GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Oh, definitely get out there and enjoy today. It'll be somewhat like the last couple of days: cloudier and getting more so as the day wears on, but still reaching the mid-40s, with winds from the northwest, and, most importantly, dry. Until sometime tonight, when low pressure and a storm system reach us from the west, bringing at first rain and snow, then freezing rain (depending on where you are) and rain in the early-morning hours. Low around freezing.A different sort of photo today. Let's let Warren Thayer, Norwich's former town moderator, explain it: "Several years ago when I was working at the Norwich Fair, someone came up and said they'd just found something in the grass and could I help return it to whoever lost it. Sure. No prob. It was an antique locket, brass or gold, with family pictures. Police reported nobody asking about it and posts on the listserv turned up nothing. Lots of asking around...nada." Well, Warren has since moved away. With the locket. And he wants to find its rightful owner. Let us know if you recognize anyone.Lockdown at Rivendell Academy. The Orford middle- and high school ordered students to shelter in place yesterday shortly before noon, when "an individual was spotted walking toward the school grounds with what appeared to be a weapon," reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan. School officials met the person—a student—outside; he eventually put down his weapons, which turned out to be pellet guns. Local and state police responded, and the student was taken into custody.Colby-Sawyer to expand nursing pipeline to DH-H with new building, programs. About 65 percent of the college's nursing students go to work in the D-H system, reports the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr, and Colby-Sawyer President Sue Stuebner tells her that it's aiming to raise that percentage. It's just announced plans for a new $10.5 million academic building that will help it consolidate its nursing and health sciences classes, with room for 730 students. It also plans to expand the range of its nursing and health sciences programs. The building plans still need approval from New London.
Were you on I-89 around Sharon just after midnight Sunday morning? VT State Police are looking for any information about a single-vehicle crash around mile marker 9 northbound, in which a Honda Civic "left the roadway, traveled up a rock embankment, flipped, and landed off the roadway on its roof." The driver, a 57-year-old from Rutland, was taken to DHMC with serious injuries.Is VA asset review commission's recommendation to close WRJ's emergency department a stalking horse for shrinking services? That's what one doc worries after a federal report suggests replacing the ED with an urgent care center and consolidating leadership between the WRJ and Manchester hospitals. He tells the VN's Doyle-Burr the move would lead to reduced hospital use, which in turn will produce cuts in staffing and other services. As Doyle-Burr writes, though, the recommendations have already drawn opposition from the states' congressional delegations.SPONSORED: We’re Looking For You! Do you love clothing? Do you get a kick out of helping women look great? Are you quick-footed, quick-witted…a multitasking whiz? Fat Hat in Quechee is looking for one fabulous, fashion-oriented, people-loving, part/full time, competent, capable, joyful, self-starting Wonder Woman. Pay is commensurate with ability, talent, and work history. Please hit the maroon link, give us a call at 802.296.6646, or email [email protected]. Sponsored by Fat Hat Clothing Company.
Red-wing blackbirds, children playing outside, the squelch of mud under tires... These, writes Melissa Krzal in Sidenote, are the "songs of spring." Plus, of course, skunks—though they're smelled and not heard—and running sap. "A food source that is so pure that it is only one ingredient/Nothing dies," as Thetford outdoor educator Scott Ellis writes in a poem Krzal quotes.Did you know that Jamaica's national dish is made from a fruit so deadly before boiling that it's illegal to export when it's fresh? Nope, me neither. But that's just one of innumerable fun tidbits in the new Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer's Guide, and in this week's Enthusiasms, the Howe's Jared Jenisch takes us on a quick tour, from Vermont's switchel to Portugal's bacon fat and wine pudding to the best food on Antarctica to fermented urine-cured skate—which apparently smells "like an outhouse" and, Jared writes, is "a divisive dish even in South Korea." Plenty more at the link.Now you tell us. For a long time, political scientists have argued that political candidates tend to run toward the middle so as to attract the "average" voter. Now, however, a new model developed by a Dartmouth grad student and a postdoc helps explain what we've been seeing with our own eyes: voters polarizing right and left, with a trough in the middle. In essence, writes Dartmouth News's Bill Platt, they argue that there's a feedback loop between politicians and voters, who reinforce each other—and, as voting gets harder, drive away voters who'd be more inclined to pull candidates toward the center.NH librarians: “We’re kind of like bartenders without a liquor license.” That’s a Farmington librarian, tongue firmly in cheek, summing up what it can be like to run a public space that welcomes people with all points of view. Sometimes, reports NHPR’s Casey