A TREAT TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunny, definitely colder. High pressure is building in, but today's the coldest day of the week and we'll be spending it below freezing. We also get winds from the north, with gusts into the teens. So much fun! To top it all off, the weather folks say, charmingly, that tonight "temperatures should drop pretty rabidly" (probably a misspelling, but this is New England, so who knows?). They'll get down to around 10 before a warm front moves in tomorrow.Eagles. They're so hard to impress. This is not a recent photo, but it was hard to pass up this explanation from novelist Sonja Hakala: She and her husband have an island in the White River that "used to have a clutch of cottonwoods in the center until some enterprising beavers girdled them. Over time, they shed their bark and small branches until they were large snags with amazing views up and down the river if you were at the top. We used to have bald eagle visits there all the time. Our beloved eagle tree fell to earth in 2018. We still see the birds around in different locations...but for photo purposes, nothing beats that tree." These are leaf peepers from 2016.What it takes. It's just a new bridge in the woods, and over the next few years countless people will cross it without a thought as they walk the Ballard Trail in Norwich. But Steve Flanders has a nice photographic reminder of the grinding and usually unnoticed work that trail volunteers all over the Upper Valley put in to make this place so enjoyable. Last Friday and Saturday, a small crew demolished the old bridge, carried out the debris, created a foundation for the new one, built the bridge itself, put it in place... and watched the bridge's first user come through while they were still working.Looks like Sharon Academy's yurts are toast. The "temporary" structures in front of the high school have been there since 2005 and have become as much a part of it as its actual buildings. But now TSA is planning a new science wing, and fire marshals have told the administration that the improvements mean the yurts will have to go, reports the Valley News's Alex Hanson. The project's been in the works for a decade, and there's a public hearing tonight on the school's request for a $1.9 million federal loan.Windsor, Orange among VT counties getting federal drought disaster declaration. The move allows farmers who lost crops due to lack of rainfall to apply for disaster aid, writes Seven Days' Kevin McCallum. Federal law makes adjoining counties—even across state lines—eligible for aid as well, meaning that farmers in Grafton and Sullivan counties will also qualify for aid.Newport High field hockey star inspires letters, cards for Woodlawn residents. The nursing home has the biggest Covid outbreak in the Upper Valley, with 33 cases active as of Monday. Maddie Miller, who spent her summer as an aide there so she could get time with her grandmother, is organizing town residents and students districtwide to send in letters of support. “Knowing that the community is thinking of them and sharing letters helps," Woodlawn administrator Chris Martin tells the VN's Pete Nakos. "I really think it’s essential for mental health and knowing that people care.”Thinking of traveling for Thanksgiving? Connecticut just added VT to its list of states whose residents are required to quarantine for two weeks if they visit (NH was already there); Maine is asking VT and NH residents to get tested before they come. But hey, you can still go to Massachusetts without quarantine or testing, at least for the moment. NECN rounds up the New England states.Space Force comes to NH. The New Boston Air Force Station, which actually straddles three towns and boasts an impressive array of satellite dishes, is now part of the Peterson-Schriever Garrison of the U.S. Space Force, reports David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog. This is fitting, he thinks, because New Boston "was once home to perhaps the most geekishly intriguing institution ever to set up shop in New Hampshire: the Gravity Research Foundation." It still exists, mostly through its annual essay competition, though it left the state in 1967. Now New Boston's back in the gravity-fighting trenches!The next pandemic shortage: Snowmobiles. “We’re down to less than 10 snowmobiles for the rest of the season,” Jake daSilva of daSilva Motorsports in Moultonborough tells the Laconia Daily Sun's Adam Drapcho. Usually, that's how many are left over in spring. “We’re going to be out of inventory really soon and we can’t replenish that inventory,” daSilva adds: Manufacturers don't have more to sell, and people upgrading their machines know the market's white hot, so they're selling their old ones themselves.“Our phones are blowing off the walls.” That's Stephanie Bray, managing attorney for NH Legal Assistance in Claremont, talking about the response to the state's move to try to recoup nearly $25 million in “overpayments” from more than 10,000 people who got unemployment payments this year. "Unemployment is an eligibility-based program, not an entitlement program,” an employment security official tells the Union Leader's Michael Cousineau. The state wanted to get money out the door early in the pandemic; now it's totting up who was actually eligible and for how much.One change with GOP control of the NH House: It may meet more often in person. "In a normal year, the first few months of a new legislative session in Concord could qualify as some of the least socially distanced large public gatherings in the state," notes WMUR's Adam Sexton. That went out the window for the pandemic, but the leading candidate for House speaker, Dick Hinch, says he'd like to get back to "as much in-person work as possible" if it's safe. Sexton notes the anti-mask House Freedom Caucus has grown in size with the election.ZAFA Wines faces licensing investigation. The nationally renowned small winery, begun by Krista Scruggs after she left Barnard's La Garagista, got a cease-and-desist order from the state last Friday ordering it to stop making, selling, and