GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Slight chance of showers first thing, then cloudy, definitely cooler. Yesterday's storms, after all, were brought to us by a cold front, and that's starting to mean something: highs today will be in the low or mid 60s. If there's any lingering rain, it will be short-lived, but clouds will stick around throughout the day, though things might grow a tad brighter as the day wears on. Winds from the northwest, down to the low 50s tonight.Hummer 'tude. That's David Pelletier's apt title for his exceptional photo of an iridescent adult male ruby-throated hummingbird in WRJ.Caution: Artists at work. The City of Lebanon is asking walkers, cyclists, strollers, runners, and anyone else using the downtown tunnel to keep an eye out for a new round of artists as they paint, set up ladders, and lay out cones for safety as they work on decorating the passage. Right now, John Garoutte is expanding "Patchwork", Nicolas Cain and Kay Curtis are painting "True Colors", and Julio Uribe is showcasing "Fish (Wall)". Down the road, Emily Battles will set up an interactive exhibit and Allison Zito will extend her mural, "Pollinators".In Cornish, family wants half of library donation back. Four years ago, writes Patrick O'Grady in the Vally News, Margaret Meyette made a $30K gift to the Stowell Library's trustees to be used "for the library." But that was before the town became embroiled in a debate over whether to move the library to the former Cornish General Store; the trustees used some of Peggy Meyette's money to pay for a cost study. Now, O'Grady reports, Meyette's son, Brian, says the trustees overstepped their bounds and "squandered and misused” the donation. The trustees are seeking an opinion from the state AG's office.Behind the greenhouse walls. Back when the E. Thetford-Lyme bridge was carrying traffic, you might have passed Long Wind Farm's sprawling greenhouse collection; you may even have eaten some of their tomatoes. Now, in Sidenote, Li Shen writes up the story behind it all—from Dave Chapman's start in the 1970s growing organic vegetables on one acre to Long Wind's stature today as one of the mainstays of the Real Organic movement and one of the few greenhouse-tomato growers that uses real soil. Li digs into why soil rather than hyrdoponics, why organic rather than conventional, and more.SPONSORED: Broaden your horizons this fall! Join Adventures in Learning, a welcoming and intellectually stimulating community of lifelong learners at Colby-Sawyer College, for its fall term. AIL presents 12 unique courses on topics including history, literature, entertainment, and current events—something for everyone! Registration for fall term is open. Most courses begin the week of 9/16. You can learn more and register at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Adventures in Learning.Sheesh, what a rookie mistake... I was moving too fast yesterday morning and in the item on Jim Kenyon's article about the property cleanup set-to in Lyme, called Martha Smith "Mary" instead. Then didn't catch it. Apologies to her and Jed. Original VN story at the link.From a short stack to a long bridge: the perfect day in Windsor. Often overshadowed by Woodstock, Windsor needs its due, writes Ken Picard in Seven Days. So he plans an ideal visit to “the birthplace of Vermont,” from eating at the Windsor Diner, Frazer's Place ("punches well above its culinary class") or Boston Dreams to visiting the American Precision Museum, Mt. Ascutney—with its views to the Greens and the Whites—and all the things you can do at Artisan's Park and the Path of Life Sculpture Garden. Do not forget the Cornish-Windsor covered bridge, the longest wooden bridge in the US.Getting a retail cannabis license: It felt like "a fourth full-time job." Airon Shaw's other three are running the new Ninny Goat & Co. dispensary in Fairlee, which opened Aug. 8; working for the VT Professionals of Color Network; and raising her 10-year-old son, Aidan. But getting Ninny Goat's license, she tells Emma Malinak in VTDigger, took both a lot of time and money. Malinak checks in with Shaw about the business, her grandmother (after whom the store is named), the decor (down to the Nat King Cole vinyls Shaw salvaged in honor of her grandmother), and more.The hard numbers behind a new starter home in Bradford, VT. One of the moving forces behind the transformation of the old gas station in Fairlee that is now Ninny Goat was small-town developer Jonah Richard. In a new Brick + Mortar post, he lays out a new project: building a 3BR/2BA starter home that’s affordable to a family with two-income earners making $25/hr. The property's in Bradford, and Richard and his team just broke ground, using a design by Norwich architect Dan Haedrich. To make it work, he writes, they'll need to keep construction costs to $280K. "Optimistic? Very. But I think it's doable."Dartmouth Athletics gets a brick-and-mortar beachfront. For years, the college's athletic swag has been available online through its partnership with the Illinois-based tech-and-retail company Follett, which works with colleges and universities. Now, writes Dartmouth Athletics in a press release, it's opening a store: at 24 S. Main Street in Hanover, which was once Main St. Kitchens. The store, which will carry "a wide range of products, including exclusive Dartmouth Athletics clothing and merchandise including Dartmouth's sideline apparel offered by Nike," will also be operated by Follett.Oxbow High teams back on vandalized playing fields. But it'll be "a constant day-to-day assessment to see how the fields are holding up and responding,” Heidi Wright, the athletic and activities director, tells the VN's Liz Sauchelli. “At this point, it’s waiting to see what Mother Nature throws at them, in addition to the athletic use.” The fields have been damaged twice since last fall—in November and again in July—after miscreants drove over them, causing deep ruts. Now that they're