GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Weather. It's coming. There's low pressure lifting to our north and a cold front moving through, and the combination will bring us a mostly cloudy, windy day with rain arriving from the west at some point. Wind gusts could get above 30 mph today. There's a chance of rain much of the day, but it's likeliest this evening and overnight: The weather folks say it'll be concentrated in a six-hour period whenever it does fall and could be heavy at times. High in the upper 60s, low in the mid-50s.Face-off. Two of them actually.
One's a pair of loons on Squam Lake, nicely offset by the pastels of the fall palette, from Susan Boston.
The other... Well, let's just let Brigid Guttmacher tell it. "While walking along the CT River in East Thetford," she writes, "I met a bear walking the same path toward me. We both stopped, stayed calm, and warily eyed each other. Something off the trail startled the bear and it scampered to the base of a pine tree 10 feet away. I hurried past, saying, 'You stay right there and I will go by you'—and it ran further into the woods."
It happened Sunday night, his family said in a press release yesterday; he's currently at UVM Medical Center and will pursue physical therapy before returning to campaign for the Orange County seat he's held for the better part of three decades. As
VTDigger'
s Ethan Weinstein notes, MacDonald, a Democrat, is in a "closely watched" race with Republican John Klar, made tougher after redistricting removed Thetford from his district, replacing it with Bradford. His family says he's expected to make "a speedy recovery."
In a press release last night, town manager Rod Francis announced that the town has hired Detective Sergeant Wade Cochran of the Montpelier police to fill the post left vacant since Simon Keeling abruptly resigned in June. Cochran, who grew up in Walden, VT, began his policing career in Hardwick, moved on to Barre and then Montpelier, where he was eventually assigned to work first with the state drug task force and then the FBI drug task force. In the press release, he says he looks forward to rebuilding Norwich's force, which for months has been down to a single officer.
Kyle Fisher had been on leave since early September, and last week resigned, reports Nora Doyle-Burr in the
Valley News
. “This all happened fairly quickly,” board chair Jay Benson says. “We respected his decision and direction.” “My colleagues and I will really miss him," program services director Angela Zhang tells Doyle-Burr. Fisher joined LISTEN as a volunteer in 2013 and became director in 2016. While the board searches for a replacement, Richard Green, a longtime business executive who was the only member of the board without a full-time job, has stepped in as interim.
Yesterday afternoon, the NH State Police say in a press release, a vehicle headed westbound crossed the centerline and crashed head on into another vehicle headed eastbound. Both erupted in flames on impact, but all occupants were either able to get out on their own or were helped by passersby. Two were airlifted to the hospital, a third was taken by ambulance. Route 11 was shut down for several hours while state police investigated.
Thetford Academy invites you to our Admissions Open House events this Sunday, October 16. Explore TA’s beautiful campus and discover exciting opportunities in academics, the arts, athletics, and the outdoors. Middle school event starts at 1pm; high school at 3pm. Register now at
. We can’t wait to share our school with you!
Sponsored by Thetford Academy.
That would be
Nisachon (more familiarly known as Rung) and Steve Morgan, along with Steve's mom, Julia, who run Saap in Randolph. As you no doubt remember, Rung Morgan this year won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Northeast, and Susan Apel caught up with the three of them to talk about their trip to Chicago for the awards announcement, their chance to hang out with celebrity chef Rick Bayless, and, of course, what they'd eat at Saap. Steve and Rung have no favorite; Julia, on the other hand...
Hydro-Québec to buy Connecticut River dams. Actually, the Canadian hydropower giant is buying Great River Hydro, which owns 13 generating stations—including the Wilder Dam—and three storage reservoirs in VT, NH, and MA, reports VTDigger's Emma Cotton. “This acquisition represents a unique opportunity to combine our know-how in managing and leveraging hydro facilities with Great River Hydro’s thorough understanding of the New England market,” Sophie Brochu, Hydro-Québec's president and CEO, said in a statement. Great River will remain separate and retain its 100 employees.Hartford Chamber launches effort to support WRJ businesses with "Hartford Dollars." It's actually the third go-round for Hartford Dollars in the past few years, but this time, it's aimed at helping businesses affected by the Gates-Briggs flood. The idea's simple: You pay $25 and get to spend $40 in Hartford Dollars at Flourish, Piecemeal, Revolution, Tuckerbox, Open Door, or POST. Only one per email address, but you can use as many email addresses as you can wrangle to shell out more. Runs through December.Meanwhile, over in Woodstock... An effort called Startup Woodstock aims to attract new business with a competition for a $30K pot of money—some from the town Economic Development Commission, the rest privately raised. The idea, writes Cliff Johnson, one of the people behind it, is to fund the creation of one or more businesses "that fill a gap within the community"—the group is open to any innovative ideas. Johnson works for realtor.com; his colleagues are retired Discovery Bicycle Tours owner Larry Niles and EDC chair Jon Spector. Details and application at the link. More background from Niles here.APD, Haven, West Central land federal rural health grants. In a visit to Lebanon yesterday, the USDA's rural development undersecretary, Xochitl Torres Small, announced a total of $110 million in grants to rural health facilities across the country. $1 million of that will go to Families Flourish Northeast, which is renovating Alice Peck Day's old Homestead Building into a residential treatment center for mothers in recovery. In addition, West Central Behavioral Health got a grant of $142,000, and the Haven is receiving $88,000 to renovate its kitchen. No wonder it wants to be able to serve hot meals again.