GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A note about the schedule: Daybreak will publish through Thursday this week, then be off for its annual summer break from this Friday through Friday, Aug. 14. Back with CoffeeBreak on Monday, Aug. 17. Each Monday while I’m gone, you’ll get a “Week Ahead” email with a quick rundown of that week’s events.
Mostly cloudy, showers, possible thunderstorms later. There’s low pressure tracking well to the north, which will bring us mostly clouds today, with a chance of showers starting up later this morning and a near certainty by this evening. Thunderstorms may also develop this afternoon. Wildfire smoke will likely be back as well, but not until late at night, and it won’t be anything like last week. Highs today in the mid or upper 70s, gusty winds from the south, lows tonight around 60.
Is that a knowing smile? A gray fox hanging out in Hugh Mellert’s yard in North Hanover. “We have seen this fox for a few years. Even caught him climbing the apple tree one day,” Hugh writes.
Plowing the pond. Whew, DB Johnson packs a lot into this week’s Lost Woods: metaphors, why rowing a boat is like being a farmer, Henry’s theory of work, Wally’s reaction to Henry’s theory of work... (Oh, and if you follow Lost Woods, Daybreak’s Aug. 18 issue will carry the weeks you missed during the upcoming Daybreak break).
Montpelier woman tries to disarm Lebanon police officer in Mechanic St. traffic incident. Police were alerted Saturday afternoon after the 39-year-old woman stopped her car in the middle of the road, near Slayton Hill, yelling at passing motorists and anyone stopping to offer help. Officers found her trying to refuel her car from a gas can. When she got back in her car despite repeated commands not to, and when they pulled her from the car to arrest her, she struggled, ultimately grabbing an officer’s holstered firearm and trying unsuccessfully to remove it. “This incident serves as a stark reminder of how quickly what appears to be a routine call can become an extremely dangerous and unpredictable situation,” Chief Phil Roberts says in the press release at the link.
Twin Pines Housing director to retire. Andrew Winter, who has led the affordable housing nonprofit since 2012, will step down once the organization’s board hires a successor, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News. As its longest-serving executive director, Winter has reshaped Twin Pines, Sauchelli writes: It had eight employees in 2012; it now has 30. The number of housing units it’s created has grown from 200 homes to 665 apartments and 71 shared-equity homes. In all, it owns 118 affordable housing units in Hanover, 300 in Hartford, 200 in Lebanon, and 11 in Enfield, Winter tells Sauchelli. The board, led by former Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin, is now searching for his replacement.
SPONSORED: Week Three of Osher’s Summer Lecture Series is tomorrow! Join nationally recognized speakers as they address different sides of the topic “How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming America?” The series takes place on Wednesday mornings through August 12 at the Lebanon Opera House and YouTube Livestream. Tomorrow’s session: “AI: Too Artificial? Too Intelligent? Too Much Energy?” with Stanford’s Dan W. Reicher. Session Four on July 29: “What Will Be the Economic Impacts of AI?” With Tuck’s Patrick Wheeler. Sponsored by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Dartmouth.
Around the Upper Valley, a watchful eye on the cyclosporiasis outbreak. In the Valley News, Clare Shanahan rounds up what’s been going on. She talks to Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, DHMC’s hospital epidemiologist about the illness itself; checks in with Norwich Farmers Market manager Nica Meiloch-Blinn about the accessibility of local farmers to consumers; speaks to the Co-op Food Stores’ Dawn Archambeault—the stores have seen a “pretty hefty” boost in “ultra-local” produce sales and do carry some Taylor Farms salad mixes, though not the ones that have been recalled; and asks the Hartford Community Coalition’s Emily Zanleoni about its free summer meals.
The story behind The Hand to Heart Project. The nonprofit, which provides free in-home massage services to cancer patients and their caregivers, just got a $15,000 donation from Ledyard Bank, reports Susan Apel in Artful. Executive Director Steve Gordon tells Susan that one of Ledyard’s founders was “a key player – arguably THE key player” in the nonprofit’s founding. When it began 19 years ago, it had maybe a couple of clients a week; now, 18 massage therapists serve 95 towns around VT and NH. Susan talks to Gordon about its work. “I don’t fix anything. I see Hand to Heart as being willing and able to sit next to someone as they sit next to the fire,” he says.
SPONSORED: Craving cows and craft beverages? Billings Farm's Moos & Brews returns on Friday, July 24, 5:30 pm to 8 pm for a laid-back evening on the farm with sips of local brews and spirits from 7 Balls Brewing, Cold Hollow Cider Co., Rutland Beer Works, and more. While imbibing, guests can meet the Jersey cows, wander the gardens, churn ice cream, hop on a horse-drawn wagon ride, and savor delicious food truck flavors. With good vibes, live music by Plymouth Rocks, and, of course, the cows, it's the perfect way to celebrate summer. Tickets are $25/person, or $20/member. Sponsored by Billings Farm & Museum.
