GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cooling down. Though let's not get carried away, because lucky us! the highest temps in the region seem to be slated for the Connecticut River Valley: mid or upper 80s. Still, the air is less humid and we're not talking whatever the heck that was yesterday and—best of all—lows tonight are going to drop into the blessed upper 50s. Maybe some fog first thing, otherwise mostly sunny, with winds today from the north.Red skies at night. Reflected in the Connecticut in this deeply satisfying sunset pic from Amanda DeRoy.And big bears by day. VT Fish & Wildlife yesterday posted a photo on FB of a mature female and male bear caught on a trail cam. "You can really see how the boar, or male bear, has a heavier build around the head and shoulders," they write. "The way his ears and nose look tiny set against that big head are also good clues. The female bear, or sow, looks a little less hefty around the head and shoulders. A few more helpful field marks are how her nose and ears look bigger relative to the whole head than the boar's do." Thanks, HHC!Gardener's Supply files for bankruptcy, intends to keep operating, plans to sell. The filing came last week, reports Anne Galloway for Seven Days, and in its filing, the Burlington-based company with a store in Lebanon "blames the retail environment, a problematic fulfillment software rollout and ongoing stock option obligations to employees." It has over 400 full- and part-time employees in VT, NH, and MA, and owes more than it holds in cash to at least 30 unsecured creditors. One of the first employee-owned companies in VT, it's seeking to sell all its assets to Indiana-based Gardens Alive!.Mother, son rescued from river in Lebanon. The pair, both Lebanon residents, were heard calling for help Monday evening by a passerby, who reported that they were holding onto a tree branch in the water after they "got in trouble with the current" while trying to cool off, Fire Chief Jim Wheatley tells the Valley News. The city's swift water rescue team, along with the Hanover and Hartford fire departments, responded, and helped them to shore. Neither needed medical attention. Silver Lake beach in Barnard closed because of E. coli; New London's Pleasant Lake sees cyanobacteria watch. Just in time to turn away swimmers looking for relief from the heat yesterday, Silver Lake State Park closed the swimming area after a water test came back positive for E. coli—possibly because of geese in the area, assistant park manager Fiona Vaillancourt tells the VN's Clare Shanahan. They'll keep testing until levels drop. Meanwhile, cyanobacteria blooms were reported Monday to NHDES on Pleasant Lake near the shoreline—areas the state says should be avoided.SPONSORED: “It was just a simple, ‘What do you need to do now?’” After a fall, Ann MacDonald felt stuck and disconnected from the life she loved. “We can get kind of in a different mental state...‘Well, that’s the way it’s going to be.' But it doesn’t have to be that way," she says. Two years after her injury, she decided enough was enough, and took steady steps to reclaim her world. Read her story, "Reconnecting: Ann MacDonald Finds Her Footing" here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Cioffredi and Associates Physical Therapy. From just up the road, a novelist who "makes storytelling such fun—such mysterious, day-dreamy fun." That's Kathryn Davis, who lives in Montpelier, and in this week's Enthusiasms, Kate Oden is "waving her banner as best I can, everywhere I go." The stories Davis tells, Kate writes, aren't really fantasy, but they're not not fantasy, either. And what makes them especially captivating is that they're set in small towns in VT or upstate NY. "It’s dazzling to read such inventive tales set right around the corner, full of the flora we know, populated with figures familiar and compellingly different," Kate writes.As the West Windsor Music Festival returns, the backstory. It began a few years back, when Japanese-born pianist Sakiko Ohashi and her husband were passing through the area. “It was very surreal," she tells the VT Standard's Emma Stanton. "We walked around the town hall building, and there we found a small townhouse, and thought this would be a perfect venue for a concert event." It begins