GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
"Rainfall: The condensed moisture of the atmosphere falling visibly in separate drops." Or heck, pick your own definition. Any one works. We actually start out in a dry period, with some sun out there—except where there's fog—but there's low pressure moving in slowly from the west and showers will be headed our way: a chance of rain starting up around noon, a likelihood by mid-afternoon, and more than a likelihood in the evening. There's also a chance of a thunderstorm, possibly with hail mixed in. Temps getting into the mid 70s today, mid 50s tonight, winds today from the south.On the other hand, this kind of weather does make for some sky-borne drama, doesn't it?
Here's E. Thetford, from Robin Osborne;
And West Fairlee, from John Pietkiewicz;
And Norwich, from Kate Emlen.
That's how former S. Strafford resident Bruce MacPhail describes the book collection he left behind when he moved—17,000 volumes give or take—to the
Valley News
's Alex Hanson. McPhail, who now lives in Massachusetts, needs to move his collection and, Hanson writes, has decided to give it away. The Five Colleges Sale couldn't get a truck up there because of the mud this spring, so tomorrow through Sunday, 9-4, McPhail is opening his storage spot at 17 Willey Road in S. Strafford, to all takers.
Remembering S. Woodstock's Roger Payne and his game-changing “Songs of the Humpback Whale." Payne was 88 when he died on Saturday, after a career researching and saving whales; that 1970 album didn't just work its way into the culture, but led almost directly to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. "By making people care about whales, he made them care about the planet,” the CEO of the group Payne founded, Ocean Alliance, tells VT Public's Anna Van Dine. Payne himself summed up his lifetime of work in a Time essay five days before he died: "Every species, including humans, depends on a suite of other species to keep the world habitable for it."With pandemic-era programs ending, summer meals for kids will try to fill gaps—but they'll be spotty. The summer programs are designed to replace free and reduced-price meals during the school year, writes Nora Doyle-Burr in the VN. However, some school districts—including schools around Bradford VT and Woodstock—won't be able to offer them this year. Others, Doyle-Burr writes, plan to make them available: Windsor Southeast will do so in Windsor, and the Hartford Community Coalition will be offering weekly meal bags as well as daily hot meals at summer schools in Hartford and Leb.SPONSORED: The hilarious new adaptation of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, adapted by Kate Hamill, NOW through July 9 at Northern Stage’s Courtyard Theater. This vibrant retelling of Jane Austen's beloved novel follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Dashwood sisters—sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne. Set in gossipy late 18th-century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. Now through 7/9 in WRJ. Sponsored by Northern Stage.Charting a building project's "hellish journey from chaos to order"—and what it tells us about life. New York, Burkhard Bilger once wrote in a profile of master builder Mark Ellison, "may be the hardest place in the world to do construction." Even so, Ellison thrived at New York's very apex, and now he's taking a look back at what it all taught him. In this week's Enthusiasms, Jared Jenisch writes that Ellison's new book, Building: A Carpenter’s Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work, is part gleeful tell-all, part "diverting meditation on making and living by a man who bristles with experience and character."You probably wouldn't want one around your garden, but enclosing part of a forest? We're talking 10-foot walls made from slash—the limbs, tree tops, and smaller trees left over after a timber harvest. It turns out, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog, that they're effective at keeping deer out. Outside one experimental plot in Peterborough: knee-high white pine. Inside: "trees that are probably 10, 12 feet tall including lots of pin cherry, which is very short-lived and very beneficial for wildlife and soil chemistry," says a UNH extension prof. Wildlife likes to hang out around the walls, too.SPONSORED: Opera North presents Carmen July 16, 19 & 21. Perhaps no other opera stirs the blood as much as the passionate tale of Carmen and her brazen love. Let Opera North transport you to the scarlet world of Spain’s back streets, bullrings, and conflicted hearts. All taking place under a big top tent on the spectacular grounds of Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish. Bring a picnic (no glass bottles please) or purchase food on site. Sponsored by Opera North.NH reports record-low unemployment—which isn't entirely good news. The May figure stood at 1.9 percent, "the lowest monthly figure dating back to 1976, the first year of published records from the Bureau of Labor Statistics," reports NHPR's Todd Bookman. That's down from 2.1 percent in April. Gov. Chris Sununu was quick to tout the numbers—"New Hampshire’s economy is heating up just in time for the summer season," he said in a statement—but the new numbers put an exclamation point on the troubles the state's employers continue to face finding enough workers to hire.You know this, but a reminder never hurts: Keep your firewood at home when you go camping, and buy what you need there. Studies by NH's Division of Forests and Lands, reports Hadley Barndollar in NH Bulletin, show that an average of 35 insects show up in each untreated piece of campfire wood; and that people from as far away as CA and FL bring their own into the region. This, needless to say, poses a threat to forests in these parts. The state, she writes, is encouraging people to “buy it where you burn it."NH has more female farm operators than VT, while VT's farmers are younger. Though we're not talking any dramatic differences, here. In yesterday's Journal Opinion newsletter, Alex Nuti-de Biasi points to a new set of agriculture factsheets put together by academics in a variety of northeastern states, and runs the VT and NH ones. They're based on 2017 ag census data, so reality may have shifted since then, but they're still interesting. In both states, a plurality of farmers were 45 and older, but in VT almost 30 percent of them were 25-44, while in NH it was just 23 percent.