GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Fog and clouds then sun, slightly cooler. Though "cool" is relative, since we'll still be getting into the mid or upper 70s. High pressure's taking its own time moving out and dry air remains in place (for the moment), so once all that stuff in the way clears out later this morning, it'll be mostly sunny with breezes from the south. Down into the mid 50s tonight.Sunrise, sunset...
Break of day in Enfield, from Sarah Dole.
And end of day over Killington from the Pinnacle in Lyme, by Jay Davis.
With $410K grant, Windsor's Old Constitution House to get buffed up in time for VT's (and maybe the US's) semiquincentennial. Well heck, how many times do you get to use that word in a sentence? Ever since it was closed for the pandemic, the historic building where VT's first constitution was adopted on July 8, 1777, has suffered from mildew and moisture problems. Now, reports Dan D'Ambrosio for the Burlington Free Press, the National Park Service is funding efforts to fix the mildew damage, restore the historic windows, and put in a new air-quality system. The plan is to reopen in 2026, ahead of VT's 250th.With duplex project in Randolph, Habitat for Humanity breaks new ground. Central VT Habitat, which serves Orange and Washington counties, is building its first-ever duplex, reports Oliver Yukica in the VN. The departure from its usual single-family home model is aimed at both creating more housing and doing it more cost-effectively. The building will make use of a "panelized" shell made by a Walpole, NH company. Once finished, one unit will become home to a Randolph woman and her two grandchildren, and the other to a Montpelier woman, her mother, and her two teen children.West Leb committee asks residents, businesses to weigh in on city-owned properties. You may remember that Leb bought the three nearly-adjoining parcels earlier this year; city officials have been pushing to relocate the West Leb fire station there, but the city council wants to consider other uses and asked an advisory committee to make recommendations. On Tuesday, committee members turned to the public with an online survey (at the link), including whether to use the land for a station, mixed-use development, or something else, and whether to close a road that separates two of the parcels.SPONSORED: Need help around the house or yard? Lebanon High School is hosting its annual Day of Work on Friday, October 20th. If you're looking to cross some items off of your to-do list, you can hire student volunteers to rake leaves, stack wood, etc. and help raise money for activities at the school. Fill out the job request form and read more about the event here. Requests due by 10/13. Sign up today! Sponsored by Lebanon High School.At abandoned copper mine, bats—and researchers. Over half the Eastern small-footed bats that overwinter in Vermont use a shaft at one old mine in Orange County, and before any Superfund cleanup at the mines in Vershire and Corinth can begin, reports Vermont Public's Lexi Krupp, officials need to know they won't be disturbing threatened species. The mine shafts trap air that stays at 30 to 50 degrees year-round, and bats need that range to hibernate. The problem: any disturbance in winter, including a human visitor, can cause them to burn through their energy stores, threatening their lives.SPONSORED: The new Oak Hill is getting ready for ski season, and you can help! Winter is coming and season passes for cross-country skiing at the Oak Hill Outdoor Center are on sale now. A pass gives you access to the existing Dartmouth trail system AND to a new trail with snowmaking! Please consider purchasing a Sustainer Pass to support the Center’s mission to offer reliable, accessible skiing to the entire Upper Valley. Sponsored by the Oak Hill Outdoor Center.In Keene, "wayward moose" gets a scenery change. In particular, NH Fish & Game wrote on its FB page yesterday, "to habitat much more appropriate for a rutting moose." The moose had been hanging out near the intersection of routes 9, 10, and 12 and was "becoming a traffic hazard." Fish & Game biologists tranquilized him; conservation officers and state and local police all helped with the transfer. Fish & Game post and photos at the burgundy link, Keene Sentinel version here if you're FB-averse. The moose is doing fine.In closely divided NH House, constant power shifts. The numbers changed again this week, when Democrat Hal Rafter was sworn in after winning a special election, while Democrat Maria Perez of Milford, a progressive, left the party to become an independent. The real intrigue, though, revolves around former GOP Rep. Troy Merner, who stepped down last week after it was revealed he hadn't lived in his district for over a year; former Sullivan County lawmaker Peter Hoe Burling has filed a right-to-know request to learn when the NH AG and House Speaker first learned Merner had moved, yet continued to vote as his old district's representative, reports InDepthNH's Paula Tracy."Right under the surface of bucolic, green Vermont are pointy needles and caps, all waiting for some unsuspecting person…" Private investigator Susan Randall is a longtime friend of Rumble Strip producer Erica Heilman, and from time to time they catch up. Their most recent conversation, as Heilman says in a new episode, was "not a cheerful talk, it was more a rageful talk that ends up in heartbreak"—about the state's addiction crisis and how it's affected daily life, a harrowing recounting that