GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, colder. The day will start in the mid-teens and climb all the way into the low or mid-20s—but we should see mostly sun for much of it, until some clouds show up ahead of a quick system passing to our south tonight that will bring with it a chance of a little snow. Mid-teens again overnight.On the ground, in the trees... Although most cedar waxwings migrate south for the winter, there are still plenty around—and they're a striking sight.
Here's a batch in a patch of winter berries, from Norwich's Corlan Johnson;
And a series of photos of a flock in New London, from Marc Beerman;
Meanwhile, this has nothing to do with birds at all, but at Barron Hill in Hartland, Zooey Zullo happened on this intricate patch of needle ice—caused, she notes, "when ground temps are above freezing and the air is below freezing."
Fire destroys Wells River hot chocolate plant. Sillycow Farms produces about 2 million bottles a year of its flavored hot chocolate mixes and is one of the biggest employers in town, writes John Lippman in the Valley News. The plant was destroyed in a fire early Tuesday morning, burning so thoroughly that by the time crews were done, says Newbury Fire Chief Jeff Morin, there was only "twisted metal remaining." Processing and packaging are being transferred to plants in NY and CT, along with a few employees to oversee production. For the others, the company is providing bonuses to get through the holidays.Thetford gets an interim police chief. Thetford native and longtime patrol officer Michael Scruggs will replace outgoing police chief Michael Evans on Jan. 2, town manager Bryan Gazda announced earlier this week. In Sidenote, Nick Clark writes that Scruggs hopes to continue Evans' tradition of being a presence at the town's schools. “I have seen and heard how Chief Evans’ involvement has played a role for our kids, schools, and families just by his time at school," he says. "It’s amazing how much difference consistent interaction can make.”Hartland man donates kidney to long-lost niece's son. Dan Hamel was adopted as a baby, writes Colin Flanders in Seven Days, but eventually found his biological siblings. So when Vickie Foster, his sister's daughter, posted on Facebook that her nine-year-old son desperately needed a kidney, Hamel got in touch—even though they didn't know one another. It turned out he was a perfect match, and the transplant took place in October. His grand-nephew, who hadn't grown in two years, "suddenly has an appetite again," Flanders writes. "There's no words that describe what this did for me," says Hamel.SPONSORED: Experienced interior designers wanted. Sargent Design Company would like to add both a Senior Interior Designer and a Mid-Level Interior Designer to our team. We are a Vermont-based architecture and interior design firm. Our current clients include a 5-Star resort, Yellowstone Club residence, Coast of Maine compound, and many family retreats in New England. Full job listing for the senior designer here, and for the mid-level designer here. We look forward to hearing from you! Sponsored by Sargent Design Company.Dartmouth nixes most spectators at games. The move comes "with the best interests of our student-athletes and staff—as well as the broader community—in mind," interim athletic director Peter Roby says. It will last at least through Jan. 18 and perhaps longer if campus restrictions remain in place. Though a limited number of athletes' and coaches' guests will be allowed in, depending on the venue, sporting events will not be open to the general public. People who've paid for tickets through Jan. 18 can get a refund.Canaan officer had the ability to delete dash cam videos. Damien Fisher reports in InDepthNH that a 2019 Grafton County Sheriff's investigation—obtained through a right-to-know request—found that Samuel Provenza, the former town police officer accused of assaulting a woman during a traffic stop, had access beyond his rank to the computer system. Provenza has said that his camera malfunctioned, which is why there is no recording of the stop. The report found that while there is no evidence video was deleted, the camera had video from the day before and the day after, but not the day of the incident.Happy Birthday! Susan Apel's newsletter, Artful, is turning two, and while it may seem that most of that time was a pandemic blur, her look back is a reminder that a lot happened on the Upper Valley cultural scene. Theaters adapted, as did AVA and Opera North; restaurants moved, opened, closed, and took to the streets; the Hood came back; the Lebanon tunnel became a thing... And through it all, Artful grew from a few hundred to 1,500 subscribers and as many as 