GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still reassuringly cold, still calm. Perfect for keeping the snow powdery. It'll be a partly to mostly cloudy day, temps once again reaching the low or mid 20s, with winds from the southwest. Down to either side of 10 again tonight.Isn't it a relief to have photos that look like winter should look? Here are two:
A flock of snow buntings takes to the air in Waterford, VT as Beth Kanell's neighbor's dog heads their way;
And following on yesterday's snow pics, Max Bryant sends along a completely different snow pattern, from Grantham.
You may remember that last week, the town's selectboard voted to partially reinstate Chief Terry Straight (after suspending him in December) so that he could take care of the budget and other issues ahead of town meeting. Well, at its meeting Tuesday night, the board received letters of resignation not only from Straight, but from 14 other members of the fire department, reports the Journal Opinion's Alex Nuti-de Biasi. Two board members appointed board member and former firefighter Kevin Follensbee as acting chief, and the board aims to recruit new firefighters.
"Doctors don't have the ability to sit inside [a] person's home to see their loneliness, to see that the refrigerator has two yogurts and a bottle of milk." But community nurses do. And that, writes Rachel Hellman in Seven Days, is making a profound difference to older people living in the Upper Valley, the epicenter of the community nurse movement in VT. The model got its start thanks to two Hartland medical workers, Laurie Harding and Dennis McCullough, and has gained steam in a variety of towns in the region. Hellman starts out by profiling Sharon's Dena Wilkie and the care she provides.If you happen to drive past the Haven tonight and see a bunch of candles in bags... Those are 337 luminaires, the service agency's tribute to the 337 adults and children in Orange and northern Windsor counties officially listed as facing homelessness either in shelters or "unhoused" settings. They're part of the Haven's observance of VT's Homelessness Awareness Day today. The candles will be lit at sunset. More on what it all means at the link.SPONSORED: New year, new you? Add self-care back into your healthcare journey with a visit to Integrative Medicine at APD. We offer a variety of holistic healing methods, including massage, acupuncture, cupping, energy healing, and craniosacral therapy. Contact information, providers, and more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital.As Hartford School Board approves $52.4 million budget, it faces a host of tax questions. The budget, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, represents a 3 percent spending increase; the board also passed a $21 million bond for building repairs and upgrades. But the budget's impact on taxes remains highly uncertain. For one thing, Adrian writes, Hartford faces "a dramatic spike" in its property tax rate because its total assessed value is out of whack with market rates, affecting a key part of the school tax formula. At the same time, a provision in the new Act 127 on student equity caps increases.The 1952 goldfish infestation, the discovery that water fleas could control blue-green algae, and other Occom Pond lore. “I’ve always known it as kind of like the backyard of campus,” professor Charles Wheelan tells The Dartmouth's Vivan Wang. “It’s a beautiful backyard of campus.” It's a storied place in college and local history, Wang writes—ice skating, the polar bear swim, the late, lamented Occom Pond Party. But it's also under stress: skateable ice has grown rarer, and it's still plagued by algal issues. Wang sketches the pond's history and role as a "place of solace, joy and wonder."SPONSORED: Upper Valley families, sign your K-6th graders up for Hulbert’s February and April School Vacation Camps! There will be barn hockey, snow fort building, baking/cooking, woods walk, water coloring, Lego mania, indoor bowling, friendship bracelets, and more! We have two sessions in February (session 2 is new!) and one in April. Cost varies from $72/day to $198-$330/session (3-5 days in length). Financial aid is available and bus service runs for two of the sessions. Details/registration at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Aloha Foundation.“The ebony velvet of night is pierced with the diamond light of the distant stars.” Darkness too often defines winter, but it’s the light, writes Michael Caduto in Northern Woodlands, that brings it to life. Ice crystals create sunbows, the sun's low path filters out cool colors and highlights warm ones, and, of course, there are the northern lights. Even color perception shifts with the seasons, highlighting reds and yellows in the winter. Fairbanks Museum meteorologist Mark Breen encourages people to find a dark spot on a winter’s night and realize that “every one of us can find some beauty, and some peace.”What might lie behind NH's little earthquakes? Glacial rebound. This is pretty interesting. As you probably know, NH gets regular seismic tremors, though they tend to be minor. Talking to NHPR's Olivia Richardson about it, Dartmouth Earth Sciences prof Leslie Sonder says one reason may be that tens of thousands of years ago, the weight of glaciers depressed the earth's crust; now, it's slowly readjusting. “That can make things creak and groan a little bit," Sonder says. Another possibility: a plate boundary between the edge of the continent and the subsurface of the Atlantic could be forming.Those huge precipitation-total spikes on the right? That's this year. The spikes are in a pair of charts from the National Weather Service tracking precipitation in the Concord, NH and Portland, ME areas for Dec. 1 through Jan. 15 each year since 1868. It's easy to see just how much of a record-setter the last six weeks have been. As David Brooks writes on his Granite Geek blog, "that includes rain—so, so much rain—and melted snow."The NH electorate going to the polls next week has changed from four years ago. Overall, write Kenneth Johnson, Andrew Smith, and Dante Scala in a new UNH Carsey School issue brief, "22 percent of