GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, warmer. High pressure's paying us a brief visit today, bringing us light winds from the northwest, temps getting into the mid-60s, and partial sun—though there'll be plenty of clouds around, too. Down to around 50 tonight.Leaf peeping: It's not just for people. If you've been up Norwich's Gile Mtn. fire tower recently, you know the views have been extraordinary. Devan Tracy was there the other day and found this bumblebee taking in the colors.WRJ firm lands NASA cryocooler contract. I know, what's a cryocooler, right? That was the first question VPR's Mitch Wertlieb asked Dimitri “Dimi” Deserranno, chief engineer at Concepts NREC, in their conversation yesterday. Answer? It's "a refrigerator on steroids," and NASA wants it to liquefy rocket fuels, which densifies them and makes them manageable on the moon or Mars. Concepts' contribution, Deserranno explains, is to make cryocoolers that are smaller and more energy-efficient than their terrestrial counterparts. Leb's Simbex acquired by San Diego-based firm. It's the second purchase for Salona Global Medical Device Corp., which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and it offers Simbex a “vertically integrated platform to accelerate our growth," co-founder Rick Greenwald tells the Valley News's John Lippman. The sale was actually announced Sept. 30. Though it also makes sensor-equipped medical devices, Simbex is best known for its impact-measuring football helmets, which football programs around the country use to tell if a hit has exceeded a threshold for head injury.SPONSORED: Healthy volunteers, ages 18-45, needed for research study. This is a clinical research study at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to test a new, live oral polio vaccine in healthy adults. We have wiped out 99 percent of polio from the world. We need a new, effective, safe vaccine to take us all the way. Compensation is provided. To learn more, please email [email protected], call (603) 650-1383, or click on the maroon link. Sponsored by DHMC.“Even the best-behaved horse can be afraid, so go wide. Go to the other lane when it’s safe and if it’s not safe, wait a second.” That's Heidi Jo Hauri-Gill, the former owner of a riding academy in Enfield, talking to the VN's Liz Sauchelli about riders' concerns about cars not giving them enough room on the road. They came to a head on Saturday when 25-year-old Shelby Jaffe was knocked from her horse, Waffles, by a passing pickup; Waffles was killed in the accident. Local riders are banding together on social media to raise drivers' awareness under the hashtag #justiceforWaffles.Enthusiasms: "Perhaps the retreating daylight reminds me of just how dark the long nights must have felt to the Puritans." It's Wednesday, which means it's time for Enthusiasms and our rotating cast of locals who've got stuff they really want you to know about. Today, Still North Books owner Allie Levy channels the darkening days and gives a shout-out to Vermont novelist Chris Bohjalian's latest, The Hour of the Witch. Part historical fiction, part horror, it takes place in 1662 Boston and it "stews in the intense anxiety that characterizes the Puritan mindset," Allie writes. Full writeup at the link.Oh yeah, stomp away! Puffballs are ripening out there this third week of October, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, and they "want you to stomp them." Because that, of course, is one way their spores spread. Also out there in the woods: oil beetles (iridiscent and cool to look at, but not a good idea to touch, Elise explains); American coppers hanging out on the last, fading aster blooms; waxy cap mushrooms, some of which are edible and some of which are toxic and they're tough to tell apart; and best of all, the spectacularly named wolf's milk slime mold.New backcountry ski trails coming to Pike NH. Pike Glades, in the village just a few miles from Haverhill, is on land that Warren Bunnell's grandfather bought four decades ago and turned into a small boarding school. More recently, it's been the Upper Valley Stewardship Center, and after a year of working things out with the Granite Outdoor Alliance, Bunnell last month convened a group of volunteers to build five trails and two uphill routes on different sections of the property. You'll find everything from gentle to steep and technical terrain."The Commissioner’s decision to attend in his official capacity was inappropriate. He has given me his assurances that he will use better discretion going forward.” That was NH Gov. Chris Sununu in an email to NHPR's Sarah Gibson, about Education Secretary Frank Edelblut's address to a group of conservative activists over the weekend. One of their leaders recently described NH under Sununu as "dangerously close to what would be expected to be commonplace in Communist China.” Edelblut argued for parental choice on masks and other issues school boards are grappling with.Sununu administration withdraws request for federal vaccine contracts. The Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee was to have taken up the $27 million in federal aid for vaccination outreach later this week, even after the Exec Council nixed the contracts last