Daybreak Thursday 10/30/25

So…. Low pressure began moving up from the Tennessee Valley yesterday, and a secondary low is taking shape off the coast, and the result is going to be exactly the kind of soaking rainfall we’ve needed—though did we need it right at Halloween? We start today right around the freezing mark and climb into the low or mid 50s under cloudy skies, with a chance of showers starting up later this morning, but the real rain not arriving until late afternoon or this evening. Rain and wind gusts overnight, temps will stay in the high 40s.

The colors around us. A trio of late fall photos:

Dear Daybreak time! This week’s collection of short pieces from readers about Upper Valley life features Susan AuBuchon’s beautiful shot of sunrise over Lake Sunapee and Mt. Kearsarge; Katharine Lea’s story about tending milkweed seeds (you’ll understand when you read it) while out walking with her bemused dog; Susan Arnold’s poem about seizing the moment—or not; and Sara Ferguson’s tale (and photo) of a self-bursting cabbage. And hey, if you’ve got something to share, please send it in.

Orange County senator steps down, Priestley will run. On Monday, GOP Sen. Larry Hart—a first-termer elected as part of last November’s Republican wave—announced that he plans to leave his seat on Nov. 14: “The time and commitment became too great for my health and emotional well-being. I feel I owe it to my constituents to step down,” he wrote. Yesterday, Democratic Rep. Monique Priestley of Bradford announced she’s running for the seat. “After my first term, I wasn’t sure I’d continue in elected office,” she wrote in her press release. “But something shifted this past year… I’m not done.” Ethan Weinstein’s VTDigger piece at the burgundy link.

SPONSORED: Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital Express Care is now open. Our Express Care team treats adults and children over the age of one for non-life-threatening conditions. And with evening and weekend hours, you get the right level of care when you need it. Get immediate care for coughs, colds, rashes, and sprains right at APD Express Care, and all without an appointment. Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital Express Care. Part of the best health system in the region, Dartmouth Health. Sponsored by Dartmouth Health.

NH textile revival gains steam. And one of the people leading the way is Plainfield sheep farmer Meg Falcone. Faced with piles of fleeces in her basement and garage, writes Amanda Gokee in the Boston Globe (sorry, paywall), about five years ago Falcone launched the Five Sisters Farm Yarn Shop (named for her daughters), becoming “part of a growing movement of small-scale sheep farmers in the region turning sheep’s wool into yarn to sell as more consumers are demanding local, quality materials.” Gokee checks in with others in the ecosystem: shearer Gwen Hinman, Muriel’s of Vermont owner Laura Jacoby, an upstate NY wool-cleaning facility…

Two bands, a family, and a pile of plastic beer and cider four-pack carriers. That would be the life of Barnard’s Ben Kogan (who’s also been one of the organizers of the Imagine Zero music festival). Kogan runs a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating single-use plastics, and as Sam Hartnett writes for Seven Days, a few years ago he began collecting and sanitizing the ubiquitous plastic can carriers, then selling them back to beverage companies at a discount. He estimates he gathers as many as 4,000 carriers each month, “and has turned the arduous sorting process into a fun game to play with his young son.” Says Kogan, “It’s a tangible way to make the world a better place.”

“The idea of culture doesn’t happen in a room, it’s everywhere.” That was Yo-Yo Ma the day before he and a group of indigenous and other musicians performed their Oct. 18 “We Are Water” celebration on the banks of the Connecticut and in the Hop’s newly renovated Spaulding Auditorium. He was talking to VT Public’s Helen Lyons. Yesterday, “Vermont Edition” aired that interview—”If we’re water and we’re nature and we’re both creative and destructive at the same time, then that makes me think differently about who I am and how I should live,” Ma said—and Mikaela Lefrak’s followup with Passamaquoddy emcee Chris Newell and fiddler Ida Mae Specker.

NH cold case unit searches New London wildlife area. Officers from the unit and NH Fish & Game were out at the Esther Currier Wildlife Management Area yesterday as part of an “ongoing investigation” into the unsolved 1978 murder of Catherine Millican, the AG’s office said in a press release. “The search poses no danger to the public and is focused on locating physical evidence.” Millican, a Sunapee resident who was 27, was last seen alive on Oct. 24 that year when she told others she planned to go birdwatching; her car was found at the entrance to the wetlands, and her body was discovered there the following day. The AG’s office also released new photos of her.

Leb police seek WRJ man after near-crash with cruiser. Adam Adolph, 35, has “an extensive criminal history” as well as a VT warrant for a parole violation. In a press release yesterday, the LPD said he’s been involved in “multiple recent motor vehicle pursuits” and on Tuesday, as its officers tried to stop a vehicle he was suspected of driving, it took off, “driving erratically on the wrong side of the road at a high rate of speed” and nearly colliding head-on with a Lebanon police cruiser. The department is asking the public’s help finding him, but warns that anyone who comes in contact with him “is urged not to approach him, as he is considered dangerous.”

