GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, cool. There's a slight chance of some rain and/or snow showers this afternoon, and it's going to be a pretty blustery day, with gusts especially in the afternoon. But for the most part, we'll see a mix of sun and clouds with temps reaching the mid 30s. Down into the high teens overnight.Look! Up in the sky!
Who knows what kind of cloud that was in Thetford the other evening, but in Jane Francisco's photo it sure looks determined.
Meanwhile, sunrise over the Ompompanoosuc the other morning was more laid back—but in Patty Piotrowski's photo, no less striking.
With road crew and all but one selectboard member gone, Chelsea seeks to rebuild. You'll remember that it all began after a disagreement with the board led road foreman Rick Ackerman to resign; his crew went with him, and then 4 of 5 board members threw in the towel for good measure. Now, reports VTDigger's Dominic Minadeo, the remaining selectboard member, Geoff Clayton, is working with the town clerk, treasurer, and Ackerman—who's back on the job, though it's unclear for how long—to keep things running. The town will hold a special election Jan. 3 to elect a new selectboard.Killington gets World Cup go-ahead. Yesterday, the resort got a a “positive snow control announcement” from the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS). Despite the high temps recently, "colder temperatures and wintry conditions made a timely return to the region," writes Hayden Bird for Boston.com. The marquee women's events start with the slalom Nov. 26, with Mikaela Shiffrin getting set to defend her championship. Meanwhile, for skiers with less at stake, the slopes open today for season pass holders, tomorrow for the general public.Twin Pines buys Woodstock senior apartment complex. The $2 million purchase of the 26-unit Mellishwood Senior Residences doesn't add new affordable housing to town, but it does keep it from going away, the affordable housing nonprofit's executive director, Andrew Winter, tells the Valley News. The goal is to “keep this as an affordable asset in the community for the long term,” he says. Twin Pines plans energy and accessibility upgrades.SPONSORED: At Alice Peck Day, you’ll have more than a happy first day—you’ll have a happy and rewarding career. From the front lines to the back offices, Alice Peck Day employees love what they do—and it shows in every step of a patient’s healthcare journey. Open positions include OR nurse, waitstaff, sleep tech, physical therapist, Lifecare controller, senior accountant, and more. Join our friendly community hospital today! Sponsored by APD.So, what are you having at Rae's Corner Café in Bradford? That's the question for Amanda Rae Hill, who in June opened her breakfast/lunch spot in the long-abandoned site of an old Subway on a prime corner on Main Street. In the few months it’s been open Rae’s has attracted its own small crew of regulars, some of whom will come in and sit for hours, and this fall’s leaf-peeping crowd kept things hopping. "I’m not a restaurant chef. I’m just a mom that’s making soups and sandwiches," she says. “Every town needs a place like this to go. They’re just not as common as they used to be."Helping Upper Valley residents with housing or food or winter coats or firewood: "The most vital of resources provided in the most vital of times." That's what non-profits do, writes West Central Behavioral Health's Dave Celone in a VN commentary. Today and tomorrow bring an end to what the non-profit world calls Philanthropy Week, but really, the rest of the year is just as prime a time for giving. And Celone offers some advice on what to look for, from what percentage of a charity's budget goes to its mission to researching (and what to notice in) its financial statements.Boy it was a mess out there yesterday. In the space of five hours yesterday morning, the NH State Police reported, they responded to more than 35 calls for crashes and vehicles off the road. There was a dramatic tractor-trailer slide-off in Woodstock, a truck crash on I-93 in Thornton, a crash in Grantham...Could the NH House possibly get any closer without being an actual tie? Nope, because after a recount yesterday of a Rochester seat resulted in a tie, just a single seat separates Republicans and Democrats in the chamber, reports NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee. Four ballots and an absentee envelope from that race are being challenged, but if they stand, the House will vote on who gets the seat when it meets Dec. 7. Without it, the House now stands at 200 Republicans, 199 Democrats... but there are still plenty of recounts to go.What is the most environmentally sound meal you can eat? The Monitor’s David Brooks is bound to get strongly worded emails over this column. He builds an interesting case: that nothing we eat is friendlier toward the environment than wild venison. Calling deer “a blight on our landscape,” he cites their appetite for tree seedlings and their spread of Lyme disease, among other risks. While more than 12K deer were killed last year in NH, their numbers are growing. And that’s the nub: “If you want the blue ribbon for eco-beneficial red meat you’ve pretty much got to be a hunter," he writes.And a Covid roundup...
VT continues to rate Covid levels in the state as "low," with hospitalization numbers dropping from a small surge in mid-October, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko. Back then, the state was averaging about 12 new patients a day with Covid; now it's closer to seven. Altogether, 24 patients were hospitalized with the virus yesterday, "representing the lowest levels in about a month."