back, Sauchelli writes, coaches "have been asked to avoid running the same drills in the same places in the newly planted grass."Federal judge holds NH transgender sports ban bill at bay—for now. The new law barring transgender girls from playing girls’ sports had no sooner gone into effect, reports the AP's Holly Ramer, than US District Court Judge Landya McCafferty granted an emergency request for 15-year-old Parker Tirrell to play for the Plymouth High girls' soccer team, at least until the court meets again in a few weeks. Tirrell and another student are the faces of a lawsuit against the state over the law. McCafferty found that Tirrell "had demonstrated likely success on the merits of the case," Ramer writes.Taking aim at school administrator pay, new NH law requires districts to chart salary averages and offer specifics. The law, signed by Gov. Chris Sununu earlier this month, is part of an effort by Republicans in the legislature to argue that low teacher salaries stem in part from high administrative salaries, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. So it requires school districts to provide yearly charts on average teacher salary and average administrator salary over time, plus the salaries of the four highest-paid administrators in each district. Administrators and school boards argue the effort ignores the nuances.Oh well. 14 dogs short. Remember how Middlebury filmmaker Andy Mitchell, the guy behind the new Netflix film Inside the Mind of a Dog, wanted to try to set a world record for most dogs to attend a film screening? The current mark was set last year in LA, when 219 dogs showed up for Paw Patrol. Well, on August 10, reports VT Public producer Andrea Laurion, over 200 dogs and their people made it to Middlebury's Memorial Sports Center. They came from all over—including Leb—and in the end, the dog count was 206. "We get three tries at this, so you never know," Mitchell said. But hey, the pics are great.Mad River Glen: Mow It If You Can. Wish I'd come up with that, but it was actually the renowned ski area itself. It's asking volunteers to help it cut the grass on its steepest slopes from Sept. 9-Sept. 20. With hand scythes—since the terrain's tough for the tractors that mow the beginner and intermediate slopes. "We mow and move in a line shoulder-to-shoulder hiking up the trails as we go," they explain. In exchange for 10 days of work: a free season's pass. "Best of luck to those preparing for 10 days of hacking shrubs with a tool/weapon from 5,000 B.C.," writes Matt Lorelli in Powder.Lake Willoughby? Willoughby Lake? And how about Hells Peak Road? Though heck, at least it's not Peak Hells Road. You guessed it: VT Public's Brave Little State is out with its 7th Annual Brief History of VT Road Names, only this time, they start with a lake. People who care about Willoughby have strong opinions on the order of those two words, report Sabine Poux and Adiah Gholston. Even the state can't make up its mind. Meanwhile, Hells Peak Road in Londonderry? Its story starts with an ex-moonshiner. And there's also Pumpkin Harbor Road in Cambridge, which, it turns out, goes way back...Why you might not want to climb a highly active volcano just so you can peer inside. True, there's a trail to the top of Mount Dukono that starts in the village of Mamuya, on one of the Maluku islands in eastern Indonesia. Appropriately enough, it's across the main road from the volcanology office. But as a group of climbers found out Saturday, just because it's there doesn't mean you want to take it. Fortunately, it looks like they all made it down.
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Today from 5-7 pm, horticultural and natural resources experts at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock will lead a workshop on plant pressing—and the role of herbaria in plant conservation. You get the chance to press plants from their garden. At the park's Forest Center. No charge, but you'll need to register.
The NYC-based collective of musicians, modern dancers, and actors is working with the Chandler in Randolph to create "
a play exploring themes and issues of social justice through the stories of residents" in central VT.
It goes up at the end of September, but along the way, the group is holding three workshops to help shape the performance. The first is today from 5:30-8:30 pm at the Chandler itself. They'll be doing another on Thursday from 4-6 pm at Fable Farm in Barnard, and a third on Saturday from 4-7 pm at BALE in S. Royalton.
The town's Music in the Meadow summer series closes out with a solo gig by the folk/americana-funk-rock-blues guitarist. Starts up at 6 pm.
Fairlee Community Arts throws its second-to-last concert on the common this evening starting at 6:30 pm, with Fair Sparrow, made up of three well-known central VT musicians: guitarist and singer-songwriter Patti Casey, flutist and singer-songwriter Ally Tarwater, and fiddler and singer-songwriter Susannah Blachly. In the town hall auditorium if it's raining.
The Tuesday poem
Every morning when the forest wakesThe canopy goes for a walkHailing the sun, courting the windDiscussing fruit and weatherThe idle moss turns into velvet,Branches make signs,Who says there is no time?The only thing we are given is Time Chattering life, high aboveBabel of tree dwellers,For a seed falling so far downto rise again,Time is a given, a footholdfor the hunger of a weed,Colour, scent, camouflageAnd the grass that never sleeps Shooting up to meet the gaze of the mountainHow are you, mountain?Is everything all rightIs the earth growing old,Birds flying away, trees falling Green Mountain wearing a rain hatAre there caves and bats in your bosom,Wedged in your folds a hum of voices celebratingthe anniversaries of birth and time— Is a raindrop growing into a riverA rock into a jewel?
—"Hello, Mountain" by Indian poet, novelist, and former journalist
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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