A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
August finishes on a drier note. And let’s savor that, eh? With yesterday’s scattered showers and storms out of the picture and a cooler front settling in, today begins a stretch of fair weather—at least until Ida’s inland course becomes clear the latter part of this week. Highs today in the mid-70s, lows, believe it or not, in the lower 50s, calm winds from the west. And here's some miraculous Daybreak news. That weather report above? It was written by none other than Tom Haushalter. You've seen his name at the bottom since Daybreak began—he designed the banner/logo. But in addition to his graphics chops, Tom is one of the sparkliest writers I know, and he's going to be pitching in part-time, helping lift Daybreak's game in ways we can't even imagine yet. He's got one item below, too (you'll just have to guess). More about him at the maroon link. Please welcome him.From yesterday's sunrise to after dark... Annemieke McLane sends in last week's full moon from Strafford, perfectly framed by the clouds scudding across the sky.Leb landfill agreement causes snarls. You'll remember that residents of 23 towns are eligible to use the landfill if they apply online themselves or their clerks issue them permits—which route was up to the town. Now, as the deadline approaches tomorrow, reports Tim Camerato in the Valley News, some residents of towns that opted for the former approach, which is most of them, are having trouble navigating the online application and have tried to apply in person at Lebanon City Hall, only to be turned away; that option's only available to Lebanon residents. In case you've been wondering whatever happened to Justin Dain... He was the celebrated chef at Pine in Hanover who decamped last year for Montpelier (along with legendary bartender James Ives and restaurant manager Emily Chism) to open Oakes & Evelyn (named for Dain's grandfather and great-aunt). Susan Apel had a chance to check it out and on Artful, comes back with a rave. "Dinner is not just good, it’s exciting," she writes, and offers some suggestions in case you don't feel like making the drive back that night."Love makes you do crazy things." Unlikely as it seems, that's part of an affidavit from Claremont police detective Joshua Peavey explaining the fire that broke out in the Daddypops Tumble Inn Diner near Opera House Square on July 29. Police arrested 59-year-old Leo Leblanc on suspicion that he set it in retaliation against his estranged wife's boyfriend—a cook at the diner. “It is believed that Leo’s grudge towards (the boyfriend) caused him to light the diner on fire so (the boyfriend) would no longer have an income,” Peavey’s affidavit says. Leblanc pleaded not guilty last week. Uh oh. You remember squirrelmageddon, right? Well, on her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland writes: "This year there appears to be a bountiful crop of American Beech nuts and Gray Squirrels will likely have a banner reproductive season next spring and summer as a result of it. Consisting of roughly 50% fat and 20% protein, American Beech nuts are one of the most nutritious seeds to be found." They're pretty darn good for humans, too, she says—as long as you let them dry for a while and then roast them.Common nighthawks are migrating. And after setting up at dusk to photograph the birds as they hunted insects, Tig Tillinghast caught a great featured pic for Northern Woodlands' "This Week in the Woods" this fifth week of August/first of September. Also out there: Calopteron beetles, with their striking aposematic coloring (I know, I had to look it up, too: "serving to warn or repel predators"); a juvenile Cooper's hawk that appeared to think it was hidden; white turtlehead (a plant); a lucky wood turtle (not a plant); and more.Mt. Ascutney's new Norcross Trail opens for bikers and hikers alike. A decade in the making, the 8-mile-long, multi-use path creates a key connection between the Ascutney Outdoors Center and Mt. Ascutney State Park—where all-season recreation continues to (ahem) climb in popularity. For those on foot, the new trail lets you “loop” your summit treks from either the Windsor or Brownsville trailheads. For bikers, the state park’s Swoops and Loops Trail now links to West Windsor’s network of trails. Whatever your means of conveyance, it’s 8 new miles of sweet views and mixed terrain along the iconic monadnock.Words only go so far... There's been a lot written about the 10th anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene, but now VINS has created a video that captures, in a bunch of jaw-dropping images, just how staggering it was. It actually starts with the 1927 floods that devastated Vermont, then moves on to video footage—especially in and around Quechee—and interviews with both locals and experts about what happened on the ground and in the air, and why. And with this, I think we can be done with Irene...They know what they saw. And they're wrong. At least, so says David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog. Over the weekend, Monitor columnist Ray Duckler wrote this intriguing column about a supposed mountain lion sighting in the Epsom area. Impossible, says Brooks. "If there was actually any population of mountain lions in New Hampshire or New England we’d have real evidence, just as we do for other very shy carnivores like the lynx. We don’t have any, so there aren’t any." And, he wonders, why are people so het up about mountain lions when wolves are much closer (as in Quebec)?“The map of the Amtrak system does not look a whole lot different than it did when we were founded in 1971.” That was Ray Lang, a vice president at Amtrak, talking to a crowd of NH officials yesterday as he and his colleagues arrived to talk up a proposed commuter line linking Concord and Manchester to Boston. He meant his words as a challenge—"We think that needs to change," he added—but they're also a warning: Passenger rail is a heavy lift in New Hampshire. Still, the business community's behind it... and who could resist a proposed platform beyond the right-field wall at Fisher Cats stadium?VT's African American Heritage Trail has a new southern starting point. It's a cabin that stands near what used to be the 1886 homestead on the 150 Grafton acres Alec Turner bought in 1870 and where he and his wife, Sally, raised 13 children—including renowned storyteller and folklore source Daisy Turner. “While many African American historic sites focus on the horrors of slavery and the indignities suffered by the enslaved or freedom seekers, the Turner family homestead elevates the story of Alec’s forward-looking vision for his family," Curtiss Reed, Jr. told an opening-day crowd over the weekend. Thinking "with a lens of abundance as opposed to a lens of scarcity." You may remember that last winter, transformational philanthropist Mackenzie Scott gave the Vermont Foodbank an out-of-the-blue gift of $9 million. In the Free Press, Ethan Bakuli talks to Foodbank director John Sayles about what the gift's enabled. Essentially, Sayles says, it's allowed the organization to make sure it can obtain, process, and distribute food during the pandemic, to adjust operations in the state where needed—as in Springfield, where it's added distribution capacity—and to think about new services... like home delivery. Mystery of Tesla that "burned to a crisp" on Lake Champlain seems to be solved. If you've been a Daybreak reader since the very beginning, you may remember this guy who took his Tesla out on the lake in 2019 to go ice fishing, only to have it mysteriously catch on fire. Last Friday, the US Attorney's office indicted the guy, Michael Gonzalez, for making down payments on five Teslas, then failing to make the full payment and, instead, selling or trying to sell them. He was never issued the paperwork to resell the fifth vehicle... and that's the one that burned. Seven Days' Derek Brouwer explains the tangled scheme.Bright yellow blob with 720 sexual configurations IPSO (in passionate search of) oatmeal. That would be Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold you can find on exhibit at the Paris Zoo. In "What Slime Knows," a remarkable piece of nature writing in Orion Magazine, Lacy M. Johnson delves into slime mold—for most of its life "a single cell that can grow as large as a bath mat, has no brain, no sense of sight or smell, but can solve mazes, learn patterns, keep time, and pass down the wisdom of generations." Not quick, but so worth it.
