GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
There's a change in the weather. Believe it or not, it was actually sunny to our west yesterday, even if the sun didn't show up around here until late. Now, low pressure's moving off the coast and a second cold front is passing by, bringing gusty winds pretty much all day. Behind it, air will be cooler and drier, so we'll start out partly cloudy but move pretty quickly to full-on sunshine as the morning wears on. Mid-50s today, down to around or below freezing tonight.Just because it's late fall doesn't mean there's nothing to look at.
Exhibit A: A young buck having breakfast in a field in Enfield, just east of Moose Mountain, by Anna Hutton;
Exhibit B: Three startling trees at the Woodstock golf course, by Lauran Corson.
On Mt. Sunapee, an "exemplary" primeval forest. It had pretty much been ignored until about three decades ago, when ecologist Chris Kane, out exploring, suspected he was in the middle of old growth forest. Since then, it's gotten more attention, though filmmaker Ray Asselin writes, "The slopes are rather treacherous to navigate, with ankle-breaking voids hidden by fallen leaves, and the going is necessarily very slow, which is one reason why this forest is still primeval." Asselin would know: He's just released his film on the forest and its history. Back story here. (Thanks, LM!)Halloween season? It's for festooning houses. Plainfield's got its pumpkin people. Enfield and Lebanon have their scarecrows. And in Norwich, front porches, trees, lawns, rooftops and more get the seasonal touch. Demo Sofronas has been out and about with his camera, and on his About Norwich blog he collects his own and others' photos of the understated, the overstated, and the downright gaudy...SPONSORED: Join us for a conversation with The Most Reverend Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Curry will discuss “Building An Anti-Racist America: Becoming Beloved Community” on Thursday, November 3 at 6:30 pm at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 9 W. Wheelock Street in Hanover. You can learn more about his visit here. Sponsored by School House, Dartmouth College.Goose Pond dam in line for repairs after Exec Council approves funds. Altogether, reports Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin, councilors okayed $16.8 million to repair and, where needed, reconstruct 12 of the 274 dams owned by the state. The dams scheduled for repair, including Canaan's Goose Pond, Odell's Little Bog Dam, and others, could change if state inspections "reveal other dams requiring immediate attention or if a project can’t be completed by the 2026 deadline," Gokee writes.So, what are you having for dinner at Bistro Midva? That's Susan Apel's question for Chad and Arlanda Lumbra, the owners of the Windsor eatery (he's the chef, she runs front-of-house). Chad used to work at NYC destination restaurant Eleven Madison Park; these days his canvas is much smaller and more intimate. Coming up, he tells Susan: a day devoted to Slovenian/Balkan food with dishes like "cevapcici sausages, lepinje bread, kranjska klobasa, prazen krompir potatoes, and kremsnita cake.” But you can get simpler fare, too... like the fall dish he says he'd want to sit down to.How do cells make choices? That's the basic question that Geisel School and Dartmouth Cancer Center researcher Aaron McKenna and his lab are pursuing, and McKenna just got a $1.5 million New Innovator Award from NIH to keep studying it. The award is aimed at spurring breakthrough research by young researchers, writes The Dartmouth's Connor Basham, who talks to McKenna about his goals. Which are, first, to understand how, say, a liver cell knows to become a liver cell and not a neuron, and then to apply that knowledge when cells go awry, as in cancer and other diseases or disorders.You know this one feels good. Remember how last year the US Supremes sided with MA on an interstate tax spat with NH? Well, yesterday, AG John Formella announced that MA has agreed to fork over $3,477,195 and 30 cents to settle a dispute over lost property tax revenue from flood control projects located in New Hampshire that keep the Merrimack River from inundating Massachusetts communities. The two states came to terms in 1957, but since 2014 have been unable to agree on an amount, leaving NH to shoulder the burden of reimbursing its towns for lost revenue.NH electorate has seen "rapid, substantial turnover." In a new "data snapshot" from UNH's Carsey School of Public Policy, demographer Ken Johnson and political scientists Andrew Smith and Dante Scala write that "New Hampshire’s population is among the most mobile in the nation". Almost a fifth of the state's voters lived elsewhere in 2016 (when Maggie Hassan was elected to the Senate). While they focus on the US Senate race, this clearly has implications down the ballot—though it's not clear what: Young voters tend to be more liberal, recent migrants tend to be more like established NH voters.What's known now about the suspect in the Concord double murder. Both a lot and astonishingly little, writes Boston.com's Susannah Sudborough. Logan Clegg grew up in Colville, Washington, but beyond that little is known about his childhood; he's not even mentioned on his father's memorial website. He stabbed a man to death in Spokane—but was never charged; was arrested for shoplifting and possession of stolen guns in Salt Lake City; then in 2021 began living in a padlocked tent near the apartment complex where victims Stephen and Wendy Reid lived. Sudborough details how police tracked him down.The Covid numbers:
In NH, hospitalization numbers have dipped a bit, with the NH Hospital Association reporting 131 people hospitalized with confirmed cases of Covid yesterday, down from 162 a week ago. Scroll down for the trendline.