Friday evening with a four-hand piano piece by JS Bach—“Bach is a god to classical pianists, and so it felt right to begin with his work," Ohashi says—with New Orleans pianist Nick Sanders. Lots more at the link.SPONSORED: Leftover Salmon brings feel-good summer tunes to Lebanon Opera House on Thursday, July 31! From their early days as a progressive bluegrass band to their role as pioneers of the modern jam band scene, Leftover Salmon continues to push their sound into psychedelic new directions. Roots music magazine No Depression describes the Boulder, Colorado six-piece group as “fun and hopeful, with elements of bluegrass, country, rock, and jazz originally woven together, recalling classic Grateful Dead.” Sponsored by Lebanon Opera House.Claremont city council names acting city manager. And she's a familiar face: Finance Director Nancy Bates will hold the post for a year, after sharing the acting position with Police Chief Brent Wilmot since the council sacked former manager Yoshi Manale in late April. Bates joined the city last year and, as Patrick O'Grady writes in the VN, "One of her first tasks will be to hire a finance director." The council is waiting to look for a permanent manager until after voters weigh in on its move to axe a charter requirement that the city manager live in Claremont; it's on the November ballot.Victim of Unity mobile home fire identified. In a press release yesterday, the NH State Fire Marshal's Office reported that the state's chief medical examiner "has confirmed the identity of the victim as Michael Maco, 75, of Unity. Maco’s cause of death was determined to be carbon monoxide poisoning and the manner was accidental." Firefighters had found his body inside the mobile home after responding to reports of a fire on Sunday evening.It's been a rough year so far for Upper Valley mountain bike trails. One word: rain. The Boston Lot trails have seen "pretty decent damage," Upper Valley Mountain Bike Assn. chair Austin Feula tells Valley News sportswriter Michael Coughlin Jr., as have the trails at the Union Village Dam and in Woodstock. “The soggy conditions have been caused as much by a high water table as by surface runoff, leading to wet spots in areas that don’t usually get saturated from a single rain event,” Woodstock Area Mountain Bike Assn board member Mark Harris tells Coughlin. Finally, though, things are looking up.In the mountains, “Hypothermia is always a risk." You may remember Monday's item about rescuers helping a woman with hypothermia off the ridgeline below Mt. Washington on Friday; in all, reports NHPR's Jackie Harris, NH Fish & Game got 10 calls that day from hikers in danger from cold temps and high winds. And even when it's 50 degrees out, Fish & Game Sgt. Matthew Holmes tells her, "somebody who's not prepared with extra layers can absolutely become a victim of hypothermia.” Given both heat and cold on high, he says, be prepared for both: bring water, electrolytes, and extra layers.Ayotte preps for budget deadlock. With the legislature due to meet on Thursday to vote on NH's two-year budget and GOP legislators at odds with the governor over the details—she's vowed to veto it if it passes in its current form—Gov. Kelly Ayotte yesterday said she'll ask the Exec Council today to authorize a special session of the legislature. If needed, the session would allow the legislature to pass a continuing resolution to keep state government funded for 90 days, while lawmakers and the governor continue negotiating. NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt has the details and the background.
Meanwhile, the argument appears to be getting personal, writes Michael Graham in NH Journal. Senate Pres. Sharon Carson and Ayotte are going toe-to-toe over firefighters and police officers in a group whose pensions were reduced in 2011: Ayotte wants to boost their pensions, arguing it's critical to retaining personnel; Carson argues it would let them get pensions at unsustainable levels. "She is threatening the 1.4 million people in the state of New Hampshire for the benefit of 1,550 people. Do the math on that,” Carson said on a radio show yesterday. Says an unnamed legislator, “It’s obvious they don’t like each other, but they still have to work with each other. This is a small state. They can’t avoid it.”
