GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Chance of showers, maybe some sun. Things remain cool, with a weak system crossing the area later, bringing us a chance of rain and slight chance of thunder from late morning through late afternoon. We’re looking at more clouds than sun and highs in the upper 60s. Down into the mid or upper 40s tonight.
Divebombing dragonfly. Occasionally, when he’s out on a pond, videographer Peter Bloch catches something entirely unexpected. “Sometimes there are these splashes on the surface,” he writes about this video. “I had always assumed they were little fish jumping for bugs. Well it turns out that it is not ALWAYS fish…” In this case, it was a diving dragonfly—which is impossible to see at actual speed, but he slows it down to half speed, quarter speed, and finally 6 percent speed, so you can see what’s going on.
I-89 Exit 19 southbound on-ramp will be closed early tomorrow morning. NHDOT contractors will be doing paving, and the ramp is scheduled to be fully closed from 3:30 am to 7:00 am Thursday. Detour is northbound to Exit 20, then back down. And a heads up: Next week, the Exit 19 southbound off-ramp will be closed for five full days, Sept. 2-6. If you’re headed southbound to the Miracle Mile or Mechanic St., you’ll be sent down to Exit 18 to reverse directions.
Enfield’s rabid foxes may no longer be a threat. “It seems to me … like maybe the rabies has run its course and those that were affected have met their demise,” NH Fish and Game Lt. James Kneeland tells the VN’s Liz Sauchelli. Neither his department nor the Enfield police have received any calls from residents since last week, when encounters with aggressive foxes led Enfield police to set out traps. Even so, Kneeland says, “People should still be vigilant and all that.”
Change coming to how Wilder Dam operates. And the Bellows Falls and Vernon dams. All are owned by Great River Hydro, and as VT Public’s Abagael Giles reports, as part of the relicensing process on all three, the company ”has agreed to operate them as ‘run-of-river’ facilities — where just as much water comes into the dam as flows out.” That’s opposed to “daily peaking”: holding back water and then releasing it when power demand rises, usually morning and evening, which has been shown to create erosion and change river ecosystems. Environmental groups back the change, while GRH says it’ll have a marginal financial impact and is “the right way to go.”
Why is Red Hen crossing the road? More oven space, for one thing, plus more café seats and easier access for delivery trucks. Though to be honest, the Middlesex, VT bakery’s new space, slated for a spring opening, isn’t actually across the road (hey, poetic license); instead, it’s on the same side of Rte. 2, up from its current Camp Meade site (you’ll turn right on Rte 2 from the I-89 exit instead of left). Owners Randy George and Eliza Cain tell Seven Days’ Melissa Pasanen that the larger space will allow them to add new products, and it’s “a long-term, secure site.” They’ll still be running a seasonal creemee window with house-baked cones.
SPONSORED: Get a look ahead at autumn with Osher! Join Osher at Dartmouth for our Fall Term Kick-Off on Wednesday, September 3, from 3–5 PM! This free event marks the start of our year-long 35th anniversary celebration and features light snacks and drinks, brief introductions from our fall instructors about their upcoming courses, and the chance to mingle with fellow members while exploring our classrooms. Register by Friday. Celebrate the start of our 35th year with us—we look forward to seeing you there! Details at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Osher at Dartmouth.
What if Florida just… disappeared? The land is still there in Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate, but as Michaela Lavelle writes in this week’s Enthusiasms, it “disappears from government recognition as a state. It disappears from the power grid. It disappears from the list of places that exist on a map.” That’s thanks to hurricanes and other natural disasters that render it uninhabitable. Except, of course, people continue to inhabit it. It’s “a world in chaos, in which there is no correct response,” Michaela writes. “There are just people doing their best and dealing with the consequences. This is a novel that feels like Florida—sticky with tension and beautiful in its humanity.”
Kumpir envy. Those are Turkish stuffed baked potatoes (stuffed Turkish baked potatoes? baked stuffed Turkish potatoes?) and they’re available at the Oktay family’s Cappadocia Bistro in Burlington, the sister establishment to the kumpir-free Cappadocia Café in WRJ. Let’s just quote Seven Days’ Melissa Pasanen in her review of the Burlington café: “We spooned up dense, dairy-drenched mouthfuls of potato, richly mixed with smoky baba ghanoush and earthy bulgur salad and spangled with briny pickled vegetables and olives. The humble baked potato reached new heights.” Sounds like a road trip—or lobbying—might be in order.
