GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, a bit warmer. We’re finally back into what feels like more normal fall weather, though with high pressure shifting out of the region, we’ll be seeing some warmer air from the south arriving—though after a cold start to the day, with patchy freezing fog first thing, the high will just touch 60-ish. Patchy frost tonight, lows around the freezing mark. Tomorrow’s the same but warmer. The big question mark is Sunday: there’s a coastal storm arriving that’ll turn into a nor’easter, but the models are uncertain on whether we’ll get a soaking this far north and inland. Guess we’ll find out.
But let’s hope we do, because extreme drought has spread. It now covers some 65 percent of Vermont (up from 24 percent last week), according to the US Drought Monitor, including all but a sliver of Windsor County, all of Orange County, and the entire NEK, as well as Washington, Addison, and most of Rutland counties. In NH, it’s affecting the entire northern half of the state—in all, 52 percent of the state is in extreme drought, the highest level since the Monitor launched in 2000. Note: Something squirrely is going on with the Drought Monitor site, so link’s to WCAX.
A loud coyote trio. You’ll want the sound up for Erin Donahue’s latest trail cam video. Writes Ted Levin: “Coyotes are very social. Therefore, very communicative and revealing. Eye contact, facial expressions, body language—the position of the tail, the fur on the back, the ears. Posture, too, conveys mood. Is the coyote standing erect? Slouching? Lying down? Or on its back, legs quivering in supplication. And there's language: a lexicon of yips, grunts, growls, howls, barks, huffs, and woofs. Every remark conveys the state of a coyote's being. No mistaking this father's mood ... I've been there, often while making dinner.”
Bath, NH man ordered held without bail on murder charges. In the Valley News, John Lippman digs into the “years of growing animosity between family members living together” in the home of Charles “Chuck” Readey in the town just north of Haverhill. Readey, who’s 73, was arraigned Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder for allegedly killing his sister-in-law, Cindy Moody, and her daughter, Kristal Moody, 39, of West Fairlee. According to a police affidavit, Readey had been trying to evict Cindy Moody for drinking and leaving the house a mess. Lippman recounts Tuesday’s harrowing events and Readey’s struggle with a brain tumor and Moody’s presence.
Woodstock manager presses for town-village merger. Though the village is part of the town, they’re run by separate boards and sometimes are governed by different regulations—and at a recent joint board meeting, reports the VT Standard’s Emma Stanton, municipal manager Eric Duffy suggested it’s time for that to end, arguing that it would cut costs and boost efficiency and revenues. Stanton surveyed village trustees and town selectboard members, and it’s a fine little primer on the issues. Trustee chair Seton McIlroy tells her, “I think it would be helpful for elected officials to have a holistic view of their town”—but all argue the devil will be in the details, if it ever comes to pass.
SPONSORED: Two nights of classic silent films with live music! It'll be fun for the whole family: Catch Nosferatu on Thursday, Oct 23rd at Rollins Chapel (burgundy link: showtime 8:30pm), or The Red Balloon (7:00pm) and The Phantom of the Opera (7:45pm) in a double feature Friday, Oct. 24 down the street at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College in Hanover, both nights with live music improvised in real time by legendary Boston-based conductor and organist Peter Krasinski, professionally projected on a huge screen. No tickets required, and it's FREE! Sponsored by CCDC.
In Bethel, couple who died in 2022 house fire leave a legacy in protected land. The property once owned by Davis Dimock and Victoria Weber, writes Maryellen Apelquist in The Herald, is open to the public—but “it’s not a park, there are no designated facilities, and visitors should leave no trace of their time there.” The land was bequeathed to the VT Land Trust, which is overseeing it, leasing out the hayfields to a local farmer, and doing “some ecological restoration work” with an eye toward eventually selling it. Though the house is gone, visitors will find Dimock and Weber’s gardens and rock formations and personal touches throughout the property.
As winter looms, Wells River trying to figure out how to get water to residents. Ever since the village well was shut down in July after an oil spill last winter, some 500 village residents have been relying on water trucked in from Woodsville and delivered to a tank atop a hill. But “those trucks will no longer be able to climb the hill” in winter, reports VTDigger’s Alice Finno. Village trustees are hoping to present a plan next week to state officials (and worried residents). Options include a new tank at the bottom of the hill or installing a filter in the village well and turning it back on. “We’re working through it just as fast as we can,” says one trustee. “We will not run out of water.”
SPONSORED: HACTC ADULT EDUCATION has a great catalogue of upcoming classes! You might not know this, but Hartford Area Career and Technical Center in White River Junction offers classes for adults. They include Introduction to Welding (Oct. 14-Nov 4), Microsoft Excel (Nov. 4- Nov 20), The Art of Fall Cooking with Chef Jessica Williams (Nov. 8), Electrical Code Update Seminar (Feb. 28–Mar. 1 2026), and Licensed Nursing Assistant (Mar. 3-Apr. 25 2026). Check out the full catalog and register at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by HACTC.
DHMC gift shop turns 60: It’s “the gem in the tiara.” That’s Joanne Lenke, one of the volunteers who, along with three staffers, keeps the shop going. She buys toys for the shop, and she tells NHPR’s Olivia Richardson that the shop “can be a lifeline for patients and medical staff who need to buy a quick present,” as Richardson puts it. It’s also where volunteers encounter patients and relatives at an especially vulnerable moment in their lives—offering a hug, or, in one case, a replacement for a lost earring given by a customer’s late husband. Says loyal customer Brenda Walker, “They always have something new. It’s your own fault if you leave out of here dissatisfied.”
