Treasure Hunt 26/03/05

Dear Donna,

I found this box of assorted watch pieces and metal. Can you give me an idea of a value for it? I took what I wanted and now would like to see someone else enjoy it.

Thank you, Donna.

Terri

Dear Terri,

OK I’m in line for that! Just kidding, but who doesn’t like playing with watch pieces?

I think what I would do first is check for any watch faces, movements etc. Some may be valuable on their own. This I think could be done by a watch repair person and possibly a jeweler.

If you know they are just an assortment of pieces, next I would price it as a lot to someone. People enjoy decorating and doing crafts, jewelry with a lot of it! Sometimes just displaying the bunch in a glass jar makes for interesting conversations.

Terri, from what I can see you have an assortment of pieces from the early 1900s through to the mid to late century. I say the value for the lot if no exceptions is $75.

I hope you find a new home for the box of fun!

Flower power

‘Bloom’ pairs art and floral arrangements

A four-day event at Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art pairs paintings and sculptures with floral arrangements done by members of the New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs. “Bloom – A Floral Palette” also offers hands-on artmaking and tours led by floral designers. It culminates with a catered party and awards ceremony.

“Bloom” is something that NHFGC has long wanted to do, Winnie Schmidt, the organization’s President, noted recently.

“Many of us have attended this type of an event in places like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and right now there’s one going on in Worcester, Mass., at their art gallery,” she said in a phone interview. “We’ve seen them all over, and for years we’ve wanted to bring it here.”

Arrangers include winners of past events like the Philadelphia Art Show and the Rhode Island Flower Show, along with some who are in the milieu for the first time but just as passionate. “These are ladies who absolutely love to do floral design,” Schmidt said. “From Salem up to Littleton and Ashland.”

Floral designers are tasked with addressing the question of how art and arrangements work together, Schmidt continued. They should, she said, “complement, harmonize, showcase or unite with a piece of art or in the theme [and] demonstrate creativity, originality, use of bold color choices, textures and unexpected materials.”

Museums are a brave new world for NHFGC, which is part of a national group of garden clubs. “Most of us are digging-in-the-dirt garden clubs, but a good number of us are also interested in floral design,” she said. “It’s a mixture of both outdoor gardeners and floral designers, so it’s a very eclectic group.”

Floral designers picked works from the Currier collection on a first-come basis, a process that worked well, Schmidt said. “You have to remember this, we’re inventing this as it goes — none of us have done this before. So our mantra is, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re having a good time doing it.’”

Attendees at the Bloom Bash on the evening of Saturday, March 14, are encouraged to dress in their favorite floral fashions in an early celebration of spring. The event will offer light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, capped by an awards ceremony in the Currier’s Winter Garden to celebrate the designers.

Currier Director and CEO Jordana Pomeroy will choose the arrangement that she feels best represents the intersection of design and art. A Committee Award will be chosen by Currier Board of Trustees member Bill Stelling; Sally Shea, who organized a similar effort called “Petals to Paint” for many years, and a dozen NHFGC presidents, including Schmidt.

Finally, there’s a People’s Choice Award.

“Everyone who attends will be able to vote for the arrangement that they feel best exemplifies the show,” Schmidt said. “All those things will be given out at the Bloom Bash on Saturday night, so it’ll be like a culmination — ‘We did it, let’s celebrate and party and have a good time.’”

That said, it will be a party that’s more about marking an achievement for everyone involved, rather than to pick winners.

“It’s not a floral design contest,” Schmidt said. “The National Garden Club has a handbook on floral design arrangement that is probably 1,000 pages thick. This is not what this is.”

More than anything, the hope is that the long weekend of commingling flowers and arts inspires another one, and another after that, she stressed.

“It’s our inaugural one, but the one that we were at in Connecticut last weekend was celebrating their 44th, and I hope someday we will be celebrating our 44th annual here in Manchester.”

Bloom – A Floral Palette
When: Thursday, March 12, through Sunday, March 15
Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester
Tickets: Weekend pass $50 adults, $20 members (does not include Bloom Bash on Saturday, March 14, 6 p.m., $50)

Daily admission $30 adults, $15 members, includes museum access, arrangement viewing, artmaking and tours.

Featured photo: “Cross By the Sea, Canada” by Georgia O’Keeffe one of the pieces floral designers will take inspiration from for “Bloom.” Images courtesy the Currier.

Fish Tacos

A look at this celebration of textures, flavors and tacos

New Hampshire diners like fish tacos so much they’ve been known to DIY them at the restaurant.

“Every year we have customers order ceviche,” Jose Rodriguez said, “but instead of having the tostadas they ask for tortillas on the side and they make tacos out of it. It’s definitely something we’re not too used to seeing, but it makes a nice little taco. You can’t go wrong with that, you know? It’s a hack. A taco hack.”

Rodriguez is the manager of Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill in Manchester, and he observed that people in New Hampshire love seafood tacos — maybe more than people in Mexico.

“Fish tacos in general — and I mean, I don’t even like to say it — they’re not very popular around the area I’m from. My family is from an inland area. In Mexico they’re not a big popularity of ours. We go for more like the whole fish, fish plates. But here [in New England], honestly, everyone loves seafood. So everyone likes seafood; everyone likes tacos. Give it a mix in between both of them and you get kind of like what people are looking for.”

Rodriguez said for Puerto Vallarta and its sister restaurants, Nuevo Vallarta and Vallarta Tequila Bar, seafood tacos are a mainstay.

“Here we have grilled fish tacos and we have crispy fish tacos, which are breaded fish that we deep-fry. But we also have crispy shrimp tacos. Everyone likes the crispy fish, and with the shrimp dishes it’s the same thing. We have grilled shrimp tacos, but we had deep-fried shrimp with rice and a salad and everything, and people would start grabbing tortillas and making tacos out of them. So we started making tacos out of it. Everyone seems to like their breaded seafood deep fried.”

And that’s not counting the off-menu items like the ceviche tacos. Ceviche is a way of preparing seafood without heat. The fish or shrimp is cooked, but with acid. The seafood is marinated in something highly acidic, like lime juice, and it is cooked chemically, but cold, and it is served cold as well, which, Rodriguez said, can make for a delicious taco. Most tacos, he said, benefit from a squeeze of lime for some acid, and the ceviche is already acidic, so it really works well.

For most customers, however, the go-to seafood tacos are made with fish, Rodriguez said.

“We use tilapia for deep fried whole fish and everything like that,” he said, “but we use haddock for tacos.” Traditionally, fish tacos are served on a grilled flour tortilla, he said, “but we use corn. Your options are open, though. If you want to do flour, you can do flour. Some people have done hard shell. It really depends. We usually use the authentic corn tortilla; it’s a little more Mexican traditional. We give you all your toppings on the side, give you some rice, a mixture of cabbage and lettuce, pico de gallo, and some sauce, so you can customize your own tacos. We give you a homemade sauce as well with the fish, a chipotle cream sauce, to give it a little spice.”

Fish tacos are usually made with fresh white ocean fish. On the beach in Baja they would probably be made with a meaty fish like shark or swordfish, but according to Adam Podraza, Kitchen Manager at Makris Lobster & Steak House in Concord, here in New England it is more likely to be a cold-water Atlantic fish. Which one you use, he said, really depends on how you plan to cook it. Firm, “steaky” fish is better for a grilled fish taco, he said, but flaky fish tends to fall apart on a grill and is better battered and deep fried. The crispy batter holds the fish together, and gives it some crunch — as in fish and chips.

“Up here in the north,” Podraza said, “it’s very common to see haddock tacos. Cod works very well, too. As you go further south, you see more mahi-mahi, and I love mahi-mahi! It works well up here as well, but it’s more common to see haddock as a fish taco. It’s a flaky fish. It’s white with a very mild flavor. It’s a whole lot flakier than your mahi-mahi. Mahi-mahi is more of a steak fish, like a swordfish, which makes a great taco, but you do it as a different preparation. You’ll see a lot of winter fish tacos that are being fried, as opposed to something like the mahi-mahi, which might be grilled, or pan-seared, maybe blackened, something like that. A seasoned application versus being a mild, flaky fried fish.”

Podraza said East Coast American fish tacos are fundamentally different from Pacific Coast Mexican ones.

“In northern Mexico, they’re going to use whatever they’ve got,” he said. “If someone’s got a swordfish or whatever — whatever the catch of the day was.” And it would probably be flame grilled, which calls for a firmer fleshed fish, he said. “I don’t like grilling haddock. I don’t like grilling cod — they flake away too hard. Really, I go with the mahi-mahi and the haddock.” He said that for tacos it’s a good idea to stay away from strong-flavored, oily fish like mackerel. “You could do a striped bass,” he said. “Striped bass would be wonderful grilled. That would work out very nicely.”

