GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, hot, and humid. Today's looking to be a degree or two warmer than yesterday, with afternoon temps getting up toward 90 and not much cloud cover to speak of. There's some dry air aloft, which will keep things from getting too awful, and relief may headed our way late tomorrow, but until then, there's not much respite tonight—lows in the high 60s. First it was Vera's turn. Now it's Margaret's. At around 2 this morning our time, 14-year-old Margaret Rivard of Springfield, NH (and the Upper Valley Aquatic Center) set out to swim the 20 miles from Catalina Island to the California mainland. For her, it's the first leg in the "Triple Crown" of open-water swimming—a feat that, as NHPR reports, her 17-year-old sister, Vera, finished last week, taking 14 hours to swim the Catalina Channel (you may remember Vera did the English Channel and the 28-mile swim around Manhattan last year). If you do Facebook, you can follow Margaret on their mom's feed here.Scientists try to get ahead of Morey, Fairlee cyanobacteria. Rising phosphorus levels and nutrient-rich runoff in both lakes have the state worried, writes Claire Potter in the Valley News. Their hope, says state environmental scientist Kellie Merrell, is to find the sources responsible and then "turn those trends around or ‘flatten the curve’ before it gets to a new steady state at a high level of phosphorus." Merrell and her colleagues have been collecting samples around the lakes, with an eye toward working with lakeshore owners to do what they can to limit runoff.Co-op sees second employee Covid case in two weeks. In an email to patrons yesterday, general manager Paul Guidone said that it involves an employee in the Hanover store who "worked in a small, isolated department and had very little contact with other people." An earlier case at the WRJ store led to its closure for a day, but this time NH considers it a low-risk case and the store will remain open. Even so, Guidone writes, employees who interacted with their colleague will stay home (with pay) until tests come back negative, and the Co-op is reinstituting daily health screenings for employees.VT makes series of pop-up vaccination clinics available this week. Among other spots, they'll be at Oxbow High School in Bradford, the Woodstock Inn, and Wells River Chevrolet today; Springfield's Health Care & Rehabilitation Services tomorrow; St. J Academy on Friday; and the Chandler in Randolph and West Fairlee Old Home Day on Saturday. You can just walk in.Masks in NH schools? Don't "allow yourselves to be reduced down to a debate over a single mitigating strategy," says ed commissioner. NHPR's Peter Biello spoke yesterday to Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut about the new school year. The state's trying to dig into the data on "learning loss" and to help teachers identify students who are struggling. On Covid safety, distancing protocols and student screening will be in place, but on masks, the state's leaving it up to schools and to parents. "Let's look at the totality of the situation in that particular environment," Edelblut says.In NH's highly vaccinated towns, demographics, relentless outreach matter. Fewer than 10 towns have reached a 70 percent vaccination rate. In NH Bulletin, Annmarie Timmins looks at what's made a difference. She compares Lyme, at 71 percent, with neighboring Dorchester, at 39.6 percent. Part of it is demographics—income and education, mostly, though the Public Health Council's Alice Ely also argues Dorchester is "a community where people value their privacy." But Timmins also details efforts in Lyme and similar towns to reach every resident with vaccine info and the vaccine itself.Um, Yelp? We've got a problem... So, there's this website called FitRated, which rates fitness equipment. They decided to crunch the numbers on trail reviews on Yelp to come up with the "best and worst" hiking trails in the US. Top three states? AK, AR, and HI. Vermont finishes out of the top 10, but not by much. However. The second-worst state for hiking in the entire US of A, according to them? New Hampshire: "hilly, rocky, and densely wooded, hikers often reported terrible times on its trails." Because who on earth wants to find hills or trees when they're out hiking? Or, perish the thought, rocks?! Let's just note the nation's "most popular trail": NYC's High Line.As VT cases rise, health department beefs up contact tracing again. As cases dropped over the summer, state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso tells the Rutland Herald's Patrick Mcardle, health department staff "needed to go back to their regular jobs." With numbers climbing, it's shifting resources again. “The surge has been a challenge," she says. "There are a lot of cases and contacts to reach out to and so, we’re still doing contact tracing (but) some of it has not been as timely in recent days and weeks but we are staffing back up."At least the border's still open. And if you want to go visit Quebec, you can. Though as Molly Zapp writes in Seven Days, it's not especially easy, what with proof of vaccination, proof of a negative test, all arrival information uploaded to the government's website, and an address where you can quarantine if needed—though some day-trippers have successfully listed grocery stores. But as Zapp writes, a day touring the Eastern Townships makes it all worthwhile.Department of things you don't notice unless you're from away department. "Long Islander here. I visited Vermont over the weekend and saw something miraculous by Long Island standards [driving north on I-91]....the left lane unnervingly empty with occasional drivers using it to pass a car." Could it actually be, this Redditer wonders, that Vermonters are "really that considerate about using the left lane for passing only?" Long thread of responses.Concrete: The dark side. Seriously? Items on concrete two days in a row? Well, yesterday's mail brought this: a 2019 Guardian piece covering some of the same territory as yesterday's Sky News guy thread—only this one calls concrete "the most destructive material on earth." It starts by pointing out that "if the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world" and goes on from there. Its solidity can be a menace in extreme weather, it sucks up water, creates heat islands... And here's the thing: It's even more fascinating than yesterday's. Go figure. (Thanks, ML!)How do you even begin to describe the plumage of a European bee-eater? Or a Mandarin duck? Or a Golden-tailed Sapphire? Or... Having just spent some time with the gray of concrete, we need a little color. So this collection of colorful birds from Discover Earth—a Switzerland-based travel/photography Instagram influencer—seems just the ticket.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
The Hanover Farmers Market is at the Richmond School today from 4-7 pm, and as it's been doing all summer, the Howe Library is sponsoring an artist demo. Today it's Abena Songbird, a Vermont-born Abenaki poet, writer, and artisan, demonstrating the art of making Abenaki dreamcatchers.
At 6 pm in Orford, it's the rescheduled (from June 30) concert at the bandstand by the John Lackard Blues Band: blues, blues-based rock.
There are still some tickets left for Richard Thompson at the Lebanon Opera House tonight at 7:30—LOH's first indoor concert since, like, 2011 (okay, actually, March 2020, but it sure feels like a decade). Thompson should need no introduction: Fairport Convention founder, folk-rock pioneer, son of a police detective, one of Rolling Stone's Top 20 Guitarists of All Time, newly published author of a memoir of his early years in music. There's a mask requirement in place for audience, staff, and volunteers: "We can’t afford to shut down again; the future of the arts presenting industry is in each of our (sanitized) hands," LOH writes. "Please plan on masking up to help us safely return to indoor programming.”
Oh yes, you
bet
we're going with Fairport Convention. So much to choose from,
off
Liege & Lief
, recorded before the much-mourned Sandy Denny headed off on her own, but released after. With Thompson on lead guitar and Dave Swarbrick on violin.
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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