GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly cloudy, slight chance of showers this afternoon. The low pressure of the last few days is taking its own sweet time leaving, but it is on the way out. Even so, today we get a more clouds than sun, highs somewhere around 70, and that slight chance of rain this afternoon. Low or mid 50s tonight.Scraping bottom. A few days ago, Mike Diehn was over near Goose Pond in Lyme/Canaan when he caught sight of the pond. Or, rather, of the pond bottom. It's been drained as dam work by the NH Dept. of Environmental Services gets underway, and as Mike writes, "walking out in there is just amazing. I've been out on other lakes drawn down like that but this one takes the cake for size and breadth and sheer blasted moonscape desolation." His photos at the link. The work, DES says, is due to be finished early next year; they'll start refilling the pond then, though the pace will depend on "meteorological conditions."Victims in Charlestown fire identified. The early morning fire last Thursday was in a mobile home on Crown Point Drive, a street of mobile homes off Old Claremont Road. Yesterday, the NH Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as Hope Schraer of Enfield, 36, and 38-year-old Allen Ballou of Royalton. Both died of smoke inhalation. The NH State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Charlestown fire and police departments are investigating the cause and origin of the fire. Here's John Lippman's report in the VN from last week.Woodstock, Springfield school districts sue VT Agency of Education over special ed. "It’s highly unusual for school districts to take legal action against the state agency that oversees them," writes Alison Novak in Seven Days, but the two districts—along with Bristol's—did just that last month. At issue are cases involving students enrolled by the districts in out-of-state therapeutic programs because of severe behavioral needs, Novak reports. After months of delay, the state turned down reimbursement requests from the districts—to the tune of $126K in Woodstock's case, $60K in Springfield's.Spurred by traffic, safety concerns, Leb City Council looks at food truck rules around Colburn Park. There are several issues, reports Patrick Adrian in the VN. If the trucks with current permits are there at the same time, parking along the south side of the park disappears. Council members are also worried about people crossing the road to get to the trucks, or standing in the roadway while they order or wait for their orders. City staff relocated two trucks to the Upper Valley Music Center side of the road to deal with the parking issue, but that's gotten pushback, too. The council's considering options.SPONSORED: Today at 5pm support Willing Hands during NH Gives. By making a gift to Willing Hands during NH Gives, your gift will be doubled! Your support makes our work reducing food waste and expanding equitable and reliable access to fresh food possible. Sponsored by Willing Hands.You really don't want to see one of these hanging from your house. That would be the bald-faced hornets' nest the Northern Woodlands crew found on a building eave. "One can admire their industry and complexity as social insects," Elise Tillinghast writes, "but that said, it’s not a good idea to let these nests develop next to a building. A mature nest can house many hundreds of bald faced hornets, and they’re tetchy." Also out there this week in the woods: a strikingly beautiful Calligripha beetle, and a whole mess of moths: At Saturday's Moth Ball, lepidopterist JoAnne Russo counted 86 species. Gallery here.At NH's Mirror Lake this year, ice-in, ice-out, ice-in, ice-out, ice-in, ice-out, ice-in, ice-out. It's the first time Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest scientists who keep track of the Tuftonboro lake have seen this, writes David Brooks in the Monitor, and though it's got curiosity value, it's also got real-world consequences. “The timing of ice-on and ice-off can play a pretty big role in setting up the way the lake works for the year," says Chris Solomon, a senior scientist at NY's Carey Institute. It can affect everything from where there's oxygen to how much weeds and algae grow.SPONSORED: The Quechee Balloon Craft and Music Festival brightens the skies over the Upper Valley this Fathers Day Weekend, June 14-16. Enjoy five scheduled flights, balloon glows Friday and Saturday evenings, and tethered rides throughout the weekend. Plus: musical performances by Bobby Sheehan, DJ Livemixkings, Fred Haas Trio, Lisa Piccirillo, The Funky Flats, Bow Thayer, and more. Skydivers, Frisbee Dogs, a Kids Zone, 80 craft and commercial vendors, 15 food trucks, and a beer and wine garden. Sponsored by the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce.“He made us better than we were, better than we could have been without him and dammit, we had a helluva time.” That was a reporter who once worked for Warren Johnston in an obit after the veteran editor, writer, and Valley News wine columnist died at DHMC in December. Johnston put in stints at eight newspapers in six different states, the VN's Jim Kenyon writes in his appreciation. He "had the rare ability to move around to different regions of the country and fit in like a native almost instantly,” long-time Tampa Tribune food writer Mary Scourtes tells him. Kenyon sketches his life in newspapering, and his work on trails and the Alliance for Vermont Communities afterward.NH Gives starts today at 5 pm. If you saw Willing Hands' sponsored post above, you know that already. The ninth annual online fundraising event lasts 24 hours, 5 pm today to 5 pm tomorrow, and this year a record 650 nonprofits are participating. Last year's version raised $3.5 million from more than 15,000 donors. As in past years, you'll find Upper Valley organizations from both sides of the river taking part. If you go to the link and put "Hanover" or "Lebanon" into the "Location" field at the top, you'll pull up dozens of Upper Valley groups you know and admire, in multiple towns. Go explore!NH Secretary of State foresees "challenges," litigation over voter ID measure if it becomes law. Talking to reporters yesterday—and, he says, to Gov. Chris Sununu before that—David Scanlan said his particular concern with the bills tightening registration and ID requirements is a proposal to create a "hotline" for local election officials to use to check a voter's citizenship status with the state. “There is no central citizenship database,” he said. One bill, without the hotline, passed the legislature with strong GOP support; the version with the hotline gets a final vote Thursday, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt.ID's aren't just an issue for NH's voters. For homeless people, they're a particular barrier. As Nashua Ink Link's Mya Blanchard sums it up (via NHPR), "Without an ID, one cannot get housing or a job. To get an ID, one needs a Social Security card and birth certificate. To get a Social Security card, one needs a birth certificate, and to get a birth certificate, one needs an ID." It can take months of back-and-forth with the SSA and the DMV to sort things out. “There’s this stigma that people who are unhoused...won’t get a job,” says one advocate. “I’m over here like, They can’t. So make it easier for us to do that.”It's not just home prices: NH rents are skyrocketing, too. In fact, writes Michael Cousineau in the Union Leader (possible paywall), rents in the state have grown an average 45 percent since the pandemic, compared to 25 percent nationally. That, at least, is what economist Ali Wolf, chief economist for the housing market research site Zonda, told a housing gathering in Portsmouth on Friday. She added that multi-family housing projects in NH are taking three and a half months longer to build than they did in 2018.Why it's so hard to find a primary care doc in Vermont. In wide-ranging conversations for VT Public's Brave Little State, Lexi Krupp dives into the question, focusing on how primary care has changed with Drs. Craig and Matt Sullivan, a father-son primary care duo in Northfield (Craig's semi-retired now). One reason: the sheer administrative burden these days, which is why, despite advanced technology and more staff, Matt sees fewer patients than his dad once did. Krupp also visits former Richmond School woodshop teacher Richie Starr in Thetford, along with that town's community nurse, Sunny Martinson.“It was kind of a thing, lifting the stone.” Sure, didn’t it happen at your house, too? Lifting stones? Big stones? Stones that weighed hundreds of pounds? Filmmaker Chris Barrett traveled to County Kerry, Ireland, with David Keohan (aka “Indiana Stones”) to talk stone-lifting with John-Joe Wharton, whose grandfather, a powerful man, was the last person known to raise a "historic” stone on their land more than 100 years ago. Back then, “it was something to do.” Keohan is helping to revive the ancient tradition, which has fallen by the wayside, and decided to give the Wharton Stone a go. And…
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film starts Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood in what was widely seen at the time as Rourke's comeback film—as an aging, beaten-down pro wrestler trying to make both a personal and professional comeback. It got Rourke an Oscar nomination. Lots of detail about what goes into make a pro wrestling match work. 7 pm in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.
The Tuesday poem...
I got out of bedon two strong legs.It might have beenotherwise. I atecereal, sweetmilk, ripe, flawlesspeach. It mighthave been otherwise.I took the dog uphillto the birch wood.All morning I didthe work I love.At noon I lay downwith my mate. It mighthave been otherwise.We ate dinner togetherat a table with silvercandlesticks. It mighthave been otherwise.I slept in a bedin a room with paintingson the walls, andplanned another dayjust like this day.But one day, I know,it will be otherwise.
— "Otherwise" by Jane Kenyon. And
, atop Bill Moyers' footage of her and her husband, poet Donald Hall, at Eagle Pond Farm in Wilmot. Kenyon was NH's poet laureate when she died in 1995, at age 57.
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!