Believe it or not, a happy invasive species story. Way back in 2008, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog, MA officials announced that the Asian longhorned beetle had been found on trees in Worcester. “Everybody freaked out because the ALB is something of an omnivore that can damage multiple species,” he notes, and warnings that it would destroy New England’s forests proliferated. It hasn’t, Brooks reports, and that’s because MA forestry officials launched an all-out campaign against it. No live beetle has been found there since 2015 and the most recent sign of recent ALB damage was in 2021, “so they’re hopeful.” Also, they’ve got an ALB-sniffing dog.
Gov. Ayotte names two to key NH legal roles. One is a nomination (which gets formalized at today’s Exec Council meeting) to the state Supreme Court: Concord lawyer Bryan Gould, “a well-regarded and experienced litigator with deep ties to Republican politics in the state,” reports NHPR. Gould has represented the state GOP in election law matters, was counsel to former Republican Gov. Craig Benson, and worked as special counsel to the Exec Council and to Ayotte’s gubernatorial campaign. The other is a familiar name: current Attorney General John Formella, whom Ayotte will re-nominate for the position after saying in March that she needed time to decide.
Health insurance rates on VT’s marketplace will rise—but not by nearly as much as insurers requested. That’s because the Green Mountain Care Board on Friday announced new VT Health Connect rates for Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP that are a fraction of the new rates the companies proposed in May, reports VTDigger’s Olivia Gieger. Instead of a 23.5 percent increase for individuals and 13.5 percent for small group plans, the care board approved 9.6 percent and 4.4 percent increases. MVP had proposed 6.2 percent and 7.5 percent increases; it got 1.3 percent and 2.5 percent. Gieger looks at the ins and outs for both consumers and insurers.
Oh well. It may not have rained much around here, but up at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds, it poured late yesterday. Which, sadly, was when the Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT was going for that record for the world’s largest square dance, with Mike Gordon, Kat Wright, and others up on stage. They needed 1,600 people; WCAX reports “fewer than a few hundred showed out in the wet conditions.”
Haboob. It’s a massive dust storm, and Phoenix, AZ got one on Monday, with some stunning footage captured by onlookers, here thanks to PetaPixel. And just how do haboobs form? Here’s National Geographic on “the dust blob that swallowed Phoenix.”
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Rollins Chapel organ recital. The grand pipe organ in Dartmouth’s chapel will get a lunchtime workout, as College Organist Henry Danaher performs an organ sonata composed by recent grad Matthew Timofeev, and Benjamin Singer performs works by Bach and Messiaen. No charge, no RSVP needed. 1 pm.
JD and The Stonemasons with Liz and Dan Faiella at the John Hay Estate at the Fells. The Newport, NH estate brings in two Irish American roots music groups for an evening of everything from folk songs and shanties to dance hall tunes. 6 pm.
“Harmonic Journey: An evening of chords and stars in Eastman”. The Center at Eastman hosts two of the region’s premier a cappella groups: barbershop group the North Country Chordsmen, and contemporary a cappella-ists the VoxStars. 7 pm.
Sustainable Woodstock screens Horseshoe Crab Moon. The documentary follows scientists and researchers who are studying the decline of the horseshoe crab in the Delaware Bay (and along the East coast), and the resulting decline in the red knot, a globe-trotting sandpiper. Streaming through Friday.
And for today...
There’s a story here. Jon Batiste just came out—on Friday—with a new album, Big Money. It’s got great collaborations with artists like Andra Day and No I.D., and there’s one that’s unmissable: with Randy Newman, covering Ray Charles’s “Lonely Avenue”. And that came about because one day, Batiste cold-called Newman, who hadn’t been singing or recording, and they got to talking. And talking. “There was a lot I knew we had to talk about," Batiste told the CBC show Q. "Over the course of us talking it started to be hanging out, and then over the course of us hanging out it started to be jamming. And then, over the course of us jamming, he started singing. He hadn't been singing. In fact, they were surprised that he was singing. They were like, 'You've inspired him to sing again. He hasn't been in good fighting shape.'" The duo did this in one take in Newman’s living room… Which, apparently, doesn’t look quite so woeful in real life.
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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