week. Instead, reports Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, health commissioner Lori Shibinette hopes to use $4.6 million of American Rescue Plan money that doesn't include federal language that has riled opponents.VT State Police arrest husband of Northfield, NH woman missing since Saturday. The VSP first announced an investigation early yesterday morning, after the family of Emily Ferlazzo reported her missing. She and her husband, Joseph Ferlazzo, had gone to Bolton, VT on Friday night. Yesterday afternoon, report VTDigger's Alan J. Keays and Shaun Robinson, a state police detective grabbing lunch at a convenience store in St. Albans noticed Joseph and asked him to come in for questioning. At a press conference late last night, police officials said that Ferlazzo confessed to killing his wife; police discovered Emily's body inside the couple's van.VT guv to the unvaxxed: “Do your part.” As the rate of new cases has begun to exceed those of less vaccinated states, reports Erin Petenko in VT Digger, Gov. Phil Scott yesterday asked Vermonters to take “personal responsibility” to curb the spread of Covid, calling it “selfish” not to take necessary precautions to protect the most vulnerable. State data shows that the unvaccinated are 3.6 times more likely to test positive than vaccinated people. And although they represent only 30 percent of the population, since July more than 60 percent of cases were unvaccinated Vermonters.More than the usual rain, sleet, and snow in November and December? Northern VT is still dry and, in some spots, drought-ridden. Southern VT, on the other hand, had more rain than usual over the summer and into the early fall, reports VTDigger's Tiffany Tan. Now, she writes, the National Weather Service is predicting more precipitation than normal for the rest of the year—except that October is expected to be dry, which means that if it actually happens, all that moisture could be shoehorned into the last two months.Rise above it all on these amazing canopy walks. Star Wars fans will think of Ewok village—thatched-roof treehouses linked by hanging bridges, ladders, and vines. But this kind of elevated wooded domain isn’t a fantasy. Fodor’s writer Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey whisks us up among the monkeys and birds that greet people along some of the coolest canopy walks around the world. Some are hundreds of feet off the ground, and can be several miles long. One in Australia is a 2.5-hour zipline ride. Not on Fodor’s list but way closer—and gorgeous—is the canopy walk at VINS in Quechee.You can totally try this at home. Just make sure your parents aren't around. So, some sibs in Oregon went viral a few months ago with videos of themselves playing "balloon league"—you know the deal because you've done it yourself: Keep the balloon from hitting the floor. Well, Barcelona soccer star Gerard Pique gets wind of the idea and suddenly, 32 international teams are competing in Spain in a mock living room that happens to have a VW in it. The finals were the other day, and Peru's Francesco de la Cruz held off Germany's Jan Spiess for the win. Here's three minutes of riveting action.
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Today at 4 pm, the Hood hosts a virtual gallery talk, "Images of Disability." Maeve McBride leads a discussion looking at "how artists with and without disabilities have approached the subject," using examples from as far back as 1790.
This evening at 7, Vermont Humanities hosts former Marlboro College political theorist, independent constitutional scholar, and reasoned-civic-discussion advocate Meg Mott for an online conversation about whether we can "expect the American public to have the wits and self-control to meet the demands of climate change." In a country devoted to self-governance, she asks, how does it work when "the natural foundations of life itself are changing?" No charge, but you'll need to register.
Jazz great Terence Blanchard is having quite a year. Not only is Fire Shut Up in My Bones, his Metropolitan Opera season opener (based on writer Charles Blow's memoir) the first by a Black composer in the company's 138-year history, but he's also winning accolades for "Absence," his tribute to his mentor, saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter. Tonight at 7:30, Blanchard and his collaborators, the E-Collective and the Turtle Island Quartet, bring "Absence" to the Hop. They create a "lush and dramatic soundscape" (The New Yorker) that calls to mind both Shorter's work and Blanchard's film soundtracks. There's a pre-show conversation with Blanchard at the Top of the Hop at 6:15.
Lord: it is time. The summer was great.Lay your shadows onto the sundialsand let loose the winds upon the fields.Command the last fruits to be full,give them yet two more southern days,urge them to perfection, and chasethe last sweetness into the heavy wine.Who now has no house, builds no more.Who is now alone, will long remain so,will stay awake, read, write long lettersand will wander restlessly here and therein the avenues, when the leaves drift.
—"Autumn Day," by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation by J Mullen
See you tomorrow.
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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