GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warm, more sun than clouds, spotty showers possible tonight. It should be pretty beautiful out this morning, with clouds starting to roll in this afternoon ahead of a cold front approaching from the west. With winds from the south, we'll see temps reaching toward or passing 80. Cloudy tonight as low pressure moves in, rain likely to develop by morning. Low in the mid 60s.It's a frog's life...
"This little guy was not about to interrupt his siesta just because I wanted to do some watering," writes Judy Yocom from Thetford.
Meanwhile, also in Thetford, Robin Osborne was cutting hydrangeas when she noticed this tree frog, about the size of her thumbnail.
In Hanover, Boloco remains—for now. But in Boston, it's starting to shut down. Friday was the last day for the burrito chain's maiden spot, by the Berklee College of Music. And over the next few months, co-founder and owner John Pepper says, other Boston locations will close, leaving the chain—which a decade ago had 22 spots as far south as DC—with just Hanover and one shop in Boston. In a Daybreak story, Pepper says the Boston closings mostly have to do with the restaurants' pandemic-era struggles and leases coming due. In Hanover, the challenges are different but, he says, no less frustrating.The Upper Valley hits Travel + Leisure. That's thanks to journalist and author Tom Vanderbilt (Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)), who's been visiting the region for decades. "The achingly quintessential town of Woodstock was my gateway drug," he writes, but over the past few years he's branched out. He talks up Fat Sheep Farm in Hartland, spends time with Peter Varkonyi at Brownsville Butcher & Pantry (calling it "the platonic ideal of a small-town store"), chats up serial restaurateur Matt Lombard in Woodstock, heaps praise on Kiss the Cow's ice cream... (Thanks, JF!)Tired of distractions, schools in Claremont, Newport ban cellphones. "Parents were texting, [students] were texting other kids while in class, going to the bathroom for 15 minutes and texting or videotaping in halls. Some students had headphones on listening to music," Newport district supt. Donna Magoon tells the Valley News's Patrick O'Grady. At Claremont's Stevens High School, O'Grady writes, the ban is total: All students will get a secure pouch in which to store their phone for the day. In Newport, high school students can keep phones with them, but middle school students will place them in lockers.SPONSORED: Rent a STEAM Backpack from VINS. The Vermont Institute of Natural Science is excited to launch our new STEAM Backpack Program generously supported by the Dorr Foundation. Each Backpack contains everything homeschoolers need to get exploring & learning. Backpacks are designed for Grade K - 8 homeschoolers and themes include Birds, Insects, Geology, Tracking, Nature Explorers, and Day & Night Sky. Use the Backpack at VINS for free or rent it and bring it home for a week for a nominal fee. Rentals available starting Sept. 1. Learn more here. Sponsored by VINS.Where a bridge once swayed, hopes rise for another. For 20 years, a foot bridge built as an Eagle Scout project "bounced and swayed" over Blood Brook in Norwich, connecting the back of the American Legion hall and the playing fields at Huntley Meadow. It was taken down after Tropical Storm Irene undermined one of the tree-footings. Now, Demo Sofronas writes in his About Norwich newsletter, an effort known as the Kids Bridge project, spearheaded by resident Don McCabe, has raised about 60 percent of the funds it needs to build a new one and, McCabe says, gotten official approval.Out of a WRJ storage unit: art from reused materials. Since Melanie Adsit and Jamie Rosenfeld launched rePlay Arts in January, they've made a mark on the Upper Valley's visual arts scene by becoming a go-to recipient of "gently used" fine arts and crafts materials, which, Liz Sauchelli writes in a VN profile, they then pass along to artists of all varieties through workshops, meet-ups, and donations to art educators and other nonprofits. All sorts of unexpected materials stay out of landfills and, says Rosenfeld, “I think people are trusting that we will get it into the hands of people who are going to use it."SPONSORED: Mind-expanding learning opportunities await! Osher at Dartmouth’s fall term is now open, and there are plenty of courses available for registration. You can create a mixed-media art journal or hand-build a work of art in clay, review the phenomenon of street art, explore geocaching locations around the Upper Valley with an expert, try the sport of curling, learn the basics of the ukulele, examine the lives and work of musical prodigies throughout history, delve into the roots of Mayan and Anasazi civilizations, and so much more! Become a member today. Sponsored by Osher at Dartmouth.Hanover man flees after car crash; found to have arrest warrant in Kentucky. Hanover police say that on Friday morning Jack Watson—a 2021 Hanover High grad, reports the VN's John Lippman—allegedly crashed into a utility pole and crosswalk sign at South Park St. and Summer Court, then fled toward the Dartmouth campus near Thompson Arena. He was eventually found by a Lebanon police officer tracking him with a K-9. A warrant check found that Watson is wanted on a charge of sexual assault in Lexington, KY, where he's a student at the U of Kentucky. He's now awaiting extradition on that warrant.With book on homelessness in the Upper Valley, Dartmouth prof aims to "take readers into experiences that often remain hidden." For years, Elizabeth Carpenter-Song, an associate professor in anthropology, followed families in the region from shelter to motels to their own homes to, sometimes, the woods. She details their stories in a new book, Families on the Edge, and yesterday talked to VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak about it (audio only). In the end, she says, the question she wants to try to answer is, "How can we do better... [on] some of the urgent challenges we face around housing?"In NH, public sentiment swings noticeably behind affordable housing. That, at least, is the conclusion of the latest survey of attitudes on affordable housing conducted by the Center for Ethics in Society at St. Anselm College. “What we're seeing is a decline in NIMBYism," center director Max Latona tells NHPR's Grace McFadden. “People are saying, ‘You know what, I even want more affordable homes in my own neighborhood.’” In all, 60 percent of respondents agreed that towns and cities should promote housing through zoning regs, up from 29 percent in 2020.A large bloom of brown algae hits the Gulf of Maine. The type of algae isn’t unusual in those waters, writes NH Bulletin's Hadley Barndollar, but the time of year and the size of the bloom—more than 100 miles wide—are. Tripos muelleri, a phytoplankton, isn’t known to harm people or land animals, but it can lower oxygen levels and affect fish and shellfish. Groups from Maine to Rhode Island have teamed up to share information and research. Scientists aren't worried about toxicity right now, but they do worry about what might happen when the bloom dies and creates low-oxygen conditions at the ocean's bottom.Federal judge rules Koffee Kup buyer violated labor law. Remember all the turmoil back in 2021 when the firm that bought the Burlington and Brattleboro bakery suddenly laid off 130 workers? Well, the WARN Act, writes Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen, requires companies with more than 100 employees to provide 60 days' notice; in this case, workers showed up for their shifts only to be told they'd lost their jobs. Now, a federal judge in Burlington has found the firm was obligated to provide that notice. Penalties haven't been set, but the workers' lawyer expects it'll be less than what they should be owed.If you're worried about flooding in the age of climate change, it would be nice to know precisely where you should be worried. That might take years. In a long and in-depth look at the problem, VTDigger's Erin Petenko writes that the data underlying FEMA's detailed estimates of flood hazards "is collected through a painfully in-depth and yearslong process of studying the hydrology and geology of every section of river" in a state—and is often years out of date. Some flood studies date back to 1977; "recent" ones are a decade old. The result is that new maps "are still years away from the finish line."In VT (and NH), short-term rental stock continues to grow. The number of entire homes listed in Vermont hit nearly 11,000 in June, reports Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days, a 13 percent increase from June, 2022. That matches growth in NH, ME, and RI (compared to a 16 percent jump in NY and 21 percent in CT). As Allen points out, the issue is becoming increasingly heated in towns around the state, including Woodstock, as housing advocates blame the rise in short-term rentals for depleting long-term housing stock and homeowners insist they're a key means of supplementing income.For poets and writers at this year's Bread Loaf conference, a Covid outbreak was definitely not what they signed up for. But there it was anyway: by the time the fabled conference in Ripton, VT neared its end this weekend, at least 26 people, or 10 percent of the attendees, had been sent home with the illness. Initially, notes political commentator John Walters on his VT Political Observer blog, the ejected participants were offered no redress; after several of them took to social media to complain, conference organizers backtracked to offer prorated refunds.Flying into the storm. With hurricane season here, you might want to know about how pilots with NOAA and the Air Force Reserve’s Hurricane Hunters fly above, below, and straight into hurricanes, collecting data. USA Today is out with a detailed look at the planes and equipment that measure, track, and predict what the storms will do, as well as fascinating tidbits about the technology—which can help predict hurricanes even before they form. Once a storm is active, drones, parachuting instruments, and people who are braver than you and I fly through it to track everything from wind speed to pressure. Some very cool graphics help explain it all.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
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This evening at 6:30, Fairlee Arts closes out its summer concert series on the common with The Rough & Tumble, the NH-based "dumpster-folk, thriftstore-Americana" duo of Mallory Graham and Scott Tyler, with their homemade instruments, close harmonies, and penchant for storytelling.
And at 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts poet Sue Ellen Thompson—Pushcart Prize winner and Pulitzer nominee—reading from and talking about her 2022 collection, Sea Nettles: New and Selected Poems. The book, Thompson's sixth, "explores the themes of marriage, mortality, and family in language that is plainspoken and unflinchingly honest," the bookstore writes.
And the Tuesday poem:As thoughthe river werea floor, we positionour table and chairsupon it, eat, andhave conversation.As it moves along,we notice—ascalmly as thoughdining room paintingswere being replaced—the changing scenesalong the shore. Wedo know, we doknow this is theNiagara River, butit is hard to rememberwhat that means.— "The Niagara River" by Kay Ryan.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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