GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Chance of sprinkles, then cloudy. There's a front developing across the region this morning that's going to bring a small chance of light showers until about 9 and then keep temps on the cooler side. We'll see clouds much if not all of the day, with highs only into the lower 70s. Calm tonight, lows in the 50s.Talk about high drama... Bob Wagner, who's a member of the Quechee Area Camera Club, was in Randolph on Friday as stormy weather was coming in, and managed to catch the Whales' Tails as the skies were darkening and the waning sunlight brushed the sculpture.
But let's talk numbers for a moment...
NH announced 37 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its total reported cases to 5,079. Of those, 3,392 (67%) have recovered and 286 have died (no change), yielding a total current caseload of 1,401. The state added 1,535 tests yesterday. Grafton County remains at 76 cumulative cases and Sullivan at 20. Merrimack County is at 375 (up 3). No changes locally: Lebanon remains at 6 current cases, and Plainfield, Enfield, Claremont, Charlestown, Newbury, and New London at between 1 and 4.
VT reported 12 new cases yesterday, most of them in Chittenden County, bringing its total to 1,075 with 895 people recovered (up 5). One case is hospitalized, and deaths remain at 55. Windsor and Orange counties held steady at 55 and 9, respectively. The state added 1,580 tests; it's now done 42,798 altogether.
Dartmouth creates fellowship to honor Dave Bucci. The fellowship, in honor of the neuroscience chair who took his own life last October, will let up to 16 seniors spend the year preparing for the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting by bringing themselves up to date on the field's cutting-edge topics. It formalizes a course Bucci taught each year. “There are a handful of very special faculty members at Dartmouth,” former board chair Bill Helman, who endowed the fellowship, told the VN yesterday. “Dave Bucci was one of those.”
Rivendell to try again. In the wake of last month's defeat by voters of the school district budget, the Rivendell board has cut $500,000 from their original $12 million proposal and will ask voters' approval later this month. The reductions include money for support staffers, a part-time maintenance worker, a high school behavior coach, the district's summer and after-school programs, and books and supplies. Voting will largely be by absentee ballot, though there will be limited in-person voting on June 30. (VN, sub reqd)"Approach the turtle from behind and keep your hands low." Here we are, it's the second week in June, and Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast writes that lots of turtles are crossing roads these days, including snappers; she includes a link that tells you how to move them safely. Also out there now: pink-footed millipedes (they can grow to four inches), swamp beacon fungus, blue-eyed grass, and Herb Robert, which she says is "a member in good standing of the northern woods" but out west has a different reputation, summed up by its common name: Stinky Bob.And hey, speaking of turtles: painted turtles are laying their eggs now. Mary Holland writes that nesting activity peaks this month and early in July, when females dig holes in which they deposit up to 15 eggs. They then tamp down the earth "so effectively it’s hard to detect that the ground has been disturbed." The eggs will hatch in August or September.SPONSORED: Three! 3 year-round houses, 3 ponds, a 3-car garage, 3 decks, 3 dry basements... plus 42 acres of largely open pastureland. For the last 50 years, Rugg Haven in E. Corinth has been in the hands of a single family, an unusual three-home respite and haven just a few miles from I-91. Now they've put it up for sale, and for the creative the options are endless. Co-housing with friends? Spiritual retreat? Agricultural? Drone footage and a basic overview at the link. Sponsored by John Chapin and the Occom Group. So... Was that a tornado in Claremont over the weekend? I won't milk the suspense: WMUR meteorologist Hayley LaPoint says she doesn't think so. Radar from that time shows no rotation. "I believe you are looking at scud," she writes on her FB page, "which is a cloud that forms below cumulonimbus clouds. They can sometimes be mistaken for tornadoes." When you see the pic, you'll get why people were asking. Trying to decide on summer camp for your kids? UNH Extension has created a tip sheet for parents on factors to consider. In particular, they have a list of questions you might want to ask—and answers you might want to listen for—on everything from guidelines they're using for pre-camp planning to specifics on how they'll minimize the risk of transmission to how they intend to change daily routines (like, you want to hear there'll be head-to-toe bunks) to how they'll handle illnesses at camp. Covid death rates in NH vary for whites, blacks, Latinos. But not quite as you might imagine. Latinos make up almost 10 percent of confirmed cases and only 3.9 percent of the state, while black people account for 6.6 percent of cases and 1.4 percent of the population. But about 6 percent of whites who got the disease have died, compared to 2.5 percent of blacks and 2 percent of Latinos. Probably, the Monitor's David Brooks speculates, because whites are older, on average. NH towns shy from face-covering orders. Only one, Nashua, has actually passed an ordinance requiring them of both business employees and customers; it was sued six days later for violating residents' constitutional rights. Durham "requests" that "all residents, visitors, business employees, and passersby" wear face coverings, while Portsmouth is considering "respectfully" advising it. Even that might be too much for Mayor Rick Becksted, who worries "that people challenging any request to wear masks might begin a confrontation and potentially get the police involved, and that