GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
An in-between day. Snow yesterday, chance of snow tonight, but today it'll be mostly sunny until clouds start moving in ahead of the next little system headed our way. Highs in the mid-30s, calm winds from the west. Chance of some snow overnight, with lows in the lower 20s.Ermines do what ermines do. So, for that matter, do snow buntings and red fox and barred owls... The votes are in for this month's VT Atlas of Life "photo observation of the month" and the top nod-getter is an ermine, or short-tailed weasel in its winter fur, with a short-tailed shrew clutched in its mouth. There were 2,000 photos in all submitted in February, from 411 observers, writes the VT Center for Ecostudies' Kent McFarland, so if you just want to spend some time scrolling, take your time. Daybreak will be waiting right here.A heads up from Lebanon... The "People's Convoy" plans to gather at the Exit 18 truck stop this morning. "There is no way to know how many vehicles are planning to participate, but from the information available, it appears they will leave as a group at some point in the morning and head north on I-89 to I-91 South in Vermont," the city writes. "The police are aware and will be available in the event traffic management is necessary on Route 120 between Heater Road and the Exit 18 interchange. You may want to seek alternate routes if you are planning to travel during this time."VT town meeting. Both Hartford and Woodstock approved retail cannabis sales. In Norwich, incumbent selectboard members Roger Arnold and Claudette Brochu retained their seats, while in Thetford, incumbent Mary Bryant defeated fellow incumbent Nick Clark and former board chair Stuart Rogers, while David Goodrich won a two-year seat. In Barnard, Richard Lancaster unseated longtime incumbent Tim Johnson, while in Woodstock, Susan Ford won a two-year seat and incumbent Mary Riley was unopposed. Hartford voters kept Kim Souza and Ally Tufenkjian on the selectboard, while adding Mary Erdei and Rocket. You can find the Valley News's rundowns here:
And for the only two towns to hold in-person town meetings, Claire Potter was in Barnard and Jim Kenyon was in Chelsea.
Man killed in shooting in St. J hospital parking lot. Police were notified of the incident outside Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital yesterday morning, report VTDigger's Riley Robinson and Lola Duffort. The hospital went into lockdown for a time, but hospital officials said the victim “was not affiliated with NVRH as staff or a patient” and that it “appears to be a targeted incident for those directly involved.” Meanwhile, VT State Police last night announced they'd located a gray Jeep Wrangler with CT plates they'd been seeking and were "speaking with the vehicle's occupants."SPONSORED: Today at 5:30 pm: A health improvement plan for YOUR community. It’s not too late to join your local hospitals and public health network in a virtual conversation about what we can do to make our communities healthier. (Think childcare, cost of healthcare, access to mental health care…) Your local healthcare organizations want to hear from you! Let’s build a plan together. Registration required. Follow the link to register. Sponsored by Community Health, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health. "Kendall Square has lousy skiing." The saga of Lyme Properties' effort to develop old West Leb's River Park into a magnet for life sciences companies still has a long way to go. But Sunday and Monday, the company kicked off its marketing with full-page ads in the Boston Globe touting its allure to frazzled urbanites—"with 11 ski areas within an hour" and "rents innovative companies can afford." Also, of course, "just seven minutes downstream from Dartmouth College." But only if you paddle really fast and don't mind the dam.How to dine right this spring. As winter slowly relents—and Covid, too—beckoning us back out again, Seven Days’ Sally Pollak serves up a mouthwatering reminder of some of the most unique in-person dining experiences in VT. That North Pomfret’s Cloudland Farm makes her short list should come as no surprise; few settings are as authentically farm-to-table as the one run by Bill and Cathy Emmons, who raise their own meat and produce on the property. Pollak’s best bet for a “quick bite” is inside a Gardener’s Supply in Williston. Soup, sandwiches, and seed packets for sowing!As NH state reps prepare to return to State House, a partisan divide on whether it's too early or past time. The House hasn't met in Representatives' Hall for two years, and last week Speaker Sherm Packard announced it will reconvene there March 10. For the most part, NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt writes, GOP members see