Daybreak Tuesday 7/28/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

We're getting there... A cold front is pushing through today, crossing VT in the morning and NH in the afternoon. The actual cooler air, though, is lagging behind. So today's still going to be hot (into the high 80s) and, ahead of the front, muggy, with a chance of rain into the afternoon. There's also some possibility of a thunderstorm later. But then, things start to cool down and dry off by nightfall, and we'll get an actual decent sleeping night, lows around 60.Speaking of night... The Mt. Washington Observatory yesterday posted a fantastic time-lapse video created by its night-shift meteorologist. The Big Dipper and Comet Neowise progress through the night sky. An unexpected display of northern lights (the green, red, and purple you see) shows up. Planes, satellites, and shooting stars flash past. An inversion layer sets up over Berlin, NH... You'll want to put this on full screen. (Thanks, JF!)So, let's see...

NH towns consider face-mask mandates. With Dartmouth students expected to arrive soon and business owners facing pushback from customers who refuse to wear face coverings, Enfield, Lebanon, Hanover, and Plainfield next week will take up whether to require masks in public spaces, reports the VN's Tim Camerato. Lyme also plans preliminary discussions. “Our residents are getting increasingly nervous about students coming back,” Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin tells Camerato. “I’m getting a lot of emails and outreach from residents asking ‘can’t we tell them they can’t come back?’”Petition demands Dartmouth forbid use of its name by Dartmouth Review. Over the last week, more than 900 students, faculty, staff, and alumni have signed on to the petition, which says, "Since its inception in 1980, the Dartmouth Review has been an incubator of racist hate and white supremacy, contributing to our nation’s divisive and racially denigrating public discourse through both its publications and the comportment of former staffers." The college responds that the conservative publication is not an officially recognized student organization. Interrupted ferns, black earth tongue, broad-leaved enchanter's nightshade... How could you not head to the woods with names like those? It's the fifth week of July, and Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast points out what you'll find out there right now. Interrupted ferns are the ones with those light brown clumps on their fronds; black earth tongue is a striking little fungus, as are the blaze orange American Caesar mushroom. Plus chestnut-sided warblers, indigo buntings, and a plant with a 150-million-year-old fossil record, scouring brush. I will crawl through cold/computer screens to simply/wrap you in my arms. That haiku by Lee Ferry accompanies "The Sheltering in Place Project," an art installation at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro. It's literally appointment viewing—you need one to get in. Artist Hasso Ewing invited Vermont visual artists to reflect on time in lockdown with works created from materials found in and around their shelters. The result "is a dramatically lit near-fairy garden with a winding path through stylized trees that hold each artist’s individual creation," Susan Apel writes on her Artful blog.Absentee ballots now available in NH. As of yesterday, residents can request advance ballots for the September state primary and the Nov. 3 general election. But, says the Concord Monitor's Ethan DeWitt, that "doesn’t mean the absentee voting process will be quick." First, assuming you're already registered, you'll need to print out an application for the ballot(s) or request they be sent to you by calling your town. More info at the link.Interest in homeschooling rises in NH. The problem's summed up by Melissa Wolfe, a former teacher who's worried about a remote or hybrid model and isn't confident the schools will figure safety out: "Other parents and other families who maybe aren't as vigilant as we are - there's no way to control that huge community," she tells NHPR. Says the director of one homeschooling group, "All of the homeschool organizations have reported that they are seeing a major increase of inquiries. It is not isolated to a handful of communities."Coronavirus? Pshaw! The show must go on. For the last 25 summers, Project Shakespeare over in Jaffrey, NH, has immersed young actors in Shakespeare's work, and was loath to give up on its 26th season. So it's prepping a production of Macbeth, with the actors rehearsing outdoors, each in her or his own six-foot box and wearing a mask except when speechifying. The one complication: the fight scene between Macbeth and Macduff. Solution? The roles will be played by brothers Yar and Tor Petrov.VT schools look to take it outside. With coronavirus transmission apparently greatly reduced outdoors, Bethel's White River Valley School, for instance, is considering holding in-person instruction outside most of the day until Thanksgiving, principal Owen Bradley says. Even before the pandemic, VTDigger's Lola Duffort writes, students spent time outside even in winter, and Bradley would "like to see classrooms stay mostly outdoors for...the academic year. Still, he freely acknowledges plenty of details have yet to be ironed out."Travelers flock to reopened VT rest areas, shock state by behaving well. They're wearing masks, boning up on state guidelines before they come, even quarantining ahead of time. “We don’t want to spread it to anybody,” one CT woman tells VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor at the Guilford rest stop, just north of the MA line on I-91. “We’re noticing a broad level of appreciation by the traveling public,” says Christopher Cole, who runs the Department of Buildings and General Services. “We want people who come to Vermont to see our brand, and with Covid-19, it’s safety and being responsible for others.”Headed to Alaska this summer? You'll need to prove a negative Covid test, take one when you get there, or self-quarantine. Things keep changing out there, and Condé Nast Traveler's got the rundown on states that have restrictions. Maine's equally draconian—or, as the article puts it, "strident"—though not if you're from VT or NH. And Hawaii just flat out requires quarantine for the duration of the visit or for 14 days, whichever is shorter. Better than man bites dog... St. Bernard rescued from England's highest peak. Daisy, a four-year-old Saint who'd climbed Scafell Pike with her family, began showing pain in her legs on the way back, sat down, and wouldn't budge. With the weather due to deteriorate, 16 members of the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team took five hours to get the 121-pound dog down, carrying her on a stretcher along paths and over a waterfall. "Some might ask, 'Why rescue a dog?' but our mission is to save life and alleviate distress," says MRT volunteer Richard Warren. "You can't leave a dog on a mountain." 

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Imagine the sun totally isolated,Its brightness shot in continuous streaks straight outInto the black, never arrested,Never once being made light.

Someone should take noteOf how the earth has saved the sun from oblivion.

— From "The Significance of Location," by Pattiann Rogers

(Thanks, LH!)

See you tomorrow.

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