GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Making hay... Yep, another sunny, warm day. Probably. The biggest differences from yesterday are that winds will be from the southeast and there'll be more clouds moving in as the day goes on. There's either no chance of showers in the late afternoon or there's a slight chance: The two weather offices—in Burlington and Grey, Maine—can't quite agree for these parts. It's a Weather Service smackdown! Otherwise, highs in the mid 80s, cloudy skies tonight with lows in the upper 50s, chance of showers toward morning.Look down! There's some really intriguing stuff growing down near our feet.
Like, for instance, these British Soldier Lichen in E. Thetford. "The sun over my shoulder and a big pine 50 feet or so behind gave great lighting and background," writes Tom Monego.
And these truly unusual-looking mushrooms in Hanover's Pine Park, which Catherine Latouche believes are Ganoderma lucidum—or the Reishi mushroom—in their early stages of growth.
This wasn't around here—it was over the Champlain Valley on Sunday—but still. It was a hole in a thick layer of clouds, called a
fallstreak hole or a hole-punch cloud. According to NBC5 meteorologist Ben Frechette, they form when the water temperature in the cloud is below freezing but the water hasn't actually frozen. "The gap itself is caused by the freezing of supercooled water droplets into ice crystals," which can be started "by some kind of disturbance—usually an airplane passing close to the cloud deck. As droplets freeze, they use up water vapor in the cloud, leaving behind a clear patch."
Co-op eyes closing Lyme Road market. In a letter to members yesterday, marketing director Dawn Archambault writes that the spot by the roundabout leading north out of Hanover has been a money-losing location for the grocery retailer—to the tune of $2.6 million over the years. However, the Co-op does need a new commissary for producing its prepared foods. So it's hoping to shut down the market and open a kitchen there. The problem: The site is zoned for retail only. So the Co-op has asked Hanover's zoning board for a variance that would allow the new use. It'll be a few months before any decision.In Norwich, fix to bridge leaking contaminants turns out to have had a short shelf life. The bridge over Blood Brook on Moore Lane has been a problem for years, leaching chemicals—including naphthalene—into the water below. In 2022, the town installed a $62,000 containment system to catch them. But in April, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, Peter Orner—who lives by the bridge—discovered "thick black or brown stains" once again running toward the water. Town officials are now considering next steps, which might involve replacing the bridge, town manager Brennan Duff told the selectboard.Newport scores state grants for community center, workforce housing. The new center, already under construction, will get a $1 million subsidy from NH's Community Development Finance Authority, writes Patrick O'Grady in the VN; the overall project is expected to cost $8.87 million, and the center's due to open by the end of the year. Meanwhile, InvestNH is plowing $1.12 million into 42 affordable units at a project on Spring Street and 70 units in the former Ruger mill in town. Some of that money will undergird sewer and water access fees, after the town last year agreed under duress to reduce them.SPONSORED: “I’m just going to take it one hike at a time.” After Deb Sweetland injured her knee this last winter, she wondered if she’d ever get back to the hiking she loved. But with New Hampshire grit, growing confidence, and the right support, she found herself back on track for the adventure of a lifetime to the Grand Canyon. Read how she adapted to challenges and found her strength. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.Those red foxes, always thinking ahead. This past week, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, she discovered a wild turkey egg in the woods, "tucked within a decaying tree stump and partly covered with moss and wood." Keeping Track's Suzanne Morse suggests it was probably the work of a red fox—they're "famous for caching eggs," she says. Also out there this first week of June: a painted turtle most likely on its way to lay and bury its eggs; and a hickory tussock moth, an "exceptionally pretty" moth that mostly goes unnoticed because they fly at night. Watch out for their caterpillars, though!Speaking of which, after 75 years, the browntail moth caterpillar returns to NH. Even though they were found only on the Isle of Shoals, this is worth noting because they "have poisonous fine hairs that can produce skin rashes similar to poison ivy, even when the exposure to them is airborne," the NH Forest Health Service writes in a press release (via Granite Geek, because there's a photo). They were introduced to the continent in the 1800s, spread throughout New England and Atlantic Canada, then were reduced to a small patch on the ME coast in the 1920s and '30s. Now they're spreading again.SPONSORED: Salsa! Join Artistree on Friday, June 15th at 7 pm for an exciting concert by Juan Nieves & Legado Orquestra, featuring Latin-American salsa classics and new songs. Enjoy a free salsa dance lesson from 5:45 pm to 6:30 pm, and savor handmade arepas and empanadas by Moon and Stars. Bring a chair and enjoy live music (and dancing) outside at Artistree Community