GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
You know that old saw, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute"? Well here we are. We're at the northern edge of a system that has a slight chance of bringing us some rain and snow first thing this morning. Then it's going to clear out and get partly sunny and into the mid-50s and all lah-di-dah. And it'll look as if everything's fine all through the rest of the day and tonight until wham! turns out there's a bigger system headed our way. But that one we can talk about tomorrow.Early April weatherly foot-stamping aside, spring's all around us. The other day, Tig Tillinghast and his family were out in Thetford Center, and he caught some pics of all the spring awakening going on. At the link, (his descriptions), you'll find: a red eft coming out a bit early; a barred owl loitering in daytime near a frog pond; a jelly fungus held against the light; two wood frogs in amplexus in efforts to create more owl food; a cooped up puppy surveying the wetland realm; and a woodcock.And now, let's look at some numbers:
NH is at 747 reported cases (up 32), with 211 of them recovered (up 60) and four new deaths bringing the total to 13. Overall, 108 have been hospitalized. 53 percent of all cases have been women. Grafton and Sullivan counties remain at 41 and 6 cases, respectively.
VT (which now has a spiffy new dashboard, with tabs that let you break down demographics) is at 575 total cases (up 32) with 29 hospitalized and 23 deaths (no change). Windsor County's got 24 officially reported cases (up 2), Orange remains at 4. The new data, by the way, shows that 166 of VT's cases are people under the age of 40. And that, as in NH, slightly more women (54 percent) have gotten it than men.
In its 114-year history, Camp Billings on Lake Fairlee has closed only once: in 1918, during the Spanish Flu epidemic. Now, however, its board has decided to keep its gates closed this summer. The virus, its board president and directors wrote, "is not something that can be managed at Billings." "This news is breaking the hearts of children and staff who have been counting the days since last summer until they could return... as well as thousands of alums who feel the pain almost as much," Rebecca Meyers writes in an email.ShiftMeals arrives on Friday. That's the effort by the folks at the Skinny Pancake to feed anyone who needs feeding. "We serve anyone and everyone who needs a meal: laid-off restaurant workers, musicians, artists, gig workers, farmers, anyone affected by this crisis. You might not have the cash, you might not have access to the store, it doesn’t matter, if you need help, we’re here for you," they write. Details at the link if you need food, want to request a bulk order for your organization, or want to contribute to keep the effort going. Quechee location only (Hanover's closed). “The good news is there’s no parking problem in downtown Hanover right now. The bad news is there’s no money coming into the funds right now.” That's Hanover town manager Julia Griffin, talking about steep revenue drops her town and others are anticipating. Ordinarily, parking fees bring in $2.3 million. In Leb, landing and rental car fees at the airport, which together generate almost $500,000, are way down. Rec fees in towns around the region are down. And it's all just a prelude to people struggling to pay property taxes when bills go out. (VN, sub reqd)Another sign of the times. This one's in Fairlee, where the town's [email protected] volunteers have posted at trailheads and on Lake Morey Road reminding walkers to stay six feet apart, wear face masks if they can't manage to do that, and avoid touching signs, trees, and other hikers. Of course, there's also the #FairleeStrong sun right in the center of town to brighten the mood. (Thanks, CM!)AVA's Mudroom to become MudZoom. For some time now, AVA's "Mud Room" series has regularly been packing one of its galleries for true stories from Upper Valleyites, à la The Moth. But as blogger Susan Apel notes, "'packing them in' is not how we live now." So March's cancelled "The Worst Advice" story night is about to become April 16th's "The Worst Advice" Zoom night. If you got tix for the March event, you'll get a link in your inbox. If not, you can follow the link in