GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunny, back into the 70s. That rain was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it? Today, there’s a weak secondary front coming through that brings a chance of showers in the late afternoon, but otherwise we should be looking at partly sunny skies with temps headed toward the mid or upper 70s. High pressure’s also moving in. Temps will be slightly cooler tonight, down to the low 50s.
A whole family of raccoons. On Erin Donahue’s trail cam in E. Thetford. Ted Levin writes: “‘Raccoon,’ from the Algonquin word arakun, translates to ‘washes with his hands,’ a reference to the animal's habit of soaking its hands in water to increase tactile sensitivity. Food-washing? Myth. Members of the mammalian family Procyonidae (before the dog), raccoons share a family tree with thirteen other species, all native to the New World, including dwarf and crab-eating raccoons, ringtails, kinkajous, olingos, and several species of coatimundis. As far as anyone knows, Davy Crockett never grinned a raccoon down a tree. (Although he may have tried.)”
Abandoning the loons for seriously charismatic megafauna. As Alex Nuti-de Biasi writes in the Journal Opinion’s newsletter, Newbury photographer Ian Clark—known to followers of his blog for his close attention to local loon families—”assigned himself to the Fat Bear beat” up in Alaska for Fat Bear Week. He sent Alex a photo of a brown bear mom—number 925, known to locals as Lulu—on the hunt for salmon.
Did you catch Dear Daybreak yesterday? If not, you missed Paul Goundrey’s striking sky over Piermont, Danny Dover’s story about tuning a piano recently for an under-the-radar Elvis Costello foray into the Upper Valley, and Joel Teenyanoff’s rare addition to his shorebird life list. AND HEY! Dear Daybreak really needs submissions. If you’ve got something to share, please send it in.
VT State Police seek Bradford VT pair in alleged road-rage gunfire incident. The VSP says Justin French, 36, and Kayla Cabey, 33, face charges of attempted murder, reckless endangerment, and criminal threatening after a confrontation in South Ryegate on Saturday. Police didn’t give out specific details about the confrontation, but said it stretched through Groton, Ryegate, and Newbury, and that the people involved knew one another. French and Cabey “are considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached,” WCAX reports.
Claremont school district reveals deficit: $5 million. As Patrick O’Grady writes in the Valley News, that figure is at “the higher end of the range officials gave residents last month when the schools’ financial disarray became public knowledge.” Though the school board has made substantial cuts—so the deficit will be lower by the end of the fiscal year next summer—they won’t be enough to erase the budget crunch. “We find savings that we can implement, sometimes by tightening controls and others by eliminating spending,” says interim business administrator Matt Angell. “But we are also discovering new, unpaid bills.”
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WRJ fire fundraisers. In the aftermath of the Tuesday morning apartment fire that robbed 10 WRJ residents of the roof over their heads, at least two fundraisers have sprung up to help. One, organized by Kishka Gallery, is collecting donations for Sophie Caulfield and artist and UV Food Co-op cashier Denver Ferguson, who lost his art supplies and recent work. The other is being organized by Strafford’s Julie Mackenzie, whose nieces, Alyssa and Jenna, were displaced and lost everything they owned—including Alyssa’s two dogs.
One more Enfield scarecrow pic. That’s to disguise the fact that this is a correction: The photographer—and head scarecrow wrangler—is Linda Zoller-McKibbin, not Szoller, as 🤦 appeared here the other day. Writes an Enfielder, “She is one very important volunteer as she manages the scarecrows and our town gardens as part of her extraordinary volunteer work.”
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From Reading to Woodstock to Windsor, fall festivals are on their way. In the VT Standard, Emma Stanton rounds up what’s ahead over the next couple of weeks. There’s the chili cookoff at the Reading Fall Festival next weekend, for instance. And Windsor’s Autumn Moon Festival a week from today. The President Calvin Coolidge Historic site in Plymouth Notch is throwing a festival, and Billings Farm has a full-on Harvest Festival with barn dancing, corn shelling, and pumpkin bowling. There’s also the Vermont Food & Music Festival at Mt. Ascutney on Oct. 11, headlined by country singer Brent Cobb and with plenty of closer-to-home acts.
Hiking Close to Home: Girl Brook Trail in Pine Park, Hanover, NH. The Upper Valley Trails Alliance just finished erosion mitigation work on the Girl Brook Trail at Pine Park, one of Hanover's hidden gems with over 100 acres of diverse hiking opportunities. This 0.8-mile trail follows Girl Brook through old growth forest and features two wooden bridges, offering a peaceful escape right in town. The trail connects to the entire Pine Park network, from the accessible Rope Ferry Trail to the scenic River Trail with its Connecticut River views.
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.
After rebuffed demand for NH voter rolls, feds sue. Yesterday’s move against NH and five other states by US AG Pam Bondi comes after the Justice Department this summer demanded voters’ names, dates of birth, addresses, partial Social Security numbers, and full driver’s license numbers. Secretary of State David Scanlan refused, saying to hand over the information would violate state law. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure,” Bondi responded yesterday. “States that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this [department] in court.” NHPR’s Todd Bookman reports.