Arts Center in Pomfret, VT. Sponsored by Artistree.Maybe the best first sentence ever in a story about the NH legislature: "You can continue pronouncing Concord however you like and use adhesive rodent traps, but brass knuckles remain illegal and you’ll still need a permit to adopt a kangaroo." NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins wrote that atop a piece about how "under-the-radar" bills fared this session. The bill on the correct pronunciation of "Concord" got coopted; legislators axed a move to allow brass knuckles and blackjacks; a bid to remove a permit requirement to own raccoons and skunks—and kangaroos—was also turned down. Kudos on the photo!About VT's attempt to make Big Oil pay for climate damages. It might have slipped past you last week, but with Gov. Phil Scott allowing the measure to become law without his signature, Vermont is suddenly in the forefront of state efforts to hold fossil fuel companies to financial account for weather damage. There's a really long way to go, though, as Abagael Giles reports for VT Public. Oil companies are expected to fight tooth and nail. The AG's and Treasurer's office have to figure out how to trace damage to climate change, figure out the cost, then pursue it in court. First step: a report next session.Windsor County will see a crowded state Senate primary. House races, not so much. The filing deadline for the August 13 state primary was last Thursday, and with longtime Democratic Sen. Dick McCormack retiring, the contest for the county's three Senate seats has drawn five Democrats and four Republicans, reports the VN's Patrick Adrian. Two of those Democrats—Alison Clarkson and Becca White—are incumbents. The top three vote-getters in each party will face off in November. Other legislative contests on the VT side have drawn less interest, Adrian writes, with primary candidates running unopposed.Speaking of the VT Senate, it's losing a good part of its institutional memory. With the deaths last week of Dick Mazza, who resigned in April, and Dick Sears, who'd filed for re-election, as well as the upcoming retirements of four other senators, including McCormack, the chamber is set to lose most of its longest-serving members, writes VTDigger's Sarah Mearhoff. In fact, when coupled with 2022's departures, "Come January, more than half of the chamber’s members will have two or fewer years of experience in the Senate." On the plus side: new energy. The minus: fewer mentors, less "maturity."VT biologists, wardens free black bear whose head was stuck in milk can top for weeks. Sightings of the bear with its head through the metal top—think one of those post-surgery dog cones—date back at least to May 10, reports NBC5's Jack Thurston. After a woman in the Franklin County town of Enosburg saw it, Fish & Wildlife experts set up a lure and on Saturday were able to tranquilize it and cut away the metal. Overall, says wildlife program manager David Sausville, the bear seemed healthy and decently fed. Story includes Fish & Wildlife footage—and the bear waking up and running off afterward.The continuing adventures of sea otter 841. When we last left her, 841 was enjoying her notoriety as a surfboard-chomping, authority-evading outlaw. On ExplorersWeb, Andrew Marshall has an update: She's back. She'd vanished after giving birth to a pup, but turned up at her favorite surfing beach in Santa Cruz just in time for Memorial Day. Wildlife officials have asked Mark Woodward, a Santa Cruz photographer who’s been capturing 841’s antics, to tell her fans to give her space, lest she go back to her munching ways. “Splash, yell, and gently nudge (with a paddle) if 841 climbs aboard.”Hey look! A word game! It's a one-off, though. The Washington Post (gift link) has a spelling test, sort of. They've composed sentences for most letters of the alphabet (though they diss J, Q, V, and X, Y, and Z), with misspellings of commonly misspelled words in each. Your job: identify those words. There's the occassional trick in there.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!
Today from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, Sustainable Woodstock will be on the Woodstock Green with electric mowers, edgers, and leaf blowers available. Anyone can drop by during those hours to check them out.
Starting at 6 pm, the Pie Poets—Ina Anderson, Doreen Ballard, Beverly Breen, Debby Franzoni, and Hatsy McGraw, who named themselves collectively for their first book,
Perhaps It Was the Pie
—will be celebrating the publication of their second collection,
The Party Cabinet
.
And the Tuesday poem...
All these great barns out here in the outskirts,black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.You say they look like arks after the sea’sdried up, I say they look like pirate ships,and I think of that walk in the valley whereJ said, You don’t believe in God? And I said,No. I believe in this connection we all haveto nature, to each other, to the universe.And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,its clouds in simple animal shapes we could namethough we knew they were really just clouds—disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.— "
What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use"
by current
.
Oh, and yeah. That "occassional"?
. 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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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