GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Yes, please. We'll take more. High pressure's now settled in—for today, anyway—so we get another day a lot like yesterday: sunny, highs around 60, winds still from the northwest (but not quite as brisk). There'll be clouds moving in this afternoon ahead of an approaching front, which brings a chance of rain overnight. Otherwise, mostly cloudy skies tonight, lows in the upper 30s.That's one nonchalant leap for a fisher. It's not unusual to see fishers at night on the trail cam she places on private land in Hanover, writes Lisa Grose, "but this was a lucky, leaping variety [during daytime] at some wetlands with the remains of our last spring snow."Royalton bridge will remain closed through April. But that's only half the story. Sorry, missed this last week. On Thursday, the town posted an update on the now-closed Royalton Hill (aka Foxstand) Bridge. After state inspectors go over it this week, engineers will determine a load limit—which may or may not allow it to be reopened next month. Meanwhile, the town reports, conditions on Back River Road—the detour route—"are less than ideal." Only, the town's grader has a broken radiator. And the replacement part is coming from Singapore. So the town is borrowing a grader this week.And speaking of bridges: Charlestown NH and Springfield VT are hoping to delay bridge closure. Sound familiar? NHDOT is planning to close the Cheshire Bridge linking the two towns for 34 weeks starting next year. But as Patrick O'Grady reports in the Valley News, residents and business owners at a public meeting yesterday worried aloud that the move will "kill" the local economy. They're hoping a state Senate committee in Concord, which is weighing the state's ten-year transportation plan, will delay the project long enough to find funding for a temporary bridge. O'Grady details the issues.From Randolph to, well, everywhere. Including Taylor Swift's "Eras" tour and "I'm Just Ken". That's not just one guy: It's brothers Anthony and Joe Fiorillo, who got their starts in the arts at Randolph Union and the Chandler, and now, in their young 30s, are out in the wide world. Rebecca Olshan, a UVM Community News Service reporter on assignment for the Herald, profiles the pair: Anthony's a lighting technician, currently on tour with Swift (she's friendly but "it’s sort of taboo for us to say hello"); Joe's done sound work for everyone from Red Bull TV to Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" video. “It’s fun to find the few Vermonters in the world, because there aren’t that many,” says Anthony.SPONSORED: Looking for a dash of whimsy, swagger, and laughs? Check out the Hop’s screening of British Arrows on Saturday, April 20, a 75-minute compilation of the year's best UK-made adverts and PSAs. No hype, no hard sell—just great storytelling, in miniature. Always a crowd-pleaser, the Arrows winners are highly creative and entertaining with emotional twists that are very different from their American cousins. Learn more about the program and get tickets at the burgundy link. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.School budgets pass in Hartford, Strafford, First Branch. Voters in Hartford on Monday brought "a tumultuous and contentious budget process" to an end, writes Christina Dolan in the VN (burgundy link), passing a $51 million budget that eliminates four sports programs, eight coaching positions, and 22 teacher and staff positions. They also approved a $21 million bond for facilities repairs. Meanwhile, voters in Strafford backed the town's $4.1 million budget, up from this year's $3.7 million budget. And floor voters in the Tunbridge-Chelsea First Branch district voted 84-62 in favor of that district's $8.4 million budget.Why hepatica blooms early. You can see their flowers on the forest floor as early as mid-April, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog—a definite advantage at a time trees haven't leafed out yet, meaning sunshine can reach all the way to the ground. Not only do hepatica leaves photosynthesize on warm winter days, she adds, "but even worn and tattered they go into high gear in the spring, photosynthesizing before the leaves of other plants have even appeared." Highly thoughtful of them when we're color-starved.SPONSORED: Join the Team at Upper Valley Music Center! Want to help our community make music? Join a dedicated team of teachers and staff to work with people of all ages. Current openings include both faculty (early childhood, guitar/ukulele, brass, summer elementary music) and staff (marketing/development). If you're passionate about helping people learn music and interested in creating vibrant music-making programs, we'd love to hear from you! Learn more here or at the burgundy link, or email [email protected]. Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center.“We all do things in the best wrong way we know how.” Chip Hedler liked to cite that line from one of his favorite teachers, and as a veteran teacher—especially in Vermont's remaining one-room schoolhouses—he had plenty of opportunities to recall it. If you've contra-danced in the Upper Valley anytime in the last few decades, you knew Hedler, who died in March at 78: he was both a caller and a guitarist in the contra bands Blind Squirrel and Cuckoo's Nest. But before that, the S. Strafford resident was a longtime teacher—and, his obit says, "very understanding of the well-intentioned mistake in any form."Eavesdropping on moose. UNH researchers are turning to crowdsourced trail-cam videos and a network of acoustic sensors "to help figure out where moose populations are and learn more about the environmental factors that could be helping or hurting them," writes Amanda Gokee in the Globe's NH newsletter (no paywall). The work, led by biology prof Laura Kloepper, is aimed at gauging where moose are moving, how intrusions in the woods like snowmobiles and roadways affect them, and whether there are differences between bulls, cows, and calves.Vermont radio group signs agreement with music rights giant to settle copyright infringement suit. You may remember that back in January, Global