WELL, GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Maybe a tad cooler. A cold front came through last night, though you wouldn't know it by today's projected temps: highs in the upper 80s. Fortunately (see eclipse item down at the bottom), the cloud cover that came along with it will disappear over the course of the day, and we should see nighttime lows getting back to polite levels in the mid-50s. Winds from the northwest.Light on the water at day's end... It's just the best, isn't it?
While fly-fishing on the White, just north of Hartford Village, by Gary Winslow;
And looking out at Mascoma Lake as the water calms, the hills darken, and the sky digs deep into its palette, by Reed Bergwall.
Cornish offered former general store for library. The news came at the end of town meeting yesterday, when library trustees announced that Colleen O’Neill, widow of author J.D. Salinger and owner of the general store, was offering up the building. The current library, in Cornish Flat, has no off-street parking or running water—there's a composting toilet down a steep flight of stairs in the basement, writes Jasmine Taudvin in the Valley News. The Cornish Store, O'Neill pointed out in a letter, "has—very importantly—indoor plumbing, accessibility and plenty of parking.”SPONSORED: Today only, double your impact! At Willing Hands, we believe in a community where everyone can enjoy nourishing, fresh food regardless of economic status or personal circumstance. Together with our partners, we work 7 days a week to end hunger by reducing food waste. Today, donations up to $250 will be matched through NH Gives at specific times: 8 am, 9 am, 12 pm, 3 pm, and 4 pm. Don't miss these time-sensitive opportunities to double your impact! Sponsored by Willing Hands.A (ful)filling way to spend a Sunday... "For centuries, Norwich's farmland has fed this community. The steep hills and the rolling fields have all supported agriculture from sheep, to pigs, to hay, to wheat," the town historical society wrote recently. Now, writes Susan Apel on Artful, it and Norwich Rec have put together a 14-mile riding/driving tour—complete with podcast, exhibits, and, most important, food— of three farms around town: Hogwash, Sweetland, and Honey Field (the former Killdeer) on Sunday, June 20. As Susan writes, "Living in an area of high-quality farms is a blessing."Thank you, Patricia Carsten. She was a special ed teacher at the Newton School in S. Strafford who, Corey Cook says, saw in his struggling first-grade self "that I had stories to tell." She asked him to write and illustrate books... and launched him on his eventual path as a poet. In Sidenote, Laura Covalla profiles Cook, who's lived in Thetford for the last decade and is about to publish his sixth chapbook of poems. He still remembers his first acceptance letter, which he read in the car outside the Henniker, NH, post office. "I had to convince myself that it was actually happening. That I wasn’t dreaming."Really? More cows than people in Hanover? That's what Trevor Burgess tells CNBC, anyway. Burgess, who grew up in town, became the first openly gay CEO of a publicly listed bank in 2014. Today, he runs an AI-driven flood insurance firm, and CNBC talked to him about the challenges of being gay in the corporate world when he was starting out. After graduating from Dartmouth, he noted on half his job applications that he'd led the college's gay students group; half didn't mention it. He got interviews at every company where he didn't mention it, but only one where he did. That's where he started his career.Supportive housing for people with developmental disabilities ready to expand in UV. At the moment, Visions for Creative Housing Solutions can house 12 people at its Sunrise Farm in Enfield, reports Nora Doyle-Burr in the VN, but it's got a waiting list of some 30 people hoping to live "as independently as possible." So the nonprofit has renovated two former apartment houses on Green Street in Lebanon, which will open next month for 11 residents, and aims to add another site for 12 people in Hanover on the site of the former Outreach House on S. Park Street in 2023.NH Senate committee deep-sixes proposal to let hospitals detain people in mental-health crisis in ERs. The idea came from the state health department, and "was intended to give hospitals a way to hold, assess, and care for patients who need treatment but not something as drastic as involuntary commitment to the state hospital," writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin. But opponents noted it risked extending emergency room waits—an ongoing issue in the state—and offered no guidance on who could be held. 13 miles? 18.57 miles? 235 miles? You probably didn't make it to the beach the last few days, but you sure might have thought about it. Which is why David Brooks just dusted off a column from five years ago about NH's coastline...and how long it actually is. The feds (well, NOAA) say 13 miles. Using a more fine-toothed standard, the state puts it at 18.57. But that doesn't count "all the places where salt water sometimes makes it to the land," Brooks notes—because if you do, then you have to include the Great Bay.Scott approves budget, broadband bill. A $7.35 billion state budget that spends heavily on broadband, affordable housing, clean water, upgrading the state's digital infrastructure, and fighting climate change is now law. The measure, which benefits greatly from the more than $1 billion in federal funds flowing to the state from the American Rescue Plan, also includes money for relocating people who were housed by the state in hotels and motels during the pandemic, writes Kit Norton in VTDigger. Meanwhile, the broadband bill devotes $150 million to expanding high-speed internet access around the state.No end yet to the Koffee Kup saga. You'll remember that at the last minute, Georgia-based food giant Flowers Foods announced it would be buying the shuttered Burlington company and its Brattleboro subsidiary, Vermont Bread. Now, reports Kevin O'Connor in VTDigger, MA-based East Baking is prepping to go to court to stop the sale. “We believe it was ramrodded through," says a spokesman, "and there’s no reason they moved so quickly other than to avoid scrutiny.” And Mrs. Dunster's, the Canadian company that was ready to buy and rehire employees, is also considering legal action.Meanwhile, another VT startup lands big investment round. InSpace, started by Champlain College data science prof Narine Hall and Armenian software engineer Haykanush Lputyan, sells a platform that makes virtual classrooms more natural and free-flowing. Its software, reports Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen, is used by over 100 universities and schools worldwide, and investors have just poured $6 million into it. That's tiny compared to the $386 million aircraft startup Beta Technologies just raised, but as one VT-based investor says, "that’s a pretty large round to happen in Vermont.”Well, when you learn beekeeping from Nymphs... In one of those how-do-you-get-this-gig assignments, Rob Waters went to Greece for Craftsmanship Quarterly to try to figure out why the country produces "some of the most flavorful, potent, and healthful honey in the world"—and how its honeybee colonies have avoided collapsing. The country's herbs and fir trees, robust beekeeper education, colonies that—unlike in the US and other parts of Europe—are not kept near vast expanses of industrial agriculture. Meanwhile, Waters travels around the country, talking and, above all, tasting. Tomorrow morning, get up right before daybreak... People who live near the coast will have the best shot at this, but anywhere with a good view to the eastern horizon will work: As day breaks tomorrow (5:06 am) the sun will be in the middle of an eclipse, which will last about an hour. This is an annular eclipse, which means the sun won't fully be obstructed, but according to the folks at Space Weather the crescent sun we might get to see if we're lucky will be dramatic enough. (Thanks, JF!)
So...
Dartmouth still reports no student cases and 1 among among faculty/staff. No students and 3 faculty/staff members are in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while no students and 2 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 28 new cases yesterday, bringing it to an official total of 98,944. There were no new deaths, which remain at 1,357, while 28 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 1). The current active caseload is at 322 (down 31). The state reports 21 active cases in Grafton County (down 6), 26 in Sullivan (down 1), and 30 in Merrimack (down 2). In town-by-town numbers reported by the state, Claremont has 12 (down 2), while Haverhill, Warren, Hanover, Lebanon, Plainfield, Croydon, Newport, Sunapee, Newbury, and Charlestown have 1-4 each. Rumney is off the list.
VT reported 13 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 24,295. There were no new deaths, which remain at 256, while 2 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (up 1). Windsor County gained 5 new cases and stands at 1,490 for the pandemic, with 27 over the previous 14 days, while Orange County added no new cases and remains at 819 cumulatively, with 5 over the previous two weeks.
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The regular Wednesday Hanover Farmers Market started up last week (4-7) by the Richmond School, and throughout the summer the Howe will be featuring local artists and artisans demonstrating their work and techniques. Today it's Norwich potter Karin Rothwell, showing hand-modeling, coiling, and slabwork.
At 6:30, Hartford Parks and Rec kicks off its summer concert series at Lyman Point Park in WRJ with longtime Vermont blues musician John Lackard.
At 7 this evening, the Vermont Land Trust hosts writer and veteran birder Maeve Kim for a virtual birding walk through the VLT's Ward Hill property in Duxbury. The land is a refuge for birds, and Kim will introduce the various species that nest and raise young there, or that pass through during the spring and fall migrations.
And this evening at 8, live, full-on theater returns as Northern Stage launches previews for the first play in its outdoor season, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]. Three actors, 37 plays, 97 minutes, comedies, histories, tragedies... and NS's new open-air stage. The show runs through July 4; tickets for the first couple weeks of the run are mostly gone (you'll need to call the box office to check availability).
Meanwhile, if you're looking to get out and about...
Hanover Rec has just launched its 8th annual Trails Hike Challenge, with hikes spread across Hanover and in West Leb. You get a set of maps, directions, property descriptions, and hiking guidelines, with a destination of a wooden marker containing an image to draw. Do six of the nine hikes by the end of September and you can enter a raffle for prizes from a slew of local businesses.
The Northern Rail Trail is holding a 25-mile, 25th anniversary challenge. Walk, run, or bike 25 cumulative miles on the trail (surely there's some section that will appeal to you, given that it runs all the way to Concord), fill in the card and return it to Omer & Bob's, and you'll get entered in an August raffle. And how do you get the card? Pick one up at Omer & Bob's or get one at the grand opening of the Lebanon Mall Tunnel on July 8.
Or maybe just strolling through an extraordinary garden is enough? The garden at the Tracy Library in New London is open for the season, dawn to dusk. Designed in the 1920s by Olmsted Brothers (the landscape architecture firm managed at the time by Frederick Law's sons), the garden originally had four beds of old-fashioned flowers around a wading pool for children, a large lawn, a rose garden, a peak-roofed tool house, and a variety of shrubs, vines and trees. It was restored in 2002.
What I'd give to find a live video of this... but oh well. Slim Gaillard played piano, guitar, and sax, was a bomber pilot during WWII, spoke Spanish, German, Greek, Arabic, and Armenian (and used Yiddish in at least a couple of his songs), created his own language ("Vout-o-Reenee", one performance of which shows up in Kerouac's
On the Road
), played with the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and was known for his exuberant musical wordplay.
, with Ben Webster on sax, Cyril Hayes on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Milt Jackson on drums.
Crunch, crunch, I don't want no lunch...
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.
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