Daybreak Wednesday, 6/17/26

Mostly sunny, chance of showers, thunderstorms after midnight. We get more sun than clouds today, with temps getting into the mid 70s again. There’s a disturbance moving through on high that could produce scattered showers in the larger region, though nothing’s expected around here. Things start to change overnight, as a strong low-pressure system approaches along the St. Lawrence Valley with a cold front trailing right behind. Chance of showers and maybe a thunderstorm in the hours just before dawn, overnight lows in the low 50s.

How do heron chicks manage to look so hip and so gawky at the same time? The mohawk definitely helps, but as photographer Ian Clark’s lead photo in his latest blog post demonstrates, they’ve also got a certain je ne sais quoi. Anyway, up there around Newbury, VT, Ian’s been tracking loon families, a heron rookery, and a nest full of heron chicks just begging for captions.

Never mind about Beaver Meadow Road. Use it to your heart’s content to get between Route 132 and Norwich. Early yesterday morning, the town of Sharon posted: “Due to unanticipated damage to Route 132, the ditching and culvert project on Beaver Meadow Road in Sharon that was scheduled for this week has been temporarily delayed.” No word on when it might actually happen, but in the meantime, the entire length of Beaver Meadow is open.

Hanover’s TukTuk reopens in new spot this weekend. In the Valley News, Marion Umpleby reports that the Thai restaurant’s shift from its old location down Old Nugget Alley to the building at 44 South Main Street comes after months of construction on the new digs. The move comes as the owner of TukTuk’s former building, which also houses Murphy’s and the Dirt Cowboy, preps to demolish its back half in order to put up new housing; TukTuk’s former neighbor, Walt & Ernie’s barbershop, already made the move and has been open at 42 S. Main Street for months.

Not a lot of contested primaries for the NH Legislature. The filing deadline was Friday, and while statewide contests drew plenty of candidates, as the Journal Opinion’s Alex Nuti-de Biasi points out, “for the most part, there are no contested primary elections between local candidates for state representative, state senator, or county offices.” You’ll find Alex’s rundown for Grafton Co. at the burgundy link; Paula Tracy’s look in InDepthNH at statewide, Exec Council, and state Senate seats here; and the whole shebang here on the Secretary of State’s site.

SPONSORED: Finding A Higher Purpose. Physical therapy is often thought of as helping people move better and feel better. But in this brief reflection, Cioffredi & Associates founder Billy Cioffredi looks at the deeper purpose of patient care: helping people regain confidence, independence, and the ability to help themselves. He also shares how his work with Good Neighbor Health Clinic has expanded that sense of purpose into the broader community. Read “Finding a Higher Purpose” at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy. 

A lushly detailed look at a complicated time in Irish history. The Norman Williams Public Library’s Liza Bernard isn’t even halfway through the audio version of Land, the new novel by Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell, but already she’s eager to talk it up. “I am so captivated by O’Farrell’s writing and Dane Whyte O’Hara’s narration of the audio edition that I am unwilling to rush through it, rewinding often to listen again to a description or conversation,” she writes in this week’s Enthusiasms. Mostly set in 1860s Ireland, with some prehistory thrown in, it balances setting, family, sharply drawn characters, and “the rhythms of the language and the intricacies of history,” Liza writes.

“Scratch the surface of any stranger and you’ll find they hold amazing stories: mundane, tragic, joyful, surprising.” And if you’re the kind of person who seeks those stories out, writes Susan Apel in Artful, then you’ll want to see the Parish Players’ new production of Circle Mirror Transformation. Annie Baker’s play about a community theater class in a small Vermont town is presented in the round by a theater group in a small Vermont town—”as if you might actually have tiptoed into a community theater’s acting class run by the Parish Players,” Susan writes—in a “well-acted, thoughtful and beautifully staged production.”

SPONSORED: Get ready to run, walk, and celebrate red, white, and blue style! One of the Upper Valley’s favorite summer traditions is back! Sponsored by the Enfield Village Association, the Shaker 7 returns June 28 at Shaker Recreation Park on Route 4A, proudly kicking off a season of celebration as Enfield joins communities nationwide honoring America’s 250th. Take on the scenic seven-mile loop or enjoy the three-mile walk. Registration opens at 7:30 am; race begins at 9 am. With music, refreshments, and festive fun, bring the whole family and register today at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Enfield Village Association.

Salvation Army closes stores in West Leb, St. J. “After thoughtful and analytical deliberations,” the nonprofit announced in a press release Monday, its northern New England division yesterday closed the thrift stores at 250 Railroad Street in St. Johnsbury and 7 Martin Drive (just off Weathervane Drive) in West Leb. “These changes are part of a broader effort to strengthen long‑term sustainability, modernize operations, and focus resources on the areas of greatest community impact,” the Salvation Army said.

You don’t have to be a photographer with a giant telephoto lens to keep track of loons. And it’s just gotten easier. For decades now, notes VT Public’s Abagael Giles, volunteers have helped count VT’s loons. “They keep tabs on nests, chicks and mating pairs at their favorite lakes, and they send their reports in letters and voicemails and emails to one person: Eric Hanson.” The leader of the state’s Loon Conservation Project, Hanson has just rolled out a new app, LoonWeb, which automatically keeps track of GPS data and lets an observer add information quickly. It was developed with a $30K grant to Norwich’s VT Center for Ecostudies. Giles has more at the link.