distributing alcoholic beverages as the state investigates whether “vinous products were produced without a license from 2018 and onward.” It's part of an investigation into ZAFA and Co Cellars, a fermentory with which it shares space in Burlington, writes Sally Pollak in Seven Days.Stop whining, says Phil Scott. Okay, he didn't quite put it that way, but at his press conference yesterday he made it clear he has no patience with skeptics of the rules he announced last Friday, report VTDigger's Tom Kearney and Katie Jickling. "Don't pretend it’s about freedoms," he said. "Because real patriots serve and sacrifice for all, whether they agree with them or not.” Socializing accounted for 71 percent of recent outbreaks; the state has not seen spread from restaurants, schools, businesses, or tourists, Scott added. Also, the state is adding testing sites and will double its contact tracing force.Meanwhile, VT now has the highest "reproduction rate" in the country. The rate, known as Rt, is the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. Vermont's now stands at 1.42; the second-highest rate in the country belongs to New Hampshire, at 1.28. Third place belongs to Maine. Anything above 1.0 means the virus will spread rapidly. At the moment, only Mississippi is below that benchmark. "I joke that I will either attempt an epic poem in quatrains or the libretto of an opera." Don't worry, he won't—Jon Margolis is a news guy. But he just turned 80, and he's hanging up his spurs after a long career as a political writer at the Chicago Tribune and then a decade as a columnist at VTDigger. His last column was yesterday. And his parting shot? "Every once in a while, some members of both tribes [should] try wondering what’s wrong with them and their own, and try to understand the folks in that other coalition."Ever heard of the Toco Toucan, Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, or Polish Silver-Laced Frizzle Rooster? Yeah, me neither. But they're fantastic-looking! They're among the rare and endangered birds that London photographer Tim Flach has captured in his recent bird portraits. There are Gentoo Penguins diving, the iridescent Himalayan Monal, and I think my favorite, the "Yeah, what of it?" gaze of Barney, the Barn Owl. Yesterday it was sound made visible. Today it's the invisible as sound. People from all over the world submit "sound walks" to a platform called walk listen create. These are not just recordings of passing sounds as they walk, though there are those. They're also ruminations, soundscapes, sound-as-art, audio travel guides. Some are gussied up in artspeak, some are plain and accessible. All are interesting. This is a site for poking around. If you want to check out just a couple, try the field recordings of "The Ears May Travel" or the audio tour, "The Last Eccentrics of Greenwich Village."
And the numbers...
Dartmouth reports 5 active student cases and 2 among faculty and staff. Its quarantine numbers have grown, with 56 students and 9 faculty/staff in quarantine because of travel or exposure; 5 students and 16 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 279 positive test results yesterday (amazing, isn't it, that a number below 300 feels like a relief), bringing its total to 15,303. There were 2 new deaths, which now stand at 502; 77 people are hospitalized (up 3). The current caseload is at 3,551 3,344 (up 207). Grafton County has 157 active cases, Sullivan has 83, and Merrimack has 332. In town-by-town numbers, Newport remains at 42 active cases and Hanover at 17. Lebanon has 12 (up 1), as do Claremont (no change) and Charlestown (up 3). Canaan and New London remain at 7 each, and Sunapee at 5. There are 1-4 cases each in Haverhill, Piermont, Warren, Dorchester, Lyme, Enfield, Plainfield, Grantham, Unity, Goshen, Newbury, and Wilmot.
VT added 95 cases yesterday, bringing its official total to 3,104, with 938 of those active (up 39). Deaths remain at 59 and 17 people with confirmed cases (down 2) are hospitalized. Windsor County remains at 152 for the pandemic, with 24 of those in the past 14 days. Orange County gained 16 new cases to stand at 122 cumulatively, 82 of them reported in the past 14 days. As the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr reports, state officials yesterday declared Orange County a hot spot.
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At 7 pm this evening, the Etna Library and Hanover Historical Society are hosting Dr. Bob Keene, a now-retired longtime local dentist, who helped his parents build and run Keene's Lodge in Etna in the middle of the last century. It became Pierce's Inn in 1971, the name it still holds. "How a Lodge Became an Inn of Destination in Etna, NH," is the first of what the historical society hopes will be presentations by locals on the history they lived. Here's the Zoom link.
Also at 7, the Vermont Studio Center presents two writers, memoirist and poet Sebastian Matthews and poet Curtis Bauer, talking about the craft and the work of writing, literary friendships, and the invisibilia of making a go of it as a writer.
Then, at 7:30 pm, NH PBS's weekly "Windows to the Wild," hosted by Willem Lange, features Thetford Academy's Scott Ellis, who teaches environmental science and outdoor education, and the Academy's outdoor programs during the pandemic. Link is to the trailer. (Thanks, DG!)
Finally, the team at the Woodstock Area Relief Fund wants Vermonters to know that anyone facing service disconnection because of past-due balances on electric, landlines, Vermont Gas, or private or municipal water or water/sewer bills is still eligible to apply for the state's Covid-19 Arrearage Assistance Program. The deadline to apply is Dec. 15.
So let's say you're wandering down a street in Montmartre in Paris and, looking for a local scene, you turn into the bistro/cabaret La Crémaillère 1900... only to discover that there's just one other person in there. But it happens to be the lyrical classical guitarist Roxane Elfasci and
so you're good.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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