GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Interesting weather we're having, eh? Yesterday's system shifted off to the east overnight, but now there's a trough of low pressure coming in from the west with a cold front behind it. It will produce scattered showers and thunderstorms, with a chance of both starting mid-morning and lasting until late afternoon. Winds from the south and then the west, temps getting into the low 80s this afternoon and down into the low 50s tonight.
So, let's see...
NH added 27 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 7,134. It reported no new deaths, leaving that total at 429. There are 255 current cases around the state (up 5), including 3 in Grafton County (down 1) and 4 in Sullivan (no change), as well as 23 in Merrimack (up 6). Canaan, Grantham, Claremont, and Charlestown have between 1 and 4 active cases each.
VT reported 9 new cases yesterday, bringing its total to 1,566, with 128 of those (no change) still active. There were no new deaths, which remain at 58 total, and 3 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized. Windsor and Orange counties remain at 75 and 20 cumulative cases, respectively.
The state hasn't officially logged any cases in Plainfield yet, but Kimball Union Academy announced yesterday that "an individual" has tested positive as students begin to return to campus. “While we realize that this is unsettling news," the boarding school said in its statement, "please know this is a situation we have rigorously prepared for in anticipation of the arrival of our students and faculty." Selectboard chair Rob Taylor tells the
VN
's Nora Doyle-Burr, "You think you’re safe in a little town. You’re not.”
That's Elise Tillinghast's question, which you get to answer for yourself. It's the fourth week of August, and in
Northern Woodlands
' "This Week in the Woods" fungi are common, as are definite tussock moth caterpillars (that's their name!) and fritillaries and, yeah, mice everywhere. Also, a quick tutorial on oil beetles, whose just-hatched larvae "clump together and emit a bee pheromone, hop a ride on a gullible male solitary bee, switch to a female bee, and eventually end back in the bee nest, where they eat the bee larvae before maturing into herbivores."
It was a stunner last night, and a pile of people posted their pics in this Facebook thread.
(Note: It's in the Upper Valley VT/NH group, and you'll need to be one of its nearly 17,000 members to see the link. Apologies if you're not.)
. Theron Peck, aka Mr. Grass, runs Chippers’ turf division and has plenty of recommendations on what you can be doing this fall to improve things. Join him each Thursday at 9 am for a half-hour discussion. Theron will also answer questions submitted prior to that day’s Zoom meeting or during the meeting. Let a local expert help you create a lush and healthy lawn! Register at the link above.
Sponsored by
.
The National Juvenile Defender Center spent a year studying the state's handling of young offenders, and in its report last weeks found that "juvenile court is treated as a 'training ground' for younger public defenders with already high adult caseloads," reports NHPR's Sarah Gibson. Defenders are paid as little as one-eighth as much for a juvenile case as for an adult case.
That's the general manager of Pat's Peak in Henniker, talking to
NH Business Review
about the industry's prep for this winter. They're encouraging customers to buy tickets online, setting up kiosks to print tickets, and moving lodges to hands-off transactions; Gunstock is even considering bringing in food trucks. XC areas are headed the same direction, though social distancing is baked in on the trails. "Once you get on the trail with skis about six feet long you naturally have six feet from the closest skier," says Jackson's GM.
That's among the initiatives the state legislature will be considering as it reconvenes this week. The idea was floated on Friday by Gov. Phil Scott, who wants the cards to be used as part of a $50 million Buy Local effort to help revitalize the economy. Scott also wants to spend $10 million on an advertising campaign to attract out-of-staters from "safe" regions during fall foliage.
And they're scrambling to do as much as possible before they reopen, reports
VTDigger
's Lola Duffort. Some older schools rely on baseboard heat, with no ventilation at all. Others have deferred maintenance for years, so systems that could theoretically help aren't actually working. State legislators have set aside $6.5 million to help schools upgrade.
"Each of our towns has its own characters and controversies, its tragedies and triumphs, its particular solutions to our many challenges," writes the effort's editor, Ben Heintz. The Underground Workshop will work with high school and college students on both independent and collaborative efforts (including what's going on inside VT's schools and a project on VT Republicans), with an eye toward treating young journalists "not just as students but as coequal stakeholders in the public sphere." They'll kick it off with a meeting Sept. 10.
So, you could do this if you want. Every summer, the Northeast Kingdom hosts the Single Action Shooting Society’s Vermont State Cowboy Action Shooting Championship—yes, it's a thing—and VPR's Erica Heilman stopped by to chat with Doc McCoy, Tyler Tornado, Preacher Ben Prayin' and others. "Costuming is not optional," she reports. "Minimum requirements are cowboy hats, boots, button-down shirts and jeans. There were some corsets."
"I like growing plants like that, kind of rebels, you can’t totally control them." Joyce Rondinella is the senior horticulturist at Longwood Gardens, about 40 miles west of Philly, and she's talking about Amorphophallus titanum, or the giant corpse flower. The Dartmouth greenhouses, of course, have their star, Morphy. Longwood's is named Sprout, and it bloomed last month. In Atlas Obscura, Rondinella talks about what goes into caring for (and hand-pollinating) one of the odder 200-pound plants around.Yes please, I'd like to go there. Or there. Or... There's a Twitter thread of the most beautiful libraries on earth, starting with the Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading in Rio De Janeiro, and moving on through dozens of others, including Iowa's state law library, the remarkable-looking Tianjin Binhai Library in Tianjin, China, and the Louis Kahn-designed library at Phillips Exeter Academy. It's a remarkably settling morning scroll...News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
-- From "Caged Bird," by Maya Angelou
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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