A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
A day much like yesterday. At least, down here it will be. Up above, various low pressure systems are moving about in ways that will affect us soon, but we'll worry about that tomorrow. Today, varying degrees of sun, highs in the mid-60s, light winds from the east, a slight chance of rain this afternoon and a higher chance overnight. Down into the lower 40s tonight.Making herself at home... For the past couple of years, Ian Clark has had a nesting box mounted on his deck in W. Newbury where bluebirds have raised three broods. He's got a wi-fi cam on the inside, looking down, and last week, after a pair he calls Barry and Jeans spent a few days checking the box out, they went to work on a nest. Ian's been keeping a blog, with video, since construction started. You can keep up with what's been going on—there, and in another box he's got mounted across the river at the Piermont Public Library. CATV gets new director. Literally. Samantha Davidson Green, who grew up in Hanover and lives in Plainfield, is a longtime filmmaker and chair of White River Indie Films. She'll step in April 26, reports the Valley News's Tim Camerato, to replace Donna Girot, who has headed off to run the public access media center in Sacramento, CA. Davidson Green takes over as CATV boosts its fundraising efforts as its traditional funding dwindles, and as the pandemic has opened up “new ways to imagine connecting as a community,” she tells Camerato."A local hangout with the vibe of a local store.” That's Cam Gregory, who with his wife, Kathleen, has taken over both the Village Store in Thetford Center and Baker's Store in Post Mills. Gregory is nephew of Mike Pomeroy, the stores' longtime owner, who died in January, 2020. They re-opened last month, and in Sidenote, Li Shen talks to Cam Gregory about how things are going—slow at first, but picking up—and his plans: more locally produced goods, no change to the "heritage" gas pumps, which are expensive to replace.SPONSORED: The Family Place's 10th annual Force for the Future Luncheon is now virtual! The Family Place will present its annual luncheon next Tuesday, April 20 from 12:00 – 1:15 PM as a Zoom webinar. Titled “Better Together: The Positive Impact of Community Partnerships,” the speaker panel will discuss how collaborations between pediatric practices and community organizations, like The Family Place, improve outcomes for young children and their families. $50 suggested donation. Register at the maroon link. Sponsored by The Family Place.NH and VT pause J&J vaccine. As you may have heard, the CDC announced yesterday that it's investigating blood clots in six women out of more than 7 million people who received the vaccine. Federal health officials recommended that states suspend distribution, and both NH and VT did so right away.
NH Gov. Chris Sununu, who got the J&J vaccine at Saturday's mass Speedway event, said the state is working to get Pfizer and Moderna doses to sites that need them. "This news will not slow down New Hampshire,” Sununu said.
In VT, hospitals and vaccination sites scrambled to reschedule appointments. But Gov. Phil Scott said he expected the pause to last "days, not weeks," and that no J&J vaccines had been expected next week, anyway.
So what's this all about? In VTDigger, Mike Dougherty looks into "frequently asked questions," from what to do if you've already gotten the vaccine (the issue is "rare and unusual," state health commissioner Mark Levine said yesterday) to whether J&J vaccines will be safe once they resume (all vaccines have risks, and birth control pills may carry an even higher risk of blood clotting, a UVM hematologist tells Dougherty).No word yet on Ford's off-road-school plans following Suicide Six setback. It still lists Vermont as a site for its Bronco Off-Roadeo driving school, but when Jalopnik's Mercedes Streeter checked in with the auto giant to see if it had a second site in mind—you'll remember that last week, pushback from alarmed residents of Pomfret led the Woodstock Inn and the driving-school operator to pull an Act 250 application and cancel the school—it responded that it "has not confirmed any location yet for its customer off-roading programs in Vermont or any other state."Lumber prices are skyrocketing. Prices for timber? Not so much. You'd think that "forest-filled New Hampshire should be reaping a windfall," writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog. Yet while prices for lumber and wood products have seen their sharpest rise since 1946, it hasn't trickled down to the trees. Part of it is that the construction industry uses softwoods, and a lot of NH's trees are hardwoods. But even more important, Brooks writes, there's no shortage of wood to be harvested out there. “Lumber prices are set nationally, or really globally, and log prices are set locally,” one consultant tells him.Now this is a bike trip: Around the world. From India. In 1923. Actually, that was just the year that Adi Hakim, Jal Bapasola, and Rustom Bhumgara set out. They didn't get home until 1928, after biking 40,000 miles through India, the Middle East, Europe, the US, Japan, Korea, China, and Southeast Asia. In Atlas Obscura, Arti Das tells their little-known story: how in Iran, Bhumgara—a mechanic and acrobat—pulled a car with five passengers down the road with his teeth to earn money; their night behind bars in Rome, where they'd been taken for German spies; their love for NYC, awe at American roads, and disdain for the country's "racial discrimination of the most demeaning character."Yeah, it feels this way some mornings... The mail the other day brought a link to "The Nervous Weatherman," one of the most famous of the skits Don Knotts did in his breakthrough run of character sketches on The Steve Allen Show in the late '50s. (Thanks, RM!)
So...
Dartmouth remains at 10 active cases among students, with 4 among faculty/staff (up 1). There are 17 students and 8 faculty/staff in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 10 students and 13 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 378 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 89,605 (the 7-day daily average of cases has now increased 12 percent over the week before). Deaths remain at 1,257, and 123 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 5). The current active caseload stands at 3,413 (up 29). The state reports 219 active cases in Grafton County (up 15), 50 in Sullivan (down 4), and 292 in Merrimack (down 5). In town-by-town numbers, the state says Haverhill has 25 active cases (up 2), Newport has 18 (down 2), Lebanon has 15 (down 1), Hanover has 15 (no change), Claremont has 11 (down 1), New London has 7 (no change), Enfield has 7 (up 1), Grantham has 6 (no change), Sunapee has 5 (down 1). Piermont, Orford, Wentworth, Rumney, Dorchester, Canaan, Orange, Cornish, Croydon, Wilmot, Charlestown, and Newbury have 1-4 each.
VT reported 73 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 21,388. Deaths remain at 233, while 30 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 1). Windsor County gained 4 new cases and stands at 1,251 for the pandemic, with 73 over the past 14 days, while Orange County also added 4 new cases and is at 641 cumulatively, with 94 cases in the past 14 days.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
Today at 3 pm, the Hartland Public Library offers "Cartooning with Rick Stromoski," a virtual program for kids in grades 3 and up, in which illustrator and cartoonist (Mullets, Soup to Nutz) Stromoski teaches how to draw characters, expressions, and various goofy animals. Free, but you'll need to register.
At 5 pm, Dartmouth's Rockefeller hosts Oren Cass, a former senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who in 2020 founded American Compass, a conservative think tank whose mission is "to restore an economic orthodoxy that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity." He'll be talking with senior lecturer Charles Wheelan about "what conservatism is, how we lost it, and the prospects for finding it again in the post-Trump political landscape."
Also at 5, the Hop hosts a demo on sharpening woodworking and other tools. It'll show you "the fundamentals of tool sharpening so you can apply the technique to everything you own that is dull," they write. Seriously? Everything?
This evening at 7:30, Northern Stage opens its previews for Mud Season Mystery: The Lodger, which was created for Zoom and is performed live each night. It's a comic adaptation by Brenda Withers of a 1911 mystery about a mysterious lodger who arrives at a London boardinghouse while a spree of murders overtakes the city. A "live, interactive, communal experience guaranteed to entertain and provoke," Northern Stage writes.
Let's jump into the day with both feet, eh? 1976, The Band at their Last Waltz concert (with a kickin' horn section),
It just doesn't get better than this.
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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