GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A calm, sunny day out there. It'll start out with fog and clouds in spots, but that should clear pretty quickly. What with winds switching to come from the southwest, we'll see higher temps than yesterday, hitting the high 70s or low 80s, depending on where you are. Low pressure is coming through tonight, so clouds will build as the afternoon wears on, and there's a slight chance of showers (and maybe even thunder) tonight until after midnight.If you've got an itch, you've gotta scratch it. I'm guessing we can all identify with this black bear, caught on Lisa Grose's trail cam in Hanover.Suicide Six will change its name... but won't say yet to what. "Our resort team embraces the increasing awareness surrounding mental health and shares the growing concerns about the insensitive nature of the historical name," the Pomfret ski resort said in a post on its website yesterday. With a nearly nine-decade history (it opened in 1936), the pioneering hill added, "it is vital that the name better represents and celebrates what makes it a beloved and vibrant part of this community." The post goes on to say that a new name's been chosen and will be announced in the next few weeks.Woodstock turns to former Springfield VT town manager for interim hire. Tom Yennerell, who also served in 2020-21 as Thetford's interim manager, has taken over for William Kerbin Jr., who was put on paid leave in April and resigned last month, reports Darren Marcy in the Valley News. The job, Yennerell tells Marcy, will mostly be "keeping the ship upright and things on course. We’ll have to put together a budget; that’s going to be a time-consuming task." The Woodstock Selectboard and town Board of Trustees will decide on a firm to run a national search for a permanent manager.SPONSORED: Paid home provider opportunity with housing in the Upper Valley. A young man with Down syndrome is seeking part-time home care and on-call overnight support. This position provides full-time housing in a quiet neighborhood in Wilder, VT. The ideal candidate will work with a skilled support team to provide supervision, while working to ensure a steady and consistent quality of life through gentle cues, reminders, and guidance. Reliable vehicle and valid driver’s license required. CPR Certification preferred.Get to know compelling characters, learn about the natural world...and read a crackling good mystery, all at the same time. When she first became a bookseller, Carin Pratt writes in this week's Enthusiasms, she didn't know much about mysteries. Her "gateway" was Maine writer Paul Doiron's series about Mike Bowditch, a game warden with an eye for nature, a love for Maine's wilderness, and a distaste for those who despoil it. Doiron's latest, Hatchet Island, about the doings on a remote protected breeding ground for seabirds—what could possibly go wrong?—came out this week.Jake's Quechee Market: on the lookout for trends. It's a family-owned "modern general store," writes Dian Parker in a profile in Woodstock mag, owned and operated by Ed and Mary Lynn Kerrigan and their son, James. Artisanal cheeses, a wide range of craft beers (including non-alcoholic), meats and produce, a deli staff that spends most of the day cooking takeout meals—plus The Skinny Pancake next door in the store's former café space—and an expanding home and garden section, all built with an eye, James says, toward "creating the atmosphere of an enjoyable place to shop."In Fairlee, Broken Hearts Burger wins "an adoring, and expanding, fan base." The burger joint, next door to Samurai Soul Food, is the brainchild of Matt Walker, who grew up in Fairlee then went off to work as a bartender and bar manager in Brooklyn and Winooski, writes freelancer Eric Sutphin in the VN. Now, Walker tells him, "here I am living out my restaurant fantasies.” The menu is rooted in burgers and chicken, ice cream and donuts, but it's constantly evolving, Walker says. "The proximity to great farms, produce and meat at reasonable prices is the obvious advantage. We’re spoiled here."Third shoe drops on NH electric rates. Eversource and Liberty Utilities have already announced rate increases. Yesterday, the NH Electric Coop announced it's boosting the rate per kilowatt-hour from 9.62 cents to just shy of 17 cents. The rate takes effect on bills after Aug. 1, reports Paula Tracy in InDepthNH. Meanwhile, in a column, state consumer advocate Don Kreis notes that with the average residential customer using around 650 kilowatt-hours a month, customers of the big utilities, which will raise their rates to 22 cents per kilowatt-hour, "are looking down the barrel of $150 a month in energy charges."Most Granite Staters "very" or "somewhat" confident in state elections. A new Granite State Poll from