Music Rights—which represents artists like Bruce Springsteen and Bruno Mars—sued VT Broadcast Associates, which owns Moo 92.1, Magic 97.7, and other radio stations in central and northern VT. The suit alleged the stations had aired 66 songs in the GMR repertoire without permission over five years. Facing $9.9 million in fines, reports InsideRadio, VBR has now signed an agreement with GMR that includes a long-term license; GMR has asked the case be dismissed.VT ski areas could get used to the idea of spring snowstorms. In fact, if the last couple of years are any guide, they'll have to. After a "barren" January and February, reports VT Public's Corey Dockser, they're reveling in this year's March and April storms, which have kept resorts humming—Jay Peak's rooms are sold out this coming weekend. The eclipse helped in northern VT, but even southern areas have seen two or three times the volume as usual for spring, Ski Vermont's Brian Rivard tells Dockser. The pattern, he adds, "is pretty standard...for what we’re seeing now and we’ll be ready for it in future years.”Someone is sending $200 to residents of Winooski. And not just a few Winooskiites (Winooskians?). One recipient of an envelope with two $100 bills inside tells Seven Days' Rachel Hellman that "his letter carrier told him he’d been dropping off similar missives all day." The money arrives with a typewritten note headed RIPPLES and the message, "Take one and pass one. If you really need em, keep em both.” No one knows who's sending the money out, or why—though some recipients are taking it as an invitation to donate. “I feel a lot of responsibility to get that money to where it needs to go,” says one.School crossing guard: "All he wanted was to have peace around him." This evening at UVM, Pulitzer-winning journalist Joe Sexton will sit down for a sold-out conversation with Seven Days publisher Paula Routly. As it happens, Sexton's latest story appeared yesterday in the NYT (gift): a heart-wrenching, beautifully written story about one of the "unheralded army of men and women who...keep New York safe and hold it together"—crossing guard Richie Henderson. He grew up poor in East New York, took charge of the children at a high-end Manhattan private school on their way into and out of the building, was murdered in January. Then the kids he'd bonded with took charge.“You just don’t see this biomass of terrestrial life anywhere else.” Sounds like a math problem: If brood XIX cicadas emerge every 13 years and brood XIII every 17 years, when will they cross paths? Correct! This month. Fortunately, not in VT or NH, but watch out, Illinois! This mass invasion of periodical cicadas happens every 221 years, writes Rebecca McPhee on ExplorersWeb, when “trillions of chunky insects” blanket the trees to shriek, mate, and die, leaving their offspring to repeat the cycle. John Cooley, a cicada expert, says it will be loud—110 decibels. “Periodical cicadas don’t do subtle.”
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This evening at 6:30, the Etna Library hosts Jackson Penfield-Cyr, of Upper Valley Integration Therapy, for a talk on "Aging Gracefully". He'll explore "how the 'secrets' to aging gracefully exist within the routines of daily life, and how by understanding the biology of being human, we can implement best practices of being healthy."
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts legendary hiker, climber, writer, and conservationist Laura Waterman, along with artist and illustrator Nancy Kittridge, talking about Waterman's new book of essays, Calling Wild Places Home. The book is "a memoir in essays," in which she writes about homesteading, mountaineering, the wilderness, and her relationship with her husband, Guy, who died by suicide in 2000.
Also at 7, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover hosts writer Bushra Rehman, reading from, talking about, and signing her 2022 novel, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion—a "stunningly beautiful coming-of-age novel" (NYT) about a young Pakistani-American growing up in Corona, Queens, navigating both her Muslim identity and her own growing sexual awareness.
At 7:30 this evening, the Hop hosts the Korean fusion group Coreyah in the Hanover Inn Ballroom. The six-member band uses both traditional Korean and modern instruments to blend classical Korean music with a variety of global influences, including rock, Balkan music, and genres from South America and Africa.
And you should know that today and tomorrow are the final two days of the Rauner Special Collections Library's 25th anniversary celebration. Tours, discussions of how manuscripts get digitized, a chance to write your next novel on Mario Puzo's typewriter (a benefactor donated the Godfather author's papers and other belongings back in 2018), a preservation showcase, and more. Some events need registration. It all culminates tomorrow in a talk by columnist, author, English prof, and humorist Gina Barreca (more on that tomorrow).
There's ancient music. And then there's really ancient music.
In an earlier life, Canadian musician Peter Pringle made his name as a pop singer, songwriter, and host of the Miss Teen Canada pageant. These days, he's gaining a new audience via YouTube as what could be the world's foremost—heck, maybe the only—musical interpreter of ancient Sumerian legends, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. Here he is last year, playing a scale replica of the Gold Lyre of Ur—a drone instrument "
not appropriate for playing melodies," he writes, whose sound was likened to the “roaring of bulls” by Sumerian writers—and singing the haunting first dozen lines of "The Exaltation of Inanna" (who later became the goddess Ishtar), written four millennia ago by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon The Great and the High Priestess of Inanna in the city of Ur. Whatever you think of it, odds are good you've never heard anything like it.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, writers, and librarians who think you should 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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