A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Drier, sunny, and getting warmer. High pressure is building in again, at least for the next few days, and with few clouds to speak of up there, temps will climb from this morning's cool start up into the lower 70s. Winds remain from the northwest, and sleeping temps remain perfect: upper 40s tonight.Atmospherics... The weather of the last few days has been good for a couple of things: rain, of course; but also sky-borne drama.
Here, for instance, is the sky over Woodstock Monday evening after the first bout of storms came through and the heat started to break, from Steven Thomas;
Meanwhile, in Windsor, Jennifer Hannux was watching the storm clouds pile in, and put this video on her Twitter feed;
And here's a placid, almost mysterious Lake Fairlee early the other morning, from John Pietkiewicz.
Tunbridge loses its face to the world. Euclid Farnham—dairy farmer, town moderator for 37 years, president of the Tunbridge World’s Fair for three decades, and president of the Tunbridge Historical Society for a half century—died Monday at the age of 87, the Valley News's John Gregg reports. “A lot of towns have this, every 100 years, this one person who just really defines the town, and that would be Euclid,” says filmmaker and state Rep. John O’Brien. More than anyone, it was Farnham who transformed the Fair, which had "become notorious for its strip shows and boisterous beer tent," Gregg writes.Hanover, Lebanon move toward community power. As you may remember, earlier this year the two municipalities joined up with Nashua and Cheshire County to form the Community Power Coalition of NH; now they're laying plans actually to buy power for residents and businesses from alternative sources, reports the VN's Tim Camerato, giving them more control over pricing and sustainable options. Hanover residents will vote on the matter at town meeting in July; if they approve, it could launch next spring. In Lebanon, the decision will be up to the City Council, which will discuss it in August. SPONSORED: Sign up now for one of the few remaining openings in a local community solar project. Many houses in our region aren’t ideal for installing solar, whether it's because of shading, condition, or direction. If you rent or own a home, apartment, or condo and can’t install panels directly, Norwich Solar has the answer to your problem with a Community Solar Membership. We have just a few spots left for Green Mountain Power customers at our array in Norwich! Just hit the maroon link to learn more. Sponsored by Norwich Solar Technologies.Dartmouth to sell commercial radio license for 99 Rock. The station, WFRD 99.3 FM, is part of Dartmouth Broadcasting, which also owns the student-run online station WDCR, which it will continue supporting. Proceeds from the sale, the college's Office of Communications writes, will help fund Dartmouth Broadcasting and WDCR. The commercial station has been operating at a financial loss, and has seen waning student involvement.See what being bad at math can get you? Isabelle Chicoine and Karim Houry, who run The Woodstocker B&B, first met as high schoolers at a summer camp in France for people who were having a hard time with the subject. They fell in love, broke up...and, writes Melissa Pasanen in Seven Days, 25 years later and on this side of the Atlantic got back together. When they decided to buy a B&B, Vermont drew them—Chicoine's father was from Burlington, and her daughter went to UVM. The Woodstocker, Pasanen writes, aims to "provide a relaxing, indulgent adult getaway." She bites the bullet and gives it a try."When the wind blows, the leaves speak in tongues." As naturalist and writer Ted Levin was out for a walk early yesterday morning, a big-toothed aspen dropped a limb nearby. You may know them as poplars (or popples)—short-lived and not useful for burning or lumber. But, writes Levin, they possess other sterling qualities: among them, their leaves, "flame yellow-orange in late October, when the rest of the hillside cools"; their hospitality to woodpecker nests; their quickness to rot once down, nurturing more durable hardwoods; and, of course, their leaves' distinctive stir in the wind.Need art on a perfect outdoors day? For the last three decades, Charlet and Peter Davenport have opened their land in Woodstock to visitors for the exhibition of large, intriguing works by artists around the region known as Sculpture Fest. Though the land is always open, dawn to dusk, the official start to Sculpture Fest 2021 is on Sunday, once all the artists with new installations have had a chance to, well, install them. On her Artful blog, Susan Apel has a preview. "Never a better opportunity for an art-filled morning or afternoon in a picturesque Vermont pasture," she writes.It's the fish, not the water... Last week, in an item about phosphate levels in Lake Fairlee, Daybreak noted that the lake had also drawn "notice" from VT on mercury pollution, based on the state's "fair" rating on that score. Oliver Pierson, who runs VT's lakes and ponds protection program, clarifies that this is due not to mercury in the water, but presumed mercury levels in fish statewide. "There