“There’s always something new to discover somewhere on a dirt road that you’ve never traveled on before.” That was the actor Treat Williams in a 2021 interview with Vermont mag. As you may have heard, Williams died Monday after an SUV turned into his path while he was riding his motorcycle in Dorset, VT. Williams grew up skiing and vacationing in VT, eventually moving to Manchester Center. At a press conference yesterday, state police said that the driver of the SUV had used his turn signal, and there was no indication of impairment. The investigation is continuing. WCAX reports at the link.VT House and Senate look for way to extend motel program. Leaders in both chambers are working on a deal ahead of next week's veto session, reports VTDigger's Lola Duffort, as 2,000 people housed in the pandemic-era program face eviction July 1. The bill taking shape is aimed at directing the state to keep people sheltered until it can create an “alternate stable setting"; it would also direct state officials to negotiate lower rates with motel owners than the state had been paying. Even so, Duffort writes, legislative leaders are "holding firm to the decision to ultimately end the pandemic-era programs."It’s a wrap. Do try this at home. The team at Brattleboro’s Dosa Kitchen—Leda Scheintaub and Nash Patel—are on a roll. They have a successful food truck, Dosa Kitchen, and a cookbook, and now they’re bringing the batter for dosas—Indian rice and lentil crepes—straight to home cooks. Jordan Barry spoke with them for Seven Days about their new business direction and the production process. “Patel has a camera set up in the fermentation room, and a quick rise has sometimes sent him running back to the factory late at night.”Like Newfs? So will struggling swimmers at Scarborough Beach State Park in ME. The park has just brought on its second ocean rescue dog, an 11-month-old Newfoundland named Buoy, to join two-year-old Beacon, its first canine lifeguard. They've been trained to follow human lifeguards into the ocean, then pull victim and guards to shore on a piece of lifesaving equipment. The dogs "are so strong that they can easily pull three or four people to shore," writes Smithsonian's Sara Kuta. Here are Beacon and Buoy getting trained a few weeks back, via park manager Greg Wilfert's FB page."The night critters would feel good that they got their dark sky back." For The Conversation’s "Curious Kids" series, Carlton Basmajian answers 11-year-old Essie’s question: If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later? It would be quieter without the cacophony created by people, says Basmajian, an associate professor of urban design. And darker. “With no electric lights, the rhythm of the natural world would return.” Some things would stop—water systems, electricity—and some would start anew, like native plants, bugs, foxes, beavers. Then, eventually, deer, coyotes, bears.The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
A
Lost Woods
mug from DB Johnson for you? Or maybe a Vordle t-shirt? Or, of course, Daybreak tees, long-sleeve tees, and mugs. Check out what's available and wear it (or drink from it) proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
Today at 4 pm, the Peabody Library in Post Mills hosts a kickoff to summer reading with Modern Times Theater, which updates Punch & Judy shows using hand puppets crafted from trash and up-cycled material—and which, they write, "are chock full of surprises and tricks, as is the elaborate stage."
At 7 this evening, Still North Books and Bar in Hanover hosts a reading by former Dresden School District special educator D.K. Kennedy of her first novel, Jane's Cure. The book, set in 1850s New Brunswick, follows the doings of a free-spirited midwife whose "Jane's Cure for Female Irregularities" proves a popular remedy for women's late periods—except with the town's doctor, who's threatened by Jane's success. The tension really begins after she helps a rape victim with an abortion. Kennedy will be in conversation with OB/GYN Renee Johannensen.
At 7:30 this evening, Sense and Sensibility opens for two nights of previews at Northern Stage. This version of Jane Austen's classic novel is by Kate Hamill, as much spoof as it is adaptation. "In this production, we’re going to be exposing the nasty, rowdy and delicious currents that drive the formal society of Sense and Sensibility to understand how it might be possible to live freely in a cosseted world," director Aileen Wen McGroddy tells the Times Argus's Jim Lowe. And notes that the first week of rehearsals began with a crash course in clowning for the actors. The production will be outdoors, in the Barrette Center's Courtyard Theater. Runs through July 9.
And there's another premiere this evening at 7:30, when the New London Barn Playhouse kicks off its 2023 season with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The musical comedy, which debuted on Broadway in 2005, where it won two Tonys, is about—this will stun you—the annual spelling bee in Putnam County Middle School, Somewhere, with six competitors who know the script and bare their hearts over the course of the play and (usually) four from the audience, who don't. Runs through June 25.
Also at 7:30, the Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra will perform an evening of 20th century music at Woodstock's Town Hall Theater. Led by conductor Mark Nelson, it's Upper Valley Music Center's longest-running ensemble for adults, with 40-some members. Tonight, soprano Chiho Kaneko joins the orchestra for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, featuring poetry by Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff, while pianist William Ogmundson and harpist Sorana Scarlat feature in a performance of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
And on a mostly gray day...
We're going to go with a sunny one, there in the background as Walk Off the Earth sits on a dune in the setting sun,
For good measure this time they've brought along Luminati Suns—the three kids of lead singers and instrumentalists Sarah Blackwood and Gianni "Luminati" Nicassio.
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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