Daybreak Wednesday 6/30/21

HOW NICE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!

Never thought I'd be happier to see the words "weak front." We've got one dropping by, and in its wake temps will start moderating a bit (though not in a serious way until tomorrow). There's a chance of rain and thunder all morning and a likelihood this afternoon, with strong winds and heavy rain possible, especially across the southern parts of VT and NH. High today in the upper 80s, partly sunny to mostly cloudy, with lows tonight in the upper 60s.Mom? What's with all the fish? On June 3 at Bow Lake (which, wouldn't you know, is not in Bow) a red-tailed hawk chick appeared in an eagle's nest. Iain MacLeod, director of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, speculates that a male eagle carried it there as food, but it survived...and its food-begging "triggered the adult female eagle’s maternal drive," in NH Audubon's words. Now it's growing up alongside an eagle nestling, and local wildlife-watcher Cheryl Mrozienski has a video of the two of them companionably hanging out. Needless to say, the big one's the eaglet. (Thanks, CP and ARG!)John Sears, town of Sharon's "trusted and stalwart friend," dies in logging accident. Sears, 64, was cutting a felled tree on Saturday when a safety winch failed and the log rolled, according to the state police. In a listserv post, Andrew Lane wrote, "Whether fixing a road after Hurricane Irene, teaching students at the Sharon Elementary School to cross country ski, or caretaking for all of the Camp Downer properties, John was always giving of himself to others around him. So many of us called on John regularly to diagnose a problem with our cars, even if we were far away from John’s shop in Sharon." There's a memorial service Saturday at 1:30 in the TSA high school gym."The woods are very, very dry. It’s an accident waiting to happen.” That's Ascutney fire chief Darrin Spaulding talking to the Valley News's Report for America member, Claire Potter. Fire departments around the region are fretting about ground fires as the moderate drought widens: “What scares me the most is lightning," says Spaulding, "because lightning can start a fire and two or three days later it rears its ugly head.” Ironically, some departments are putting off wildland training because they need to save water for actual fires. Randolph's Black Krim Tavern closing. It'll shut its doors July 17, as chef-owner Sarah Natvig moves on to become a culinary arts instructor at the Randolph Career Tech Center. The teaching opportunity "came out of the blue," she tells Seven Days' Melissa Pasanen. "I wasn't looking." Natvig says she's in discussions with someone who may want to take over the space.An art opening, literally. You already know about the July 8 grand opening celebration for the new Lebanon tunnel connecting the Mascoma River Greenway and the Northern Rail Trail. But what you may not have known is that it will also likely be the only public chance to check out a set of proposed artworks for the space; the city's been winnowing proposals, Susan Apel writes in Artful. "Public art is accessible to everyone. It’s there. No gallery hours to look up, no social distancing or timed tickets in museums," she adds.“We are a little obsessive with how we approach marmalades." That, intriguingly, is Vicky Allard, co-owner of Blake Hill Preserves, in a press release about the Windsor company's two golds, two silvers, and a bronze from the 2021 World Artisan Marmalade Awards, usually held at Dalemain Mansion in England's Lake District; this year, entries were sent in. Allard grew up in England, and it was memories of Seville Orange marmalade that inspired her to launch Blake Hill, she says. The Awards' Best In Show went to a nine-year-old girl from the Isle of Wight and her orange blossom-infused entry."A sprawling floor plan, an elegant display of design, fine craftsmanship, and placed high on the top of a Southeast facing ridge.” And it's all yours for $1.59 million. What the Four Seasons Sotheby's listing (understandably) doesn't mention, the VN's Tim Camerato points out, is that the home and 100-acre compound in Plainfield were the site of the nine-month standoff against federal marshals by Ed and Elaine Brown in 2007. The property was bought in 2019 by out-of-state owners, who've spent two years having it renovated. And no, crews did not come across any buried explosives.7 percent to 58 percent. Over the first three weeks of June, that's the jump in NH land area experiencing moderate drought, writes Michael Kitch in NH Business Review. Conditions are worst in Strafford, Carroll and Coos counties, and most of Belknap and Grafton counties—along with stretches of Vermont and all of Maine. The annual rainfall deficit has reached 15 inches, or a third of what we should expect, and groundwater levels are below those