GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting warmer. An upper level disturbance moving this way brought in the clouds that settled in last night and will be with us this morning, but it also set up a flow of air from the south/southwest that will get temps heading into the low or mid 20s today. Getting sunnier over the afternoon and with skies partly clear tonight, lows will drop into the mid single digits.What you see in the trees...
For starters, writes Lauran Corson from Woodstock, flocks of cedar waxwings and robins descended on town last week. "While normally preferring the apple trees, this year they headed straight to the Winterberries," she writes. "They are hysterical to watch and don't really care if you are up close photographing them. They were intent on eating every last berry." Until, that is a hawk showed up.
Meanwhile, over at Hunger Mountain in central VT, Jared Minard caught this snow python.
Time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of readers' posts about life here, Karen Sears Sheldon tells a story about an unexpected visitor who walked in the door one day—and the EMTs and doc who helped get him back on his way; Bettyanne McGuire checks in with the most memorable part of her city-living granddaughter's visit a few weeks back, which had nothing to do with sledding or hot chocolate, and everything to do with... well, you'll just have to see; and Danny Dover captures, in poetry, why chickadees are the perfect antidote to a bitter-cold January. Got your own story? Send it in!Leb police investigate vehicles set on fire in wooded West Leb area. The spot behind Town Fair Tire on South Main is what the tire store uses for overflow parking, and at about 3 yesterday morning, emergency personnel responded to a report of a fire, only two vehicles on fire. The fire department put them out—and the cause remains undetermined, the police say in a press release. A few hours later, reports Christina Dolan in the Valley News, Leb firefighters put out a fire in a workshop on Meriden Road, and Windsor crews fought a blaze in a garage attached to a home on Route 44.WRJ's Wolf Tree is a James Beard Award semifinalist. The most prestigious awards in the food world began ramping up yesterday with the announcement of the first round of nominees, and right there in the national, mostly big-city mix for Outstanding Bar is Max Overstrom-Coleman's extremely popular cocktails-wine-beer-and-nibbles hangout. Also on the list are people associated with Burlington's Honey Road, Gray Jay, and May Day, Waitsfield VT's Canteen Creemee, and Dover NH's Stalk. Super Secret Ice Cream of Bethlehem, NH is a nominee for Outstanding Bakery.SPONSORED: Tickets are disappearing quickly for acclaimed comic storyteller, author, innkeeper, and educator Cindy Pierce! She'll be at the Lebanon Opera House with a hilarious new show, Glitchy Business, to benefit the Special Needs Support Center of the Upper Valley this coming Sunday, Jan. 26th, at 7 pm. Pierce's brand of outrageous, bawdy, and honest humor will be on full display. Tickets cost $35-40. You'll also be able to livestream the show here. Due to the show's mature content, it's for adults only. Sponsored by Pinzer Productions, LLC. A guide to seating at Still North. If you're lucky enough to score a seat, that is, which isn't always guaranteed. But that didn't stop The Dartmouth's Leila Brady, who tested every seat, stool, couch, and table at the Hanover café and bookstore—then rated them. Down at the bottom (2.5 out of 10): the couches. "Uncomfortable" and "awkward," she writes. The communal table that's sometimes near the register? Not much better: "it's difficult to gossip without being overheard." The absolute tops? The two-person tables by the windows. Though the high-top wooden plank next to the bar comes close.Water main break closes Hanover's Howe Library. The line is under the library's parking lot, but the result was that water to the library itself has had to be cut while repairs are made. The library's closed all day today.Tap. Tap. The Kilton would like a word. Yesterday's item about the Lebanon libraries serving as warming shelters relied on incomplete information from the City of Lebanon. While the downtown library is open until 8 pm Mon-Thurs, the Kilton is only open until 6 pm. Both libraries close on Friday at 5. The city has now corrected its page, at the link.SPONSORED: The Effect at Shaker Bridge Theatre. Hearts racing. Minds reeling. Knees buckling. Connie and Tristan have palpable chemistry—or is it a side effect of a new antidepressant? They are volunteers in a clinical trial, but their sudden, illicit romance forces the supervising doctors to face off over the ethical consequences of their work. The Effect takes on our pill-popping culture with humor and scintillating drama. Sponsored by Shaker Bridge Theatre.Lebanon planning board approves 474-unit brickyard apartment complex. The board's been at work on the plan since last summer, and in a Dec. 17 meeting, reports the VN's Clare Shanahan, approved a developer's proposal for 53 three-bedroom townhouses in eight “clusters” and five buildings containing 422 apartments in all on the site of the former Densmore Brickyard off Hanover Street. With the proposed complex near both Lebanon High and the Hanover Street School, the board is requiring the developer to make sidewalk and intersection improvements and pay an impact fee.And speaking of Lebanon... South Dakota, that is... You may remember that a few years back, Artful's Susan Apel wrote about Fadi BouKaram, who visited the city in 2018 as part of a round-the-US tour of every city, town, and hamlet named Lebanon—47 of them, to be exact. He returned to several of them in an effort to plant cedar trees. For her original post, Susan enlisted some "sleuth-y Upper Valley residents" to help track BouKaram's visit—and one of them recently unearthed a two-year-old video of BouKaram describing his tour and why Lebanon, SD (pop. 30-ish) is so close to his heart. It's just plain lovely.It's late January, and barred owls are ramping up. As you no doubt know if you're lucky enough to have any around, they vocalize year-round. But "this time of year marks the beginning of courtship and