GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Maybe some rain, maybe it'll just look like it's going to rain. A warm front pushing our way from the west and a weak trough of low pressure along its edge will bring us a chance of isolated showers first thing and then a slight chance later today. Otherwise, the day will be mostly cloudy, temps getting into the lower 70s, winds from the southeast. Chance of rain overnight, too, down into the mid-50s.Youngsters out and about... It's that time of the year when young birdlife starts learning the ropes.
Here's a loon chick getting a ride, from Lisa Lacasse. "Mom and Dad left the chick to go find their own food to eat and once they got back the chick crawled up onto the back to get warm and to rest."
And up near Newbury VT, Ian Clark watched as newly hatched chicks got fed—though one was initially dubious about what it was being offered. "Loon chicks are voracious," he writes. "I’ve seen estimates that say a loon family will eat 500 pounds of fish, crayfish and other protein in a season."
Meanwhile, in Norwich, this owl dropped into Vicky Fish's yard, another alit nearby... and then a third, bigger owl (no doubt a parent busy parenting) swooped in and seemed to feed the second owl before all three flew off across the road.
VLS becomes VL&GS. At a Burlington press conference yesterday, Vermont Law School unveiled a new name (Vermont Law & Graduate School), new logo, and three new master's programs, two in environmental policy and one focused on animal law. Its new courses will involve hiring new faculty members and expanding the school's presence in Burlington, reports VTDigger's Peter D'Auria, but interim president Beth McCormack told reporters that the school does not intend to reduce its SoRo operations. “Our main residential operations will remain in South Royalton,” she said.The Upper Valley's housing crisis two ways. For Dartmouth News, Charlotte Albright takes a look at a course run by the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact that sets students to working with the regional planning commissions, Vital Communities, and others seeking ways to get more housing built. One conclusion: accessory dwelling units may be an appealing strategy, but they won't necessarily produce more affordable housing. Meanwhile, Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen looks at the initiative by eight UV employers to create a $10 million fund to boost apartment-building around the region.SPONSORED: Enjoy Broadway’s best with Side by Side by Sondheim at Northern Stage—outdoors and under the stars. This intimate musical revue kicks off Northern Stage’s 25th Anniversary and celebrates the life and work of a composer who changed the form of the American musical: Stephen Sondheim. Featuring songs like “Send in the Clowns,” “Comedy Tonight,” and more, this evening of incredible music is for anyone who ever loved a musical at Northern Stage or beyond. Now through July 10 only. Tickets from $19-$45 at NorthernStage.org or 802-296-7000. Sponsored by Northern Stage."For a long time there was a stereotype that went along with the Romance Novel Reader, and I just wasn’t interested in going there." But, drawn by the titular pun in Lana Harper's Payback's a Witch, the Yankee Bookshop's Kari Meutsch decided to give literary rom-com a try—and, in this week's Enthusiasms, says you should, too. Harper's book, about a young woman from the magical tourist town of Thistle Grove who heads to (non-magical) Chicago and then, reluctantly, gets pulled back home, "reignited my excitement for reading in a way I never expected," Kari writes."The first questions people ask are no longer, ‘What are your mask and vaccine policies?’" Instead, says Kristen Brause, who runs a New London fitness studio with her husband, they're now focused more on thing like fitness philosophy. It's part of a trend bringing NH gym users back to working out with others as pandemic concerns loosen, writes Brad Spiegel for the Granite State News Collaborative. Spiegel also talks to the River Valley Club's Elizabeth Asch, who tells him membership is down—1,700 now vs. 3,000 pre-pandemic—but that pandemic-era changes, including outdoor space, a focus on cleanliness, and collaborating with other local club owners, have helped.Oh, and one last piece of catching up... Just in case you missed it, last week in Chicago, Randolph's Nisachon "Rung" Morgan was named best chef in the Northeast by the James Beard Foundation. Morgan and her husband, Steve, opened Saap in 2014, focusing on cuisine from Isaan, in Thailand's northeast, one of the less-traveled regions of the country. As VPR's Mikaela Lefrak noted last month, Isaan's food "often features pickled vegetables, meat skewers, epic spice levels, courtesy of chilis, and lots of sticky rice." It's a fair guess that a lot of people will be giving it a try now.Sununu faces decision on bill barring NH cooperation with federal firearms laws that don't also exist in the state. The measure, writes NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt, would keep state and local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun laws or rules—for instance, state agencies could not help arrest someone who'd modified a firearm with a bump stock in violation of a 2018 Trump-era rule. Some firearms rights supporters say that even so, exceptions in the measure allow too much cooperation with the feds; gun safety advocates, meanwhile, contend it will hamper efforts to stem gun violence.US Supreme Court decision on religious school funding reverberates through VT. In a ruling handed down yesterday, the Court's conservative majority said that Maine could not exclude religious schools from receiving public tuition money. ME and VT are the only states that allow families in towns without schools to use public funds to send their kids to a public or private school elsewhere, and Vermont has been tangling with the question of whether the state can prohibit religious schools from using tax dollars for religious instruction or from discriminating in admissions and hiring decisions. Here's Seven Days' analysis of the ruling's implications, and here's VTDigger's.87 flavors of jelly beans, 67 varieties of gummies, caramel corn taffy, teal-colored M&Ms... Seriously, do not mention that you're headed to Middlebury to your dentist. That's where you'll find Middlebury Sweets, the largest candy shop in Vermont, housed inside the Middlebury Sweets Motel, which has nine candy-themed rooms. "[It is] subtly done, though," co-owner Blanca Jenne tells Seven Days' Maggie Reynolds. "Nothing over-the-top." The candy store itself, on the other hand? Two rooms with 1,500 varieties of candy pretty much says it all.Who needs skis? When you're a mountain goat hell-bent on getting to the bottom of the mountain, that is.The Wednesday Vordle. And you've got a few good choices of words from yesterday's Daybreak...
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This evening at 6, Artistree kicks off its "Music on the Hill" summer concert series with Wilder-based singer, songwriter, actor, composer, and musician Tommy Crawford. You may remember him from the days when he was still based in NYC—as Paul McCartney in Northern Stage's Only Yesterday and Eamon in Once.
And at 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore brings in Hanover's Marjorie Nelson Matthews and WRJ-based writer, podcaster, and writing teacher Joni Cole to talk about Matthews' first novel, Hawai'i Calls. Matthews grew up in Honolulu, and traces daily life in Hawaii during the years leading up to and after Pearl Harbor through the saga of a family of transplants from upstate New York making their way through tumultuous times.
And some music (and dance) to get the day going on both feet...
Usha Jey grew up in Paris, the daughter of Tamil parents who fled Sri Lanka in the '90s to escape the civil war and government oppression. When a friend wanted company for a hip-hop dance class, the teenage Jey went along...and was hooked, deciding to pursue it professionally. Around the time she was 20, though, she also began studying Bharatanatyam, a classical dance form indigenous to Tamil Nadu in southern India that, among other things, makes use of precise eye and head movements, hand gestures, and rhythmic footwork. It was probably only a matter of time before she began to combine the two—into what she calls HybridBharatanatyam. Last month, she uploaded the fifth in a series of dances she's been choreographing since 2019, t
"Hybrid" doesn't begin to do it justice.
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 and writers who want you to 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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