Let's catch up...Just a reminder that for the time being, Daybreak is reporting the Covid numbers on Tuesdays and Fridays.
NH reported 356 cases on Friday, 384 Saturday, 429 Sunday, and 213 yesterday, bringing it to a total of 107,474 and a seven-day average of 334 cases per day (a 26 percent increase over the previous 7-day period). There were 6 deaths over that time, bringing the total to 1,416. The active caseload stands at 2,927 (up 191) and hospitalizations at 119 (up 6). The state reports 164 active cases in Grafton County (up 6), 50 in Sullivan County (down 22), and 246 in Merrimack County (up 44). In town-by-town numbers reported by the state, Claremont has 20 cases (down 19 since last week), Hanover has 20 (down 18), Lebanon has 11 (up 5), Newport has 10 (down 10), Charlestown has 7 (up 2), Enfield has 6 (up at least 2), Wentworth has 6 (up 1), Rumney has 6 (up at least 2), and Haverhill, Warren, Lyme, Canaan, Plainfield, Grantham, Sunapee, New London, and Newbury have 1-4 each. Orford, Grafton, and Cornish are off the list.
VT reported 148 new cases last Friday, 190 Saturday, 136 on Sunday, and 71 yesterday, bringing it to a total of 28,044 for the pandemic. There were 2 new deaths during that time; they now number 275. As of yesterday, 34 people with confirmed cases were hospitalized (up 1 over the weekend). Windsor County has seen 42 new cases over the past four days, for a total of 1,749 for the pandemic, with 130 new cases over the past two weeks; Orange County gained 15 cases over the last four days, adding 40 over the past two weeks for a total of 910 for the pandemic. In town-by-town numbers posted last Friday, Hartford gained 14 cases over the week before, Windsor gained 12, Springfield added 8, Bethel gained 5, Hartland and Woodstock each added 4, Norwich, Sharon, and Weathersfield gained 3 each, Corinth, Newbury, Randolph, and W. Windsor had 2 apiece, and Barnard, Cavendish, Fairlee, Killington, and Vershire each added 1. Finally, in its most recent data dive, the state notes that less than 0.3 percent of fully vaccinated Vermonters (or 1,209 out of 436,711) have had breakthrough cases, including 288 the week of Aug. 8 and 292 the week of Aug. 15.
Dartmouth yesterday reported 16 cases among students (down 15 over the last four days) and 1 among faculty and staff (down 1). Nobody is in quarantine, 16 students and 6 faculty/staff are in isolation.
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First off... You certainly know about the various efforts by local organizations—Willing Hands, LISTEN, The Haven—to get food into the hands of those who need it. But you may not know about Charity Bagels, an effort by Hanover High senior Leo Barnes to spread bagel-making—and bagels—around the Upper Valley. Initially, he was just making bagels himself. "But it wasn't particularly fulfilling for me," he writes. "Much more fulfilling I found was the warmth I got from the members of the Upper Valley Haven when they saw Leo the bagel guy drive into the parking lot with trays of fresh bagels." So after some rethinking and a grant from a Hanover High entrepreneurship contest, he's got a new mission: bagel-making kits that will "teach the world how to make bagels," and encouraging those bakers to donate half of what they make to local charities. You can find out all about it here.
Today from 4-7 pm, it's Vermont's 6th annual Farmer Olympics at Honey Field Farm in Norwich (if you haven't been there for a while, it used to be Killdeer Farm). Teams of 4-5 people will "show off their finely-honed skills," as the Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT puts it, "in events ranging from physical to cerebral to just plain ridiculous." In the past, this has included events like hay-roll rolling, the squash shot put, and blindfolded partner seeding. Farms putting up teams this year include Honey Field, Strafford's Rock Bottom Farm, WRJ's Sunrise Farm, Root 5 Farm in Fairlee, and Agricola Farm in Panton.
At 6:30 pm, Bow Thayer brings his backwoods folk rock to the Fairlee Town Common, sponsored by Fairlee Arts.
And at 7 pm, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire hosts a reading from the anthology, A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic. Saxtons River-based writer and journalist Elayne Clift, who edited the book, will be joined by eight other readers from all over the country. Email [email protected] for the Zoom link.
It was too muchto hope for tohope we would knowwhen too much wastoo much to hopefor.
— "Tumbler,"
, from her collection
The After Party
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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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