is no evidence to place Lake Fairlee in the poor/elevated-risk category or the good/reduced-risk category, largely because of limited statewide water quality and fish tissue sampling for mercury," he writes. Full details at the link.Okay, who painted that snapper orange? NH Fish & Game yesterday felt compelled to take to Facebook asking people not to paint turtles' shells. "Often this is done with good intentions—to make the turtle more visible if crossing a roadway," they wrote. "But, turtle shells are living tissue and paint toxins can not only get into into their bloodstream, it can also reduce their ability to absorb sunlight and can make them more visible to predators." The garish snapping turtle in question was in Campton.Yep, those zeroes were meant to be there. If this story hasn't gone viral yet, it will. WMUR reported Monday night that a customer at the Stumble Inn Bar and Grille in Londonderry, NH, ordered up $37.93 worth of chili dogs, fried pickle chips, and drinks—then added a $16,000 tip when he got the check. The staff thought it was a mistake, and the bar manager checked in with the patron. Who said it wasn't. “He just said that they deserve it, they work very hard,” owner Mike Zarella said.Sitting around with friends in a New Hampshire-sized living room. That's how Anders Morley describes listening to NHPR's "The Folk Show" on Sunday evenings. The show, hosted since 1995 by Kate McNally (who's also a tobacco treatment specialist at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Leb) isn't recorded, "which means you’re either there or you’re not, just like in the old days," Morley writes in New Hampshire magazine. He profiles McNally and the show, with a brief detour into the NH folk scene it's done so much to nurture.It just feels like it's been forever... But tomorrow, NH lawmakers are set to vote on the state budget and its policy changes; the outcome is still uncertain, as a core group of conservatives oppose a voluntary family leave plan it includes. NHPR breaks it down into bite-sized pieces, including the new school choice program (funded out of the education trust fund); new abortion restrictions and tighter family-planning oversight; a boost in funding for mental health; "divisive concepts"; limits on the guv's emergency powers; and tax changes. If you haven't been paying attention, now's a good time to catch up.As for those abortion provisions... NHPR's Todd Bookman goes through what they mean. Ultrasounds would be required—but providers say they tend to be routine already. As for the ban on abortions after 24 weeks, DHMC seems to be the only facility that carries them out—and it's "a rare, rare event," used only when the fetus has a catastrophic abnormality, says Dr. Ilana Cass, who chairs obstetrics and gynecology. Under the measure, she says, parents who discover an abnormality "that would not allow that fetus to have a normal life would be unable to actually terminate that pregnancy.”Will WRJ's DMV office remain closed for good? It's one of five branches shuttered at the start of the pandemic that haven't yet reopened. Now, reports Shaun Robinson in VTDigger, the DMV is weighing whether to reopen some or any of them—and if it does, whether to change service hours. “Based on the data of how many customers used to use those locations,” Commissioner Wanda Minoli says, “we are saying: Do we open this location? Or do we change the schedule of how this location would operate if we were to open it?” Okay, I didn't know it was this bad. Over in Monkton, VT, reports VPR's Jane Lindholm, residents say they're finding gypsy moth caterpillars "in their hair while they mow the lawn, covering the foundation of their houses and dangling from trees while they walk.... There are so many caterpillars in the trees that it constantly sounds like it's raining. Except, it's not raining. It's caterpillar poop—called frass—falling through the trees." Lindholm dives deep into this year's outbreak, which so far seems worst on the western side of the state, and how we got here—drought and pandemic both played a role."I was walking around in sneakers in two feet of snow wondering why my feet have been cold for three weeks." It takes some adjusting for pandemic transplants to get used to VT. On VTDigger's "Deeper Dig," Mike Dougherty talks to four couples: about what they like (the sense of community) and what's been tough (have you heard about this housing shortage problem?). All are here to stay and more are likely coming, prompting one to say, "I think that it’s a good time for all of us, the folks who are new and the folks who are here, to start paying more attention to what this could look like in the future."Not your average stroll through a beautiful setting. Earlier this month, brothers Moises and Daniel Monterrubio and some of their friends strung a 2,800-foot highline (tighter than a slackline) 2800 feet across a section of Yosemite from Taft Point, 1600 feet above the valley floor. Then, about two weeks ago, they walked it. So far there only seem to be stills out there, so to get a taste of what it must have been like, here's a GoPro drone video of highline/slackliner Marcus Nelson off a pinnacle in Moab.