McDermott, it can be tricky to remain neutral and open-minded when dialogue becomes political, heated, or otherwise thorny. A UNH program, NH Listens, offers training to help librarians and others (teachers, coaches, lawyers) facilitate tense conversations and reinforce the value of healthy civic engagement, even when voices are raised.Former CEO of NH's biggest addiction treatment network accused of repeated sexual misconduct. Interviews with nearly 50 former clients, current and past employees, and others, reports NHPR's Lauren Chooljian, reveal "multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, abusive leadership, and retaliation" by Eric Spofford while he was CEO of Granite Recovery Centers, the state's largest provider of substance use disorder services. Spofford sold the company late last year; in a statement, his lawyer said Spofford "denies any alleged misconduct" and went on to threaten NHPR with legal action.Woodchucks in the crosshairs because of the Karner blue... So here's the problem: NH's Dept of Military Affairs and Veterans Services has been charged with restoring Karner blue butterfly habitat on its grounds in Concord. And Karners depend on wild lupine. And to woodchucks, lupine is "like cotton candy," according to a department spokesman. So, reports Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, the department has requested $2,485 for woodchuck “control”—by which, Timmins writes, they do "not mean relocation."Omicron BA.2 cases rising in New England—but experts "still don’t know whether that’s bad news." So writes the Concord Monitor's Teddy Rosenbluth. DHMC's Michael Calderwood explains that while the subvariant is more transmissible than the Omicron version that swept through the region early this year, it's "worse at overwhelming immune responses, making it more likely that humans will be able to fight it off." BA.2 now makes up about half of the Covid cases in New England, though NH state epidemiologist Ben Chan says it's driving only some 10 percent of Granite State cases.As VT Covid cases bump upward, state to wind down vaccine clinics. Yesterday, the state reported 215 more cases over the past week than the week before, according to its latest report. Still, at a press conference yesterday, state health commissioner Mark Levine noted that use of state-run vaccine clinics has been low of late, while primary care providers have been giving more doses, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko. "This gives us the opportunity to make getting your Covid vaccine more like other vaccines that you can get from your health care provider or pharmacy,” Levine said.“I received a box from Wheelock, which is a city in Vermont state in the U.S.” That was an enraptured Gurdeep Pandher, a Punjabi author in Canada’s Yukon territory, talking to the multitude of online followers he's amassed during the pandemic by posting daily videos of himself (and others) joyously dancing bhangra, a traditional Punjabi folk dance. In Seven Days, Anne Wallace Allen details what happened when one of those followers—Beth Norris, the former chair of Lyndon State College’s music business department—sent him a quilt. "You always put a smile on my face and joy in my heart," she wrote.How indigenous people perfected maple sugaring long ago. Before it became synonymous with red flannel jackets, buckets hung from metal spigots, and roadside sugar shacks, maple-sugaring season was a sacred tradition among native North American peoples. For hundreds of years, the tools they used to tap and collect sap were fashioned from what could be found in the forest. In this video, an Anishinaabe man makes a small notch in a tree and inserts a thin cedar spile, guiding the sap into a birchbark basket. For more history even closer to home, check out this Abenaki article on sugaring.
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Today at noon, the National Park Service, Billings, and others host Audubon Vermont's director of conservation, Jillian Liner for an online talk on "A Bird's Perspective on Healthy Forests." She'll be talking about the decline in populations of common bird species in the Northeast, threats to the region's forests, and how good forest management can help.
Also at noon, the Vermont Historical Society hosts Univ. of Victoria (BC) historian Rachel Hope Cleves for an online talk on the lives of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, who lived together in Weybridge, VT from 1807 to 1851 and, writes VHS, "were commonly recognized as a married couple by their kin and community." Cleves will explore "the roles that family, work, religion, love, and sexuality played in the women’s lives."
At 2 pm, also online, Woodstock History Center director Matt Powers will delve deep into a single photo: a 19th-century image from Mt. Peg of the commercial district and some of the homes in Woodstock Village. He'll use it to illuminate village life in that era.
Finally, this evening at 7, Ben Kilham of Lyme's Kilham Bear Center will give a Zoom talk on "The Social Bear: What Bears Have Taught Me About Being Human," hosted by Grantham's Dunbar Free Library. Kilham is, of course, the region's go-to expert on black bears and their social behavior.
Sometimes, you just want a song whose lyrics you know without even thinking. Fortunately, the always-nimble Walk Off the Earth has it covered,
(Thanks, KB!)
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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