cool day of the work week, with temps in the upper 70s or maybe 80. Winds from the south, and with high pressure overhead there'll be lots of sunshine—although there's smoke from fires in Nova Scotia making its way into the region later today or tonight. Otherwise, clear tonight, low in the upper 40s.Hey look! Someone just saved us a ton of work! You've gotta figure that's what this hairy woodpecker's thinking after discovering Anna Mazur's hummingbird feeder in Canaan, right?"It’s going to be a great loss.” That's Raelene Lemery lamenting the closing of S. Royalton's 108 Chelsea Station, the diner Kristen Strong ran for over 30 years. In the VN, Justin Campfield notes it's just one in a spate of Upper Valley eateries shutting their doors—Piecemeal Pies, of course, and in Lyme, Latham House Tavern shut down last week, while Sandy's Drive In in Sharon won't be opening for the summer season after a fire last year. Strong was the only restaurant owner who talked to Campfield, but the VT Chamber's Amy Spear notes restaurants have been grappling with labor shortages and rising costs.Dartmouth team at Winnipesaukee finds 8,000-year-old arrowheads, but "We have to be out of here before tourist season.” That was archeology prof Jesse Casana last week explaining why his team of students was rushing to finish up its work and put the grass back on a patch of lawn by Weirs Beach: “The most popular place for picnicking on the beach is right on this grass." Working from a radar survey it had taken back in December, writes Jon Decker in the Laconia Daily Sun, the team had hoped to reach an intact 10,000-year-old layer, uncontaminated by work on a parking lot project a few decades ago.Ompompanoosuc trails upstream of the Union Village Dam come in for scrutiny. The land in the floodplain controlled by the Army Corps and its surroundings is home to a rich ecosystem, writes Li Shen in Sidenote: beavers and otters, bobcat and fishers, wetlands and vernal pools, nut and fruit trees that feed wildlife and migrating birds. It's also been home for decades to a network of trails, some legit, some rogue, that are increasingly subject to erosion and "are starting to threaten valuable natural resources," Li writes. She digs into a new report and its suggestions for reducing their impact.SPONSORED: It's time to Jumble! Join us for bargains galore at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church Jumble Sale on Saturday, June 3rd, 8am-2pm at 9 West Wheelock Street in Hanover. Don’t miss this giant tag sale with live music, lawn games, FREE ice cream, and, of course, books, jewelry, clothing, sports gear, housewares, and lots more. Proceeds benefit those in need, in the Upper Valley and around the world. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.Dartmouth sophomore is suspect in robbery at gunpoint of Colorado armored truck. In case you missed this over the weekend, the VN's John Lippman reported Friday night that Ahmir Braxton, who's on the football team, is a suspect in two robberies: of $83,000 Feb. 21 as a technician was working on an ATM in Colorado Springs, and of $150,000 from a Loomis security guard as he was refilling an ATM on Feb. 24. A police affidavit that "reads like a Hollywood movie," Lippman writes, says an investigator traced one of the getaway vehicles to Braxton. He's being held in Grafton County jail.“I think it’s very cool they’ve got the guts to try to do this the old-fashioned way." That's farmer David Frary, who last year used his equipment to help the East Barnard Linen Project get the earth ready for planting flax seed. This time, the plowing was done by Skip and Buck, a team of oxen led by Frary's son-in-law, Mark Whitney. It's the project's second year, and as Jo Levasseur writes in the Herald, the oxen recently "put in a hard day’s work plowing up a plot that hadn’t been turned for about 30 years." Harvest will be in late August, and the second-ever E. Barnard Linen Fair in early September.Intrigued by Bookstock but need someone to make sense of it for you? In Artful, Susan Apel's just done that, looking ahead to the June 23-25 celebration in Woodstock of books, poetry, and "other narrative arts." There are big names (Andy Borowitz, USA Today's Susan Page with VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak, rapper Speech Thomas), the UV's Jeff Sharlet on the red/blue divide, Sarah Stewart Taylor on true crime, Emily Bernard and Peter Orner on opening up one's life in print—and an array of cool conversations, from Joni B. Cole giving a mini masterclass on writing to JAM's Samantha Davidson Green talking film in VT with filmmaker Jay Craven and film historian Rick Winston.SPONSORED: Get back to it. All of it. Feeling better isn’t just about minimizing pain. It’s about getting back to what you love. Family outings. Long walks. Home improvement projects. Dartmouth Health is here to help you get back to all of that and more. We offer the most advanced, personalized treatment plans developed by providers you can trust. Some patients may even be able to go home the same day as their surgery. Wherever you are, Dartmouth Health’s expert orthopaedic care is there for you. Make an appointment and get back to it. Sponsored by Dartmouth Health.You think that giant millipede you found in your basement is freaky? What about the nine-foot