“For me,” Podraza said, “my ideal [taco] would have something fried — you know, batter-fried. It’s going to give it some texture, plus it will take on a sauce well. Even today we’ve got a beautiful pineapple cilantro salsa at the restaurant that we’re using with our tuna. A grilled tuna taco would be fantastic too.” He said fresh tuna is more affordable than most people would assume. “Our tuna right now is $15.99 a pound — that’s cheaper than a steak.”

Given that it is ice-fishing season, Podraza noted that some fresh-water fish work in a taco, even if they aren’t traditional.

“You could use a toothy fish like a pike,” he said, “and bass would be wonderful. You’re looking for something that’s going to take on the flavors of your taco versus fighting against it.”

If you are comfortable with looking for signs and portents, the popularity of fish tacos might be an indicator of New Hampshire’s evolving tastes. Roger Soulard, owner of North Side Grille in Hudson, has been a little surprised to see fish tacos adopted as a mainstream dish.

“It’s funny,” Soulard said. “When we first opened 13 years ago fish tacos weren’t on the menu. I always give credit to one of our cooks. His name was Terry and he was probably our largest seafood lover. I just want something different to serve something that wasn’t like you’d get from a diner down the street or even just like other American fare. We needed something different. that we could make day in and day out. Terry wasn’t from California, but he was from out West — Arizona — and he was like, ‘Well, what do you think about fish tacos?’ And I was like, ‘What are you thinking?’ He came up with a recipe, and we tweaked it here and there, and it’s been here ever since. What I love about it is it’s all simple and fresh. It works. Our customers love it.”

At the time, though, Soulard was worried about whether his customers would actually order it. It was unusual for New Hampshire at the time, he said. “Sometimes we’ll have like a great idea but unfortunately sometimes our Hudson neighborhood just is not ready for it yet. I remember a lot of cool sandwiches and ideas that we had in the beginning. Avocado was like something that we could not sell to our customers, though, for instance. We were wasting so much avocado. I was like, ‘Alright, we’ve got to stop ordering avocado; they’re just not eating it.’ But then we gave it a break for like a year or two. And then we just reintroduced it as guacamole. Obviously the guac is a little bit more flavorful, but that’s how we introduced it to the crowd. But like when we first started out, yeah, like we were just throwing out so much avocado.”

But for whatever reason, North Side Grille’s fish tacos took off right away.

“It’s one of the few things that has not changed on our menu,” Soulard said. “It wasn’t always originally a classic, but we made it a classic. So that’s like one of my favorite things about it — it’s something that found its way onto our menu and stayed there. It’s easy to put something like a cheeseburger on a menu and it’s never going anywhere because it’s the American cheeseburger. But if you told me fish tacos 13 years ago, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that that really would be a thing. But now, 13 years later, I’m like, yeah, the fish tacos could never come off [our menu], because if they did come off, we’d still be making them regardless. People would come in and they’d be like, ‘We know fish tacos aren’t on the menu, but can we have them anyway?’”

Soulard’s fish tacos are made with grilled haddock.

“That’s kind of nice,” he said, “because it feels like a cleaner option, compared to the fried seafood that you usually find in our area. There’s just something about the grilled white flaky haddock that is lightly seasoned. The only thing that’s not the healthiest about it might be the aioli we serve on it. It’s pretty much mayonnaise, cilantro and fresh lime, that’s all whipped up, and that’s the basic topping. Our recipe is pretty simple. It has fresh diced tomato, light lettuce, light cabbage, and it’s topped with that cilantro aioli. That’s our classic fish taco that, like I said, it’s been on there for at least a decade. We have not changed it at all.”

Isabel Reyes, co-owner of Los Reyes Street Tacos & More in Derry, said that while fish and shrimp tacos are always popular at her restaurant there is an extra demand in late winter.

“I was raised in the U.S.,” she said. “I was 10 months old when we came here. But when we visit my parents’ home area, it’s not on the coast of Mexico, it’s more in the center, so people don’t do much fresh fish or shrimp. The only time we really eat it is during Lent. You know, Mexico is very Catholic-oriented. It’s not the only religion in Mexico, but obviously its influence is important. So [at this time of year] we utilize a lot of shrimp, fish and veggies into our Lent options. So if you look at our special Lent menu on Instagram, we did incorporate that. from our hometown. We call them Boom Fish Tacos. They were the idea of Jose Reyes; he’s the co-owner.”

