Daybreak Thursday, 12/4/25

Snow again. But also partly sunny and getting sharply colder. So… There’s this Arctic cold front coming through, and as it passes it will bring a decent chance of flurries and even snow squalls, what with wind gusts getting up toward 30 mph this afternoon. Then, in its wake, we’ll find much colder air. So temps today will top out in the low 30s by late morning, and then start to drop—and with skies clearing overnight, will get down below 0 just as the world starts stirring tomorrow morning.

Sunset and moonrise. That was a heck of a sky late yesterday and last night, wasn’t it? At the link, a gallery of photographs sent in from all around by Robin Weisburger, Dona Meltzer, Cynthia Crawford, Rob Nahabedian, Jan Sensenich, and Darla Bruno. Thank you to everyone who got out there, took photos, and decided to share them.

Time for Dear Daybreak! After a few weeks’ hiatus, it’s back, with Curt Welling’s blazing dawn photo; Lori Harriman’s belated first visit to Shyrl’s diner in West Leb; Matt Cardillo’s reminiscence about a sign that used to greet drivers along Beaver Meadow Road in Sharon—before the land became a commune; and Neil Castaldo’s unforgettable encounter with a workboot-wearing patron back in the days when he regularly shined shoes for free (tips went to the Haven) in Hanover. If you’ve got something to share, please send it in.

Federal district court turns down DH request for new trial in Misty Blanchette Porter case. You may remember that back in April, a US District Court jury in Burlington awarded $1.125 million in damages to the former DHMC fertility doctor, finding that her 2017 firing had violated disability discrimination law. DH, in turn, challenged the award, contending that the court had made a series of errors, in particular relating to the testimony of a damages expert on Porter’s behalf. In a decision last week, Judge Kevin J. Doyle rejected the hospital system’s arguments—and granted Porter both additional interest of $225K and attorneys fees of over $1 million. DH media relations director Audra Burns writes, “We are assessing our options.”

Get ready to pay more to get rid of your trash. Commercial haulers and 23 towns all over the Upper Valley—along with residents who bring their trash themselves—use the Lebanon Solid Waste Facility. Now, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News, the city plans a set of double-digit rate increases next year in an effort to make the landfill “more financially self-sustaining.” Town transfer stations will be raising sticker fees, and towns that contract with private haulers will see price increases. Towns affected: Canaan, Enfield, Grafton, Hanover, Lyme, Newbury, Orange, Orford, Plainfield, Sutton, and Wentworth in NH, and Bridgewater, Hartford, Hartland, Norwich, Pomfret, Fairlee, Sharon, Strafford, Thetford, Vershire, West Fairlee, and Woodstock in VT.

SPONSORED: Oak Hill Outdoor Center is back and better than ever! Winter’s here and we’ve got world-class skiing right here in the Upper Valley. We've made some great improvements this summer, including a refurbished Top of Oak Hill loop, so get your season pass, or better yet, your Sustainer Pass now, for access to the full 25-kilometer trail system. Help support reliable, accessible skiing for the entire Upper Valley! Sponsored by the Oak Hill Outdoor Center.

Vershire fire destroys house. It broke out yesterday afternoon in the Route 113 home shared byJen Dunham and Fred Eastman, Jr., reports VN photographer James M. Patterson. Despite Eastman’s best efforts to douse the flames with snow, W. Fairlee fire chief Cory Austin tells Patterson, “There was heavy fire on arrival. There was nothing we could do.” The couple lost three pets, but were able to save a fourth. Crews from seven towns around assisted on scene, and firefighters from Orford provided station coverage—only to have to respond to a second fire in their own town right after, at a commercial garage on Dame Hill Road. Eric Francis reports there was heavy smoke and fire out the doors when the first units arrived.

A first-generation student makes her way from West Fairlee to Dartmouth. Ailyn Langley first got interested in the ocean on a Rivendell Academy class trip to the Boston Aquarium, and these days—as a freshman just a few months into her time in college—she’s leaning toward studying it: “I’m headed toward the ocean,” she says in a profile published by VTDigger but paid for by the Vermont Student Assistance Corp. “It’s fascinating and beautiful and I want to be able to look deeper into it.” Langley’s mom died when she was 11; her dad backed her on going to college, but “he wasn’t necessarily well-versed in the college process.” The profile dives into what it took.