version that existed hundreds of millions of years ago? In fact, Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast writes, millipedes—which, unlike centipedes, are harmless herbivores—"are one of, if not the, first creatures to walk on the land and breathe air, with a lineage going back over 420 million years." They're also out and about in the woods (and basements) right now, along with the hard-to-see blackburnian warbler, starflowers, and pink lady's slippers. Though these last don't seem to be having a good year, Elise notes.In VT, Scott vetoes budget. The move on Saturday capped a back-and-forth with legislators over the cost of everything from a $130 million bid to upgrade the state's child care system to new DMV fees at a time, Scott said, when Vermonters face a drop in the federal largesse that's funded programs the last few years. In the veto's wake, reports Seven Days' Kevin McCallum, Democratic House Speaker Jill Krowinski asked Scott to declare a state of emergency to deal with the pending eviction of some 2,800 Vermonters housed in motels. The legislature meets June 21 to consider veto overrides.What if you could just print out a solar panel? Or, technically, a thin photovoltaic film that acts as a solar panel? That's what a UVM-based startup called Verde Technologies is working on, and as Fred Thys explains in VTDigger, it's aiming to create a lighter, more efficient approach to generating solar power than existing panels can provide. The solar film it's working on could be "applied to pretty much anything from rooftops to aircraft," Thys writes, generating power "without taking up the large areas needed for panels currently on the market." It hopes to be able to test with customers in 2025.“It’s impossible to see a tree like this and not have it change your heart." That's VT State Parks' Rebecca Roy talking about a 100-foot-tall Eastern hemlock that’s estimated to be between 300 and 400 years old. On her Happy Vermont blog, Erica Houskeeper visits Roy and, more importantly, Gifford Woods State Park in Killington, which contains one of Vermont’s few remaining old-growth forests. Clear-cutting in the 1800s changed the composition of the state's forests for good, Houskeeper writes, as trees like beech—once 60 percent of the forest in some areas—dwindled, and maples seized the day.The earth shakes: Subarus aren't VT's most popular vehicle. They're not even in second, writes Wendy Johnson in MotorBiscuit: That spot goes to the Toyota RAV4. In fact, the only Subaru on Edmunds' list of top-selling vehicles by state for 2022 is the Crosstrek, at #4. The top seller? Ford's F-Series pickups, which also take the honors in Maine. In NH, the top two spots are reversed: The RAV4 comes in first, the F-Series in second. Here's Edmunds' state-by-state list. (h/t to Seven Days' Daily 7 newsletter for noticing.)
“This is why, finally, one goes to museums: for the chance to learn to see again, to see beauty, to see trouble.” The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has mounted the largest exhibit of Vermeers ever. In the NYT Mag (gift link), Teju Cole writes about a Vermeer that fascinated him as a child—but, disliking the frenzy around the exhibition, was going to give it a pass. (“How many of our best encounters with art have happened in a minor museum on a quiet day?”) Through good fortune and friendship, he was offered an after-hours tour, and in his essay about seeing deep into a painting, finds Vermeer’s world “poetic and lyrical, but...also fractured, vulnerable, isolated and anxious.”211. Here's guessing Malaysia's Thinaah Muralitharan and Pearly Tan and Japan's Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto aren't household names in your house. But they may just have set a new world record for the longest badminton rally ever, with 211 shots—fakes, feints, slams, lobs, dives—at the Malaysian Masters tournament. You watch the first, oh, 50 or so and think, "Yeah, that's a good rally"... and then it just keeps getting better and better. That's the Malaysians in blue, the Japanese with their backs to the camera.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word, believe it or not, from today's Daybreak.
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At 6 pm, the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock hosts Rhode Island-based author and Empire State College teacher Connelly Akstens, reading from and talking about Without Shame: Learning to Be Me—acollection of essays about about her experiences being transgender, as well as about the Cambridge music scene in the ‘60s, Woodstock in the ‘70s, her years as an Adirondack fly fishing guide, and more.
And this evening at 6:30, the Tracy Memorial Library in New London hosts local writer Susan Lynch reading from and talking about her book, Life After Kevin: A Mother's Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way—her memoir about losing a son to an accidental overdose, dealing with its aftermath, and how her dogs Manny and Tripp "show[ed] me ways to engage with my grief, find grace, and keep going."s
The Tuesday poem.
A beestaggers out of the peony.
— by Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694. Translated by Robert Hass.
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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