GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Really, is there anything better than sunlight filtering through fall leaves? And that's what we get today! Mostly sunny, highs in the mid-60s — though not until afternoon. There's a weak cold front moving through, though it looks like it won't really affect us except to drag temps down in its wake. But that's tomorrow...Upper Valley mountain bike trails expand by a mile. Thetford Academy on Saturday unveiled a new, 1-mile "flow" route (designed for minimal braking and gear changes) on the east side of Academy Road. The state forest trails and the Academy's Dan Grossman Woods Trail are both off-limits to bikers, and "there's a lot of pent-up demand" says Scott Ellis, who coordinates the academy's outdoors programs. (VN, sub reqd)Lest you have any doubts this has been an exquisite foliage week... Here's Amanda Longcore's breathtaking shot from the top of the Gile Mtn. fire tower in Norwich on Friday evening. Ascutney off in the distance, the sun dropping through the clouds, and an ocean of color blanketing the hills. Thanks, Amanda and Russell!Bet you didn't know that Hartford High has a bass fishing team. Or that it just won the VT/NH championship and is headed to Wisconsin for the nationals. In its rookie season, no less.Speaking of Hartford, TV Insider has an interview with Quechee's Gesine Prado. She's become nationally known in part through her Baked in Vermont series on the Food Network and her Sugar Glider Kitchen baking school, though now she faces real notoriety as a judge on Haunted Gingerbread Showdown. She's been interested in baking since she was tiny, she says. "I found opportunities in neighbors' and sometimes strangers' houses. If I could break in and get baking materials, I would do it!"And what the heck, let's stay in Hartford one more moment, to note that WRJ's parking issues are coming to a head. At the Oct. 28 SB meeting, members will take up three strategies to deal with all those cars, now that downtown's a happening place. They'll be looking at a proposed parking garage in the existing lot behind the Barrette Center, at — *gasp* — installing parking meters, and at a new parking ordinance that's been in development. (VN)There's a new "augmented reality" app for two of Dartmouth's best-known works of art. It's a little like Pokémon Go: You point your smartphone at either Orozco's "Epic of American Civilization" in Baker-Berry or Perugino's "Virgin and Child with Saints" in the Hood and you'll see highlighted points to click on for more information. "These are basically notes for an eye," says Russian prof Mikhail Gronas, who helped develop the app with two art historians. "I thought it would be great to allow paintings or murals or architectural objects to talk back to us, the way books can do." The team plans to expand it to other works of art.Wednesday marks the 239th anniversary of the Royalton Raid, and VTDigger has a recap. On Oct. 16, 1780, a party of Caughnawaga (or Kahnawake) Mohawks, Abenaki, and British soldiers descended on Royalton (they'd originally planned to attack Newbury, but diverted), took 26 prisoners and killed two settlers. They marched the prisoners back to Canada, where they remained for two years. Mark Bushnell's article touches on the human story and the geopolitical ins and outs, but if you want more of both, check out Neil Goodwin's We Go As Captives.Here's something you almost never get to see: A Canada lynx. Captured on film by a Reddit user up in Pittsburg, NH, right by the border. Another user reports that NH Fish & Game has seen an uptick along the border with Maine.NH's current use system under pressure. Under current use, land is taxed at a discount from its market value, based on what it's being used for — farming, forestry, wetlands for hunting, whatever. More than half the state's land is enrolled in current use, and the impact is being felt disproportionately in smaller towns when that lost value is made up by other taxable property. In Lyme 26,222 acres, or three-quarters of the land, was in current use in 2017, and $1.7 million was shifted to the remaining taxable property, adding $5.08 to the tax rate. NH Business Review takes a deep dive into the issue.VPR fires Ric Cengeri. The "Vermont Edition" producer and guest host returned from vacation last week to discover that he no longer had a job. He told Seven Days he'd defer to management to explain; CEO Scott Finn says "We respect our employees' privacy, so we don't talk about personnel matters in the media."New VT State Labor Council wants to shift focus. Led by new president David Van Deusen, the union's leadership plans to shift resources from statehouse lobbying — "[W]e have a very hard time moving a pro-labor agenda forward in Montpelier," says Van Deusen — toward union organizing in agencies and industries around the state. In particular, he says, "I think that we need to take a hard look at the ski industry."Does this mean suicidal squirrels next year? You remember a couple of years back when driving down any road in the region meant keeping a sharp eye out for heedless squirrels hell-bent on getting to the other side? Well, Vermont wildlife biologists are reporting that unlike last autumn, acorns, apples, choke cherries, and mountain ash berries are abundant this year. Which means lots of "mast" for squirrels to feed on. Which means a bumper crop of little squirrels next year...Library raises funds with calendar of Vermont writers in the buff. Though, admittedly, strategically covered — a newspaper here, some milkweed there.... The calendar's the brainchild of the Varnum Memorial Library in Jeffersonville, and it features 13 authors and poets from around the state in tastefully posed undress. Twenty bucks gets you some writerly beefcake. Though Upper Valley librarians: Before you get any ideas, you might also want to cast an eye on Hardwick's Jeudevine Memorial Library, which is selling a chance to determine which public official gets to kiss a pig, for a buck a vote.If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
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. He's got a new book out,
Death, Detention and Disappearance: A Lawyer’s Battle to Hold Power to Account in 1980’s Namibia.
It's about apartheid-era South Africa's attempts to maintain control over neighboring Namibia, the human-rights abuses it carried out, and Smuts' efforts to take on apartheid as a lawyer. 4:30 pm in Dartmouth's Rockefeller 03.
He's kind of a polymath: a writer, composer, artist, and experimental hiphop artist, whose new work, "Quantopia," explores the evolution of the internet by taking apart the algorithms that steer information over the 'net then "breaking that down into component parts that can be played by musicians." He'll be talking about that (
) and then host a masterclass on combining art and activism. Starts at 4:30 in Dartmouth's Carpenter 013.
The historian, former NH ag secretary, and avuncular storyteller will cover some of the state's most significant highway choices of the 20th century, look into the politics and controversies that surrounded them, and then delve into the economic, social and cultural changes they wrought. At Haverhill's Alumni Hall starting at 7.
Have yourself a fine Indigenous People's Day if you're in VT or Columbus Day if you're in NH. See you tomorrow.
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