GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Rain. So, we've got a low-pressure system and a cold front passing over us from west to east today. The upshot is the likelihood of a couple of rounds of showers and maybe heavy rain starting this morning, but especially late in the afternoon. Thunder's possible, too. Temps won't get above the low 70s (that cold front's ushering in generally cooler weather for the rest of the week), with lows tonight in the mid- or upper 50s. Winds from the southeast.Three moons.
First, there's Friday's extraordinary red moon, rising above the trees in Strafford, from Annemieke McLane.
Then there's the moon a few days earlier rising above Ascutney as seen from Brownsville, by John Zahara.
And then there's the moon, just a backdrop, rising over S. Royalton's highly in-season Fat Rooster Farm, from Jenn Megyesi. "Summer's winding down," she writes, "but man, it's still gorgeous out there."
It's Primary Day in NH... And if you still need to figure out where and when to go vote, the Valley News has you covered with its town-by-town list of polling places and times.Leb ponders what to do with its oldest surviving house. You probably pass it regularly without giving it a second thought: the Dana House, built in 1765, sits at the corner of West Elm and Seminary Hill—moved there from its original S. Main location in the winter of 1988. In the Lebanon Times, associate city planner Rebecca Owens writes that it's being restored (foundation, siding, roof), and that the city's heritage commission is entertaining proposals. Which so far include space for artists-in-residence, a gift shop, and vocational training for "trades of yore." Here's more on its history.SPONSORED: Free Ives organ concert this Sunday, Sept. 18 at 2:00 pm. The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College (40 College Street in Hanover) invites you to join us for our annual Ives Organ Concert Series. Organist Carson Cooman, composer in residence for the Memorial Church at Harvard University, presents a recital of contemporary organ music from living composers around the world, including two world premieres! Free and open to the public. Facilities are accessible to all. Hit the burgundy link for more information. Sponsored by the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College.Mixed-income housing in downtown Windsor clears selectboard hurdle. Board members last week voted unanimously to support a federal grant application for the proposed 30-unit Central & Main project, reports Ethan Weinstein in VTDigger. The four-story building, an effort by the Windsor Windham Housing Trust and EverNorth, would sit next to the Windsor Diner. Construction is expected to start next spring.In 5-10 years, NH's Hubbard Brook will have "the only grove of mature... white ash that are left in the forest in North America." That's Dartmouth biologist Matt Ayres on an "ash protection" project being carried out at the experimental forest in the Whites. Every four years, researchers will inject about 300 mature ash trees with a pesticide that targets the emerald ash borer, writes David Brooks in the Monitor. The idea isn't to stop the pest—that game's over—but to study the impact of ash trees' demise elsewhere in the forest on soil health, the understory, spring ephemerals, and other topics of interest.From "Code Black" to "Facility Alert: Bomb Threat." At least it's in plain English, and that's DHMC's point, writes John Lippman in the VN. Effective today, the hospital is dropping color-coded emergency announcements made over its public address system. The move comes after a year's study sparked by a statewide call for hospitals to adopt plain language in their security alerts. There are two exceptions, for codes directed only at staff on their pagers: codes blue and white for clinical emergencies.NH looks to help birthing centers, midwives with rising cost of malpractice insurance. Over the past couple of years, 10 hospitals in the state have closed delivery units, another is seeking to, and the Concord Birth Center is shutting down next year. All of this, writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, has public health officials warning the state can't afford more closures. One issue: big jumps in the cost of malpractice insurance, which on Friday led the Joint Fiscal Committee to approve using $252,000 in federal pandemic aid to offset the cost of premium increases. The Exec Council still has to approve it.In second year of NH Education Freedom Accounts, both students and costs are up. The number of students enrolled in the program has doubled over the past year, reports NHPR's Sarah Gibson. All told, 3,025 students are now in the program, which provides public funds to pay for expenses in private or home schools. About 30 percent of them left public school during the pandemic, while the rest were already being home-schooled, in private school, or not yet in school. The program is offering nearly $14.7 million in grants, about $11 million more than ed officials had projected.SPONSORED: The Annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s is Saturday, Oct. 1. Join this fun community event to build awareness and support for the work of the Alzheimer's Association. The dog-friendly walk starts and finishes at Hanover High and welcomes participants of all ages. Live music, face painting and lots of information about ways to keep our brains healthy and support families or friends grappling with dementia. Check out how local businesses and groups are “going purple” to support the cause on the Walk’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Walk to End Alzheimer's.“Neither side has decided, ‘I hate children and puppies and snow.’ There’s common ground there." That's a Republican candidate from Exeter for the NH Legislature, Robin Tyner, talking to NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee about a growing GOP openness toward state action on climate change. Citizens Count's Anna Brown says that this is the first year she's seen GOP candidates responding to the group's questionnaire willing to push a move away from fossil fuels and in favor of preparing for extreme weather: overall, about a third of GOP House candidates and a quarter of those for the Senate. Regional energy debate: Feds push New England to shift away from reliance on natural gas, grid operator wants to boost natural gas infrastructure. The dispute was front and center at a forum in S. Burlington last week at which the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told state regulators, utilities, and others that "relying on importing [liquefied natural gas]...is not a sustainable solution." But, report VT Public's Abagael Giles and NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian, grid operator ISO New England and others argue the region needs natural gas as it transitions away from fossil fuels.Why you wear blaze orange during hunting season. VT Fish & Wildlife reports that a 35-year-old hunter was walking to a tree stand in Huntington, VT, when he was "struck in the abdomen by a single gunshot fired by another hunter, who claimed that he mistook the victim for a bear." Neither was wearing blaze orange. The agency is investigating the incident, and Game Warden Detective Sergeant Robert Currier says, “The Vermont Warden Service encourages hunters and the general public to wear blaze orange while in the field during Vermont’s hunting seasons.” The victim is in critical condition.The first transit map? Technically, it was the London Underground map of 1933. But a map showing you how to travel? That, graphic designer Jeremy Shuback says in this delightful Aeon video, would be the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 13-inch-tall, 22-foot long (yep) map of the Roman Empire's roadways. From Spain to India. "This thing is a daft shape!" UNC prof Richard Talbert tells Shuback. "What are you going to do that for?" Its idiosyncracies—like, it makes seas look like rivers, and includes cities that didn't exist at the same time—hold a clue, Talbert believes. It was made not for travel or for history, but to brag.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word ripped from yesterday's Daybreak.
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This evening at 6, Community Care of Lyme is launching a series of online discussions of mental health and well-being for the Upper Valley with a Zoom presentation by psychiatrist Oakland Walters on "Mental Health Considerations for Transgender and Gender Diverse Folks." Q&A will follow.
Also at 6, Here in the Valley's Tuesday Jukebox is back at Speakeasy Studios in WRJ's Tip Top Building, both in person and livestreamed. Fiddler and host Jakob Breitbach welcomes bluesman Arthur James, with his nouveau-retro style of acoustic/electric blues, and Florida-based, touring roots/Americana duo Keller & Jennings.
And at 7:15, Gina Cappossela will be offering up a free intro to belly-dancing at Hanover's RW Black Recreation Center. She follows that up on Saturday with a free intro at CCBA, sponsored by Lebanon Rec.
And the Tuesday poem...
What is sometimes called a tongue of flameor an arm extended burning is only the longred and orange branch of a green maplein early September reaching into the greenest fieldout of the green woods at the edge of which the birch trees appear a little tattered tired of sustaining delicacyall through the hot summer
— From
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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