As for the numbers...
NH reported 25 new cases yesterday,bringing it to an official total of 99,348. There was 1 new death; they now stand at 1,368, while 17 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 1). The current active caseload is at 182 (down 14). The state reports 2 active cases in Grafton County (down 1), 7 in Sullivan (up 1), and 11 in Merrimack (down 2). In town-by-town numbers reported by the state, Canaan, Grafton, Claremont, and Newport have 1-4 each. Hanover is off the list.
VT reported 3 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 24,371. There were no new deaths, which remain at 256, while 4 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (no change). Windsor County saw 2 of those new cases and stands at 1,513 for the pandemic, with 18 over the previous 14 days, while Orange County remains at 822 cumulatively, with 4 over the previous two weeks.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
Today at 12:30, the Hood's director, John Stomberg, is giving an online talk about "Modern Photography and the Environment,” in which he'll look at "the photograph’s role in exploring the often uneasy relationship between humans and the lands they inhabit."
The Hanover Farmers Market runs today from 4 to 7, and as you may remember, the Howe Library is sponsoring artist demos at the market. Today, they're featuring East Barnard, VT painter Sue Schlabach, who in the summer "packs up her acrylics, brushes and portable easel to paint on the edge of roads, in fields and the woods." She'll be demonstrating plein air painting.
At 6:30, ArtisTree's Wednesday "Music on the Hill" series featuring local musicians continues with acoustic duo Emily Musty and Nat Williams. Tix are $5, and you'll definitely want to bring a picnic, sit back, and relax.
Also at 6:30, Hartford Parks & Rec hosts local pop/rock cover band The Kapps at Lyman Point Park.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore presents VT-based mystery writer Sarah Stewart Taylor online, reading from and talking about her new Maggie D'Arcy novel, A Distant Grave, officially released yesterday. The new book follows D'Arcy, a Long Island homicide detective, back to Ireland, where Taylor set her first book in the series, The Mountains Wild. As Kirkus puts it, "Taylor pulls out all the stops—subplots, threats, red herrings, warning bells—to keep the pot boiling till the end."
And also at 7, Norwich University hosts NPR reporter and podcast host Guy Raz for an open-to-the-public online lecture building on his hugely popular show (and, now, book), How I Built This—though it's a decent bet Raz might get into other topics as well, given his other podcasts (like Wow In The World and Wisdom from the Top) and role in helping create The TED Radio Hour. No charge.
You can feel the pandemic-era virtual music projects slowing down as various artists get back to live and in person. Thankfully, though, not all are hanging up their video-editing software. The Covid Cello Project has just released its 14th installment, the Danse Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila, the opera by Camille Saint Saëns. It's reassuring to know that the project, which began last spring with 12 friends of Austin, TX cellist Tony Rogers, is down only slightly from its peak of 536 participants in 47 countries—this performance has 477 cellists from 45 countries. They include E. Thetford's Joel Teenyanoff and several others from VT and NH.See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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!