GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A quiet, partly to mostly cloudy day. Temps will again get into the mid 30s or a bit higher, but it's looking like we'll have less sun than we did yesterday. High pressure's headed this way, though, and clouds will part a bit overnight—with nighttime temps dropping accordingly into the mid-20s.So much drama in a single frame. On Tuesday, this hawk—either a sharp-shinned or a Cooper's—spent 10 minutes hanging out in a tree in Dan Poor's yard in Cornish before heading over to the birdfeeder. Where a woodpecker had been holding stock still. The entire time. "When the hawk exited to the right," Dan writes, "the woodpecker took off to the left."A last VT town meeting roundup. The Valley News's reporters continued to compile results yesterday and now have them available for every town in the region that voted (Vershire's meeting in May, Woodstock Village 3/21)—including Randolph's decision to reject funding to reestablish its police department, Windsor's to rehab its municipal buildings, Bethel's okay of retail cannabis, and more. In addition, the paper's writers fanned out to give the feel of the debate in several towns:
John Lippman captured a tense moment in Barnard as a longtime resident took townspeople to task for how he feels they've treated him and his family;
Alex Hanson evoked Strafford's torn feelings as it decided to end its traditional floor meeting;
And Frances Mize caught the flavor of the debate as Chelsea and Tunbridge tackled whether to add pre-K to their schools.
What happens when you play in the snow. Last week, About Norwich blogger Demo Sofronas asked his readers to send in photos of the sculptures they'd built with all the new-fallen snow what seems like just a moment ago. "I thought it would be good to get out and enjoy the winter weather and make something for all to view and enjoy," he explained. And there they are: forts, a cat, a dragon...even something like a regulation snowperson.SPONSORED: Broaden your horizons! Please consider joining Adventures in Learning, a welcoming and intellectually stimulating community of lifelong learners at Colby-Sawyer College. Courses are engaging and fun, open to all, and require no prerequisites. Our courses reflect the diverse passions and expertise of study leaders and satisfy our curious minds. Registration for spring term is open. Meet new friends and neighbors and pursue new interests through AIL! Sponsored by Adventures in Learning.Dartmouth Cancer Center researchers aim to speed up personalized approaches to treatment. They've developed computer algorithms to help untangle the huge amounts of data generated by what's known as "whole exome sequencing," which sequences all 20,000+ genes to get a complete look at a patient’s entire genetic code and allow oncologists to pinpoint better treatments. "The data we get from this sequencing will significantly advance our capabilities in precision medicine," says lead investigator Laura J. Tafe, in the Cancer Center's writeup.Understaffing drives NH to bring in National Guard at state prison for men. For the next 90 days, the state announced yesterday, 18 soldiers and airmen will work in security control room posts at the prison, allowing Department of Corrections guards to work jobs that directly supervise and interact with prisoners. Right now, the department says, the vacancy rate for entry-level corrections officers is at 51 percent department-wide, up from 39 percent a year ago and 29 percent at the start of the pandemic.“There’s a lot of money in this room, and I fear we’re being manipulated." Things got tense at a legislative hearing in Concord Tuesday on a bid to shift decision-making on the siting of energy projects from a decades-old group known as the Site Evaluation Committee to the Public Utilities Commission. As NH Bulletin's Hadley Barndollar writes, attendees worried the public will be shut out of siting decisions. The move is backed by an array of energy interests, including state consumer advocate Don Kreis, who argues the issue needs "a body that is singularly focused on the energy needs of the state as a whole." “It was mush, but it was, like, crunchy mush." That's Sophia Hammond, who's 11 and lives in Plymouth, NH, describing the first batch of oatmeal raisin alt-Girl-Scout cookies she tried baking. As NHPR's Todd Bookman recounts, Hammond has been a Girl Scout half her life—but, inspired by all the negative publicity generated by palm oil, which is used in regulation Girl Scout cookies, she decided to launch her own alternative, offering both the traditional kind and her own to her neighbors. Bookman checked in with the head of the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, who said, "No, I would