“[The Boom Fish Tacos] aren’t technically on our regular menu, Reyes said. “It started as a Lent special last year, but then people loved it, so it’s kind of stayed since then. It’s two battered cod fish tacos on a flour tortilla. And it’s topped with the in-house cabbage slaw that we offer for our shrimp Baja tacos. And then it’s topped with cilantro. And then we wanted to add a little something of New Hampshire, so we added maple chipotle cream. And then it comes with a side of our house-made pico de gallo. So it’s a regular pico de gallo, but the Southwest part comes from roasted corn. And then it comes with the cilantro white rice.”

“Our Baja shrimp tacos are pretty similar,” Reyes said. “For the most part, we use the same ingredients that we already have in house. Those are on a corn tortilla with grilled shrimp. They have the same cabbage slaw. We do chipotle, but just regular chipotle, with some ancho chilies. The Baja tacos come in three and with no sides.” There are three of the shrimp tacos to an order, she said, because the corn tortillas are smaller than the flour ones. “The corn tortillas are 6 inches, and the flour are 8.”

“I think fish tacos are a type of comfort food,” Jason Berkman from Fish & Chix in Derry said. “They blend fish and some tropical ingredients that go together well. Typically there’s a little bit of spice, a little bit of vinegar, salt, and some creamy cheese that goes with it. I think that people gravitate toward them just because of the combination of flavor.”

Fish & Chix uses haddock for its fish tacos, which are battered and deep-fried.

“We actually use a soft corn tortilla,” Berkman said, “so they’re a little bit different from what you’d typically find. You’re either getting a hard corn shell, or a lot of people serve it on the soft flour tortilla. Ours is a yellow corn [tortilla], similar in softness to the flour but just a little bit different. Fish tacos almost always have cabbage; we use red pickled cabbage. It brings some acidity and brightness to the taco. We serve ours with chipotle mayonnaise, red pickled cabbage, pico de gallo, and cotija cheese. It’s crumbly, somewhat soft still, and salty.”

Berkman said the fish tacos have been a hit with customers across the board.

“The full spectrum of people order it,” he said, “younger and older. I think what happens a lot is people try them and they tell their friends and they come in.”

The fish tacos come two to an order, and Berkman is not a traditionalist when it comes to sides. “We serve ours with fries,” he said, “but you can substitute that with onion rings, potato salad, whatever. We make a really good chicken taco, too, but the fish is by far the No. 1 that people order.”

The fish taco panel

Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill (865 Second St., Manchester, 935-9182, vallartamexicannh.com) is open from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and until 9 p.m. on Sunday. Fish tacos (made with batter-fried haddock), grilled shrimp tacos, and ceviche are available as dinner plates for $22.

North Side Grille (323 Derry Road, Hudson, 886-3663, northsidegrillenh.com) is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. Fish tacos (made with grilled Cajun haddock) are $17.

Los Reyes Street Tacos & More (127 Rockingham Road, Derry, 845-8327, losreyesstreettacos.com) is open Monday through Saturday from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday). The eatery is also open for lunch from 11:30 to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. “Boom Boom” tacos (made with batter-fried cod) are $15 on a special Lent menu. “Baja” tacos (made with grilled shrimp) are $13.95.

Fish & Chix (22 Manchester Road, Derry, 704-3410, fshnchx.com) is open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and until 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Fish tacos (made with batter-fried haddock) are $13.

The fish market at Makris Lobster & Steak House (354 Sheep Davis Road, Concord, 225-7665, eatalobster.com) is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Monday, and until 8 p.m. on Sunday. The availability and price of fish depend on market conditions.

This Week 26/03/05

Friday, March 6

The Windham Actors Guild (windhamactorsguild.com) will perform Ken Ludwig’s Moriarty: A New Sherlock Holmes Adventure tonight, Saturday, March 7, and Sunday, March 8, at the stage at Windham’s Golden Brook School (112 Lowell Road, Windham). Described as “fast-paced, clever and occasionally ridiculous,” the play is a sequel to Ludwig’s Baskerville, according to a press release. “Packed with disguises, danger, and Ludwig’s signature wit, this fast-paced mystery reunites Holmes, Watson, and a colorful cast of characters as they pursue the world’s most notorious criminal mastermind,” according to the website, where you can purchase tickets.

Friday, March 6

Described as “hybrid of Canadian Highland Scots and French Canadian musical idioms,” Glengarry Bhoys will perform tonight, 8 p.m., the Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St., Derry, 437-5100), according to tupelomusichall.com, where you can purchase tickets.

