GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny but colder. There's high pressure building in today, but that arctic air is still with us. So we start the day in the low single digits and climb all the way to the high teens. Meanwhile, things start clouding over this evening as the next system approaches, though we're unlikely to see actual snow until tomorrow morning. Winds today from the northwest, wind chills in the minuses, down to the low teens or single digits tonight, depending on where you are.Ice two ways.
Looking like nothing so much as feathers on Barbara Mason's window in N. Thetford.
And, well... Let's just let Jane Masters explain. "Recipe from Internet: '1 cup warm water, 2T sugar, 2.5 T corn syrup, 2.5 T Dawn. Mix.' Then: Dress warmly. Go outside. Use a slotted serving spoon and swing a spoonful up and away!"
Time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of readers' posts about life here, Tom Mead and Richard McNulty both send in reminiscences of much-loved music teacher Becky Luce, who died last month; Cynthia Taylor passes along a vintage postcard she found, showing the Ledyard Bridge looking downright bucolic in its pre-ball days; and Amy Stringer recounts how a clear-thinking, can-do stranger emerged out of nowhere to get her out of a jam on a scorching hot day. Got your own story? Send it in!At a Chandler benefit concert tomorrow night: "Get out of the way and let the music happen." In the two months since Rudi Ruddell and Lisa Kippen's Tunbridge home burned down, Upper Valley musicians have rallied around—Ruddell has been part of the scene for decades, first with the string band Haywire, now with Turnip Truck. Tomorrow evening, six groups—Bow Thayer, Turnip Truck, Spencer Lewis & Friends, Trifolium, Bull & Prairie, and Mountain Dog—will gather to help raise funds for the house Ruddell and Kippen plan to rebuild. In the VN, Marion Umpleby gives the background.Hartford police ID victim in Quechee shooting death. The Jan. 19 incident on Fairbanks Turn left 21-year-old Jonathan Carpenter, from Gardner, MA, with a gunshot wound to the head; he was taken to DHMC, where he later died. But that was the only information to emerge yesterday about the case, WCAX reports. In their initial press release, the HPD said that it was an isolated incident and that all the parties involved knew one another.Cornish group gets $727K federal grant for library, community center. In all, reports the VN's Liz Sauchelli, the Cornish Community Initiative needs $2.6 million to convert the former Cornish general store into a new home for the town's library; the federal money gets it to just $600K short of that amount, which it needs to start construction. “This new library and community center is really a legacy project for our community and when it is completed ... it will become an incredibly valuable resource for everyone,” says Colleen O'Neill, who gave the town the former store.SPONSORED: Film & Food Soiree at Billings Farm & Museum, Feb. 8. Step into Frida Kahlo’s world! Join us at 3 PM for a screening of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary, Frida, followed by an immersive celebration. Enjoy live music by Route 5 Jive, interactive art, margaritas, and Latin-inspired bites by the Woodstock Inn & Resort. For ages 21+. Tickets: $75/person, $65/Billings Farm members. Advance pricing ends Jan. 31. Proceeds benefit the Woodstock Vermont Film Series. An evening as bold and spirited as Frida herself—you won't want to miss it! Sponsored by Billings Farm & Museum.Chickens? Nope. It would be nice to possess the skill of reading what's plainly in front of my nose, but sometimes, I don't. Yesterday's item on bird flu in a Windsor flock referred to "chickens" but as VT's press release clearly stated, it was "in a non-commercial backyard (non-poultry) flock." As a helpful reader notes, "it might be a flock of birds, such as homing pigeons, which could catch something whilst flying around. Domestic hens usually do not wander far from their coops, especially in winter. How would a hen, safe inside a henhouse, catch anything?"SPONSORED: Organ concert by a master. At 7 pm Friday, Feb. 7th at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, Brink Bush, a leading interpreter of German Romantic organ music in the world today, will perform works by J. S. Bach, Georgi Mushel, Scarlatti, José Lidón, Saint-Saëns, Karg-Elert, Gerard Bunk, Boëllmann, Vierne, Mulet and others. He had his New York debut at Trinity Church Wall Street and his German debut at the Berliner Dom, he was featured on public radio's "Pipedreams" in a program titled "Bach, Bush and Middelschulte". Free and Open to the Public! Sponsored by CCDC.What if ICE shows up at the school door? NH school officials are trying to prepare. And, report NHPR's Olivia Richardson and Annmarie Timmins, there's no pat answer. The head of the state school administrators association says they've been told a 1982 US Supreme Court decision requiring schools to provide a free public education regardless of immigration status still holds. In Manchester, a district spokesperson says, “We will comply with lawful orders.” In Concord and Nashua, school officials have been told to be in touch with the superintendent if law enforcement show a warrant issued by a judge.Keene Sentinel launches a nonprofit arm. But first, Nieman Lab's Sophie Culpepper hits us with this word: "quasquibicentennial". That's because the Sentinel is 225 years old—remarkable any time, but especially these days. Though some legacy papers are opting to turn nonprofit, the Sentinel (and, though Culpepper doesn't mention it, the Vermont Standard) is going the separate-fund route. That's in part because it didn't want to compete head-on with local nonprofits it reports on, and in part because it still wanted to weigh in on political candidates in its editorials. It's