Daybreak Friday, 2/6/26

Mostly cloudy, quiet. At least, during the day, when we’ll see more clouds than sun, with temps reaching the low or mid 20s. The more interesting developments begin tonight, as an Arctic cold front approaches, bringing a likelihood of snow after midnight (maybe 1-3 inches all told) and then, starting tomorrow morning (sooner to the west, later to the east), sharply dropping temps, from high teens in the late morning to single digits by mid-afternoon. Here are expected wind chills for VT and for NH.

It’s a jungle out there. “Recently,” Ted Levin writes about the male bobcat on Erin Donahue’s trail cam in E. Thetford, “a Harvard Medical School biochemist isolated a highly concentrated compound in bobcat urine, 2-phenylethylamine, which mice detect and fear, offering new insight into predator-prey interactions. The long-evolved Woodland Social Media, otherwise known as Pmail. A mouse infected with Toxoplasma (a unicellular parasite) loses the ability to detect bobcat pee, increasing its vulnerability. One source of Toxoplasma ... bobcat scat. Evolution: the four-billion-year-old chess game that never stops.”

Did you catch Dear Daybreak yesterday? If not, you missed Susanne Pacilio’s haunting full moon photo; Sonia Swierczynski’s story about how, when you move into a small hamlet, there’s really no such thing as privacy; Jane Masters’s winter haiku; and Cia Rising’s bit of local lore about the small spit of land bordered by the Pompy and the Connecticut. If you’ve got a good Upper Valley anecdote or entertaining story or bit of local history, please use this form to pass it along.

They won! Vershire’s Brooklyn and Dylan, owners of the “aesthetically assaulting, circus-themed eyesore” that was one of the finalists in HGTV’s “Ugliest House in America” contest, were revealed Wednesday night as the winners, getting $150K for a makeover, which was also revealed, writes Seven Days’ Ken Picard. “Gone are the art-project bird railings, sunken floors and hemorrhoid-inducing concrete seating, replaced with a single-level floor plan that allows actual furniture,” Picard reports. Also gone: the thatched-roof tiki hut ceilings in the main bedroom and bath. Not gone: the monkey-themed kitchen cabinets are now hallway mirrors. With before/after photos.

Leb City Council delays Route 120 zoning vote after public pushback. The council had planned to vote Wednesday on zoning changes from Exit 18 to the Hanover line to allow for more mixed-use development and housing. The plans drew strong support from employers, reports Clare Shanahan in the Valley News, but residents at the meeting urged the council to spend more time considering broad development goals. “This is not fair to the residents of Lebanon: Every new sidewalk, every new road, bike path, all of these things have long-term consequences,” one said. “We have to be clear-eyed as to what this means for the current residents in the city.”

SPONSORED: The Burger Battle is BACK! Throughout the month of February, the battle is on for the best burger in the Upper Valley. Scan the QR code you’ll find at every participating restaurant to vote. This year's lineup includes: The Baited Hook, Harpoon Brewery, Hungry Bear Pub & Grill, Jasper Murdock’s Alehouse, Lebanon Village Pizza, Lou’s Restaurant, PINE Restaurant, Poor House BBQ, Poor Thom’s Tavern, Quechee Inn, Revo Casino & Social House, Salt hill Pub, and Worthy Burger! Each vote earns you a chance to win a $25 Local LUV Gift card! Brought to you by the Upper Valley Business Alliance and sponsored by Casella Waste Management.

What happens if your power goes out for days or weeks? “We expect you guys to be able to take care of yourself, and that’s the honest truth. I mean, we’re not going to be able to get to you,” Tunbridge emergency management director told a community meeting in Royalton last week. The gathering, reports Maryellen Apelquist in The Herald, brought together local fire chiefs, emergency management directors, GMP, and others to talk over everything from how to properly run a generator to how to store food and water. People “should have their own plans and stores in place,” they urged. Apelquist details their advice on storing power, safety, food and water, and more.

A look at the Skiway chairlift incident. Last week, you’ll remember, emergency responders scrambled to rescue 59 skiers from a stuck lift in biting weather, lowering them one by one by rope. Skiway director Mark Adamczyk tells The Dartmouth’s Haley Rodriguez that the cause was a failure in the lift’s hydraulic braking system, which in turn kept it from being restarted mechanically. “This is the first time it’s happened in my tenure at the Skiway … and to my knowledge there hasn’t been a rope [evacuation] either, ever, or at least in the last 20 years,” he tells Rodriguez—who checks in with one skier about the rescue. “They were the sweetest people ever,” he says.

Sixteen years after her gold medal (and 12 after her bronze), Hannah Kearney to be inducted into VT Sports Hall of Fame. The Norwich native and celebrated freestyle/mogul skier now lives in Utah with her husband, fellow skier Mike Morse, and daughters Lula and Lennox—and that’s where she got the news on her mom’s birthday in December, she tells the VT Standard’s Justin Bigos. She walks Bigos through the highs—and lows—of her remarkable career, starting at the Skiway. “We ended up doing almost all ballet skiing, dancing with short skis and tall poles on skis because of the snow condition and the lack of moguls of the Dartmouth Skiway,” she tells him.