SPONSORED: The annual Gingerbread Festival is coming Saturday! From 10 am to 3 pm Saturday, Dec. 6th, The Family Place will host the 23rd annual Gingerbread Festival at Tracy Hall in Norwich. This year's festivities feature our famous gallery and auction of homemade gingerbread houses, children's activities like face painting and cookie decorating, lunch from our Gingerbread Café, and children's items and giveaways from our new Learning Nook. It's a great chance to learn more about Family Place programs and for your family to sign up! Free admission, donations welcome to support children and families in the Upper Valley. Sponsored by The Family Place.

“Honestly, I never really thought that I would win.” When the odds are something like 10,000 to 1, then yeah, winning would be a long shot. So, writes Susan Apel in Artful, it’s spectacular that Morrisville’s Tasha Wallis—who grew up in Norwich—beat thousands of other entries to win the Oct. 27 New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. The weekly competition presents a cartoon in need of a caption, and the magazine’s editors, then readers, choose the funniest submission. (Or, if you’re not the winner, the not-as-funny-as-mine-est.) The subject was easy, Wallis tells Susan. “Squirrels in the hood of a car is a pretty familiar Vermont thing.”

After police try to shut down Black Mountain snowmaking, ski resort and Jackson NH reach agreement. It was announced Monday, and on Tuesday, town residents got to ski for free. But it’s been a long, tense haul. The week before Thanksgiving, police showed up in the middle of the night following an anonymous noise complaint; new owner Erik Mogenson said in a Monday FB post that he refused to close things down. But as Paula Tracy writes in InDepthNH, that was only the latest in a series of exchanges that led Mogenson to bring a federal civil rights suit and the town to cancel a mid-mountain cabin liquor license. Both have now been dropped.

What’s happened with NH’s Education Freedom Account program now that participation has doubled. As Ethan DeWitt reports in NH Bulletin, the state is expected to spend $51.6 million on it this school year, compared to $30.3 million last year. But that’s hardly the only change. With income limits on participation lifted, wealthier families have crowded in and both the share and the absolute number of lower-income students have fallen. Meanwhile, 96.7 percent of recipients this year were already in a private or home school program. DeWitt goes deep into those and other numbers, what they mean, and how politicians are responding.

VT folk and kids musician Jon Gailmor dies at 77. The longtime “staple of the Green Mountain folk scene,” as Seven Days’ Chris Farnsworth puts it, died Sunday in New Orleans, where he’d moved last year to be near family after being diagnosed with leukemia. “Some people are described as larger than life,” his children wrote in a social media post announcing his death. “Our dad was perfectly sized for it. If you had a conversation with him, you felt special, and you left the conversation knowing you were heard and seen.” He went out, they said, listening to his own song, “Gonna Die with a Smile if it Kills Me.”

The story of how a recipe went from closely held secret to freely shared gift. Zabby & Elf’s Stone Soup, in Burlington, sells around 1,000 chicken wings a week, and for good reason, writes Melissa Pasanen in Seven Days. The “sticky skin bronzed to the edge of burnt sugar and fall-off-the-bone tender meat” is a riff on a recipe that co-owner Tim Elliott—let’s just say it—quietly filched years ago from his boss, Jerry Weinberg, at the Five Spice Café, which had a legion of devoted fans. Weinberg was not keen on revealing recipes, but Elliott gladly makes his available to all. “No one owns a recipe,” he says. “I’ll give mine away freely, and I’ll also take your ideas.” 

Okay, that diving board’s a little over the top, but so’s the puck in the net, the flatbed, the monkey bars… They’re all, mind you, part of a snowboard obstacle course. But not the usual kind. Sebastien Toutant, who grew up boarding in Québec’s often less-than-ideal conditions, took gold in the first Olympic men’s big air event in 2018 and is a multiple XGames medal winner. He also likes to construct his own obstacle courses at ski areas—or, at least, he’s done it twice, first on his home turf, and now out in British Columbia—and then do them in one take. Lots of Red Bull branding on the obstacles, but just ignore it and admire the artistry. And creativity.

Time for MidiBreak! Crossword constructor extraordinaire Laura Braunstein is back with a slightly longer Upper Valley-themed puzzle than Tuesday’s. And, ahem, if you can’t get 1 Across and 4 Across, we need to talk.

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:

HEADS UP
At Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon, “A Little Lunch Music” with Jeremiah McLane and Eric Boodman. The trad masters (with McLane on accordion and Boodman on fiddle) will perform French Canadian music for listeners looking for a lunch break. Noon to 1 pm, no charge.

The Forest History Society presents an online webinar, “Aldo Leopold & the Land Ethic: The Archival Record and Resources to Dig Deeper into the Making of A Sand County Almanac". As they write, “becoming a classic doesn’t happen overnight; it requires great writing, and often a few twists of fate. Buddy Huffaker of the Aldo Leopold Foundation will discuss Leopold’s writing and publishing journey as well as the online archival resources that are available for doing your own deep dive into the making of an American classic.” 1 pm, and you’ll need to register.

The Lebanon winter farmers market in the Powerhouse Mall. It runs from 4 pm to 7 pm “in a cozy space,” as the market writes.

Za’atar plays the Rumney Sessions at Fable Farm in Barnard. The VT trio (Craig Macrae on oud, Valerie Ritter on violin and viola, and Will Wright onframe drums) draw broadly from Arabic and Turkish music—mainstream Arabic popular and movie music, Anatolian folk traditions, modern interpretations of Ottoman classical music, and more. Doors, food, and drink start up at 5:30, music at 6-ish.

Balla Kouyaté and Mamadou Diabaté at the Claremont Creative Center. As the W. Claremont Center for Music and the Arts writes, the two “powerhouse” balafon players have joined forces with “two differently tuned African balafons—one from Burkina Faso and one from Mali—[performing] together in harmony.” 6:30 pm.

Shaker Bridge Theatre’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise opens at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ. Playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor) is known for his clever, comedic writing, but in this case, the subject is close to his heart: his parents’ courtship via letter, their only way to communicate as his future mom, a chorus girl and aspiring actress in NYC, corresponds with Jack, a doc stationed at an Army hospital in Medford, Oregon during WWII who sometimes gets shipped out to tend to the wounded in the Pacific theater. Stars Tommy Crawford and Allie Seibold. 7 pm tonight, runs Thursdays-Sundays through Dec. 21.

Peter and Wendy opens at Northern Stage. If you don’t have tickets yet, you should know that the show’s sold out into next week; seats from next Thursday on are scarce but definitely available. Eric Love’s adaptation sets the Peter Pan story in 1999 NYC, makes a variety of changes to the traditional story, and emerged after intense collaboration between Love and an ensemble of actors—more than a dozen kids, three Dartmouth students, and six adults.

Classicopia launches a weekend of “Four Hand Holiday”. Holiday favorites, from jazzy versions of carols to the Nutcracker to “White Christmas”, with Dan Weiser and Philip Liston-Kraft in a “virtuosic ballet of twenty fingers on a single piano.” 7:30 tonight at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, same time tomorrow at Windsor’s Old South Church, 2 pm Saturday at the WRJ home of Andrew Bauman, 2 pm Sunday at Court Street Arts in Haverhill, and 6 pm Sunday in Contoocook.

And anytime, JAM’s got this week’s highlights for you: There’s cartoonists and graphic novelists Alison Bechdel and Tillie Walden both presenting their work and in conversation with one another at the Center for Cartoon Studies a couple of weeks ago; the Briggs Opera House performance of Michael Bodel’s “The Institute for Folding”, his dance work told through movement, language, live sound, and 30 sheets of cardboard; and Berkay Ezdesir’s tour around CraftStudies’ 2025 Bowlfest, its highly popular annual food-and-bowls fundraiser.

And for today...

Grecia Alban, the singer and composer from Cotopaxi, Ecuador, who blends the sounds of the forest, Ecuadorian roots music, and a contemporary musical sensibility into a lush soundscape. Here’s “Maru”.

See you tomorrow.

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