After four years and nearly 2,000 miles, Bethel couple finish gravel biking all 252 towns (and three gores) in VT. Not only that, but Marcia Gauvin and Chris Leister invited Seven Days’ Ken Picard along for their final ride, which was in Ludlow. The pair’s been at it since 2021, starting just a few months after they met—their first date was a bike ride—and dealing with everything from an all-paved ride (Winooski) to a road that had been washed away after a beaver dam burst. They worked hard to find “something fun” on each ride, Gauvin says, “but sometimes you can’t because you’re in the middle of nowhere.” You’ll find each ride and their ride map for each town here.
As Claremont schools confront fiscal crisis, district loses more administrators. SAU 6’s human resources administrator and coordinator and its assistant supt. all voluntarily resigned this month, reports Patrick O’Grady in the VN. “The district did not state if the administrators’ departures this month were related to cost-saving measures or done for other reasons,” he adds. These are just the latest: Supt. Chris Pratt resigned last month after being placed on leave in August, the director of student services left in August, the curriculum director resigned last month (for unrelated issues), and the district’s business administrator remains on administrative leave.
In this second week of October, a chance to admire caterpillars and aphids. Take the woolly alder aphid, which produces waxy white filaments that resemble wool as a strategy for deterring predators, writes Northern Woodlands’ Jack Saul. It doesn’t always work—otherwise, a single female could produce over 600 billion offspring in a season. The orange-humped mapleworm has a false head. Other caterpillars disguise themselves as twigs, bird droppings, or snakes; grow difficult-to-digest hairs; vent pesticide-like fog; even emit high-pitched whistles. Also out there: blackpoll warblers, which if they burned gasoline instead of body fat, would get 720,000 miles to the gallon.
Hiking Close to Home: the Hypertherm trails, Hanover. Looking for a quick nature escape right in Hanover? The Upper Valley Trails Alliance suggests the Hypertherm Trails, which offer 2.6 miles of loops through rolling terrain featuring massive boulders, moss-covered rocks, old stone walls, and scenic streams. Made public by Hypertherm Inc., these trails are perfect for walkers, runners, mountain bikers, and snowshoers. You’ll find trail maps and directions at the link.
Were you paying attention this week? Here are the Friday news quizzes. At the link, you’ll find this week’s Daybreak quiz on the Upper Valley, NHPR’s New Hampshire quiz, and Seven Days’ Vermont quiz.
Hantz Marconi to return to NH Supreme Court. It’s been a week for Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, who began it by agreeing that the state had enough evidence to convict her on a misdemeanor count of trying to score a political favor for her husband; that ended the criminal case the the AG’s office had been preparing against her. Yesterday, reports NHPR’s Todd Bookman, “a specially convened panel of judges announced it was restoring Hantz Marconi’s ability to practice law in the state with no restrictions, concluding that she had not committed a ‘serious crime.’” That, in turn, clears her to return to the bench until February, when she turns 70 and under state law must retire.
State lottery supplier waited nearly a year to notify Vermonters of data breach. Compass Vermont is up with a piece that’s equal parts news story and scathing commentary. The company, Brightstar, works with state lotteries around the country. The breach happened in late 2024, and it exposed Social Security numbers, driver’s license details, financial accounts, and even private health information—not just of Vermonters, but of some 6,300 residents in RI and 550 in CT. The number of Vermonters affected is unclear, but as Compass points out, the state’s law requires notification within 45 days. It took Brightstar 320 days to warn victims.
Pride Center of VT to shut abruptly today; lays off staff. The Burlington-based organization’s board announced the move yesterday, apologizing for the short notice and insisting that it’s a “pause” in operations as they try to raise $350K, reports WCAX’s Laura Ullman. The closure will affect the group’s transgender program, SafeSpace anti-violence hotline, HIV testing, and harm-reduction services. In its press release, the board said the center has been struggling with a “wave of funding losses and shifting priorities at the state and federal level.”
In 1860s Vermont, “a real groundswell, from the bottom up, of antislavery sentiment.” That runs counter to the traditional belief that ordinary soldiers didn’t care about slavery, Tyler Alexander tells Alison Novak in Seven Days. On a visit to his grandfather’s grave, Alexander, a history teacher, spotted the nearby headstone of Dan Mason, a Civil War soldier with a remarkable story; he dug into the VT Historical Society’s trove of Mason’s wartime letters home and to his fiancée and wove them into a new book, If I Can Get Home This Fall. Alexander talks about trying to understand the war’s “gritty details” and its participants’ views of the big issues and how, as a teacher, he encourages his students to “think about the past as somebody else’s present.”
The Yamaha or the Fender of the Victorian era? At one time, Brattleboro’s Estey Reed Organ Company “had an equal claim to fame,” says Kelby Greene in the latest installment of her Roadside Vermont podcast (hosted by JAM). The organs, cheaper and more accessible than pipe organs, were made by some 800 craftspeople in the part of town known as Esteyville. The company was “one of the more important contributors to the development of music in America,” says musician and ethnomusicologist Dennis Waring. He talks to Greene about the company, its history, and its instruments.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. And if you find yourself missing Wordbreak over the weekend, you just have to hit this link and you'll find brand new words tomorrow and Sunday—though not necessarily from Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
What used to be the Friday Heads Up section now pops into your inbox on Thursday afternoons around 4. If you missed it yesterday, here it is! Added bonus: If you go there now, you’ll find listings I didn’t include yesterday, including Cedar Circle’s pumpkin festival on Sunday—with, among other things, the return of Juel Modern Apothecary, the former WRJ destination, as a pop-up.
And for today...
Or, really, tomorrow, which is when the brass-forward NYC band Slavic Soul Party! will be playing the Stone Church in Brattleboro. But hey, if you can’t make it down there, you can bop into the weekend anyway…
See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
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