starts with a burglary at Randall's former office in Burlington and her determination to get her stuff back.With new service through BCBS, more Vermonters can tap into virtual mental health care. The program, reports VTDigger's Kristen Fountain, relies on Valera Health, an online-only company that offers therapy and psychiatry for both children as young as 6 and for adults; MVP policyholders already had access. It's the services for kids, which were hard to find in the state, that are a "game changer," Blue Cross Blue Shield's medical director tells Fountain. “We don’t have enough adult mental health providers locally, but we certainly have more (of them) than we do child mental health providers."Teacher by teacher, VT sees a change in how kids learn to read. "Once ranked second nationally for reading achievement among fourth graders," writes Alison Novak in Seven Days, "Vermont has dropped to the middle of the pack." A growing number of teachers—and school districts, like Woodstock's—have come to the conclusion that the teaching method used for decades has failed too many kids. It focuses mostly on engaging books and comprehension skills, Novak writes, rather than the sounds contained within words and how those sounds connect to print. She delves into the push for change.“People in fuzzy costumes screaming strange sounds lakeside..." Ohhhh, you just missed it—both the Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest, which was held last weekend, and most likely Bigfoot himself. Chris Farnsworth, of Seven Days, journeyed to the Whitehall, NY annual event, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who had caught a glimpse of the elusive one. No such luck. Any excuse for an autumn festival by a lake, though: Plenty of believers turned out, despite the fact that the New York Bigfoot Society’s Instagram feed “is mostly pictures of hiking trails notably lacking in giant, hairy bipeds.”We’ll also answer the age-old question: Which came first, orange the fruit or orange the color? Most of us—designers, artists, and paint manufacturers aside—use only about 10 words to describe the plethora of colors out there. Weirdly, most of the world came up with color names in pretty much the same order. On PBS’s “Otherwords”, Erica Brozovsky, a sociolinguist, explains why “black” and “white” came first, and why there are dozens of names for reds and very few for blues. Warm colors are easier to communicate in many languages than are cool colors, because cool-colored things (trees, grass, sky, water) aren’t as exciting as warm-colored things (food, animals, blood).The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 4:30, Dartmouth's English Department hosts Curtis Sittenfeld—seven-time novelist and four-time Jeopardy! answer—for a reading and conversation. Maybe best known for her portrayals of first ladies had they not married their husbands—Laura Bush in American Wife, Hilary Clinton in Rodham—Sittenfeld has made a career of charting the course of women's lives and desires. "Curtis Sittenfeld is a wonderful writer, and many of us will follow her wherever she decides to go," one reviewer wrote earlier this year about her most recent book, Romantic Comedy. Where she's going today is the Sanborn Library for the latest Cleopatra Mathis Poetry and Prose Series reading.
And at 5 pm today, nonfiction author, poet, and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith will be in the Hanover Inn ballroom for his lecture, "Monuments to the Unthinkable: Remembering Atrocities: Lessons from Germany." Hosted by Dartmouth's Dickey Center, the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life, and the Jewish Studies Program, he'll be talking about his work looking at lessons from Germany's reckoning with the Holocaust and how it speaks to the remembrance of atrocities. Both in-person and livestreamed.
At 7 this evening, Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover hosts Never Too Late, a quartet "in the tradition of the folk vocal groups of the 1960s." Singer-songwriter Hilde Ojibway, vocalist Bethany Nafziger, bassist Eric Bronstein, and multi-instrumentalist Adam Sorscher (who among other things is the force behind the Anonymous Coffeehouse). They'll be performing songs from the modern singer-songwriter era as well as Ojibway's originals.
For the last 15 years, the British theater company curious directive (they prefer the lower-case) has been mounting shows with the goal of "exploring life through the findings of science." Tonight at 8 and running through Sunday, as artists in residence at the Hop, they're presenting Frogman: "a truly unique experience that brings together elements of time travel, scuba diving and a murder mystery told through virtual reality and live performance." Suitable for ages 12 and up, in the Black Family Visual Arts Center's film studio.
And for today's music...
George Lawrence, who lived in Tunbridge, died on Sept. 20. He was an artist, a lap-steel guitar and dobro player with Jeanne and the High Tops, a guest musician with guitar ace Spencer Lewis and with the Shugamakers, a "kind but deadly pool shark," and above all a beloved art teacher through Pentangle, at the Fletcher Farm Arts School in Ludlow, and at the Mountain School in Vershire. That pool shark line comes from Spencer Lewis, who wrote a song celebrating Lawrence and his work in honor of his 89th birthday in August—a month before he died.
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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