RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warmer. We start the day in the 30s, then climb into the upper 60s—or maybe even to 70—as calm winds from the south start up this afternoon. The pleasantness lasts all day, until clouds arrive ahead of a warm front moving in from the west, which will also bring showers overnight. Lows in the high 40s.Loons, great blue herons, geese sorting out differences, a couple of beaver families... Newbury VT photographer Ian Clark has been back on the ponds he frequents up his way, and as you'd expect as spring really gets underway, there's a lot going on. The loons have settled in, lots of ducks have been around, the great blues have been busy being majestic, beavers young and old have been snacking on sticks, and the geese... well, they've been causing a rumpus. Ian photographs it all for his latest blog post.Time for Dear Daybreak! In this week's collection of items from readers, Ros Seidel details the end of the winter's last snowman; Robin Dellabough discovers that it takes a village of library users to liberate a drink from a vending machine; and Jack Sammons contemplates a lone Ompompanoosuc frog, calling for a mate. And if you've got an anecdote or a memory or a reflection to share, please do send it in!Mass exodus from the Bradford VT fire department. The sudden resignations of ten firefighters came during a meeting Tuesday night at which Chief Ryan Terrill announced the selectboard had demoted him last week, reports Emma Roth-Wells in the Valley News. The departures leave Bradford with just four firefighters on the roster. "As we have lost the trust of the Selectboard and they have treated us like dirt, I’m resigning, effective immediately," one firefighter said. Roth-Wells recaps the tense meeting.
Yesterday morning, the board held an emergency meeting to name Tony Stockman as interim chief. At a press conference later, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan, selectboard chair Meroa Benjamin told reporters that town officials are seeking more oversight of the volunteer department. Among the issues Benjamin cited: “Communication issues, inadequate training, meeting required standards for equipment and record keeping."
Federal judge releases Mohsen Mahdawi from detention. At a hearing in Burlington yesterday, US District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said he'd heard no compelling reason for the federal government to continue holding Mahdawi, reports VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein. Crawford added that he believed the “shocking” allegations made by a gun shop owner and contained in a 2015 Windsor police report cited by the feds were “in large part fabricated.” He ruled that Mahdawi is free to live in VT and continue his studies at Columbia while a separate deportation case continues in immigration court.West Leb's Brown Furniture locks its doors. “I owe a lot of money to people,” owner Brad Nelson tells the Valley News's John Lippman. “People are going to be livid and screaming.” After sales fell in 2024, Nelson says, manufacturers began demanding full payment before shipment. Facing cash problems, the store built up a backlog of customers waiting months for their furniture—one of whom took to social media this week, drawing "scores of comments" from people in similar positions, Lippman reports. Nelson vows he'll "do everything in my power to make sure that everybody gets taken care of."SPONSORED: Real-life MadLibs at the Hood Museum. Head over to the Hood Museum in Hanover to participate in “ArtLibs”. You can use our app to interpret selected artwork, see how others view the same pieces, and unlock your personalized "art interpretation style" (and get paid!). Simply download the ArtLibs app (available on all iOS devices) and it will guide your museum visit once you’re there. Reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions, want to borrow an iPad, or schedule a related group activity. Download the app here. Sponsored by the Finn Lab at Dartmouth."It's not every day that we get to play revisionist history with our middle-school gym class experience." But on Wednesday evenings in Lebanon, Frances Mize reports for Daybreak, you can—at the Adult Lebanon Drop-in Dodgeball League. In her newest slice-of-Upper-Valley-life audio piece, she says, "As far as I could see it was free of the brutalities of how I remember middle-school dodgeball." Started by a group of Timken Aerospace engineers, it's attracted doctors, softball coaches, newcomers, a cartoonist—anyone, really, looking for connection while ducking a tough throw.On "the state of farming, and where food comes from, and how food gets from the land to plates.” Nope, not a report. A musical. The Vermont Farm Project debuts at Northern Stage next week, and in American Theatre, Celia Wren talks to its creators—composer/lyricist Tommy Crawford, book writer Jessica Kahkoska, and director Sarah Wansley—and to some of the farmers the team interviewed, including Sweetland's Norah Lake and Newmont Farm's Paco Mendoza. The play, Wren writes, will cover everything from crisis and soul-searching to battling woodchucks and convincing people to try kohlrabi.SPONSORED: Friends & Family Night at King Arthur Baking Company. On Thursday May 8, from 4 to 7pm, join King Arthur Baking for an evening of springtime fun! We're staying open late with 25 percent off in our retail store, tasty samples in the demo kitchen, and the kickoff to our Summer Dinner Series at King Arthur — burger night runs from 4:30 to 7. Plus, enjoy live music from the Andrew Brozek Duo while you shop, snack, and enjoy the festivities. No reservations required. Sponsored by King Arthur Baking.Point of order! Yesterday's item about the sale of the Istanbul Kebab House—sister restaurant to WRJ's Tuckerbox—got one small detail wrong: It's not the building that's for sale, but the restaurant business and its assets. As Seven Days' fantastic food writer (and the author of the piece at the link) Melissa Pasanen