Friday, March 6

Jewel Music Venue (61 Canal St., Manchester, 819-9336, facebook.com/jewlnh) will present Detroit bass legend DÊTRE with special guest Tsimba and a stacked lineup of local support. Show starts at 8 p.m.; see the Facebook page for a link to tickets.

Friday, March 6

Bedford Off Broadway kicks off a two-weekend production of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, running tonight through Sunday, March 15, at the Bedford Town Hall, 70 Bedford Center Road in Bedford. The play runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., according to the company’s Facebook page, where you can find info on tickets. See bedfordoffbroadway.com.

Friday, March 6

Also hitting the stage for two weekends is Arsenic & Old Lace presented by the Milford Area Players. This dark comedy farce will run through Sunday, March 15, at the Amato Center for the Performing Arts, 56 Mont Vernon St. in Milford, according to the Players Facebook page. The production will run Fridays at 7:30 p.m and Sundays at 2 p.m., according to the post, which contains a link to purchase tickets.

Saturday, March 7

Spend an evening with Symphony NH (6 Church St., Nashua, 595-9156, symphonynh.org) for a production of Bernstein’s Legacy tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Keefe Center For The Arts (117 Elm St., Nashua, 820-2666) with Music Director finalist Adam Kerry Boyles, according to symphonynh.org, where you can purchase tickets

Saturday, March 7

The Concord Community Music School (23 Wall St., Concord, 228-1196, ccmusicschool.org) will host the 23nd Annual David Surette Mandolin Festival today and tomorrow, Sunday, March 8. To register for the workshops or buy tickets for the Saturday evening concert at Concord Community Music School, visit the Music School’s website.

Save the Date! Sunday, March 15
On Sunday, March 15, firefighters, police officers and first responders from across New Hampshire will battle it out in one competition on and off the ice at this year’s Battle of the Badges hockey tournament for the kids and families of Dartmouth Health Children’s. The action will take place at the SNHU Arena (555 Elm St., Manchester, 644-5000, snhuarena.com) beginning at 1 p.m. The proceeds are used to help kids in pediatric intensive care and with management of chronic illnesses, as well as for patient and family support services, according to Dartmouth Health. See snhuarena.com for tickets.

Featured photo: Moriarty: A New Sherlock Holmes Adventure.

Bill Lee in town Wednesday

The Big Story – The Spaceman Landing At Boys & Girls Club: There have been many adjectives — feisty, clever, inventive, one of a kind and (always) entertaining — used to describe Red Sox lefty Bill Lee. On Wednesday, March 11, he comes to the Manchester Boys & Girls Club on Union Street to give his unique views on everything from pitching in Boston against the Evil Empire to even global warming. It will be fun.

Sports 101: Name the four winningest lefties in Red Sox history.

News Item – Celtics Update: Helped by starting with low expectations after Jayson Tatum’s injury and three bigs departing for financial reasons they’ve been overlooked all year. But somehow they’re 40-20 and far better than I thought they’d be. The latest examples were a win by 37 points over the “no, we’re not tanking” Brooklyn Nets when they shot 66.7% from the field and got a whopping 77 points from the bench, and an easy 114-98 one over the Embiid-less 76ers.

News Item – Celtics Thoughts:

• Outside of Jaylen Brown’s career year, the biggest reason for their success is they’re allowing a league-low 107.4 points per game.

• I liked Neemias Queta even in his rawest form a year ago. But never saw Sunday’s 27-point, 17-rebound in just 22 minutes explosion he went for vs. Philly.

• Derrick White: The Celtics guard’s 1.5 blocks per game ranks ninth in the NBA, putting him ahead of 7-footers like former 2023 Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson, Myles Turner, and teammate Queta as well as several others.

• Love rookie Hugo Gonzalez’s defensive toughness and hustle while compiling a team-best +17 over opposition per 100 possessions (per Boston Globe). But with him shooting only 31% on shots beyond 4 feet he still has a need to grow offensively.

• I’ve often been very critical of Joe Mazzulla, but he deserves much credit for having them play as well as they have so far.

News Item – Alumni News:

• Al Horford left for Golden State because they supposedly had a much better chance to compete for a title than the dismantled Celtics. Except now the C’s have the East’s second best record, while if everyone below them weren’t tanking for draft position GS would have a tough time holding on to their play-in slot after losing Jimmy Butler for the year.