peak vocalization season," writes Northern Woodlands' Jack Saul; "by February, barred owls move beyond the classic who-cooks-for-you-who-cooks-for-you-all call to noisy duets and a greater variety of sounds." At, like, 3 in the morning. Also out there in the woods this fourth week of January: snowflies, pine bark beetles, sheep laurel, and porcupines scuffing up trees.Why ice-in matters. As David Brooks writes on his Granite Geek blog, it's not just because of pond hockey—or ice runways, for that matter. He points to a post by the Lake Winnipesaukee Alliance, though what's true for that large body of water is also the case for smaller ones. The alliance calls ice-in "a vital reset for the ecosystem": It stabilizes water temps, protects aquatic life, prevents early cyanobacteria blooms, and in general keeps things in the kind of balance that cold-water fish need in order to survive. Without ice "warmer temperatures and increased algal activity" put fish at risk.Ayotte sets NH state government hiring freeze. The new governor's executive order yesterday does create some exemptions—for positions “related to direct care at a state facility, child protective services, the enterprise functions of the Liquor and Lottery Commissions, and law enforcement"—but aside from those, writes NH Bulletin's Claire Sullivan, her order bars vacant positions from being filled until she rescinds it. The freeze will be used to “examine every agency and look for ways to do things better," she said.Scott administration proposes consolidating VT's schools into just five districts statewide. In a sweeping pitch to legislators for change to the state's school system yesterday, Ed Secy Zoie Saunders proposed eliminating the state's multitude of supervisory unions, and instead creating districts for the Champlain Valley, Winooski Valley, northeastern VT, southwestern VT, and southeastern VT. Each would be overseen by an elected school board. The administration also wants to redraw how schools are funded, instituting a "foundation formula" that would shift funding power to the state and away from local taxpayers and school boards. VT Public's Lola Duffort reports.
New "civic health index" finds VT "among the nation's leaders." The index, put together by the National Conference on Citizenship and the VT Secretary of State's office, places the state second in the country on working with neighbors on community projects and discussing local issues, attending public meetings, discussing stuff (okay, "political and societal" topics) with neighbors, donations to political organizations, and more. NCoC's last index for NH was released in 2020; it found the state ranked low on measures like connecting with or doing favors for neighbors, but high on voting and connecting with friends and family.Does "a wisecracking, mustachioed snowplow driver with a safe full of guns and a freezer full of pot really represent the new middle of Vermont politics?" If he's the state's new GOP lieutenant governor, John Rodgers, maybe so. As Kevin McCallum writes in a deep-dive Seven Days profile, Rodgers' "willingness to stand up for rural Vermonters" didn't just endear him to his old legislative constituents, it drew voters of both main parties. McCallum doesn't gush—he checks in with critics and gives Rodgers' views on the environment, guns, newcomers, and other issues a thorough going-over. Still, says Windsor Sen. Alison Clarkson, "He is one of the funniest people I know."Swallowed up by the Plains "with no towns in sight, the needle on the gauge falling, cell signal nonexistent." An act of generosity by a county judge in a red pickup sets the stage for Emily Gogolak’s beautiful piece in Texas Highways. A Texan who’s lived east, west, and in between, Gogolak loves to take long drives with her dog, Laz. This isn’t just a buddy road-trip, though; it’s a moving story of, well, moving, and of finding home. “When... the right stranger appears at the right time and bestows on you his generosity, that person becomes a folk hero in the theater of your memory.”Mystery cats. How to describe "Whisker Station", an animated short by Hanover High sophomore Tobi Mueller? In its weekly newsletter (more below), JAM writes that it's hard to believe it wasn't created by the renowned Japanese animators at Studio Ghibli—then add, "Enter the dream world of 'Whisker Station' for an adventure in parallel realities led by a naughty cat." Yep, true. But also... well, just slide in and let go.
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Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: 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!
A keynote by Community Life and Inclusivity Dean La-Tarri Canty, the Dartmouth Gospel Choir, the Rockapellas, the dance troupe Soyeya, and more.
Lucy Prebble's play was first staged in 2012, but the deep questions it asks—"Are you in love, or are you merely experiencing a giddy dopamine rush? Are those two states even meaningfully different?", as critic Houman Barekat wrote in 2023—don't go away. Two young people take part in a a trial for a psychiatric drug while two docs keep tabs. Complications ensue. 7 pm "pay what you will" tonight, runs through Feb. 9 at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ.
Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault's 2024 documentary looks at Texas' strict anti-abortion laws by tracing what happened after Austinite Amanda Zurawski went into septic shock after she was denied an abortion: a lawsuit and the personal testimonies of other women who'd also suffered harmful health effects. Discussion afterward with Crow, Perrault, Zurawski, and one of the co-plaintiffs. 7 pm in the Loew Auditorium.
You already know about "Whisker Station". Also in this week's JAM highlights: David Bisno’s final Osher lecture on the history of the Israel/ Palestine land dispute, with a Palestinian guest; and WRJ's Coolidge Block owner David Briggs at the Hartford Historical Society on the block's history and his hopes for its future.
And for today...
Ace mandolinist Joe K. Walsh, guitarist Scott Nygaard, fiddler Alisa Rose, and bassist Mark Schatz
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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