“There are a million places in this country that have a million strip malls that all look exactly the same. You’re killing the things that make New Hampshire, New Hampshire.” In case you're just catching up with what's going on with NH's Council on the Arts, that comment by the director of the Capitol Center for the Arts to the NYT's Michaela Towfighi (who's moved on from the Monitor) pretty much sums up the arts community's view of legislators' move to slash the Council's budget. Towfighi also talks to GOP Sen. Tim Lang, who explains his thinking on cutting the council while trying to save it. Gift link.Teresa Youngblut appears in federal court in Burlington; attorney expects "death penalty eligible" charges. Youngblut, who has been charged with firing a gun during the January confrontation with Border Patrol agents that left agent Chris Maland and Youngblut's companion dead, was in court yesterday for a pre-trial hearing, writes VTDigger's Alan J. Keays. It's just one of a sprawling series of cases involving murders tied by authorities to the group linked to Jack LaSota, known as "Ziz"—who was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Maryland on gun charges. Keays outlines yesterday's hearing.Beech leaf disease spreading in VT. In 2023, it was found in two towns in the state—after first being detected in this country in 2012. Last year, reports VT Public's Howard Weiss-Tisman, it had spread to 43 towns. “This is probably the pest that we are probably thinking about and trying to track more so than any other this season,” state Forest Health Program Manager Josh Halman tells him. The disease is caused by a tiny, invasive worm—or nematode—and no one knows how it spreads: through the air or water or animals. It has enormous destructive potential; Weiss-Tisman outlines the race to understand it.Seeing this country's beauty through someone else’s lens. There’s no shortage of magnificent landscape in the US, or visitors to grab the shot. Share the Experience, a coalition of 14 federal agencies that manage national parks and public lands and waters, has just announced the winners of its amateur photo contest. Top photos from 2024 include underwater landscape in the Channel Islands and a rainbow arcing above Glacier. The 2025 contest is open and new entries are added all the time, so click on Recent Entries for an ever-changing gallery: lakes, mountains, plains, wildlife, historic sites … our land. This week's Throughlines. Go deeper into today's Daybreak! Facing a grid of 16 words, it's up to you to connect four words at a time to create "throughlines" for three of today's items. The other four words are decoys, so watch out!Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak. If you're new to Daybreak, this is a puzzle along the lines of the NYT's Wordle—only it's not just some random word, but a word that actually appeared here yesterday.
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It's a chance to get a look at the season ahead in the performing arts center's newly expanded and refurbished digs: free snacks, ice cream and live music in the Loew Auditorium lobby, then a presentation about the season in the auditorium itself. 5:30 pm.
The Barnard-based jazz trio includes Artistree's own Kathleen Dolan and Mark van Gulden on flute, keyboard, and vocals, as well as bassist Glendon Ingalls, playing jazz standards, pop, and blues. 6:30 pm.
This year's chamber music festival, which draws on the talents of an array of young world-class musicians, opens with an evening of Grammy-winning violinist Keiko Tokunaga and pianist Matthew Graybil presenting selections from their new album, with works by Karol Szymanowski, Giuseppe Tartini, Ernest Bloch, and John Williams, and culminating in a performance of Brahms's
Piano Quintet in F minor
. 7 pm at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Halpern hasn't (yet) turned her talents to poetry, but that's about all: She's a non-fiction author, a journalist whose work appears regularly in
The New Yorker
, the
New York Review of Books
, and elsewhere, and a novelist and therapy-dog memoirist. Her new novel (out yesterday), delves into the tangles of family, emotional inheritance, friendship, love, and lots more through the multi-layered parallel stories of a teenage girl whose adoptive mother just died and a professional—and devoutly unattached—woman in her 40s. 7 pm.
It's the stage musical version of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg film hit about a singer on the lam from her gangster boyfriend who goes into witness protection and winds up in a convent and gets tapped to lead the choir and, well, complications ensue. Opens tonight at 7:30, runs through July 13.
Interplay's summer jazz camp is in full swing, and tonight from 8-11at the Barrette Campus Center at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, a faculty band with faculty and student vocalists will "take you back to the heyday of swing dancing in Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom." No charge, but space is limited so you'll need to register.
Well that was fast...
At the age of 79, Van Morrison just released a new album—the latest in a long string of them—and not only is it all originals, but he's a multi-instrumentalist on it (including on sax)
and
the album,
Remembering Now
, debuted at either number one or in the top 10 of a variety of UK charts.
, which takes us to his beginnings and to his insistence, as Belfast's streets roll by, "This is who I am." “Haven’t lost my sense of wonder," he adds.
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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