GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
One more quiet day. Mostly. We'll start out pretty sunny, though there'll be more clouds around by midday. And there are showers moving from east to west on prevailing winds from the east, bringing a chance of rain from early afternoon into the evening. Even so, temps get up toward 80 again, down into the upper 50s tonight.Oh, sure, let's just keep looking up: A fine evening sky overlooking Lake Fairlee from Ohana Camp in Post Mills, from Annette Kennedy.Major water main break shuts down WRJ's Gates-Briggs Building. Thousands of gallons of water were discovered pouring into the basement of the centerpiece downtown WRJ building late yesterday afternoon. By the time it was brought under control, the basement from Revolution around to the old Than Wheeler's tavern was waist-deep in water. The "calamity," writes Eric Francis in a Daybreak story, will leave businesses on WRJ's keystone block without power at least through today and possibly longer. No cause has been pinpointed yet. Eric's story and photos at the link.In Norwich, a brouhaha over public records. Town officials are warning that a 15-item public records request posted to the listserv by resident Stuart Richards is "so voluminous and the town offices are so understaffed that the situation threatens to bring municipal operations to a standstill," reports the Valley News's Darren Marcy. Richards counters that had the Selectboard and Town Manager Rod Francis been more responsive to public questioning about issues affecting the town's police force and public works department, the situation could have been avoided.Okay, you try to walk a heifer around a dirt ring and keep your white outfit clean. The Tunbridge Fairgrounds hosted 4-H clubs from around Vermont over the weekend, and the VN's Frances Mize got a chance to catch up with some local contestants, including 14-year-old Dani Flint of Bethel and her heifer, Sweetie (who, Flint confides, is "not very sweet"), and 18-year-old Keenan Thygesen of the Tunbridge 4-H “Clever Clovers.” Even with dairy farms in free fall in the state, both want a future working with cows. "I can’t see myself doing anything else,” Thygesen says.Wrapped "in a blanket of love." That's how Thetford's Missy Krzal describes feeling as a team from Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Vermont and New Hampshire cared for her and her husband, Rich, during his time in hospice care at home. Rich, a former member of the Thetford Selectboard, died last Thursday, and in a letter to Sidenote, Missy recounts their experience. When the various aides and nurses and the chaplain "all somehow converged," she writes, "it was like the dark lifted and life was again on track. They made sure that even though Rich was dying, we could still laugh and enjoy life."In 2020, there were were almost 400 fewer confirmed cases of Lyme disease in NH than the year before. Which, as David Brooks points out on his Granite Geek blog, is peculiar to say the least, since more people were spending time outside and it's not like ticks or Lyme were going away. It may be that docs were so overwhelmed with Covid that they didn't have the bandwidth to diagnose Lyme. Regardless, NH's public health service is only now digging out from the pandemic and putting numbers on "old faithfuls" like Lyme. Data from 2021 hasn't been completed yet.As drought takes hold in NH, everything from drinking water quality to the size of produce might be affected. The bottom half of the state is now in either moderate or severe drought, and all but a sliver of the north country is rated abnormally dry. In NH Bulletin, Amanda Gokee writes that as groundwater levels fall, the concentration of things like arsenic and uranium can build—leading the state to encourage homeowners to test their wells. Crops are being affected, too, and 78 communities around the state now have water restrictions. In VT, northern Windsor and western Orange counties are also in drought.“I think we’re probably going to be in this for a while and it’s going to take a lot.” That's the drought assessment of Ted Diers, of NH's water division. “What we really are hoping for is a wet fall followed by a very snowy winter to really recharge the aquifers and the groundwater.” Even as spots in the Midwest and South see flooding, drought has taken hold throughout New England, writes the AP's Jennifer McDermott, and farmers region-wide are grappling with its impact—and that of climate change in general. "I don’t think there is any normal anymore,” says VT beef farmer Brian Kemp.With interest rates rising, local and first-time home-buyers are getting frozen out of the VT market. The market may be cooling slightly, reports Fred Thys in VTDigger, but only for people who need mortgages to finance a home. "Sales still garner multiple cash offers, leaving first-time and local home buyers unable to compete," Thys writes. If anything, the market has gotten even tighter in the northwest corner of the state and in southern VT, in the area around Ludlow, Winhall, Jamaica, Londonderry, and Peru.Grub, Nubbins, Veiny Bulb, Quad Concavities, Boxy, and Curvy Plains. Those are the names of the six off-white, "curvy felted forms" that Susan Apel ran across at the Brattleboro Museum of Art—along with a hand sanitizer station and an invitation to touch and hug them. In Artful, Susan writes about Stephanie Metz's forms, which are part of a larger exhibition called "Felt Experience"—"Felt is an ancient material," write its curators, "predating woven cloth. It connects us to the earth and its animals"—as well as tape art and re-created murals by Afghan artists whose work the Taliban destroyed last year. Is it too early to start planning foliage weekends? Hot summers like this one make it easy to look forward to fall. So Happy Vermont’s Erica Houskeeper has already published her list of 25 fun ways to enjoy VT this autumn. And Houskeeper, who has traveled all over the state, has some good ones. You could ride the chairlift at Mad River Glen, head to uber-photogenic Peacham, see sculpture art in Enosburg, or drive up Hogback Mountain in Marlboro for its 100-Mile View. But for all the orchards and festivals you do, says Houskeeper, “a dirt road to walk, bike, or drive should be at the top of your list.”Oh, the things we leave inside our library books. Page through enough borrowed books, and eventually something falls out: a postcard, grocery list, photograph—any odd thing one might use to mark their place. These ephemera can offer a sweet glimpse into a stranger’s life, and the Oakland (CA) Public Library has scrupulously cataloged and posted online the items that have been stashed inside their books over the years. WaPo’s Sydney Page has the full story (gift, no paywall) and a handful of the unexpected treasures…or check out OPL’s site for all the little lists, drawings, and love notes they found.The Tuesday Vordle. Go for three!Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
Starting today and running through the end of the month, Sustainable Woodstock has a free online showing of The Condor and the Eagle, Sophie and Clément Guerra's 2019 documentary about four Indigenous leaders in the Americas, from the tar sands of Alberta to the Amazon, and their efforts to build alliances as they fight climate change and despoliation of the earth.
And it's time again for the the outdoor Tuesday concerts. At 6 at Grantham Rec Park, Mr. Aaron and His Band offer up music for kids and their families (don't be fooled, he's got a masters in music composition, then took a gig teaching a Mommy and Me music class, where he figured out that "doing music for kids was a really fun way to be able to write and perform music (and get paid)," as he told an interviewer). The Let's Get Loaded Fries food truck will be on hand, as well.
While at 6:30 on the common in Fairlee, The Miles Band offers up funk, soul, and rock.
Also at 6:30 the Thetford Arthouse Cinema continues its summer/fall 2022 run with Barry Jenkins's 2016 classic Moonlight in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy. The week's films also include Whit Stillman's Metropolitan on Friday at 7 and Akeelah and the Bee on Saturday at 10 am. Link takes you to the season brochure: Scroll down for film descriptions from organizer Arthur Kahn.
And the Tuesday poem:
I’d sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtailHad nothing left but unable miseryFrom the bones too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.We had fed him for six weeks, I gave him freedom,He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,Not like a beggar, still eyed with the oldImplacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What fell was relaxed,Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but whatSoared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its risingBefore it was quite unsheathed from reality.
— From
by
.
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 Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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