Behind Winooski’s “The Mirnavator”: a high school sports tryout when “I nearly died.” These days, Mirna Valerio’s got 170K followers on Instagram, an influential blog—”Fatgirlrunning”, about her experiences as “a larger woman in a world of thinner athletes”—lots of national media exposure, and, tomorrow, a keynote spot at a conference at VSU in Randolph Center. In a profile in The Herald, Maryellen Apelquist writes that Valerio, who wasn’t an athlete back then, tried out for field hockey “because soccer looked too hard.” A mile-run warmup, stretches, a timed mile, practice, and line drills later, much to her surprise she made the team—and hasn’t looked back.
You bet the full film’s on its way. Yesterday, Red Bull went up with an Instagram reel (just X out of the popup) of Polish mountaineer and seriously extreme skier Andrzej Bargiel, who’s just become the first person known to climb to the Mt. Everest summit without bottled oxygen and then ski down to Base Camp (stopping for a night’s rest at Camp II). The reel’s got a taste of what it was like. Here’s the background.
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
Rose Hip Jam and Matt Protas at the Howe Library in Hanover. The folk/folk rock, country, and blues duo of Kerry Rosenthal and Eric Bronstein, along with singer-songwriter Protas, give an afternoon concert in the library’s New Books Area. 3:30 pm.
Opening reception for AVA Gallery’s faculty and staff exhibition, “Discourse”. With a slew of works by artists that “facilitate the exchange of ideas, beauty, and skill, inviting viewers into a dialogue.” Reception from 5-7 pm.
Matthew Odell and Leslie Stroud at Artistree with “Mosaic: Enduring Voices”. The two consummate musicians—Odell on piano, Stroud on flute—present works by Franz Schubert, Guillaume Connesson, Mieczysław Weinberg, and Maurice Ravel. 7 pm.
Saturday
Maker’s Market at Poverty Lane Orchards. Artists from the Upper Valley and beyond—jewelers, ceramicists, woodworkers, basket weavers, print makers, painters, textile artists, even a repurposed tin clock maker—will be gathered at the orchard, along with live music and the orchard itself—along with ciders, baked goods and more at its farmstand. 10 am to 5 pm.
Hop Film and JAM present “Pixar Shorts & Animation Creation”. It starts off with a workshop led by JAM’s Cedar O’Dowd to create a a phenakistiscope, one of the earliest forms of animation. Then: short films from Pixar. 11 am in the Black Center’s Nearburg Gallery, then films in the Loew at 11:30 am. No cost, but you’ll need a ticket.
At Saint-Gaudens, it’s the Art in the Park Festival. As part of National Public Lands Day, you get free admission to the Cornish national historical park, along with sculpting demonstrations, drop-in activities, workshops, tours, and music by Kinan Azmeh (clarinet), Taylor Ho Bynum (trumpet), Balla Kouyaté (balafon), Paulina Luna (piano), Kyle Sanna (guitar), and Luis Villalobos (violin). 11 am to 3:30 pm.
The Enfield Shaker Museum’s annual Shaker Harvest Festival. Horse-drawn wagon rides, sheepdog demonstrations, cider making, butter churning, ice cream cranking, candle dipping, traditional crafts including broom-, wreath-, and herbal tea-making, farm animals, live music from Cardigan Mountain Tradition. 11 am to 4 pm.
Hop Film screens F1. Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, and some extremely fast cars, all on the big screen. 7 pm in the Loew.
The Anonymous Coffeehouse on a rare Saturday. Singer-songwriter and farmer Fez Silk gets things going at 7:30 with a set of “folk-style” music; at 8 pm, composer and singer Ben Clark; and at 9 pm, folk troubadour Cosy Sheridan. At the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Sunday
Braintree Bluegrass Brunch. It’s the last of the season’s Braintree Hill gatherings, with bike rides, food, and music this time by Turnip Truck and The Spring Chickens. The morning mountain bike ride leaves from the meetinghouse at 10 am, food starts at 11, and music at noon.
The WRJ Bluegrass Brunch. This one’s hosted by River Roost Brewery, with baked goods from Sweet ‘n Savory Bakery, cold brew from Abracadabra, and music by Jakob Breitbach and Ninja Wizard. 11 am.
The Hop presents National Theater Live and Inter Alia. A compassionate, principled karaoke fiend of a judge grapples with principles and instinct when her son is accused of sexual assault, a charge he denies. Starring Rosamund Pike. 2 pm in the Loew.
At Artistree, Tone Forest with Michael Zsoldos. The contemporary music trio (jazz, world music, and free improv) of Miro Sprague (piano), Jason Ennis (guitars), and Marty Jaffe (bass) joins forces with saxophonist Zsoldos at 3 pm.
CatVideoFest at Lebanon Opera House. We’ll just quote LOH on this one: “Enjoy 70+ minutes of nonstop cuteness on the big screen, bond with your fellow feline fanatics, and learn more about helping cats in need.” Each ticket helps support the work of the Upper Valley and Sullivan County humane societies. 4 pm Sunday.
And we’ll just take things up a notch for the oncoming weekend...
With Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, from Denmark's Faroe Islands; Ale Carr, from Sweden; and Nikolaj Busk from Denmark, who make up the Nordic-edging-into-Celtic folk trio Dreamer’s Circus. Here’s “And the Devil Knows What”.
See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael