Daybreak Tuesday, 6/23/26

Chance of showers to start, mostly cloudy. Yesterday’s leftovers should clear out by mid-morning, though clouds will take longer. Highs today in the mid 70s, winds from the northwest. Clear skies overnight, lows mid 50s.

Mystery solved! “This is a photo taken by my wife’s new fancy Wi-Fi-connected-solar-powered-three-holer hummingbird feeder,” writes Stu Greer from Georges Mills, NH. “I got home to find our feeder on the ground and in pieces. Suspecting the usual culprit, we looked through the day’s photo gallery, which normally shows frequent Ruby-Throated visitors, and found this…”

A very user-friendly device. DB Johnson takes us back to the early days of Lost Woods, Wally’s introduction of his wireless UrthLinx, and Henry’s see-you-and-raise-you-one counter with WindoVision (plus its door-knob upgrade).

You might not notice Jacek Krol at a Nighthawks game, but you should know his story. Krol is the baseball team’s assistant coach, and in the fall he starts his masters studies at Dartmouth—while also becoming the men’s varsity baseball team’s assistant coach. As Duncan Green writes for Daybreak, baseball has been Krol’s lifeline—and family—ever since he went homeless as a teen after his mom died. And though multiple injuries made it tough for him to play, he’s emerged as a quiet, inspirational, and influential presence for the players he works with. “When Jacek speaks, people listen,” says a college coach he worked with. Duncan describes how he got there.

DH reports a deficit. For the most part, the hospital system has run in the black over the past couple of years, but according to a filing with bondholders last month, reports Clare Shanahan in the Valley News, it ran a $63.5 million deficit from October through March. Those results, Shanahan writes, were “driven by ‘weather-related closures’ in February that lowered patient revenues, along with high labor and medication costs,” according to CFO Wendy Fielding—though overall, patient revenues increased over the six months, but not by as much as expenses. DH has hired 100 providers so far this year, Shanahan reports, but has reduced its reliance on contracted labor.

SPONSORED: Mark your calendars for the Canaan Meetinghouse Reading Series! The Canaan Meetinghouse Readings brings poetry and prose to life for its 38th season this July. In a beautiful setting—the Canaan Meetinghouse, built in 1793—you can join unforgettable readings from award-winning novelists Peter Orner and Catherine Tudish; Frost Place Fellow Adam Giannelli; poet, novelist, and translator Tomás Q. Morín; and more! Thursdays July 9-23 at 7pm. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Norwich Bookstore.

A look ahead to TEDx Woodstock. In the VT Standard, Tom Ayres checks in on Saturday’s one-day event, which after three years at Billings Farm is moving to the larger audience space offered by the Town Hall Theater. With a theme of “Art is…,” this year’s gathering features renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp with the keynote, jazz and classical trumpeter Rodney Marsalis; installation artist John Ewing; craftsman Robert DuGrunier; Harlem-based Scottish artist Debbie Taylor-Kerman; local painter and storyteller Mica Celeste; and Woodstock Union HS junior Orly Agin. Ayres lays out the agenda and what’s been happening behind the scenes.

SPONSORED: July 4th Solar Sale — 20% Off Solaflect Trackers. This Independence Day, declare energy independence! With GMP rates rising 7.5 percent this fall, a Solaflect solar tracker lets you lock in your electricity costs for 20+ years — producing up to 45 percent more energy than rooftop panels. It's a smart investment for your wallet and the right one for your children's future. Sale pricing is limited. Call (802) 649-3700 or visit solaflect.com. Sponsored by Solaflect.

So let’s say you could just explore the Upper Valley. What would you do? Well, standup comic and very game video host Vicki Ferentinos has teamed up with the Vermont Standard for a new series, “The Inside Scoop.” Her first official episode takes her to Artistree in S. Pomfret, where—with the help of a patient and upbeat group of instructors—she starts out bright and early with ceramics class (not everything goes according to plan), moves on to Japanese cooking to make gyoza (“I’m better at this eating part”), tackles Afro-Cuban drumming, tries dance, theater and painting, and talks to founder Kathleen Dolan. The show’s pilot, about Bethel’s Dandelion Acres, is here.

Public phones reappear in the Upper Valley. What’s more, writes Liz Sauchelli in the VN, they’re free to use. Some of them come from Patrick Schlott’s RandTel—you may remember the Williamstown VT electronics engineer and his hobby of messing around with old phones, which now can be found serving the public outside LISTEN’s food pantry in Lebanon, the North Tunbridge General Store, the Latham Library in Thetford, and elsewhere. The Leb public libraries and the Haven have also recently installed public phones. “I really was surprised at how frequently people needed a phone,” the Lebanon Libraries’ Amy Lappin tells Sauchelli.

