GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
*Sigh*. Last night's snow was nice. The warming trend today, not so nice. The result: a "messy storm system." The upshot at the moment is that what started as all snow will turn into snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain later today. There are two low pressure systems involved, and the National Weather Service says that "small scale changes in the strength and/or track of either low could have relatively big impacts in precipitation type and amounts," so we'll see what actually happens. Highs today in the mid 30s, mid teens overnight. The morning commute could be interesting. Here's projected snow and ice:
Crystallized water two ways.
From away up high, in Rick Karash's drone's-eye view of a frozen Eastman Lake;
And from right up close, in Hugh Mellert's view of snow crystals preserved on his deck railing in Hanover. "As soon as the sun shone on them," he writes, "they transpired."
It's time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of readers' posts about life in the Upper Valley, Elizabeth Nestler's got a tale about a long-tailed weasel and its unplanned car ride on dump day; Danny Dover and Austin Brose bring us barred owls, one in verse, one in pixels; and Lori Harriman points us to an ongoing, day-by-day YouTube reading of a Hanover girl's 100-year-old-to-the-day diary. "Went out for basketball today per usual," she wrote on Feb. 10, 1925. "We have to go to Lebanon to play Friday of this week. If we win any game again it will be this one." Got your own story? Send it in!In a divided Cornish, library's future still uncertain. Remember how, just a few weeks ago, the group hoping to convert the former Cornish General Store into a new library and community center got a $727K grant that pushed them much closer to the $2.6 million they need? Well, not so fast. On the agenda at town meeting this year, reports Patrick O'Grady in the Valley News, voters will find an article to rescind their 2023 decision to accept the store as a gift. The politics, as you'd expect, are complicated: O'Grady explains the concerns driving the move—and why plans for a new library are still marching ahead.In Hartford, a debate over how to pick who's a Hartford Hero. The veterans and first responders honored by those banners around town last fall were chosen by a private banner committee, and as Christina Dolan writes in the VN, one of them turned out to be a Wilder resident (now dead) who served time for embezzling from a widow in Bethel. His banner most likely won't be displayed again this summer, and the committee will discuss the vetting process, committee chair Dennis Brown tells Dolan. Even so, Selectboard Vice Chair Kim Souza is pressing for more oversight.SPONSORED: Great teachers and leaders are the heart of great schools. The Upper Valley Educators Institute partners with school communities to engage, inspire, and challenge educators, developing their ability to make classrooms and schools places where all people belong and thrive. Participate in our graduate-level licensure and degree programs, join us in conversation about current topics in education, or explore other ways of supporting our work. Register for an information session this spring or use the burgundy link for general information. Sponsored by Upper Valley Educators Institute."I get to build winter, make winter, for families and kids." WCVB Boston's Chronicle was just in Hanover and Lebanon—"As fresh snow blankets the enchanting New England town of Hanover, New Hampshire, life bustles with charm and vigor..."—and made three stops: at Lou's, where they talked with owner Jarret Berke and longtime server Sarah Schneider and the camera ogled the baked goods; at Storrs Hill, where Cory Grant, president of the Lebanon Outing Club rhapsodized about what the hill offers; and the Hood Museum, where director John Stomberg talked over the Cara Romero exhibit and more.West Leb Joann Fabrics slated to close. The craft and fabric chain announced yesterday that it's closing "approximately 500" of its 850-odd locations. The retailer filed for bankruptcy in January—for the second time in less than a year. State-by-state list at the link, thanks to WCAX, and the 12A store is on it. No closure date announced yet.This second week of February is all about ice. Not just in the photos up top, but in Northern Woodlands' "This Week in the Woods", where Jack Saul highlights a juvenile bald eagle dining on a deer carcass (they prefer their meals fresh, he points out, but "carrion factors prominently in their winter diets"; a river otter's tracks across a pond in W. Fairlee; the zipper pattern of mouse tracks in Sugar Hill; and the colors given to icicles by minerals leached from the ground on wooded cliffsides. Also, did you know that under the right conditions, an icicle can grow a centimeter per minute?And why winter is hard on barred owls. They're "ambush predators, perching and pouncing," writes Ted Levin on his Another Morning in Paradise blog. But in a snowy winter, prey—squirrels, mice, voles—abandons the surface to move around around beneath it. "In an average winter, approximately thirty percent of first-year barred owls survive. If the winter is harsh, the percentage is lower," Ted writes. "In other words, the prey controls the predator, not vice versa. For an owl to wait above an area empty of mice would be like me waiting for a table outside a closed restaurant."NH, too, suspends EV charger program. The state was due about $17 million from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which has been paused by the Federal Highway Administration. Some $4.5 million has been obligated by the state for four charging stations, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian, and that work—apparently planned for locations in Tilton, North Woodstock, Sanbornville and Rochester, Hoplamazian says—will be allowed to continue. Requests to draw on the remaining $12.5 million will be rejected.The debate over whether out-of-state college students in NH should be able to vote there. Ethan DeWitt's piece in NH Bulletin starts with Dartmouth sophomore Will Nelson, who grew up in North Dakota and came to Hanover in part to experience town meeting democracy. But he's still got his ND driver's license, and three bills in the legislature would strip him of the right to vote here—two would require in-state licenses or non-student ID, and the third would bar someone from claiming residency if they're a dependent of someone living out of state. DeWitt looks at the arguments behind and against the moves.VT's low flu vaccination rate worries its health commissioner—because of bird flu. Right now, Mark Levine told legislators this week, the risk of widespread human infection from bird flu is low, because people have been getting the virus from farm animals; there's no evidence of person-to-person spread. But Levine has a worst-case scenario, reports VT Public's Lexi Krupp: someone sick with human flu gets bird flu, genes mingle, and suddenly bird flu gets supercharged. The normal flu vaccine would limit the supply of people sick with human flu, but “we have a frankly lousy vaccination rate,” he says."Their careers are finished": USAID cuts hit Vermont contractors hard. Though it's hardly a major part of the state's economy, "plenty of people in Vermont have had roles in the delivery of international aid," writes Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days. And lots of them have just become unemployed, she reports, based on interviews with former staffers and firms based in the state or with offices there. She details layoffs at not just aid consultants, but affecting at least one medical software startup studying technology in Nigeria. "I had no idea it would change on a dime, so drastically," says one consultant.“If this is your first time winter camping and you are not being led by a polar explorer …” Luckily for Jessie Van Berkel, she was following experienced alpinist (and polar explorer) Lonnie Dupre when she trekked across Otter Lake in Minnesota to try winter camping for the second time. (The first didn’t go so well.) In The Minnesota Star Tribune, Van Berkel describes how Dupre coached her on gear winnowing, site selection (tip: pitch your tent on a lake), and the joys of camping in the frozen months when no one else is out there. “You will need more firewood than you think. Also, keep moving.”Einstein ring. The astronomy world is agog, and with good reason. As Reynier Squillace writes for ExplorersWeb, "Albert Einstein predicted in 1912 that massive objects should bend light as it passes through their gravitational field... When Russian physicist Orest Khvolson posited that in rare cases, the bending of light would create a halo effect, Einstein acknowledged this but wrote, 'Of course, there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly.' Einstein, for once, was wrong." And the European Space Agency's got the photo to prove it.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
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!
Sharlet probably needs no introduction: Dartmouth writing prof, Enthusiasms contributor, deep-dive reporter, author of
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.
Gaydos' first book,
Pig Years,
a memoir about working as a farmhand in NY and VT—and raising pigs as a side hustle—was a
New Yorker
best book of the year for 2022. 4:30 pm.
We'll just let them explain it: "Distinguished 2025 Canada Fulbright Research Chair in Arctic Studies Dr. Kathy Snow will share research conducted with Inuit educators on factors impacting choices to lead (or not) in educational spaces in the Inuit homelands." Put another way: Why are there so few Inuit education leaders in Inuit communities? 4:30 pm, Haldeman 41.
Until April.
Things start up with #PitchFest at the Briggs Opera House at 5:30 pm, and continue through Sunday with films, workshops and masterclasses, parties, and lots more, focused on both global and local films and filmmakers. Full schedule at the link.
The Norwich Historical Society is back with Zoom programs about the town. For tonight's: "Then and now photos are always so much fun. Take a trip down Main Street and see how much has actually stayed the same." You'll need to register (and they wouldn't't turn down a contribution). 6:30 pm.
At the Orford Social Library, Paul and Althea Goundrey share their experiences as volunteers at the top of the iconic mountain. 6:30 pm.
Shiori Ito's 2024 documentary "unfolds" like a thriller, but it's actually a film laying out the course of her own experiences after she went public in May, 2017 with a rape allegation against a prominent journalist and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's biographer. Alternately assailed and hailed by politicians, subject to death threats and cyberbullying, she persisted in a landmark civil case, al charted in the film. 7 pm.
Part of the Come As You Are film series, with live piano accompaniment by composer and celebrated silent-film accompanist Bob Merrill. Chaplin, as his beloved tramp, falls in love with a blind flower girl who's about to be evicted from her home. Free, 7 pm.
. "There is no tale so tall that I cannot tell it, nor song so sweet that I cannot sing it," he once said, and that sounds about right. The great blues veteran, two-time Grammy nominee, actor, and author (and son of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis) has a pile of albums, collaborations, and stories-as-songs to his name. 7:30 pm, you'll need to call for reservations.
And for today...
The Norwalk, CT-based jam band Goose (you may have heard a snippet of this as the Super Bowl went to commercials)
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 Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob 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!