GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Rain off and on all day. Plus maybe some thunder. But hey, let's just quote the weather people: Today "will be quite the wet day as we will see better jet dynamics, better upper-level support, better thermodynamics, and better shear" than yesterday. Highs today in the upper 70s, winds from the southeast, mid 60s tonight. We could put this on auto-repeat for the next few days, but where's the challenge in that?Lady's Slippers. Or to be more precise—not to mention accurate—Showy Lady's Slippers. They're out in a big way!
Here's Lisa Lacasse's photo from Eshqua Bog in Hartland.
And here's Mary Holland's post about them yesterday on her Naturally Curious blog. "Even if their classification weren’t 'imperiled' or 'vulnerable' in many eastern states, which it is, these wetland-loving orchids would still be a treasured gift to set eyes upon," she writes.
The ramp from I-91 northbound to I-89 southbound across the river is scheduled to shut down sometime before 7 am today and to reopen at 6 pm on Thursday as workers install new drainage under the ramp. Work is planned to go on regardless of the rain. The detour will take northbound traffic up I-91 to the Wilder exit (Exit 12) and then back southbound to Exit 10A on that side. Link goes to VTrans (scroll down), and includes all the road work in VT this week.
“I didn’t want to buy a pig in a poke, but I did," new Sheriff George Contois tells
VTDigger
's Ethan Weinstein, after the firm that handles audits of VT sheriffs' departments when they change hands gave up on making sense of what former Sheriff Bill Bohnyak left behind. Among other things, they report a $100K line of credit on which the department stopped making payments, a $225K building loan diverted to other purposes, and $19K in advances to former employees with no plans to get the money back.
Remember how heavy rains the weekend before last washed out roads in several Sullivan County towns? Well, on Sunday a downpour took out roads in Alexandria, NH—between Cardigan and Newfound Lake—leaving a few dozen residents stranded, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan. “There is a trench four feet deep,” resident Dan Lemaire told Sullivan yesterday. "I came down to see if I could get out to go to work today and that is not going to happen." Road crews are at work on repairs.
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."A delight for lovers of dogs and for lovers of clever art." That's how Susan Apel describes a new exhibition in the Ledyard Gallery at Hanover's Howe Library. "The Dog Days of Summer" is Dartmouth economist Marjorie Rose's show of acrylics and collages that pay homage to Warhol, the Impressionists, Klimt, and other great artists. "I won’t spoil the viewing experience by naming every artist in advance, because the discovery is part of the fun," Susan writes in her latest Artful post.This summer's Front Porch improv jazz concerts no longer on the front porch. The popular Thetford series initially put together during the pandemic by winds musician Bill Cole—and featuring a variable ensemble including Coast Jazz director Taylor Ho Bynum, tuba and trombone master Joseph Daley, sax and flute player Ras Moshe, and acoustic bassist Mali Obomsawin—will move to the Thetford Hill Congregational Church this season. Their first concert is this Saturday and, writes Li Shen in Sidenote, "the audience will be able to hear, whether they choose the chairs at the very back or the front pew."SPONSORED: Calling all horse lovers and creative spirits! High Horses Therapeutic Riding Program is hosting a poster competition in celebration of its 30th Anniversary. We're looking for a striking and visually appealing design that incorporates the name of High Horses and the theme of 30+ years. The competition will run from June 28-August 16, and the winning design will be revealed after Labor Day. The poster will be distributed throughout the Upper Valley and used for promotional materials at special events. More information at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by High Horses.A hairy-tailed mole makes an appearance. It took just a minute, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, for it to emerge, scamper across the rock it was trying to get past underground, dive back into the earth, stick its head out a second hole, then plug that hole. But there's the photo! Also out there this week in the woods: rosy maple moths, lots and lots of wood frog tadpoles "testing out tiny frog feet"; flowering raspberries; and amanita mushrooms. Whose genus is responsible for a whole lot of mushroom poisonings. "Enjoy its beauty," Elise writes, "from a distance."Pink moths, green moths, orange moths. Big ones and tiny ones. Beetles, too. All drawn by lights in different spectrums to sheets hung behind Northern Woodlands' office in Lyme last Friday night, where the magazine threw a "moth ball" with moth expert JoAnne Russo, who keeps the Vermont Moth Atlas going. Kate Taylor was there, and on her blog, The Nature of Things, she describes the event and posts a gallery of moth and caterpillar photos.