In NH, hospitalizations are down after a small October spike, too. They peaked at 149 cases in mid-October, according to numbers from the NH Hospitalization Association. Yesterday, there were 94, compared to 103 on Tuesday.
New VT health care regulators want "meaningful" results from OneCare. The Green Mountain Care Board, which regulates the health care sector in VT, has several newish members. And, writes Riley Robinson in VTDigger, they made it plain last week that OneCare, the nonprofit that distributes taxpayer and private money to hospitals and medical practices throughout the state, has been a little foggy on whether the millions of dollars it works with have made a real difference. Said GMCB member Thom Walsh, "[There] are outcome measures that matter to patients, and I can't find them.” Robinson elaborates.The "unsung workhorse" of the rails: Vermont Rail Systems. Most people, an Agency of Transportation official tells Seven Days' Ken Picard, give rail freight barely a thought. "They just go fill their cars up, and home heating oil gets delivered to their house. They don't know that it came a thousand miles on a train to get here." But VRS, a railroad that's been owned by the same family for 60 years, is vital to the fortunes of everything from feed mills to fuel dealers to craft breweries, Picard writes. He hangs out with crew members and execs, painting the fine details of the company's place in VT's everyday life.The first to sail around the world alone: a man who belonged at sea. Captain Joshua Slocum was his name, and even as a boy in Nova Scotia he was determined to spend his life on the water. In 1860, at age 16, he joined the crew of a merchant ship that took him as far as Singapore and San Francisco—a taste for seamanship that sealed his destiny. For Adventure Journal, Brook Sutton describes Slocum’s “spot-on navigational skills and his use of dead reckoning” which led him to make an unheard-of, 46,000-mile trip in 1895. He succeeded, but you’ll never guess Slocum’s ultimately fatal flaw.The Thursday Vordle. With a perfect word from yesterday's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
T-shirts, tank tops, and, of course, coffee/tea/cocoa mugs. It's all available thanks to Strong Rabbit Designs in Sharon. Check out what's available and wear it or drink from it proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
At 5:30 today, Sustainable Woodstock hosts an online talk on "Supporting Zero Waste in VT." Ben Kogan founded and runs an organization focused on eliminating single-use plastics, helping companies establish reuse strategies for their products, and advising nonprofits pushing to end throwaway goods. He's also the guy behind the Reusable Can Carrier effort that began in Burlington last year and has now spread to taprooms and retailers throughout the state.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts a reading and talk by Erica Plouffe Lazure. Set in a small North Carolina town, the interconnected stories in Lazure's Proof of Me are "a trailer park acid trip through a one-stoplight-town barbecue, with the sun glinting off sweaty foreheads and bottles of homemade moonshine," KL Holliday wrote earlier this year in Southern Review of Books. "Proof of Me tips its hat to the small towns of the South, while at the same time, shakes its head in disbelief, muttering, 'Y’all ain’t right.'"
Also at 7, via Zoom, the VT Ski & Snowboard Museum presents "The First Disabled Descent of Denali: Breaking Barriers with Vasu Sojitra." Sojitra, an adaptive athlete who lost a leg when he was nine months old, has made a habit of climbing and then skiing down major peaks, and last year he and fellow adaptive skier Pete McAfee made the first disabled descent of Denali, the highest peak in North America. He'll be talking with longtime Vermont backcountry writer David Goodman, who profiled him in the NYT back in March.
Tonight at 8, the Flying Goose in New London brings in Cara Luft (who co-founded the Wailin' Jennies) & JD Edwards, a Winnipeg-based duo who perform together as The Small Glories. Two veteran singer-songwriters and, as NPR once put it, "a folk-roots powerhouse." Or as Greil Marcus wrote even farther back, "Cara Luft plays banjo, JD Edwards plays guitar, and in moments they find the darkening chord change the best bluegrass—from the Stanley Brothers to Be Good Tanyas—has always hidden in the sweet slide of the rhythm, the tiny shift where the person telling the story suddenly understands it.”
Today through Monday, online, Sustainable Woodstock airs The Burning Field, a 2019 film by anthropologist/filmmakers Justin Weinrich and Anita Afonu about a day in the life of Agbogbloshie, one of the largest e-waste dumps on Earth, told through the eyes of four young Ghanians who live and work there.
And anytime, check out JAM's highlights for the week, including a Norwich Bookstore talk by author Jane Esselstyn, talking the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle; a Hartland Conservation Commission-sponsored talk on the history of Sumner's Falls; and former NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner's talk at Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center on election administration and its place in American democracy.
Oh yes, we've gotta go with...
The Small Glories. Luft and Edwards know what they're doing.
with a bonus crankie (hand-cranked moving picture) created to go along with it. You can
feel
the winter-time prairie...
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.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page
, or if you're a committed non-FB user,
.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! Subscribe at no cost at:
Thank you!