SPONSORED: Norwich Community Nurse Inc. seeks a BSN-prepared registered nurse. The town’s community nurse program is looking for a registered nurse for a 12-hour-per week position. Preferred qualifications include a minimum of three years’ experience, with a background in elder and community nursing. Responsibilities will include phone contact, home visits and case management to assist community members with healthcare. Must be familiar with electronic healthcare record-keeping. For more information hit the burgundy link; to apply, go here. Sponsored by Norwich Community Nurse Inc.

Could Lake Sunapee be a model on keeping invasives from getting out of hand? Two years ago, writes Molly Rains in NH Bulletin, a lake host “stationed at a public launch noticed a stem of curly leaved pondweed clinging to a boat as it emerged from the water.” That summer, divers pulled as much of the hyper-invasive as they could. Last year, they did the same. “Now, this season, surveys by divers, and members of a network of dozens of volunteer kayak weed watchers have turned up no evidence of the plant in Lake Sunapee,” Rains writes. Sunapee did the same with milfoil two decades ago. The keys: early detection, money, and lots of volunteers.

What it’s like to ride a rail trail… while the rails are still in place. “Once in a while, gliding through a forest [on a rail trail], I’ve wondered what it would feel like to ride the old rails themselves, if they hadn’t been ripped out,” writes the Globe’s Miles Howard (paywall). “The short answer? Exhilarating and enchanting, at once.” Howard took a ride on a two-seater rail bike along a six-mile out-and-back stretch of former Boston & Maine tracks from Silver Lake, NH, a bit south of Conway. He describes the adventure with the new Silver Lake Railriders: through forests and past bogs and large beaver dams, filled with the “sensation of gliding through the rustling expanse of the wild.”

Dover, NH chef wins James Beard Award. Evan Hennessey of Stages and Topolino was one of three Twin Staters to make the semifinals this year (the others were Super Secret Ice Cream in Bethlehem for Outstanding Bakery and Paul Trombly of Francy’s in Burlington, VT), and the only one to emerge on Monday with an award: Best Chef, Northeast. “Huge shoutout to the entire community of Dover, New Hampshire,” he said on stage. “I hope you are watching right now. We may be 34,000 people, but damn, we are big.” Dan Tuohy’s NHPR story at the link, full list of winners here.

Blocked on root beer by Big Soda, a small VT company hits the shelves with sparkling maple lemonade. Not surprisingly, Burlington-based Rookie’s Root Beer is known for its root beer. But as Seven Days’ Jordan Barry writes, Coke and Pepsi’s exclusive contracts with restaurants, bars, and retailers have made expanding hard. However, they don’t make sparkling maple lemonade: As Rookie’s co-owner Jenny Rooke tells her, “They can’t say, ‘No, no, little girl’ to that. If you google it, it’s not a thing. We have something that doesn’t exist.” So now it’s in cans all over the state, including Chapman’s in Fairlee and Brownsville Butcher & Pantry in Brownsville.

Ever wonder why T. rex has such dinky arms? Researchers in the UK have found that those tiny limbs go hand-in-hand with a big head. “If you’ve got a big skull and you’re tackling big prey, then you don’t need your arms as much,” says University of Cambridge’s Elizabeth Steell. She and colleagues calculated the skull strength of 82 species of two-legged dinosaurs, and believe the skulls grew before the arms shrank. “It would not make evolutionary sense for it to occur the other way round,” says one researcher, “and for these predators to give up their attack mechanism without having a backup.” As for the arms, it’s “a case of ‘use it or lose it.’”

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
“New and Unusual Music for Trumpet” at Chosen Vale. The annual gathering of trumpeters is in full swing, and so is its concert series. Today, the first of two concerts presenting works that were recently composed or are rarely performed. This concert features works by Bingham, Donatoni, Ketting, Sweeney, Marais, and Sang. 2:00 pm in the Mary Keane Chapel at the Enfield Shaker Museum.

Sabrina and the Jazzcats at Artistree. Fred Haas (piano & saxophone), Sabrina Brown (vocals), Billy Rosen (guitar), and Eric Von Ammon (mandolin, percussion & vocals) explore songs celebrating the moon, stars, and dreams (“Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” you get the idea). 6:30 pm.

Cartoonists Tillie Walden and Dan Nott at the Norwich Bookstore. You know them both as talented contributors to Sketchbreak, but out in the larger world, Tillie’s launching her graphic novel, Charity and Sylvia, about the real lives of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, who lived openly as a lesbian couple for 44 years in 19th century Vermont. Dan teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies and is an expert at using cartoons to make complex systems understandable. 7 pm.

Shasta Grant and When We Were Feral at Still North Books & Bar. In Grant’s book, a trio of friends in a small, 1990s NH town contend with the disappearance of two of their mothers. As the promo copy goes, it’s “a haunting coming-of-age story about friendship, longing, and the dangerous terrain between girlhood and adulthood. In a world where mothers vanish and truths stay buried, the girls begin to realize the wilderness they fear most isn’t outside—it’s within.” In conversation with Brett Ann Stanciu, 7 pm.

And for today...

The world-renowned South African jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim died on Monday in Germany. He was 91. He was a leading figure in the local jazz scene in Cape Town, before he fled to Zurich in 1962 and converted to Islam in the late 1960s, taking on the name by which he’s been known ever since. He came to attention on the strength of 1964’s “Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio,” and his compositions in the decades that followed won him adulation across the world. He returned to South Africa to perform at the presidential inauguration of Nelson Mandela. Here’s his introspective, achingly beautiful rendition of his solo piano piece, “The Wedding.”

See you tomorrow.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt