GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Rain? What rain? It's a contrast today: We're due partly to mostly sunny skies, but meanwhile, a variety of rivers in both states are rising, though most will avoid flooding. The Ottauquechee at W. Bridgewater reached minor flood stage overnight, as did the Pemigewasset in Woodstock, NH; that river may hit minor flood stage in Plymouth early this morning. The Wells River hit "action" stage but is dropping. Meanwhile, temps are also dropping: Today's high is whenever you read this, as we head gradually down to the upper teens overnight tonight. We'll have breezy winds out of the southeast for a good bit of the day.
According to New England 511, only one major road in either state is closed for flooding issues: VT-122 in Lyndonville between I-91 Exit 24 and US-5 has multiple high water areas.
Swimming mergansers in falling snow. The headline says it all — except for the "on Mink Brook in Hanover" part. From Bryce James.Time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of readers' short posts about life in the Upper Valley: In just a few short lines of poetry, Danny Dover tells an entire story about an out-of-nowhere small-town basketball phenom; Laura Harris Hirsch gets distracted by two circles in the sky above downtown Lebanon; and Nanette Lee Babcock tells us why the Philbrick-Cricenti Bog in New London is such a treasure.“We’ve been down here way too often": Hartford responders confront three overdoses in a rainy 24 hours. They began Tuesday night, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak, when a 911 caller reported a woman was unresponsive at an encampment under a WRJ bridge. She was taken to DHMC. Returning to the site yesterday, investigators found her boyfriend unconscious in a tent; it took three Narcan doses to revive him. Then, at a LISTEN dinner last night, a third man overdosed—and was revived. Eric checks in with officers and an encampment resident about what's going on.“It’s been one disaster right after the other." For starters, there are the health issues that Bob Stange, 85, and Cindy Anne Packard-Stange, 65, confront. But the bigger issue, writes Emma Roth-Wells in the Valley News, is that the new owner of the WRJ home they've lived in for years wants to evict them—and they've been unable to find housing that wouldn't require them to navigate stairs. “I’ve looked at 200 places between New Hampshire and Vermont,” Packard-Stange says. “Nobody would touch us with a 10-foot pole.” They're fighting the eviction, but the future's uncertain, Roth-Wells writes.SPONSORED: Join the Gingerbread festivities on Saturday! This Saturday, Dec. 14, The Family Place will host the 22nd annual Gingerbread Festival at Tracy Hall in Norwich. This fun-filled community event is a great way for families to kick off the winter season. Join the festivities by touring our gallery of homemade gingerbread houses, shopping for gifts at our Country Store and Café, and participating in fun children’s activities like face painting and cookie decorating. $5/individual or $10/family. All proceeds will support children and families in the Upper Valley. Sponsored by The Family Place.A "jewel box" of a bookstore celebrates its first anniversary. Cover to COVER Books in WRJ has so quickly become part of the Upper Valley's literary landscape that it's hard to believe it's just a year old. Describing it in Artful, Susan Apel quotes a friend who loves bargains: you will “never get a better buy.” Susan talks to three of the people who volunteer at the store about why they do so: Rob Johnson has always wanted to run a bookstore; Nancy Cressman, who used to own Left Bank Books in Hanover, likes COVER's home-centered mission; Rhenea Reagan likes the stories used cookbooks tell.Bookstock announces festival lineup, special event next month. After last year's cancelled festival, Bookstock yesterday announced a constrained but high-profile list of authors and poets for next year's gathering in Woodstock May 16-18. They include one-time Metropolitan Museum guard Patrick Bringley with his memoir of that time, All the Beauty in the World; poet Robert Pinsky; and Marjan Kamali, author of The Lion Women of Tehran. Next month, Bookstock will bring novelist and neuroscientist Lisa Genova and Woodstock neuroscientist and novelist Melanie Winawer together for a conversation.SPONSORED: Donate to the Holiday Book Angels and give local kids the gift of reading this holiday season! Each holiday season, the Book Angels help get books into the hands of Upper Valley kids! Organized by the Norwich Bookstore and some amazing volunteers, this program is supported by the community's donations. Check our website or visit the Norwich Bookstore to learn how you can help by picking out a kid to shop for, buying pre-selected books, or donating funds. Your contribution will make a huge difference to young readers in our community! Sponsored by the Norwich Bookstore.In the northern Canadian Rockies, a Dartmouth researcher searches for the earliest record of animal life on Earth. Earth Sciences prof Justin Strauss and other team members spent August in the Mackenzie Mountains near the border of the Northwest Territories and Yukon collecting fossils of what may be early multicellular sponges—which, if