the move as overdue, while Democrats contend it's premature and poses a threat to legislators who are at higher risk from Covid. And the divide, DeWitt argues, could have legislative consequences if even a few Democrats don't show up for key votes.Retail cannabis expands in VT. In addition to Woodstock and Hartford, voters in Springfield, Rockingham, Putney, and elsewhere—including Essex, the state's second-largest city—approved the idea. Overall, writes Fred Thys in VTDigger, at least 25 towns passed retail cannabis measures. Several towns, including Castleton and Eden, rejected them. Now, says James Pepper, chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, the hard work begins. “Towns don’t know where their authority is, where the board’s authority is," he tells Thys.As mud season approaches, VT state parks staff hope for thoughtful choices. Like using mountain roads at Ascutney or Philo instead of muddy trails, director Nate McKeen tells Seven Days' Jordan Barry. "Nobody's there to stop you from going over a muddy trail," he says. "It's personal responsibility, because we have no patrol or anything like that. It's just everybody working together to care for our resources." Barry talks with McKeen and service manager Rochelle Skinner about how to use parks respectfully in the spring... and about some of their favorite spots.“In Roman times this site was like Disneyland.” That’s Rüstem Aslan, head of excavations at the site of the ancient city of Troy, long-fabled setting of the Trojan War in Homer’s The Iliad. In Joshua Hammer’s panoramic piece in Smithsonian mag, we tour the extensive ruins in modern-day Turkey and survey 5,000 years of history still being uncovered. Aslan’s team continues to expand our understanding of how important the city was through the Bronze Age and beyond. Though much of Homer’s epic is certainly fiction, evidence points to a consequential struggle with those Achaeans across the sea.You could geek out on the tech. Or you could just gaze. About a decade ago, a couple of Google researchers, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, created visualizations of wind currents around the US using weather service data. These days, the wind map is global, built by developer Cameron Beccario and updated every three hours using global forecast data. So are ocean waves (hit "earth" at the bottom left to bring up the toggle box) and a lot more. They're mesmerizing. And there's a whole Facebook community dedicated to visualizations like these. (Thanks ML and AL!)
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This evening at 6:30, three Dartmouth faculty members will lead an open discussion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the motivations behind it, and the roots of the response to it. With Russian prof Stuart Finkel, German Studies prof Yuliya Komska, and historian Udi Greenberg. In 113 Silsby Hall.
At 7 pm it's time for Suds and Science, the monthly gathering—for the moment, still online only—sponsored by the VT Center for Ecostudies to talk nature and science. VCE biologist Jason Hill hosts Kayla Perry, a postdoc at Kent State who specializes in beetles and is studying how natural and human-created disturbances influence the structure and function of insect communities. She'll be talking in particular about how urbanization affects insect life.
Also at 7, it's Vermont Humanities' First Wednesday, with the usual inviting lineup of lectures—all online—hosted by libraries around the state. There's plenty on offer, including archivists Aaron Goldberg and Jeff Potash talking about Burlington's early Jewish community and the "lost mural" painted there in 1910 by a Lithuanian artist, hosted by the Norwich Public Library; Norwich filmmaker Nora Jacobson, hosted by the St. J Athenaeum, on her documentary about poet Ruth Stone; political theorist and public "Constitution wrangler" Meg Mott on the First Amendment and the history of speech laws in the US; poet Keysi Montás (who also happens to be director of Safety and Security at Dartmouth) on how to read haiku; and lots more.
It's a mystery how a musician can be in the prime of her career for pretty much her entire career, but Bonnie Raitt seems to be pulling it off. She just snagged a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, tonight gets handed a Billboard Women In Music Icon Award... and then next month releases her 21st studio album.
by the Canadian roots rockers The Bros. Landreth—music that "lays back and takes charge at the same time," as NPR just put it, with Raitt's wry, supple expressiveness fully intact.
(Thanks, LL!)
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 and writers who want you to 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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