NH’s new housing laws face possible backlash. There were a bunch of laws this year aimed at lowering barriers to housing development, from barring cities and towns from requiring set numbers of parking space for new development to removing development barriers on Class VI roads. But as Ethan DeWitt writes in NH Bulletin, lawmakers are now getting an earful from constituents arguing that, for instance, keeping a Class VI road accessible if someone builds on it would add expenses towns can’t afford. Outlining the arguments from opponents and proponents of the new laws, DeWitt predicts a faceoff in the upcoming legislative session.

High child-care costs for single moms, mental health struggles, disparities in local office: data on women in NH. It’s all contained in the 2025 Status of New Hampshire Women report just released by the NH Women’s Foundation. Among its findings: the median cost of child care in New Hampshire for an infant is $21,593, which means single mothers, on average, are spending nearly half their annual income on it; women are more likely than men to suffer from mental health conditions, with a third experiencing depression; and though women hold federal offices and NH’s governorship, at the local level—other than school boards—the picture is very different.

Both NH and VT act on stopgap measures for SNAP recipients.

Riding 300 miles on VT’s dirt roads—but without much time to admire the scenery. That’s because retired racer Ted King, the guy whose search for a top-to-bottom gravel ride through the state led to the creation of what’s known as VTXL, which runs from the northern border in Canaan, VT to the southern border at Williamstown, MA. King rode it in 2020 in just under 24 hours—but then, in 2022, New Englander Jake Inger did it in 21:51, unsupported. So this summer, King wanted to tackle it again. He was thwarted by wildfire smoke in August, but on Sept. 9, starting in Canaan at 9 pm, he headed south. You can follow along at the burgundy link. (Thanks, JB!)

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:

THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, 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!

HEADS UP

Laura van den Berg reads at Dartmouth. A senior lecturer in fiction at Harvard and the author of three story collections, two novels (The Third Hotel and Find Me), and, most recently, a third novel about a post-pandemic Florida, State of Paradise, van den Berg will be doing a reading, Q&A, and book signing at 4:30 pm in the Sanborn Library.

Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts “Food (In)security as Metaphor: Public Health & Policy in the Arctic”. Harvard public health postdoc Sappho Gilbert focuses on food insecurity in the Canadian Arctic. “Drawing on findings from community-engaged studies, this talk focuses on concrete systems and policy transformations needed to advance Inuit food sovereignty,” the center writes. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41—no livestream, but it’ll be recorded.

At the Howe Library in Hanover, “Nature, Place, Grief. 3 Poets Read & Discuss Their Work”. Just what it says: “An evening of poetry and conversation as David Banach, Vievee Francis, and Marjorie Moorhead share their work exploring themes of nature, place, and grief. The authors will engage each other in dialogue about how these themes shape their writing and reflect our shared human experience.” 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.

Hop Film screens Tatami. Co-directed by an Iranian and an Israeli filmmaker, Tatami follows an Iranian female judo practitioner (Arienne Mandi) and her coach (Zar Amir), who travel to the World Judo Championships, “intent on bringing home Iran's first gold medal. But when she's scheduled to face an Israeli opponent, Iranian government agents threaten to harm her family if she doesn't fake an injury or withdraw.” 7 pm in the Loew Auditorium.

The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble with Pacho Flores and Héctor Molina. Latin Grammy-winning trumpet virtuoso Pacho Flores and cuatro master Héctor Molina, both from Venezuela, join forces with the ensemble. The program features the Wind Band Premiere of Gabriela Ortiz's Antrópolis, by the multi-Grammy-winning Mexican composer, “and two fanfares that bridge the Hop's history: Darius Milhaud's Fanfare, written for the center's 1962 dedication, and Jim Stephenson's Fanfare for the Arts, newly commissioned for the building's rededication.” 7:30 pm in Spaulding.

And anytime, JAM’s got the week’s highlights: Travis Van Alstyne’s animated short about Romaine Tenney—and links to work by other emerging filmmakers; a tour of the studios of the five Norwich artists who welcomed visitors during VT Fall Open Studio Weekend earlier this month (Shannon Wallis, Rosamond Orford, Rosemary Orgren, Kate Emlen, and Lisa Johnson); and a VT Humanities talk with farmer, beekeeper, and author Julie Carrick Dalton as she discusses her latest novel, The Last Beekeeper. Plus selectboards in Hartford, Hanover, and Norwich at work, and other civic affairs.

And for today...

On Nov. 8 and 9, Upper Valley Baroque will host the New England premiere of a newly discovered cello sonata by Alessandro Scarlatti, during his 300th commemorative year. There’ll be plenty of other music, as well, but here’s a snippet of the Scarlatti’s debut back in May in NYC, with Clara Abel on baroque cello, Caroline Nicolas on viola da gamba, Kevin Payne on theorbo, and Ben Katz on harpsichord. As Susan Apel writes in Artful, the video “is a lovely minute to enjoy with your morning coffee.” Or, to be exact, one minute, 26 seconds.

See you tomorrow.

Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!

And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt   About Rob                                                 About Michael

And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.

Thank you!