confirmed, "would be the earliest record of animal life by about 200 million years," writes Dartmouth News' Morgan Kelly. Photographer Robert Gill went along: his video—with some jaw-dropping landscapes—is at the burgundy link. Kelly's article explaining it all is here.From one of the country's largest copper mines to Superfund site to solar farm, there's lots you didn't know about the Elizabeth Mine. In the fall issue of estuary, The Watershed Fund's magazine about the Connecticut River watershed, retired VT wildlife biologist John Buck writes about the Strafford mine's intriguing history from farmer John Taylor's discovery of copper ore in 1789 through its 150 years of production, its years as a Superfund site (and the $103,000,000 it cost to remediate it), and the 20,000 solar panels that now generate enough electricity to power 1,300 homes. (Thanks, NS!)NH Supreme Court continues to clarify "Laurie List" guidelines with order about state trooper. Officially known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, the list is of police officers with known credibility issues, and though most of its recent decisions have been in favor of officers seeking to be removed from it, the Court on Tuesday ruled against a former state trooper, reports Steven Porter in the Globe's Morning Report newsletter. The trooper had lied to superiors about private text exchanges he'd had with arrestees. Porter explains the case—and how the Court has responded to "a cresting wave of litigation."Who should be doing what in NH when it comes to energy? In a nutshell, reports NH Bulletin's Claire Sullivan, that's one of the key questions facing legislators next year as the Office of the Consumer Advocate, the Public Utilities Commission, and the state Dept. of Energy face off over their roles. Consumer Advocate Don Kreisis working on a measure with Leb's Tom Cormen to redefine the roles of the PUC and the DOE. Several PUC commissioners don't like what they've seen. Meanwhile, a GOP legislator wants to fold the OCA into the DOE. It's acronym drama with stakes. Stay tuned.In Montpelier, lots of talk about education tax reform, but no details. Senate leader Phil Baruth made an opening move a couple of weeks ago when he said he'd devote the first week of the session to hearing what Gov. Phil Scott has in mind. But last week, reports Seven Days' Kevin McCallum, Scott said, "We're not prepared to do that"—preferring instead to build the state budget as a whole. He did, however, offer to rehash some of his previous proposals. House Dems aren't talking, either. And a special commission "has only had time to gather ideas," so its upcoming report will be light on recommendations.Around VT—including in Fairlee and Wilder—looser Act 250 rules seem to be spurring housing. Tweaks to the land use law last year, and a set of reforms that the legislature enacted over Scott's veto this year, have made it possible for housing projects to get interim Act 250 exemptions; a review by VTDigger/VT Public Report for America corps member Carly Berlin found a dozen housing developments using the exemptions, including the 32 Bridge Street apartment rehab in Fairlee and Mike Davidson's conversion of the former Brookside Nursing Home in Wilder. Berlin looks at other changes ahead.Lost ski areas. There's a new exhibit at the VT Ski & Snowboard Museum in Stowe that focuses on more than 100 bygone downhill ski areas north of Route 4 with photos, descriptions, the occasional sign, and a request for more information. As Mary Ann Lickteig writes in Seven Days, VT is rich with small-ski-hill stories—including about the first ski lift in the country, the Model T engine-powered rope tow installed in 1934 on Gilbert's Hill in Woodstock. She outlines some of those stories. Meanwhile, NH is no shrinking violet on this front: the New England Lost Ski Areas Project counts 172.Kingfisher dive. Pretty wild to see just as a normal thing, but amazing at 600 frames per second. "Persistence pays off," says the photographer.
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Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: 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!
Upper Valley Music Center's occasional lunchtime series continues at noon today with the duo playing works by Brouwer, Shostakovich, Larsen, and Fine. In the Bach Room.
You know the music and the story. The ballet company is a touring company of Ukrainian ballet dancers who for the moment call the International Ballet Academy in Bellevue, WA their home away from home. 7 pm.
a new film by Anne Macksoud and John Ankele, The Hottest Year in Human History, a talk by climate activist and writer Bill McKibben at the Unitarian Universalist church in Woodstock; artist Bhasha Chakrabarti and scholar Aanchal Saraf talking Afro-Asian connections as they consider Chakrabarti’s quilt "It’s a Blue World", at the Hood; and Rumble Strip producer Erica Heilman's talk at the Norwich Public Library back in October about how she makes her show—and encouraging listeners "to fall in love with strangers and to find themselves in the lives of people who are unlike themselves."
And for today...
Probably no intro needed.
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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