“It’s a crazy time.” That’s Ryan Haac, who lives in Sharon, on the battle he’s had to wage—for six years—to wrest his hayfield back from invasive wild chervil. He explains his tactics to the VN's Frances Mize: “If you just pull it out, something’s gonna replace it.” Mike Bald, who owns the chemical-free weed-combatting company Got Weeds?, says wild chervil is notoriously opportunistic. “I have boots that are for certain locations only because I don’t want to be the one spreading stuff around," he says. “Seeds will be underneath your hat at the end of the day, even if you never took off your hat. I mean, I can’t explain that.”A "full economic development program" that also fed people. That's one consultant's take on Vermont Everyone Eats, the pandemic-era relief program that paid restaurants to make meals that were then distributed to people who needed them. In a writeup summing up the program's impact, Vital Communities reports that over two and a half years, some 320 VT restaurants used ingredients from over 270 VT farmers and food producers, producing 4 million meals. Locally, the Upper Valley version created over 200,000 meals and injected some $2 million into participating restaurants and farms.NH starts filling with GOP presidential candidates. This week alone, notes Steven Porter in the Globe's Morning Report newsletter (no paywall), five of them will be in the state, including former president Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and the newest entry, former Texas congressman Will Hurd. The reason you're not hearing much about it in these parts? None of them are getting out of the population centers. And they're mostly not bothering with face-to-face campaigning. "It’s the national stuff that drives the political debate. It’s not really what happens in New Hampshire," says UNH's Andrew Smith.Another sign of a changing climate? Amtrak service to Montreal halted. The Adirondack Line, which runs from NYC to Montreal via Saratoga Springs and Plattsburgh, is now going to end its run in Albany "until further notice," reports Seven Days' Steve Goldstein. The reason? On the other side of the border the Canadian National Railway “has implemented reduced speed regulations due to heat,” according to an Amtrak spokesman—they're holding trains to 10 mph whenever temps get above 86F. The line reopened in April after a three-year pandemic hiatus.A new waiting period for gun purchases, a tax on ciders, and other VT laws that take effect this weekend. July 1 is the traditional start date for many new laws in the state, and Vermont Public rounds up several of the changes that just popped up in the headlights. The 72-hour gun waiting period—aimed in large part at impulse purchases by people in crisis—is almost certain to get a legal challenge, they say. The cider tax adds 26.5 cents to the cost of ciders that are less than 7 percent ABV. Also: no marriages for people under 18; adoptees can now get access to VT birth certificates; and large swaths of forestland are now eligible for current use.Health care in VT prisons gets some scrutiny. And in particular, at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, which has seen 12 of the system's 16 inmate deaths over the last year and a half. That's in part because it's got more medical resources, and so houses older and sicker patients. But as VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein tells his colleague Sam Gale Rosen for "The Deeper Dig," his coverage of the death of one inmate who'd pleaded for medical attention has brought a spate of complaints from inmates and their families about buck-passing and other issues with the contractor providing medical services.What happens when you can't get child care? "I just run on, like, caffeine and adrenaline all day long." That's Brigid Vorce, an after-school art teacher in Huntington, VT, talking to VT Public intern Mae Nagusky. Vorce teaches with her 1-year-old strapped to her front, and sometimes her five-year-old son hanging out, too. On Brave Little State, Nagusky and her colleagues Josh Crane, Angela Evancie, and Myra Flynn talk to four families that are on child-care waitlists—in one case, for two years—about how they manage while also trying to work. The quick answer: juggling care and a lot of exhaustion.So, what impact will VT's new child-care law actually have? As you remember, the state's going to put more than $120 million a year into the system. While it's a lot of money, writes VTDigger's Lola Duffort, its ultimate impact remains uncertain. "This is a great downpayment on a child care system that works for parents and providers," one national expert tells her. "It is not the full investment." Subsidies will extend help to a lot more families, but it's unclear whether the new money will allow the industry to resolve its workforce problems. Duffort dives into the issues—and the open questions.The right place at the right time. Coincidence? Maybe yes, maybe no, but certainly amusing. On My Modern Met, Jessica Stewart speaks with Athens photographer Anthimos Ntagkas about capturing spontaneous street scenes created by chance. Smoke appearing to drift out of a man’s hat, pigeons strutting where a woman’s shoes would be, wall murals and passersby coming together into a streetscape. Ntagkas sees himself as the “artistic director” who makes seemingly isolated elements and people interact to get a laugh.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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This evening at 7, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover hosts two cartoonists, Natalie Norris and VT Cartoonist Laureate Tillie Walden. They'll be talking about—and launching—the first volume of Norris's Dear Mini: A Graphic Memoir. The book began as Norris's thesis project while she was studying at the Center for Cartoon Studies (she's now a librarian there); it recounts her experiences as a teenager and is told in the form of an illustrated letter to an old friend from those days.
And if you happen to be bicycling anywhere around New London, you should know that, as part of a larger effort to expand bike and pedestrian routes around town—and in particular to connect town trails to biking routes—the town and the New London Bike/Walk Coalition have installed a series of seven bike racks around town, including at the town offices, beaches, and public library. Scroll to the last page.
And the Tuesday poem...
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
— From
by Mary Oliver.
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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