hoping to raise $75,000 this year.Here's another word: trihalomethanes. They're chemicals that can be harmful to humans over long time periods. They happen to be created when drinking-water disinfectants (think chlorine) meet up with the organic matter that's increasingly being washed into VT's lakes and waterways with flooding. And they're starting to show up in town water systems at levels that exceed state limits, reports Rachel Hellman in Seven Days. "While the problem is fixable," she writes, "it requires expertise and expensive equipment that districts run by volunteers can't always provide." She dives into the details.VT math, reading scores still haven't caught up from pandemic. Fourth and eighth-grade students, reports VTDigger's Olivia Gieger, "are still performing below pre-pandemic levels"—and fourth graders are slightly below the national average in both math and reading, though eighth graders exceed it. The numbers are contained in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, released yesterday; both fourth and eighth graders have seen some improvement in math scores since 2022, though they're still not at 2019 levels. Reading scores, however, continue a decline that began before 2019.Burke Mountain resort: "a crime scene on life support." That's how Lyn Bixby, in North Star Monthly, describes the ski area seized by the feds nine years ago in the scandal that sent former owner Ariel Quiros to prison. Jay Peak was also seized, she notes, but sold two years ago. Burke hasn't been so lucky: Florida court receiver Michael Goldberg has held onto it while spurning sales offers and, Bixby charges, "extract[ing] $12 million in professional fees and expenses for himself and other lawyers and accountants representing the government in the case." The resort continues to deteriorate."Isn't it cool that they build the best Subaru rally cars here in Vermont?" That's not the state Chamber. It's a rally fan from NC (though he grew up in VT) showing his equally rally-obsessed young son Vermont SportsCar, up in Milton. It runs "the largest motorsports program for Subaru in the world," founder Lance Smith tells Eva Sollberger, who gives us an eight-minute video tour for Seven Days' "Stuck in Vermont". They race all over the US and all over the world, and create cars for special projects (like the 860-horsepower car they built; yours averages 130-200hp). Q&A with Sollberger about it here.Don't you want to know more? Here's the VT State Police press release in near entirety: "Vermont State Police Shaftsbury were notified by a concerned citizen that a large amount of jewelry was located at Howard Park in Shaftsbury VT. The owner of the jewelry and/or the reason it was discarded is under investigation, and the jewelry is being held at VSP Shaftsbury."“The person who is making the queen, we don’t give him the pawn.” In Amritsar, India, craftsmen (always men) devote entire careers to specializing in a certain chess piece, says Rishi Sharma, CEO of Chess Empire, India’s oldest manufacturer. For Atlas Obscura, Roxanne Hoorn writes about skills passed from father to son, why it can take days to make a knight, and the rise (the pandemic, The Queen’s Gambit) and fall in demand for hand-carved sets. Interest in learning the craft is also falling among young people, says Sharma. “They don’t want to come work in this sawdust.”
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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!
Sustainable Woodstock offers up a one-hour online presentation on weatherization—and, in particular, the funding that's available to cover project costs and potential home repairs. 5:30 pm via Zoom.
Author Michael Wejchert at the Orford Social Library with Hidden Mountains: Survival and Reckoning After a Climb Gone Wrong.
Wejchert tells the story of two couples who set out in 2018 to climb Alaska's remote and mostly unexplored Hidden Mountains. A rockfall badly injured one—leading, ultimately, to "a pulse-pounding rescue attempt by Alaska’s elite Pararescuers in one of the most remote regions in the country." 6 pm.
At the Norwich Bookstore, Dartmouth historian Colin Calloway on Hard Neighbors: The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity.
In his new book, Calloway, who teaches Native American studies at the college, explores the early American settlers who brought to these shores a long history of borderland violence and a sense of grievance against authority, and their entwined history with Native Americans. 7 pm.
First up, Henry James’
The Turn of the Screw
, directed by Amanda Rafuse and with music composed and performed by students Samuel Sanders and Lucia Lotterhand. Then, a set of original ghost stories written, directed, and acted by students, adapted for the stage with the help of playwright Eugenie Carabatsos. 7 pm in the Hanover High Auditorium tonight and tomorrow, noon on Saturday.
Rajiv Joseph's play traces the friendship of a pair of Cleveland Cavaliers fans, both devoted (well, on and off) to LeBron James. Over a dozen years, they navigate their turbulent friendship and the peaks and valleys of a bond forged through basketball. Pay-what-you-can preview tonight at 7:30, preview again tomorrow night, and then the play open on Saturday. Runs through Feb. 16.
Child is a founding member of the Boston roots collective Session Americana, with long ties to the New London area. Erelli, Flying Goose writes, "is as likely to be found fronting a string quintet, a bluegrass band, or a rock n’ roll trio, as he is serving as a sideman for noted artists like Lori McKenna and Josh Ritter." They've been writing songs together for a while. 7:30 pm, reservations needed.
We'll take a pause from music this morning.
Instead, a moment of silence for everyone lost in
.
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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