Susan's post on the 16th at 6 pm. It's free, though a donation wouldn't go unnoticed. Speaking of mud: Stay off mountain bike trails right now. More people than ever are getting out on bikes at the moment, writes Gretchen Stokes in a VN commentary. She's on the board of the Upper Valley Mountain Bike Association. But she notes a lot of trails are closed right now for mud season, including at Boston Lot. Why? Because if they get rutted now, they'll suck for the rest of the summer (she doesn't quite put it that way). Given a chance to dry out, they'll be a pleasure to ride. (VN, sub reqd)On the other hand, here's a chance to get outside you may never get again. Alnoba is a privately owned foundation and retreat center in Kensington, NH, down in the southeast corner by Seabrook. It's got 400 preserved acres of forests, meadows and trails that very few people ever get to walk on; it also has one of the state's biggest collections of outdoor art. And during the crisis, it's opening its doors to the public, though you have to reserve a time slot, and there's a limited number of them. NHPR's Todd Bookman got a visit.Sununu creates new office to oversee crisis relief funds, worries about Manchester Airport. In a letter to the Democratic leaders of the state legislature, he said the new Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery will include a bipartisan legislative advisory board. And in a letter to transportation officials yesterday, the governor said that a provision in the federal relief bill allows airlines to request permission to consolidate operations to a single airport within a 150-mile area, which may shift operations to Boston and cost NH federal dollars. Central VT orgs confer daily on "the emergency of the day." Some 30 of them have joined up with the state health department to create a single "command center" that coordinates their efforts in Washington and northern Orange counties around a particular need. Rather than orgs flying solo, they can depend on one another for expertise. “It means that there’s really clear roles and responsibilities,” says Sue Minter, who runs Capstone Community Action in Barre. “Every day, a very clear objective that is begun in the morning and returned to at the end of the day.”VT labor department, staggering under unemployment load, gets phone help from Vermont Gas, GMP, Efficiency Vermont. The state's interim labor commissioner told a Senate committee yesterday that it's getting 10,000 calls a day, and can't handle them. Some prospective claimants report trying 500 times without getting through. So workers from nearby companies are pitching in. Meanwhile, the aging mainframe that handles online claims is crashing on Sundays, when people can file claims for the prior week.UVM team creates inexpensive, quickly manufactured ventilator. The team blends engineers, scientists, and doctors, and, says Seven Days' Courtney Lamdin, unlike a traditional ventilator, which can cost more than $25,000 to make, "the Vermontilator can be built for a couple hundred bucks with simple, widely available parts." It takes a 12-volt battery. The prototype was built overnight by a UVM engineer using parts he found at home and at the lab. "Suddenly [I realized], oh my God, these guys can actually do it,” says project lead Jason Bates. It still needs testing and FDA approval. Meanwhile, down in Bellows Falls, Chroma is trying to meet surging demand for its optical filters. They're used for virus testing, and the sheer scale of the need out there has the company trying to hire more staff. A few years ago, CFO Newell Lessell tells VTDigger's Anne Wallace Allen, a customer might have needed 100 filters; now they're ordering 100,000. The hiring challenge, of course, is to bring in new workers who don't put existing employees at risk. "Actual meeting content: 2%" That's the thinnest part of a "Zoom meeting attention-span" pie chart created by Sarah Woodard, the director of development for Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, VT. The wheel also includes "Removal of cat from keyboard: 7%", "Has my neck always looked like that? 13%", "Checking out co-workers' houses: 10%" and some other choice Zoom moments. The chart's gone viral, so Seven Days' Margaret Grayson got in touch with Woodard to get the back-story.