visitors might come into the city to attempt testing those boundaries and risk the spread of infection."On the other hand, you'll want to bring your face masks if you go to these places in Vermont... They're required in restaurants and retail establishments in Burlington, Brattleboro, Montpelier, and Wilmington, the Free Press reports, and encouraged in S. Burlington.VT's outbreak in Winooski spreads. All together, health commissioner Mark Levine said at his press conference yesterday, 62 cases in the state have been linked to the cluster, 48 of them in Winooski, nine in Burlington, and five elsewhere. State epidemiologist Patsy Kelso said the state believes it's better prepared to keep a handle on this than when the outbreak first occurred. “We understand where they’re coming from, and we have capacity to do testing and contact tracing to make sure we’re continuing to box it in,” she said.Sports can start up in Vermont next week, but no spitting allowed. At his press conference yesterday, Gov. Phil Scott said that recreational teams in "low-contact" sports like soccer, baseball, softball, or lacrosse can begin practicing again, and games may start up July 1. Spitting and sharing water bottles won't be allowed, and all players, coaches and spectators must have a face covering to be used when physical distancing can't be maintained. “I truly understand how difficult this will be,” Scott said. Of all things, a new print publication surfaces in Vermont. It's the Vermont Almanac, the first issue of which will come out in December. It's a project of the team that helped create Northern Woodlands, and will chronicle both the year that passed and the people "who are preserving and pioneering a rural way of life in an increasingly urbanized culture." They've already been posting "dispatches"—snow in mid-May, an encounter with an albino chipmunk, why you don't want to cook wild turkey the way you'd roast a farm-raised bird...Can you express sound with visuals? The senses don't translate well, one to another. But French animator Bastien Dupriez set out to create "a kind of visual transcription" of George Gershwin's Liza, and you know what? It works. As Aeon puts it, "The resulting effect is of visuals built to accompany and respond to the mood of the music, rather than the much more familiar inverse experience." But words about it are not the point. Go watch. It's just two minutes.
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NH Gives starts today at 6 pm. During the 24 hours that follow, NH Charitable Foundation will match up to $250,000 in donations (of up to $1,000) to participating New Hampshire charities. Even more striking for locals, the BioXCell Fund is matching up to an additional $10,000 for gifts to participating Upper Valley organizations: in other words, triple your impact.
The Tunbridge Public Library has just put together a "story walk" around the fairgrounds, offering a chance to get outside and read The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend. Despite what it says at the link, it's a daytime/anytime thing.
And today at 3, the Norwich Public Library is streaming an '80s listening party with a playlist inspired by We Ride Upon Sticks, Quan Barry's new witchcraft/high-school-field-hockey novel—which, as NPR pointed out, "isn't really for teenagers, unless they are unusually self-mythologizing teenagers. It is for the kind of adults who watch Stranger Things and still have, somewhere, an athletic award inscribed on a paper plate."
And then at 7 pm, the Howe is holding a Zoom "community chat" on the theme of "What are you making?" "Baking, cooking, drawing, etching, knitting, crocheting, painting, sculpture art, sewing, quilting, embroidery, scrapbooking, woodworking, collage, paper crafts, watercolors...whatever you create we want to see it!"
Meanwhile, one of the cool little things about this odd time is that you can go to readings sponsored by bookstores that aren't close to where you live. So, today at 5, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT will be hosting science writer Wendy Williams talking about her new book,The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World's Favorite Insect. Tickets are available at the link, on a pay-what-you-can basis.
Finally, there's a new business in town. Now that its first shipment of electric bikes has arrived, Vermont Bike & Brew has opened for business in Thetford. It's an e-bike rental, sales, and tour business—this year, the tours are self-guided only, with stops at craft breweries, cafés (any that are open), farm stands, and scoop shops for Maple Cremees. "I'm aiming to give my guests a backroads tour of our beautiful state and a front row seat to enjoy our local culture," writes founder Jonas Cole, who's running it out of the house he grew up in on Academy Road, though all bikes are delivered to the customer at their home, trailheads, or just about any public place.
Reading Deeper
The NYT asked 511 epidemiologists when they expect to do a range of everyday things again, and though they're careful to say the answers "are not guidelines for the public," they're certainly intriguing. Most, for instance, will start bringing in the mail without precautions this summer, and would also vacation overnight within driving distance. A plurality, though, are going to wait 3 months to a year to hike or picnic outside with friends. And it's going to be at least a year before almost 2/3 of them attend a sporting event, concert, or play.
Spring has come again. The Earth
is like a child who's memorized poems:
many, Oh, many. For the hard work
of her long learning she gets this prize.
Her teacher was strict. We liked the snowy
beard on the old man. Now
we can ask about the blues and greens,
and she knows every name!
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Sonnets to Orpheus," translated by Michael Lipson.
(Thanks, ML!)
See you tomorrow.
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