“When bats are vocalizing, they’re making sounds as loud as a chainsaw.” That’s UNH biologist Laura Kloepper—who also explains that humans can’t hear them, because they’re ultrasonic. Kloepper is part of a UNH team that’s been using acoustic monitoring and thermal imaging—and just plain counting—to track bat numbers in NH after their population was devastated by white-nose syndrome. In this two-minute video, she and her colleagues recount what they’re up to and why—and Kloepper talks about how the team is using itss recordings of bats vocalizing and turning it into data about bat populations in particular locations. The bats get in lots of words, too.
Why your electric bill is going up if you live in NH. As NHPR’s Kate Dario reports, “Most Granite Staters will see a jump between $6 and $18 in their monthly electricity bills starting Aug. 1,” after the Public Utilities Commission approved rate increases from the state’s three investor-owned utilities and the Community Power Coalition; NH Electric Co-op rates are going up, too. Don Kreis, the state’s consumer advocate, points to three causes: a harsh winter, the Middle East, and a shift in how utility companies now have to buy their electricity. At the link, Dario lays out the average price increases for each of the providers and explains what’s going on.
This time, there actually was a plane crash. You remember that story last week about a plane crash alert that turned out to be a hiker’s dropped cellphone (albeit off a cliff)? Yesterday morning, the VT State Police say, a single-engine float plane had trouble on takeoff from Lake Seymour, in Morgan, VT. “I was standing there waiting to hit record,” says a homeowner on the lake who wanted to film the takeoff, “and I heard the plane crash. It was pretty loud. And then I could hear somebody hollering ‘Help!’” Neighbors rescued the pilot, who was uninjured, and he called the state police to report the incident. The plane sank afterward. WCAX’s Ike Bendavid has the story.
On collecting VT veterans’ stories: “A lot of these stories only exist in one person’s memory. Once they’re gone, we’ve lost a whole way of seeing who we were.” For the last couple of years, independent historian Charles “Max” Fish has been driving around southern and central VT, talking to vets about their experiences. Now, writes Danielle M. Crosier in the Bennington Banner, he’s got interviews covering the Korean War, Vietnam, peacetime Cold War deployments and more. According to Fish, Crosier writes, “some of the men have never described their experiences in such detail – even to their families.” One challenge: the Veterans History Project requires vets to sign off on transferring material to the Library of Congress, and some are unwilling.
A summer scoop spectacular: 183 gallons of ice cream in 12 hours. Recently, Brave Little State’s Josh Crane, Burgess Brown, and Sabine Poux spent 12 hours at the Village Scoop in Colchester, where ordering odysseys and waffling abound. It’s a deep dive into flavor debates, student scoopers, customers coming from dump runs and dentists, the owners’ 14 grandkids—who unload trucks and sample wares—and the owners themselves, who love their little shop but rarely eat ice cream. Mostly, it’s about the many sweet friendships revealed as the shop serves up 689 creemees, 384 hard ice creams, 126 sundaes, 81 milkshakes, and 56 Tornadoes. In a day.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
“Bee Talk: Natives, Honey, Habitat” at Sunapee’s Abbott Library. A member of the Kearsarge Beekeepers Association talks about beekeeping basics, honeybees, native bees, and their ecosystem and habitat, with various beekeeping tools to show off. 5 pm.
Fare Forward presents an evening of poetry with Matthew E Henry, author of Promises to Keep and The Colored Page, and Whitney Rio-Ross, author of thunder makes us and Birthmarks. Long-time friends, these two poets will read together for the first time at the Wheelock House (4 W. Wheelock St. in Hanover) at 5 pm. Email [email protected] with any questions. No link.
Lynn Nottage and Nona Hendryx at the Top of the Hop. The two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright of Sweat and the musician and Roth Visiting Artist will sit down together to talk about their new theatrical collaboration as a celebration of the latest New York Theatre Workshop residency at the Hop. Songs by “the magnetic and soulful” Britton Smith throughout. 6 pm, free but ticket required.
The Rozatones in Fairlee. The Ithaca-formed band centered around guitarist and songwriter Revi Roza comes out of a 15-year hibernation, still fusing funk, rock, soul, and jazz. 6:30 pm on the town common, in town hall if it’s raining.
The Tuesday Poem.
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
See you tomorrow.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
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