You'll no doubt see more pink super moon pics, but here's a good one to start with. It's looking out over Littleton, NH, with the moon just rising over Mt. Washington in the distance. The former Citizens Bank building in WRJ has finally sold. You know the one: It sits in the corner of the lot where the WRJ branch of the Co-op also sits, and has been vacant since Citizens Bank shuttered it in 2017. Now, says Tim Burke of White + Burke Real Estate Advisors, who represented the seller, it's been bought by Dean Barcelow, a Royalton optometrist whose Junction Eye Care sits on the other side of the tracks, on North Main Street. Hanover immigration ordinance gets tangled up by wording placement. Monday, the Selectboard was set to vote on the measure, which would keep town police officers from asking about a person’s citizenship status or sharing citizenship information with federal authorities. But town attorneys moved a section saying the ordinance “may not override any state or federal law” from it's statement of purpose to the body of the measure, and immigration advocates objected that this will give it force of law and render the ordinance "useless." The issue's been put off to the 4/20 meeting. (VN)That tangle way up in that beech tree? It's a bear nest. Upper Valley Land Trust stewardship director Jason Berard has been out in the field a lot, recently. And walking a land boundary "on the wild east side of Hanover" the other day, he came on a beech with a lot of claw marks. Bears climb beeches to get to the nuts, bend the branches toward themselves for easier snacking... and, well, Berard made a short video to show you the whole thing. (Thanks, KH!)
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
#UVTogether
Staying Sane
Tonight's Sparrow Alden's weekly virtual WriterSpace, a chance to work together, talk craft, do some joint exercises, and keep creativity flowing. Starts at 6.
Meanwhile, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center is getting a series of public policy discussions underway, called "Rocky Watch." Today at 5, government department chair J. Russell Muirhead will be talking about and leading a conversation on "Conspiracy Without the Theory: How conspiratorial thinking is undermining democracy-and what can be done about it." Zoom link and instructions at the link.
Less well-known than Cirque du Soleil but fantastic and mold-breaking in its own right, the Québecois circus troupe Les Sept Doigts de la Main (known down here as Seven Fingers) is making some of its archived shows available for a short time. Right now, it's Sequence 8, which some of its fans consider among its best. The show features, among others, former Smirkos Tristan Nielsen (who spent part of his childhood in the Upper Valley) and Eric Bates. Link takes you to a form to enter your name and email address, then they'll send you a confirmation and a second email with the video. Knowing some French helps. (Thanks, SVG!)
Or maybe you need to brush up on your French — or Mandarin, or Spanish... There's a language school in St. Paul, MN, called Language Sprout, that's putting storytimes and lessons up via Facebook.
Reading Deeper
You know how your wifi may have been running slower because of all the strain on the system? Well, there's not much you can do about the pipes, but it turns out that some complicated research done at Dartmouth and published in 2017 can help boost your signal at home. You do need to be able to bend aluminum foil to make a reflector, but heck, what else you got going?
This is just a guess, but there may be a lot of cleaning and disinfecting going on in your household and your workplace. The Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health Services at Washington University is out with a fact sheet on how to clean and disinfect effectively while minimizing exposure to chemicals that can do you harm. One key thing to remember: Clean first. Disinfectants and sanitizers don't work on dirty surfaces. (Thanks, RM!)
Thoughts and comment:
SB writes: I've noticed that one group of "essential workers" seem to be left off the thank-you list that goes out to nurses, doctors, etc., who are most important to the health of everyone and should be thanked. However, let's not forget about those who have always and still continue to serve all of us on a daily basis. The US Postal workers who continue to deliver our mail and keep the postal hubs running; the UPS drivers who deliver all of our packages, more now than ever due to the increase in on-line purchases; and the FedX drivers who also deliver our packages; and lastly, the highway crews who are maintaining our roadways, and town workers (clerks, transfer stations, etc.). All of these "essential" workers are still serving us with a smile on their faces. Thank you to all "essential workers" for putting themselves at risk while serving us.
And RB sends an email making the rounds that includes this one-liner: "This morning I saw a neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came into my house, told my dog..... we laughed a lot."
Today just seems to call for some serious moving-to-music, however you choose to do it. So: Here's
, the Mexican acoustic guitar duo who somehow manage to blend virtuoso flamenco with thrash metal and make it sound like they've always gone together, doing "Hanuman." I defy you not to at least bounce your leg.
See you tomorrow.
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! You can subscribe at:
Thank you!