points out, few restaurant owners can afford to own the building they're in—especially in Burlington.NH State Police ink immigration-check agreement with ICE. Last week, reports Rebeca Pereira in the Concord Monitor, the feds approved the state agency's bid to join a program that lets local and state police exercise limited immigration authority after completing 40 hours of training. Participating officers can make arrests "for immigration violations uncovered during traffic stops and other routine encounters," Pereira writes. “New Hampshire will not go the way of Massachusetts, where sanctuary policies have enabled violent crime and a billion-dollar illegal immigrant crisis,” said Gov. Kelly Ayotte in a press release. Now here's a fun job! "To get a better understanding of what’s in New Hampshire’s trash, workers hand-sorted more than 250 samples of garbage around the state and visually surveyed hundreds more," reports NH Bulletin's Claire Sullivan. The study found that while 41.5 percent of the trash surveyed was not recyclable, the rest included materials "that were commonly targeted in recycling programs (14.6%), recyclable through special collection (11.5%), potentially recyclable (8.1%), and recyclable organics (24.3%), such as food waste." Sullivan looks at the study and at recycling education programs.Norwich University students charged in marijuana heist. The pair, both from Florida, are accused of stealing over $30,000-worth of cannabis from Off Piste Farm, a grower in Sutton, VT, reports Andrew McGregor in the Caledonian-Record. The pot, stolen April 17, was found by Norwich U students and reported to police. "Multiple tips and security footage from local businesses" helped identify one of the students; the other turned himself in.Behind the scenes as the VT legislature grapples with education reform: the lobbyists. In a part-time citizen legislature without much staff, writes Hannah Bassett in Seven Days, lobbyists are crucial sources of knowledge and expertise. But they're also advocates—in this case, for everything from school boards and district superintendents to private schools, rural schools, and teachers. Bassett takes a deep look at their role in the maneuvering between the legislature and Phil Scott's administration to craft the future of schools and education funding, and how they've helped shape where things stand now.VTDigger names new editor-in-chief. Geeta Anand began her career at the Cape Cod News, moved on to the Rutland Herald and then to the Boston Globe as City Hall bureau chief, won a Pulitzer at the WSJ then spent a decade reporting from India—where she was born—for both the Journal and the NYT, and ultimately served a stint as dean of the UC Berkeley journalism school. She takes over July 1, the nonprofit announced yesterday, replacing Paul Heintz, who left in February to go back to reporting."She sounds ill-prepared to deliver the news and stumbles over her words." That blunt feedback came to VT Public's Mary Engisch after a mild case of Covid knocked her off her game—only the cause wasn't Covid, she eventually learned. It was that she's autistic. In a deeply personal piece of both reflection and reporting, she and three other Vermonters who discovered as adults that they're autistic talk about it: how the combined stress of trying to fit in and carry on everyday life eventually became too much, how to disclose their discovery, and about what autism is—not the stereotypes, but who they are.“As civilization fell away, we prayed that we would not meet the now-clichéd fate of so many horror movie characters.” Off to discover America’s best road food in the '80s, Jane and Michael Stern were also drawn to the eccentric attractions along the country's backroads. In The Paris Review, Jane reminisces about the Rare Fur-Bearing Trout, 800 Used Oil Rags, and her favorite, Nash Dinoland in South Hadley, MA. It’s sad, she writes, that fewer families take road trips, screens draw our attention, and we no longer have “time to take a breath, to pause, to step inside someone else’s strange dream.”The Thursday Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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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!
Harvard Jewish Studies prof Derek Penslar and Hebrew University sociologist Yael Berda will talk over whether Zionism is a colonial movement and look at how Israel, India, and Cyprus—all former British colonies—have evolved. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
The bluegrass band's core first met 48 years ago today, at a jam session in Enfield. For five years or so after, as co-founder Jay Boucher writes, "we tore it up all over the Upper Valley (and beyond)." Over the decades since, they've kept it up at a regular Thursday jam, and tonight they're throwing a benefit concert and tale-telling session for the Enfield Shaker Museum. The bash starts at 6 pm.
Brett Story and Stephen Maing's 2024 documentary follows a group of current and former Amazon warehouse workers on Staten Island as they organize to become the first unionized Amazon site in the country. The grit and grind of organizing are on full display, with both internal dissension and Amazon's anti-union campaign. 7 pm in the Loew Auditorium, and Story will be on hand to talk about it afterward.
The chamber covers Fairlee, Bradford, Newbury, Orford, Piermont, Haverhill, and nearby towns and the slam starts tomorrow. As they write: "No special ability required. Just be willing to work as a team (team size is whatever you want) to write, film, edit and turn in a seven minute long film" over 48 hours. There's a student category, as well. Screening Sunday at Bradford Academy.
Time to swing into the day.
With Swingueando, a Spanish quintet based in Burgos that's devoted to French "gypsy" jazz and in particular the music of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grapelli.
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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