Meanwhile, VTDigger's Erin Petenko reports that the state health department continues to rate statewide levels as "medium," for the second week in a row. The state reported 81 patients hospitalized with Covid on Monday, the highest number since February, but that figure had dropped to 69 by yesterday.
Silvio O. Conte national refuge grows again. By 3,500 acres, in fact. The National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, which covers 40,000 acres of Connecticut River watershed, is about to gain Glebe Mountain forestland in Londonderry and Windham, VT, writes Kevin O'Connor in VTDigger. It was the proposed site of a 27-turbine wind farm when The Nature Conservancy bought it in 2019, and will be transferred to the US Fish & Wildlife Service.As VT struggles to house juveniles accused of violence, it placed nine of them in adult prisons for a collective 112 days. Most of them spent three to five days in Dept of Corrections facilities, reports VTDigger's Peter D'Auria, but the three others averaged 32 days each; the DOC says they were sequestered from the adult population. The nine had all been charged with aggravated assault or attempted aggravated assault, some involving weapons, D'Auria writes. On Tuesday, a state official outlined loose plans for housing young offenders, including a proposed six-bed Newbury facility."I'd always thought I'd die on the field but not in the goddamned bullpen." But that's where legendary pitcher and Craftsbury VT resident Bill "Spaceman" Lee almost did die a couple of months ago during a Savannah Bananas exhibition game. In Seven Days, Steve Goldstein and Robert Kiener round up several near-death stories from Vermonters—their own or loved ones'. Only one is a golden-light-infused experience; the rest are complicated, emotionally packed experiences that have lingered in their tellers' memories. Oh, Lee? His catcher performed CPR. How many people can say that?To coolly go... Okay, quick! What's the most misspelled word in North America? Yup. It's that double L that gets people. And not just here: "Coolly" is the most misspelled English word in 47 countries, say the folks at WordTips, who searched 2 billion geotagged tweets for 350 commonly misspelled words. Coming in second: "Minuscule." In Monaco, interestingly, people seem to like to type "adultary." Meanwhile, Vermonters seem to get "definitely" wrong a lot, while Granite Staters fall on "amateur." And New Yorkers? "Upholstery."The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 3 pm today, WRJ's Center for Cartoon Studies hosts a launch party for the release of Freedom and Unity: A Graphic Guide to Civics and Democracy in Vermont. Susan Clark, town moderator of Middlesex and co-author of Slow Democracy, and cartoonist Dan Nott (CCS ‘18) will discuss the creation of the comic and what they discovered about how democracy works in Vermont. No charge to attend in person, but you'll need to register (at the link above); you can also livestream via JAM here.
From 4-6 pm today, the Fine Art Gallery at Colby-Sawyer College in New London hosts an opening reception for its exhibition of work by two leading ceramicists: Jenny Swanson, head of Ceramics at Dartmouth, and Sana Musasama, a ceramic and mixed-media artist based in NYC. "Her artistic practice parallels her work as an educator and commitment to human rights causes, especially the human trafficking of women."
At 7 pm, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover brings in Erin L. Thompson, a professor of art crime at NYU, to talk about her new book, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments. She'll be talking about "the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies" and about contemporary monument flashpoints around the country and the stories behind them.
At 7:30 pm, the Coast Jazz Orchestra takes the stage at the Hop's Spaulding Auditorium for a tribute to bassist, bandleader, and composer Charles Mingus—along with the premieres of new works by student composers.
At 8 this evening, Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover brings in Zach Nugent and his band. The S. Royalton native and renowned guitarist has a big, devoted following from his Grateful Dead channeling in Dead Set and other bands—and for playing Jerry Garcia's guitars; he put the Zach Nugent Band together during the pandemic. Tickets are limited, but it's worth a shot.
At also at 8, New London's Flying Goose Pub presents Maine-born, Boston-based singer-songwriter and folk troubador Ellis Paul. "For many of us," one folk reviewer wrote a few years ago, "he is the face of contemporary folk music—few are as smart, as literate and as poetic... I cannot think of another artist on the acoustic music scene who is better-loved by fans, or more respected by his contemporaries."
And to help us bring in the day...
We'll turn to Ellis Paul at the legendary Club Passim in Cambridge a few months ago
his ode to following your dreams whatever your age.
Oh, You’ll never be this young againThe train conductor’sCalling your ticketAnd If it ain’t now,Then when?
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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