GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A quiet day, mostly cloudy, mid 40s. It's the re-start of our warming trend, with air moving in from the south and bringing warmer temps over the next few days. We'll see more clouds than sun, with overnight lows dropping to around 30 or the upper 20s. And hey, if you're planning to catch the "blood moon" eclipse tonight, you've got a fighting chance: Clouds start to clear around 1 am, eclipse lasts 2:26 a.m. — 3:31 a.m.The drip and the flow: early spring ice two ways.
For starters, there's Peter Nestler's photo of melting icicles hanging from the eave of the LISTEN building in WRJ—taken with a shutter speed of1/2433 to capture the drips.
And then there's Sharon Wight's photo of Bicknell Brook in Enfield, taken after last week's rain. "The water covered the ice and made some really cool patterns—almost like the sand patterns seen through the clear water in the summer," she writes.
Time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of submissions from readers, Rose Loving looks ahead just a bit and describes the "murky month" of March; Jennie Chamberlain is taken by a beautifully designed bench that appeared at a bus stop in Hanover and wonders what it would take to make them a thing; and Steve Becker shows us what it means to bring spoons back as a rhythm section: to Dire Straits, Lady Gaga, Outkast, and a lot more.Sunapee voters reject town budget and more from NH town meetings. The $11.03 million budget went down Tuesday 516 against to 494 in favor, reports the Valley News; they also rejected three of 11 zoning changes, but backed adding $200K to the town's boat launch repair reserve fund. Elsewhere, Charlestown voters narrowly rejected a bid to shrink the selectboard to three members, and Lyme voters approved changing town meeting to two sessions, one for ballot voting for town officers, and a floor meeting for other business. VN roundup at the link.SPONSORED: "I can't really imagine life without it.” Running, skiing, yoga—staying active isn’t just a hobby for Lisa Miller, it’s how she connects with the world. So when injuries and pain stacked up, she sought answers, not limits. “I don’t think it’s realistic to hear, ‘Don’t do anything for months.'” Instead, she sought out a new way forward, back to doing what she loves. Full story at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy. Bar Harbor Bank will acquire Woodsville Guaranty Savings Bank. In a press release Tuesday, the two banks announced the merger—Bar Harbor will take control of the smaller bank for about $41.6 million in stock. Woodsville, founded in 1889, operates nine branches in northwestern NH. As Alex Nuti-de Biasi notes in the Journal Opinion newsletter, "Over the last decade, Bar Harbor absorbed People's United in Maine and Lake Sunapee Bank in New Hampshire. The latter move came five years after Lake Sunapee had purchased Randolph National Bank.The gift of staghorn sumac. Their "acidity, hairiness, and low flesh-to-seed ratio mean that animals do not favor them and often leave them alone through the winter," writes Northern Woodlands' Jack Saul. But because they stay on the tree year-found, at some point deer, squirrels, and some 300 species of birds turn to them as an emergency food source; humans, can, too, (spit out the fruits) for hydration and a hit of tanginess. Also out there this second week of March: willow galls and the swelling buds of red elderberry.SPONSORED: Great teachers and leaders are the heart of great schools. Interested in starting or advancing a career as a teacher, literacy specialist, or educational leader? Attend an information session or set up an appointment, read about one of our alumni who is now a mentor for our program, or use the burgundy link for general information. Sponsored by Upper Valley Educators Institute.NH voters show little taste for capping per-pupil spending. For the first time this year, reports NHPR's Annmarie Timmins, a new law allowed the state's citizens to propose caps for their school districts—but in the seven where they were on the ballot Tuesday (Brookline, ConVal, Epping, Epsom, Salem, Thornton, and Weare), they failed to clear the three-fifths majority needed—in most, by a wide margin. Even so, GOP Rep. Ross Berry took the results in Weare, at least, as a "win," pointing out that the measure drew 49.3 percent of the vote. "I think we will see success in a few years," he says.A look ahead at Kelly Ayotte's priorities. They're contained in the “trailer” bill to her budget plan, and as the x's Steven Porter writes in the Morning Report newsletter, the bill contains 102 proposed policy changes. Front and center: bail reform. But also, he writes, expanding eligibility for Education Freedom Account school vouchers, prohibiting in-school cellphone use by students, legalizing video slots, charging premiums to some Medicaid recipients, and modifying pension benefits for first responders. The House is expected to finish the two-year budget April 10; then it goes to the Senate.The beating heart of the village—how VT’s general stores stay alive. Running a general store is tough, what with aging buildings, price pressure, long hours, and low pay. But VT's 70 remaining general stores are finding ways to thrive in today’s landscape. The staff at Seven Days fanned out to seven of them, from “Vermont’s longest running store” in Jericho to soon-to-open stores in Johnson and Elmore, about what’s working (volunteers, a community trust, tourist trinkets) and how the stores’ traditional role in the community is as important as ever. "They're one of the last great egalitarian places we have."Seven decades of Earth photos … from space. You may want to get dinner ready before getting lost in NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. It’s a massive database of 1.8 million images, taken from various missions and the ISS, writes Rebecca McPhee on ExplorersWeb. Plug in a topic—volcanoes, say—and up come 7,198 photos of Sicily, Tanzania, Iran. Browse the collections: glaciers, disasters, mission highlights. “This is so much more than a collection of amazing photos,” writes McPhee. The work aids scientific studies and tracks environmental and human-caused changes.The Thursday Wordbreak. With a five-letter word from yesterday's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
Daybreak tote bags! Thanks to a helpful reader's suggestion. Plus, of course, the usual: sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, 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!
At the Norwich Bookstore, Terry Lovelette and Down-Back: Personal Essays and Poetic Thoughts from a Good Ole Boy.
Lovelette, who lives in St. Albans and is an avid hiker, has created a series of reflections on "coming of age in a time when lack of digital media—yet more exposure to nature and real community—shaped our values, senses of awareness and conscious being." 7 pm.
Dower, an ultrarunner, accomplished that feat last September after running all 2,189 miles of trail and 465,000 feet of vertical gain in 40 days, 18 hours, and 6 minutes. She'll be sharing stories from that experience, lessons learned, and "what this feat means to her and for women in endurance sports." 7 pm.
: a video about artist Laura di Piazza's exhibit at JAM of collages of and hand-lettered quotes by Black American Leaders, including Shirley Chisholm, June Jordan, James Baldwin, and Octavia Butler; a Bugbee Talk by Kasey March the role of an end-of-life doula; and a conversation at the White River Indie Film festival featuring director Vera Drew after WRIF's secret screening of Drew’s then in "legal limbo" film
The People's Joker
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Today's greenery and root vegetables... er, music...
It's not like the Vienna-based Vegetable Orchestra had a lot of competition, but last week
that the band "has performed 344 concerts on their veggies, officially becoming the uncontested record holders for most concerts by a vegetable orchestra." Members come from musical backgrounds of all sorts, Guinness notes. "You can make music out of nearly everything, each thing contains a very specific acoustic quality and represents an intricate universe of sound,” one member said. “Each thing could be a tool to open up that point of view.”
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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