the UNH Survey Center finds a partisan split in confidence that 2020 results were accurate, with 100 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 69 percent of Republicans saying they believe results were tallied correctly; overall, 79 percent express confidence in the upcoming midterm elections. These results come, reports NHPR's Todd Bookman, as state officials cite declining voter confidence for a series of moves related to election integrity.Well, at least there's one consumer good that will be free from single-use plastic: retail cannabis in VT. At least, that's assuming the state's Cannabis Control Board gets its way. In High Times, Keegan Williams reports that the board earlier this month released new guidance on packaging, which for products sold at retail locations needs to be reusable and not plastic; glass and bamboo are fine. Packaging for cannabis itself needs to be "child-deterrent" and opaque, while for cannabis products like edibles, it needs to hit a higher standard of "child-resistant."While you're lamenting higher prices, spare a thought for New England's food truck owners. For one thing, there are food costs and supply-chain issues. “Currently, Yoplait vanilla yogurt, we can’t find that anywhere, like it’s nonexistent in our community,” a district manager for NH's The Smoothie Bus tells CT Public Radio's Melody Rivera. And then, of course, there's gas. Vendors slotted for the Great New England BBQ & Food Truck Festival in Milford, NH, are lobbying to arrive just before the event in August, so they can minimize the use of their generators.Yurts, wagons, tiny cabins—oh, and tents: Choice spots to go glamping in New England. None are very close by, but if gas prices don't stop you, the Gruber family, which runs a travel blog called We3Travel.com, has close to two dozen suggestions, like Huttopia's sites in the Whites and Maine; the Conestoga wagon at the KOA in Woodstock, NH; a bunch of sites on the ME coast (including tree dwellings with hot tubs); tiny cabins in Epsom, NH; Airstreams on Cape Cod; the treehouse at Moose Meadow Lodge in Duxbury, VT; clear domes in Jefferson, ME; and cheaper options through Tentrr.How our brains tell us stories that might not be true. In Vox, Brian Resnick starts small: with an optical illusion studied by Dartmouth neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh and his team, who showed that part of the brain was overriding what the visual cortex perceived. "The stories our brains tell us about reality are extremely compelling, even when they are wrong," Resnick writes. That's because our brain is making predictions, Cavanagh says. Resnick entertainingly explores what's going on using a set of illusions to explore from the perceptions of early-risers vs. night owls all the way to political bias.The Wednesday Vordle. As always, a word (fair warning: it could be a place name) related to an item in yesterday's Daybreak.Yo! Daybreak comes to you only because readers support it. Help keep it going by hitting the maroon button:
At 3 pm today, the Howe welcomes Leah Kohn and Niv Ashkenazi, founders of the new Oak Hill Music Festival (starting its inaugural season July 13), along with their bassoon and violin in a "Meet the Instruments" children's program. They'll be playing some examples of chamber music and then doing a Q & A about their instruments.
Today at 6 pm, Artistree continues its weekly Music on the Hill series in S. Pomfret with Hot Pickin' Party, the Burlington (roughly speaking)-based bluegrass trio of guitarist Doug Perkins, bassist Mike Santosusso, and dobro player Adam Frehm. They've been at it for two decades, ever since their days in the newgrass jamband Smokin' Grass.
At 7 pm, the Appalachian Mountain Club's Sarah Nelson, director of research there, will give a Zoom talk on mountain ponds and climate change, sponsored by the Howe. She'll be talking about how mountain ponds, which tend to be small and vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns and overall warming, are showing the effects of climate change.
And from 8 to 11 this evening, Interplay Jazz puts on a swing dance at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, with Interplay's summer camp faculty and students who make up its big band—and everyone who shows up to dance—channeling the nightly exuberance of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in its heyday. Get your tix online or at the door.
And music to get you up and moving...
It's not Lindy Hoppers, but there's not a chance anyone in the Savoy was sitting down
Despite the YouTube description, it's likely this was after Webb's death from tuberculosis in 1939, when Fitzgerald, just 22, took over the band.
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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