4,000 readers for each post. That is something to celebrate!NH superior courts pause jury trials. “We are pausing jury trials because, in part, of the difficulty in managing a juror population who are increasingly having to drop out because of sickness or exposure and the unique challenges these proceedings entail," superior court Chief Justice Tina Nadeau in a press release yesterday. Trials that involve juries will be on hold throughout the state for all of January and are scheduled to begin again in February "if the rate of COVID-19 infections decreases substantially."Once again, NH Exec Council denies funding to family planning health clinics. The 4-1 party-line vote came despite the fact that an audit by the state shows that state funds were not being used to fund abortions, reports the AP's Holly Ramer. Concern about the possible commingling of funds drove Exec Council Republicans' first "no" vote back in September. “We found that we don’t even pay enough to fund their regular family planning," said health commissioner Lori Shibinette, arguing for a reversal. "We do not subsidize abortion services, and all of the paperwork supports that.”Putting "the fear of God" in NH municipal officials. That seems to be the intent behind a measure moving to the Senate floor in a few weeks, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. It bars towns and cities from imposing firearms regulations on municipal property, allows residents to sue the town if they do so, and gives the governor the ability to remove town officials who lose such a suit. Backers of the bill argue that towns like Portsmouth and Londonderry have been ignoring state authority over firearms regulation. The bill is "intended to be hostile to local government," counters a municipal association official.VT auditor doubts relocated-worker program was that successful. According to a consultant's study, the state's high-profile program to pay moving expenses for remote workers to move to Vermont generated 115 additional jobs, $17.1 million in economic benefits, and $1 million in new taxes, easily paying for itself. But state auditor Doug Hoffer is questioning those figures. “There’s a great deal of speculation and qualifiers in that report," he tells VTDigger's Fred Thys, "which is understandable because there isn’t a lot of hard evidence.”Sort of like one of those vandal-proof mailboxes—only it's a bridge. Officials in Lyndon, VT, have gotten tired of box trucks plowing into the Miller's Run covered bridge as their drivers follow GPS. They've tried flashing lights, but those haven't worked—as the latest crash, on Monday, demonstrates. So now they're designing "a steel I-beam structure on both sides of the bridge that would stop trucks in their tracks before trying to fit underneath," reports WCAX. “Our hope is that we have a design that won’t detract from what people see when they go to the bridge to look at it," says town administrator Justin Smith.“It was a legit hazmat situation, but it was gorgeous.” That was the condition in which Brooklyn-based artist and builder Randy Palumbo found the lighthouse he’d just purchased. In NY Mag's Curbed, Wendy Goodman profiles Palumbo's unlikely project: a desolate old lighthouse on a pile of rock off Long Island, barely accessible via fishing-boat ferry. Palumbo enlisted his artist friends to transform the rusty, moldy structure into an otherworldly escape. And it couldn’t be more off-the-grid, with solar panels and a wind turbine, a composting toilet, and a nifty dishwashing system. Oh, and the light still works.A fox is a fox is a fox. Right? While always one of the more magical encounters in nature, especially in winter—a fire-red streak against a snowy backdrop, briefly stoic as its eyes lock with yours before dashing off—you could think all foxes are like that; all foxes are the same. But Roeselien Raimond, featured on My Modern Met, has been photographing foxes for a decade, and unmistakable in her 64 fox portraits are the idiosyncrasies that make each fox unique. Beyond the shapes of their noses and ears or their coloring, their expressions vary wildly, as do the personalities—no two foxes the same.
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If you've got a long Daybreak memory, you may recall Taj Mahal wheeling through New Orleans singing his classic, "Queen Bee." The folks at Playing for Change
with Taj laying the groundwork, joined by Safi Diabaté, Mamadou Diabaté, Jake Shimabakuro, Paula Fuga, Ben Harper, Rosanne Cash, Pancho Amat, and a score of others.
Impossible
to be in a bad mood after that!
(Thanks, KrH!)
See you tomorrow.
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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