SPONSORED: “Raise the Roof: 40 Years Strong” with UVLT on Saturday, June 27! Upper Valley Land Trust invites everyone as we raise a beautiful new pavilion at the Ely Mountain Conservation Area in Thetford, VT. Listen in as farmers with deep Upper Valley roots swap stories on land use and conservation. Join naturalists for guided walks, family-friendly activities, and hands-on exploration. Enjoy live music and bring a picnic; we’ll provide beverages and strawberry shortcake. We know you love the Upper Valley and we do, too! There’s no admission charge. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Land Trust.

Once again, Ayotte vetoes so-called “bathroom bill.” The GOP-backed measure to “keep transgender people out of restrooms, sports teams, and other spaces in New Hampshire that align with their gender identity,” writes NH Bulletin’s William Skipworth, has passed the legislature before—and been vetoed each time by GOP Govs. Kelly Ayotte and Chris Sununu. In her veto message Friday, Ayotte wrote, “I have continued to ask the Legislature to address this issue in a thoughtful, narrow way while protecting the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters… Trying the same thing again isn’t going to get a different result.” Bill supporters say they’ll try again anyway.

“The Hieght of Stupitidy” wins Hampton sand sculpting contest. Though honestly, after looking at the gallery of sand sculptures that NHPR includes along with Dan Tuohy’s story, how on earth could anyone choose a winner from among so much talented work? Abe Waterman’s lofty sculpture survived a rainstorm, with its “AI robotic hand clutching a human skull at its top, and…people with their heads literally in the sand,” Tuohy writes. The misspellings are intentional. Meanwhile, the People’s Choice Award went to Karlis Ile of Latvia for a sculpture called “Waiting for the Sunrise.” But seriously, check them all out at the link.

Saving Walter and Gladys and Rodent and Hammerhead, native lupine all. Doris Maynard names her lupine—some of the very few natives left in Vermont. “This is our last native population,” state botanist Grace Glynn tells radio producer Erica Heilman for her new VT Public story on Doris Maynard’s flowers. “This is an actual natural population. We formerly had at least nine populations of sundial lupine in Vermont, and we've dwindled down because of habitat loss.” Glynn managed to save some of those lupine’s seeds, and she and Heilman also check out a spot in Milton where she plans to put some in the ground. “Why would we allow this species to blink out?” Glynn asks.

Telling “250 years of Vermont stories” in 50 objects. It can’t have been easy, given that the Vermont Historical Society has 30,000 artifacts in its collection. But for a new exhibit starting July 3, reports VTDigger’s Kevin O’Connor, it’s managed to narrow things down considerably. There’s a billy club from the bitter Vermont Marble Co. strike of 1935-36. An 1897 sap evaporator. The hard hat Gov. Deane Davis wore in 1970 for the state’s first Green Up Day and the cane with an embedded bullet from the 1864 St. Albans raid by 20 Confederate soldiers. The taxidermied mountain lion that’s supposedly the last shot in the state, in Barnard in 1881. And 45 more…

The Internet's #1 website about … shoelaces. There’s an expert for everything, so there had to be a Professor Shoelace. Lest you think there’s not much to know about shoelaces or lacing shoes, Melbourne’s Ian Fieggen will steer you straight. On Ian’s Shoelace Site, dig into the functional comparison of more than 100 shoe lacing methods (quick-release ladder or winter solstice, anyone?) and the 25 or so knots listed—easily outpacing sailors—every one complete with step-by-step instructions and the option of flipping it left to right. There’s a page on how to avoid jams during untying and plenty of videos. So next rainy day …

The Tuesday Crossword. A quick little kickoff for your day, from Dartmouth librarian Laura Braunstein.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
In Etna, a live reptile program with Morphs & Milestones. Sponsored by the Etna Library, staff from the nonprofit dedicated to reptiles “will bring multiple reptilian ambassadors and offer hands-on learning opportunities, like snake handling, to engage and inspire young minds.” 3 pm in Trumbull Hall.

The Thetford Arthouse Cinema screens The Florida Project. Sean Baker’s 2017 film “is a film of small notes that combine to form something major, the kind of movie that sneaks up on you and sticks with you,” wrote RogerEbert.com’s Brian Tallerico when it first came out. It focuses on kids living in a down-and-out motel on the edges of Florida’s tourist economy, and in particular Moonee, played by Brooklynn Prince, “a wide-eyed, funny, creative kid, the kind who puts a dead fish in the pool to bring it back to life.” 7 pm in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.

At the Norwich Bookstore, Deborah Lee Luskin with Into the Wilderness. Originally published in 2010 and now with a new edition, Luskin’s novel tells the story of a New York City woman who visits her son’s rural VT summer home, falls in love with the state (and, eventually, a guy)—but set in the shifting political and cultural currents of 1964 Vermont, with two vastly different characters, both born in 1900. 7 pm.

The Tuesday poem.

Wake, butterfly—
it's late, we've miles
to go together.

— by the 17th-century Japanese haiku master Bashō.

See you tomorrow.

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