recorded in the drought years of 2016 and 2020. Even so, Kitch reports, "dry conditions appear not to have yet taken a heavy toll on the agricultural community."Over half of Sununu's Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion resigns. In all, 10 of its 17 members signed onto a letter yesterday, citing the new state budget with its "divisive topics" language—which, they wrote, "aims to censor conversations essential to advancing equity and inclusion in our state." They added, "It should not be taken lightly that nearly every member of the Council that is not part of your administration is resigning today." Sununu responded that his administration has already started "filling these vacancies with representatives from all walks of life," NHPR's Sarah Gibson reports.NHPR staffers form union. "We are the workers that make NHPR's signature products," begins a petition to CEO Jim Schachter posted on Twitter yesterday. It asks him to recognize their collective bargaining unit, formed with SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). "The past year+ has been a tumultuous time at our organization," they write. "Too many of our beloved colleagues have left... We are unionizing to address the burnout and high turnover rates among staff that have undermined NHPR's mission."New tool helps focus on New England microclimates. While we think of "climate" in regional terms, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog, plants and animals don't. “Species experience climate very locally, especially plants,” Mark Anderson, director of science in the eastern U.S. for The Nature Conservancy, tells him. “What they’re aware of is the range of microclimates right around them–that’s ‘climate’ for them.” Which is why the Conservancy has helped create a new online mapping tool, designed to identify resilient areas, that analyzes the Northeast "in staggering detail," Brooks writes.VT cases falling, but median age rising. In a presentation at state officials' weekly press conference yesterday, financial regulation chief Mike Pieciak noted that the median age of new Covid cases has gone from just over 25 in late May to just under 40 as of yesterday, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko. At the same time, 81.9 percent of Vermonters 12 and over have started the vaccination process. Regionwide, Pieciak said, sampling data suggests 18 percent of new cases in New England are of the spreading Delta variant.VT Legal Aid sues state over changes to pandemic housing program. The state's move to cut eligibility for about 700 Vermonters who've been housed in motels throughout the pandemic is "inhumane and unfair," imposes overly narrow eligibility criteria, and was procedurally wrong, the organization argues in a class-action suit filed Monday. In response, writes Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days, human services secretary Mike Smith at a press conference yesterday said that the criteria were significantly broader than what had been in place for the emergency housing program before the pandemic.Ludlow debates Trey Anastasio's proposed addiction treatment center. Or, to be more precise, the town's Development Review Board and various residents have carried on a four-month argument over the Phish frontman's project for people struggling with addiction that, Seven Days' Chelsea Edgar writes, has veered far from the zoning legalities and into "NIMBYist whataboutism." It all comes to a head July 12, when the DRB votes on the project. But even then, town manager Scott Murphy says—you can almost hear the sigh—the losing side will no doubt appeal to environmental court.The murmurations of sheep. Lior Patel is an Israeli commercial drone photographer, and for the last seven months he's been filming the 1,000 to 1,750 sheep managed by vegetable farmer Michael Morgan and South Africa-born herder Keith Markov as they migrate around the Peace Valley region of Yokneam, at the base of the Carmel Mountains. This is a sped-up timelapse, which makes the flowing patterns—and, if you don't blink, the work of several border collies—both evident and mesmerizing.

So...

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"One day during summer of 1984, as I was sweeping the floor of my house in the country, the image of a young girl (in black and white) and a medieval street in the Jewish community (also in black and white) came to me." Those images led composer and vocalist Meredith Monk to direct two films in the 1980s, including the semi-documentary/semi-fictional Ellis Island—for which she also wrote the dreamy, delicate score for two pianos. Here are Ursula Oppens and Gloria Cheng performing it in a 2018 concert of Monk's works in LA.

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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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