At the RVCC gallery in Claremont, “a kind of desperation to get as much onto the surface as possible.” That’s how the VN’s Marion Umpleby describes the nature abstracts that Plainfield artist Brenda Phillips painted toward the end of her life. Which is understandable: Phillips had a neurodegenerative brain disorder, and her faculties were declining. The retrospective—“Brenda Phillips: Nature Abstract”—pulled together by gallery manager Eric Sutphin presents 29 of her paintings, “still gloriously full of her spirit and her color,” her daughter tells Umpleby. There’s “a clarity of vision that runs throughout all of them,” Sutphin says.

At Geisel, a $755K grant helps a research lab build video games for autistic students. The play2PREVENT Lab is the brainchild of physician and researcher Lynn Fiellin, who founded it at Yale then moved it to Dartmouth a few years ago. Its overall goal, writes Julia Gilban-Cohen in Government Technology, is “developing video games aimed at reducing harmful behaviors among adolescents.” “How do you learn to help a friend who is struggling and needs counseling?" Fiellin explains. “I mean, this is not something a 16-year-old necessarily knows.” This latest project harnesses what the lab’s learned to build emotional resilience, social confidence, and coping strategies.

Hiking Close to Home: Hubbard Park, Montpelier. It’s a bit of a drive from the Upper Valley, but Hubbard Park is worth it, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. This 7.6-mile network offers trails for hiking, snowshoeing, and biking through woods, meadows, and creek areas. The iconic 54-foot Hubbard Tower, built in 1915, provides panoramic views from its lookout. The Stone Tower Trail is an accessible 1-mile out-and-back with firm, wide paths and accessible parking. Multiple entry points from different neighborhoods make it easy to explore. Perfect for a day trip to central VT.

Rescuing a lone winter hiker on Little Haystack after a night when the wind was “primordial, not a roar, but a deep, unceasing, guttural back-of-the-throat growl.” That was what Patrick Bittman wrote in his journal that December night in 2024 when things went terribly wrong atop the mountain and he lost the trail, his gloves, his hat, and nearly his life. Usually, all we get is a terse writeup from NH Fish & Game, but in Boston mag, Catherine Elton recreates the rescue: the call to Fish & Game Lt. James Kneeland, the individual members of his rescue team who responded—conservation officers, a Pemi SAR volunteer out walking his dog, and others—and the complex rescue itself in minute, near-cinematic detail. Riveting from start to finish.

Daybreak’s Upper Valley News Quiz. Were you paying attention this week? Because we’ve got questions! Like, where’s Northern Stage building its new theater/education space? And what used to be in the space where Hanover’s new pocket park is going? Meanwhile, you’ll find NHPR’s New Hampshire quiz here, and Seven Days’ Vermont quiz here.

Feds say “never mind” on punishing NH schools with DEI programs. On Tuesday night, reports NHPR’s Annmarie Timmins, the Trump administration filed an agreement with the National Educational Association and school districts saying it would drop plans to withhold money from NH schools that have diversity and equity programs. The sanction had been temporarily blocked by a federal court after a challenge by the NEA and districts, and the administration has taken a similar step in a Maryland case. In exchange, the plaintiffs will drop their case. Two separate suits aimed at the state’s blocked anti-DEI and “divisive concepts” laws are still ongoing.

Three Olympic cross-country skiers (2 Vermonters and a Dartmouth grad) on what it means to race on machine-made snow. On TV, write Colorado snow scientists Keith Musselman and Agnes Macy in The Conversation, you’ll see “pristine, white slopes, groomed tracks and athletes racing over snow-covered landscapes.” But at XC skiing’s lower elevations, athletes in Italy have been dealing with “rain; thin, sometimes slushy snow; and icy, machine-made surfaces.” Athletes experience this “personally, in ways the public and scientists rarely do,” the pair write, so they talk to Rosie Brennan, Ben Ogden, and Jack Young about what the cameras don’t show.

So who better to preview the winter games than Dave Barry? Having covered them in the past, he writes, “If I had to describe, in one word, the fun and excitement of being a professional journalist at the winter games, that word would be ‘unpleasant bus rides.’” There’s also the excitement of curling, invented by Scots who “discovered that if you slid a heavy stone along a frozen surface, and then ran next to the stone frantically sweeping the ice with a broom, you would look like an idiot.” And of course, à propos of the item above, there’s the pleasure of doing winter sports in Italy this year, which “currently has approximately the same annual snowfall accumulation as Guam.”

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. Just use the same link tomorrow and Sunday for new words from publications around the region.

Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:

THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!

HEADS UP

Missed yesterday afternoon’s email filled with things to do this weekend? You’ll find it here—with an addition about the Sir Babygirl deejayed dance party at Sawtooth on Saturday night and a newly announced Black History Month movie marathon at JAM tomorrow from 12:30-8 pm. And if you missed the schedule for Frost Lights and Dartmouth’s Winter Carnival in yesterday morning’s Heads Up section, here are the lights, and here’s Carnival.

And for today...

Kishi Bashi is going to be at the Hop tomorrow night (and at a film screening tonight), and if you don’t know him, you should. For today we’re going to go back to an early album, because it ties in with two recent poems in Daybreak. The album was Lighght, a reference to Aram Saroyan’s one-word poem, whose “blatant assault on literary convention and classical form was attractive to me.” Here’s his short “Debut Impromptu”.

See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.

Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!

And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:

Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on Daybreak’s homepage.

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt

And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.

Thank you!