“East meets West meets Down Under” in two standout exhibits at the Hood. Seven Days’ Pamela Polston can’t contain her enthusiasm for two new shows—one by an Australian Aboriginal art collective, another by South Korean artist Park Dae Sung—calling them “a next-level experience, both visually and conceptually.” “Maḏayin,” a collection of richly symbolic bark paintings features “contemporary interpretations of ancient forms of Aboriginal expression.” Park’s “Ink Reimagined” combines “delicate finesse and bold strokes…realism and abstraction” in pieces that are both “grounded and ethereal.”In NH, a turf fight over energy policy. The state's Public Utilities Commission has been launching investigations into various policy questions—like energy efficiency—with an eye toward informing policy-making. Seems like a fine idea, only both the state's consumer advocate, Don Kreis, and its utilities argue that that should be the job of the newly formed state Department of Energy. The problem, Kreis says, is that the DOE is the policy-making body, while the PUC has unilateral power to issue regulatory orders. "That sort of raised-eyebrow regulation tends to inhibit the dialogue," he tells NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee."It is a wild rollercoaster ride." One moment, a police dispatcher could be talking to someone about the lost key to a grandfather clock and the next, a distraught caller with a knife. "There's no build up to it. It's just like, you go from one good call to one very bad call," says Anthony Skelton, who runs the St. J police department's dispatch center. Radio producer Erica Heilman spent time at the center, recording the dispatchers at work (this one, as Vermont Public likes to say, is definitely meant for the ear) and talking to Skelton about the sometimes quirky, sometimes devastating situations dispatchers encounter.5,000. That's the estimated number of carpenters Vermont will need over the next decade to build the housing it needs. And let's not even get into electricians, plumbers, roofers, masons, HVAC specialists... In Seven Days, Anne Wallace Allen digs into various efforts around the state to boost its construction workforce in the face of one overriding challenge: "Vermont's demographics make recruiting young people to the trades a problem without an easy answer," she writes. She looks at how training programs, career-tech schools, contractors and others are going about it.Covid levels in VT remain "low," but hospitalizations and concentration in wastewater appear to be rising. Parsing the state's latest report, VTDigger's Erin Petenko finds that the percent of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients has ticked up, and that at least two wastewater treatment sites in the state "show a clear rise in concentrations over the past two weeks." The CDC continues to rate community levels in Windsor and Orange counties as "low," while four counties are at "medium" and one, Bennington County, is "high."Inside the afterlife of a body donated to science. Less common than organ or tissue donations, whole-body donations—and what happens to them—are also less known. Perfectly timed to the October season, Abby Ohlheiser’s report in MIT Technology Review explores the business and clinical importance of cadavers given to research. While not as gory as you might think, the enterprise of acquiring bodies (by so-called “body brokers”) has a shady side. But Ohlheiser’s visit to two research facilities shows that decaying donors are carefully regarded and teach us a lot. (Still, maybe don't read over breakfast).Speaking of Down Under, yeah, I'd pause my golf swing, too... This was a year ago, but some things just don't get old. (Thanks, AFG!)The Thursday Vordle. Ripped from yesterday's Daybreak...
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This afternoon at 4:30, Dartmouth's Dickey Center brings in two high-level international security experts for "What Should the United States Fight For? A dialogue on Ukraine, nuclear weapons and the US global role." Joe Cirincione has built a long career as an expert on nuclear and conventional weapons and sought-after commentator on national security issues; he currently teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service. Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a former longtime defense and foreign policy staffer, including on the National Security Council under George W. Bush—and recently met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At 6:30 pm, the Etna Library hosts an online talk by local author Michael Lajoie. An outdoorsman, he is the author of two novellas, The Summit by the Sea and, most recently, the pandemic-inspired As Way Leads Onto Way.
Enfield's Shaker Bridge Theater kicks off its 2022-23 season tonight at 7:30 with Lungs, Duncan MacMillen's funny-but-pointed play about an unnamed couple wrestling with what to do with their lives—and with whether to have a baby—as the world faces climate catastrophe. It was timely when it premiered in 2011, and, obviously, even more so now. Runs through Oct. 30.
At 8 pm, New London's Flying Goose Pub brings in folk singer-songwriter Lucy Kaplansky, former clinical psychologist... and singing partner of Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith, Suzanne Vega, and other folk luminaries. She's touring with a new album, Last Days of Summer.
And anytime, check out JAM's highlights for the week, including VTDigger's gubernatorial debate between incumbent Phil Scott and challenger Brenda Siegel; Toronto-based singer Melissa Lauren doing jazz, doo-wop, and blues at Speakeasy Studios; the Center on Rural Innovation's Matt Dunne talking about what's needed for rural towns and cities to be successful in today's America; and Cedar O'Dowd's timelapse of Monday's moonrise over WRJ.
And
, about, well, the end of summer, but also about her daughter getting ready to leave home for college—and a mother's struggle to come to terms with it.
(First song in the playlist at the link.)
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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