• Luke Kornetis averaging 7.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per in 22.1 minutes of PT while helping the Spurs to have the NBA’s second best record.

A Little History – Bill Lee: He won 110 games in 10 MLB seasons and had three seasons with ERAs of under 3.00. His 1975 season was his peak, as a key cog for Boston’s World Series team when he was 17-9 with a 3.90 ERA. But to those of us rooting for that team in the Bronx, he was a Yankee-killer, the leading evidence being 12-5 vs. the New Yawkas. He also was in that major 1976 brawl after a play at the plate, where he tore a ligament in his left shoulder while fortifying his beloved status in Red Sox Nation.

The Numbers:

27 – million dollar one-year deal given to ex-Sox lefty Chris Sale by Atlanta.

33.4 – NBA-leading ppg by Luka Doncic. Imagine how good he’d be if he ever got in Larry Bird-like shape.

43.5 – second-highest vertical leap ever recorded by a linebacker at the NFL Draft Combine, by Ohio State’s Sonny Styles. For context, the greatest basketball leaper I’ve seen was David Thompson, whose VL was 44 inches.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Down – U.S. Men’s Hockey Team: They went from the ultimate high of winning gold dramatically to sad me-first behavior by accepting a White House invite after the President treated the women’s team like second-class citizens during their invite. They should’ve had the back of their same-sport Olympic teammates. Sad behavior, fellas. Booooooooo!!!!

What A Stupid I Yam Award – Me: Thanks to reader Chuck Furciniti for pointing out there have been three lefties in Sox history who’ve won at least 17 games three straight years. Not two as I said last week. The third is Mel Parnell, who won 25, 18 and 18 from 1949 to 1951.

Sports 101 Answer: The four winningest Red Sox lefty pitchers are Parnell (125), Jon Lester (110), Lefty Grove (105) and Lee (94).

Final Thought – Jayson Tatum: The rumors are flying that his return is imminent. A good thing, but they should not force/rush his return unless the Achilles is 100% healthy. But the notion his return could upset the surprising way the team has played in his absence is ridiculous. Would they have said that if Bird was coming back? No. Instead, with him on a likely minutes restriction, I’d bring him off the bench. Which would give them a potent three-man scoring trio — Tatum, Payton Pritchard and Nikola Vucevic — for a big edge playing against bench players.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

Quality of Life 26/03/05

Dog for Hopkinton

Town elections are coming up and in Hopkinton all the town and school office races are uncontested except one. On March 10 town residents between 0 and 17 years old will be invited to vote for Dog of the Year, for which there will be five candidates, according to a story published on the NHPR website on Feb. 25. Voters will receive “I Voted” stickers designed in recent years by the town’s schoolchildren. The article noted that only one dog per household may run for the office, and candidates must be registered and have up-to-date rabies vaccination records.

QOL score: +1 for civic participation

Comments: The idea came from the new town clerk, the article said; she thought it might help remind people to register their dogs by the April 30 deadline.

A plan for plants

On Feb. 26 Merrimack’s Town Council voted unanimously for a new plan to manage invasive plants. The plan was developed by a committee formed last summer. Merrimack Outdoors, the website for the Town’s Conservation Commission, says, “The term ‘invasive’ is often misused to refer to any aggressive weedy plant. The term actually refers only to plants which are BOTH non-native to the region, AND cause environmental or economic harm, or pose a health risk to humans.” Merrimack’s invasive plant species include Japanese knotweed, kudzu, burning bush, and autumn olive.

QOL score: +1

Comment: “Merrimack’s forests, wetlands, and river corridors are vital natural assets that connect the community to its ecological heritage and future,” the plan says. In a phone interview with the Hippo, the Town Manager’s Office said the plan will be available on the town website soon.

Not a lot of zombie homes

According to a Feb. 26 story published on the New Hampshire Public Radio website, New Hampshire “has the lowest ‘zombie’ vacancy rate in the nation.” A “zombie vacancy,” the story said, “is one in which the homeowner abandons the property before a foreclosure is finalized.” New Hampshire also ranked 41st in the nation in foreclosure rate, the story said.

QOL score: +1

Comment: “The Granite State also had the lowest overall home vacancy rate in the country, 0.03%, and the lowest vacancy rate for institutional investor-owned properties, 0.08%,” the article said.

QOL score last week: 51

Net change: +3

QOL this week: 54

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire?

Let us know at news@hippopress.com.

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