potential Granite State voters next week were either too young to vote (6 percent) or did not reside in New Hampshire (16 percent)" four years ago. Interestingly, they're more ideologically willing than longer-term residents to take sides and avoid the political center, the trio write, with young voters skewing left and migrants more evenly divided, though Dems have a slight edge.NH town moderators confident they can handle the Biden write-in effort on voting day; secretary of state's office to issue guidance. As one moderator tells NH Bulletin's Hadley Barndollar, poll workers deal with write-ins all the time; the difference this year is that “more people who have never written in a name before” will be doing so. When voters ask about it, Secy of State David Scanlan tells Barndollar that to stick within the law, poll workers will need to respond in only generic terms, explaining generally how candidates come to be on the ballot and how to do a write-in. Barndollar explores it all.Putney Paper Mill abruptly shuts down. The sudden closure, report Jeff Potter and Fran Lynggaard Hansen in The Commons, affects about 127 employees, who learned about it when they were notified to stay home on Tuesday. The mill, which has operated in downtown Putney for 150 years, is owned by NJ-based Soundview, which said in a news release that the move is based on high energy costs. The law requires 60-day notice of a mass layoff, but a VT labor department official tells The Commons that a company can offset a violation by providing severance pay and benefits.For VT's juvenile detention effort, a swirl of issues. It touches the Upper Valley because of the state's effort to build a six-bed secure facility in Newbury and the town's pitched opposition. But as Babette Stolk writes for VTDigger, the state's move to replace the closed 30-bed Woodside detention center with four sites that would provide 27 beds in all is encountering all sorts of pushback. Advocates say it focuses too much on security and not enough on prevention and treatment, while state employees say the current lack of beds is an emergency. Stolk dives into the questions surrounding the state's plans. "I'm a single mom working two jobs busting my ass, and I thought there would be this reward." But, Stephanie Robtoy tells Erica Heilman for the latest episode in Heilman's VT Public series on class, that recently she's been feeling like maybe she's "not meant to have" stability, her own place, a reliable car. Robtoy grew up in St. Albans in "a huge family of Robtoys, some of whom are pretty notorious in town for criminal activity," as Heilman puts it. It took getting into recovery for her to realize that at heart she wasn't that different from people she looked up to—but right now, the house she lives in is for sale. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she says. You'll find the whole series here.“Yes, we’re bonkers!” That’s Susie Walker-Munro, a tea farmer in Angus, Scotland, acknowledging that growing tea crops in the Valley of Strathmore isn’t without challenges: short season, exposed fields, cold temps. Walker-Munro lost the entire first year’s crop, writes Lucy Gillmore in NatGeo. But perseverance and a collective of women tea growers brought success. The growers use abandoned walled gardens to shield the plants from harsh weather, and rely on members' expertise—and visits to tea plantations abroad—to refine their approach. They're now selling in upmarket shops.The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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There's a new Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, 252 or 520 pieces, just in time for these long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
Starting at 5:45 today, Bradford VT's monthly Bringalong Singalong gets its 2024 legs under it. The events are hosted by local musicians—tonight it's Thomas Chapin, the much-esteemed music teacher at the Waits River Valley School in E. Corinth (and formerly at the Lyme School)—but the main idea is to gather and sing together. Lyrics will be projected on the screen at the front of the Bradford Academy auditorium. They've been drawing a crowd.
And if your taste runs more to telling—or listening to—stories together, at 6 this evening, JAM's bi-monthly storytelling circle sets up in WRJ. Tonight's theme is, "I can't believe I did that!", with anyone welcome to show up and share an unrehearsed five-minute true story from your own life. As the organizers write, "No competition, no judgment, no lecturing, no ranting… Just share a story about something that happened to you and listen to other people’s stories."
Tonight at 7:30, blues, roots, and all-around music/spoken-word performer Guy Davis pulls into The Flying Goose in New London. A regular visitor to the Upper Valley, the two-time Grammy nominee and actor (and son of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis) has a pile of albums and collaborations to his name. "Folk Blues (Sonny Terry, J.B. Lenoir) is where I started," Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson once said. "Hearing Guy is like coming home again."
And anytime, check out JAM's highlights this week: a 2021 discussion with three filmmakers on filmmaking focused on social justice; the latest episode of Barbara Krinitz's The Magic's in the Music, focused on musical theater, with tv entertainer John Davidson, Leb Opera House manager Brian Crawford, actress and artist Amy Fortier, and singer Ula Hedwig; and Ben Kilham's talk at the Howe Library last summer on black bears.
And to start us out today...
The Colombian singer-songwriter Briela Ojeda describes her music as "acoustic songs, very baroque in content but in a very simple format." Into mysticism and old rituals—but with pop sensibilities—she's part of a musical new wave that's centered in Bogotá but ranges for inspiration across the whole country.
, which draws on the Galeras volcano around the town of Pasto, where she grew up, and its connections to spiritual healing—and uses traditional Pasto rhythms.
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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