never sue Sophia."In Middlebury, a first small step in a new effort to help women make the leap from prison to outside life. It's rooted in the idea that while a job and housing are crucial first steps, so is help with everything from transportation to dealing with substance abuse, reports Rachel Hellman in Seven Days. She talks to the first participant in the program, a woman from Rutland who now works in dining services at Middlebury College. "I'm a huge believer, based on the research, that taking a chance on people is worth the effort," says UVM sociology prof Kathy Fox. The program is being led by VT Works for Women.VT sunsets Covid datasets for public use. The state yesterday reported "low" Covid levels, along with the smallest one-day number of patients in the hospital with Covid since last November, reports Erin Petenko in VTDigger. The state health department also tells Petenko that it is going to stop updating and publishing most of the datasets it's been maintaining for public consumption; from now on, the narrower range of data it updates will be available only in its weekly reports."Does it feel like time has stopped and you're free?" That's just one of a cascade of envious reactions to TikToker Mike Hayes' short GoPro video yesterday of a downhill run at an unnamed Vermont mountain (maybe Jay?) in fresh powder and rose-gold light just as the sun was rising over the hill beyond. You get why skiers chase the dawn.That’s it. We’re moving to San Marino. Now there’s a country that knows the value of downtime. It may be tiny (it’s the fifth-smallest country) but it comes in near the top of the list for number of paid vacation days—46—on Visual Capitalist’s world map of paid vacation days by country. (Iran offers more if you add in national holidays.) The U.S. is dang near last, with a paltry 10; only Micronesia has fewer. So if you feel like you’re working all the time, you probably are.The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 6:30 at the Lyme Congregational Church, Northern Woodlands magazine hosts a free concert by composer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Cosgrove.Cosgrove, who's a wanderer officially based in Vermont, has carved out a career writing music that connects place, environment, and sound. "I don’t think of my pieces as ‘rendering places in music,’ but more as responding to places musically,” he told Harvard Magazine a decade ago. “Writing music just happens to be the way I process the world.” In between his pieces this evening, he'll be talking about his creative process and music composition generally.
At 7 pm, there's an online presentation by Savannah Ferreira, a forest health specialist with VT's Agency of Natural Resources, talking about the pests and pathogens that are threatening the region's forests. She'll cover how to identify the Emerald Ash Borer, the Asian Long-horned Beetle, and other forest invasives, as well as offer advice on what to do if you find them. Hosted by the Friends of Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.
Also at 7 this evening, at the Newton School in S. Strafford, David and Ingrid Webb will give a talk and slide presentation about their months of living and volunteering in the highlands of Guatemala. It's part of Strafford's Cabin Fever University—or as CFU likes to call it, the "Institute of Random Learning," an "unpretentious assortment of workshops, classes, and presentations" on everything from travel to, this year, how houses use energy and what metal detectors can uncover in these parts. Events at the link.
Tonight at 7:30 is the last night of pay-what-you-can previews at Northern Stage for Sweat before it officially opens tomorrow night. Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer-winning drama about life in the Rust Belt as manufacturing disappeared was built from extensive interviews in and around Reading, PA, and is mostly set in a downtown bar where factory workers hang out—and grapple with what happens to their lives, friendships, and sense of purpose as massive cuts arrive.
And tonight at 8, Hanover's Sawtooth Kitchen brings Zach Nugent and his frequent collaborator, Daniel Marc, to the stage. Acoustic jams, stories, and more.
And to start the day...
Taj Mahal has a new album coming out next month, a blues-tinged tribute to the classics he heard as a kid—"when all of those people who made those musics were alive and speaking to us through the records,” he says in a release. “Those weren’t just records to collect. Those were like listening to your relatives, your uncles, your cousins, your grandparents speaking to you through that medium, the medium of music.”
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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