GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, maybe some showers. Honest, the sun's coming out! There's low pressure slowly making its way this direction from the west, but if it has an impact we're unlikely to see it until later this afternoon. In the meantime, we've also got winds from the southwest, which will help temps get into the mid or upper 60s. Down into the upper 40s tonight.Look! Up in the sky!
Sunrise on Sunday was well worth being up for. Here's the sky from Bridgewater, by Bob Wagner.
And from Meriden, by Scribner Fauver.
And meanwhile, yesterday's rain produced a fine double rainbow. Here's Jay Cary's shot looking east from Lyme.
Residents on both sides of the river fret about next year's Lyme-E. Thetford bridge closure. NHDOT's original plan last year to repair the badly deteriorated bridge called for two separate closures, with a long open stretch in between. Now, reports Justin Campfield in the Valley News, the agency plans to close it for 18 months starting next spring. With locals facing long detours up to Fairlee/Orford or down to Hanover/Norwich, they've been agitating for a temporary replacement bridge, but state project manager Jennifer Reczek says that's not an option. Lyme's state reps are urging NHDOT to reconsider.And just why does the bridge need replacing? Early this year, as the issue bubbled to the surface, Sidenote's Nick Clark wrote an in-depth series on the bridge's history and current condition.
His piece on the bridge's history is here.
And his piece on its deterioration and safety is here.
SPONSORED: LISTEN has a $25,000 Match! Help secure a generous anonymous match to be used to stock the Food Pantry and Community Dinner Hall with groceries for the season. When you do, we’ll set some funds aside to buy fresh produce all winter long! Donate here. Sponsored by LISTEN.Center for Cartoon Studies launches Ed Koren Scholarship Fund. With the esteemed and much-loved Vermont cartoonist and longtime Brookfield resident facing "an incontrovertible cancer," writes Pamela Polston in Seven Days, CCS has launched a fund in his honor to support "an emerging cartoonist who is also looking to enrich the cultural and civic life of Vermont.” Polston met with Koren recently and found his wit intact and "his spirits sanguine." There's also a link to a July photo essay, after Brookfield held a celebration outside Koren's home.Hanover's Traditionally Trendy to close. Owner Rocio Menoscal had originally hoped to retire in 2019 after three decades in business, writes The Dartmouth's Emily Fagell. Rather than sell the business, she hoped just to clear her inventory and shut down, but the pandemic made it impossible. “I put so much work in this [store],” Menoscal says. “I gave my life to the store, so I feel more comfortable just selling everything and going home.” From now until November, when the store closes, everything is discounted, Fagell writes.Area restaurants continue to endure staffing issues. In Lyme, reports Lucy Roback for the VN, Latham's Tavern closed so owner Tami Dowd—with a third the staff she had last year—could concentrate on Dowd's Inn and its banquet business. Facing staff shortages, Salt Hill closed its W. Leb branch to focus on other locations, and the Blue Sparrow in Norwich shut down entirely in favor of its sister venue, The Nest in Hanover. Area restaurants have been trimming days as they struggle with a chronic labor shortage. “It’s not that we’re slow or that we need extra funding," says a Nest manager. “We need bodies."And speaking of restaurants, about those fries... That description last Thursday of how Elixir's truffle fries are prepared? I misunderstood chef/owner Christopher Brewer. All of that prep happens—but not in Elixir's kitchen, which doesn't have the space; they arrive ready to fry. Either way, here's guessing that when tables get cleared, those fry-holders are cleaned out.Meanwhile, there's plenty to get out and see this week. And it's not just the leaves. "One of the best things about living in the Upper Valley is that there are more arts events than one individual can get to," writes Susan Apel in Artful. She highlights Spring Awakening, which opens for previews tonight at Northern Stage; Parish Players' production of The Play That Goes Wrong, which opens Thursday; the Black Opry Review, which rolls onto the Lebanon Opera House stage on Saturday for a free concert and showcases five rising Black country stars; and the Hood's high-profile Aboriginal art exhibit."We were told under no uncertain terms that since we lived on Main Street, we needed to become part of the pumpkin people.” That's Meriden's Kevin Goodan talking to WCAX's Adam Sullivan about the decade-old tradition of decorating or dressing up pumpkins around the village and the surrounding town of Plainfield. Things are in full swing now, with everything from M & M pumpkins to Pooh (as in Winnie-the-) pumpkins to flying pumpkins lining the streets. You can take a virtual tour on the Pumpkin People FB page.NH sees first case of deadly deer disease. In a press release yesterday, NH Fish & Game announced that epizootic hemorrhagic disease has been found in a white-tailed deer that died in Merrimack County. The virus, which has already been documented in VT, CT, and NY, is carried by “no-see-ums” and is usually fatal to deer. It does not affect humans. "With the onset of colder weather," Fish & Game writes, "a hard frost will kill the midges and end the outbreak." "You’re in the middle of Vermont, you just don’t think of a rocketship passing overhead.” And the same could be said for New Hampshire and Maine, too. People in all three states on Saturday night reported a bright light with a tail behind it moving across the sky. “We were just really kind of baffled,” Quechee's Bruce Kasanoff tells VTDigger's Patrick Crowley. It turned out to be the second stage of a SpaceX rocket carrying Starlink satellites, deploying over the Atlantic off the coast of Maine.Oh, you'll want the sound up for this. As they do every year, people have been dropping off apples and acorns in the bins out by the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme for the bears to enjoy. And as this new video (on FB) from the center makes plain, "enjoy" is probably a little wan as an adjective.The Tuesday Vordle. Back in Daybreak!
Heads Up
At 5 pm today, a panoply of Dartmouth organizations host Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome, for a lecture called "Beyond Limits: Systems Thinking for 21st Century Challenges." It commemorates the work of Donella Meadows and the 50th anniversary of the Club's seminal Limits to Growth report and builds on a recent TED talk by Dixson-Declève on what we've learned in the half-century since the report's publication. In-person in 006 Steele Hall.
And this evening at 7:30, Northern Stage's production of Spring Awakening opens for previews. The Tony Award-winning musical sets the rebellion and angst of a group of 1890s teens chafing at life in a provincial German town to a rock score by singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik. "When was the last time you felt a frisson of surprise and excitement at something that happened in a new musical? For that matter, when was the last time something new happened in a new musical?" asked the NYT's Charles Isherwood in his laudatory review when the play premiered in 2006.
And the Tuesday poemAfter two rainy days, a sunny oneof cloud curds breaking up in blue.Now the sky is peach ice cream.That one maple by the house nowis almost bare. The pondturns greenish-black. Downstairssomeone (you) shuts a door. Eveningsin Vermont, the fire dies in the sky,the pond goes altogether black,and indoors all is coziness. I studythe pattern in a red rug, arabesquesand squares, and one red streaklies in the west, over the ridge.— From the "Evenings in Vermont" section of Hymn to Life, by James Schuyler.See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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