GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunny, warmer. High pressure is building in today, and we’ll go from around 50 and partly cloudy to mostly sunny by later this morning, with highs reaching the mid 70s. With clear skies tonight, we’ll be back into the upper 40s overnight.
Now that’s a hole! Last week, Norwich closed down part of Norford Lake Road—which connects to Thetford—to put in a larger culvert. The town’s road crew has been hard at work ever since, and you’ve gotta think that whatever image locals had in mind of the project’s scope, it wasn’t big enough, as Kit Burgin’s photo makes clear. (Thanks EB!)
Ordinarily, this is where you’d find Dear Daybreak on Thursdays. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a weekly, reader-powered look at life in the Upper Valley through anecdotes, reflections, poetry, photos, even the occasional song. Kind of like a scrapbook created by your neighbors—here’s the last one that ran, back at the end of June. But since Daybreak’s been offline for six weeks, Dear Daybreak needs to restock before it can start up again, and that part’s up to you. Got a good story or musing or whatever about life in these parts? We could all use it! Here’s where to send it in.
Early-morning shooting in Hartford Village leaves one dead. Eric Francis reports for Daybreak that around 3:50 this morning, two people were shot during an apparent break-in at a residence overlooking the bridge spanning the White River in Hartford Village. One, he writes, was treated by first responders but died at the scene; a woman was taken to DHMC, where she is expected to survive. Details remain scant at this moment, but police from Hartford, Lebanon, and Windsor were searching for a suspect who reportedly fled on foot toward Mill Road.
Police investigate whether Canaan murder tied to WRJ carjacking. So far, reports John Lippman in the Valley News, the connection is circumstantial. On Saturday afternoon, a woman reported she’d gotten out of her running car momentarily in near the WRJ Co-op Food Store when a man jumped in, brandished a knife, and then drove off. The car was found that night in Canaan. Twenty hours later, the body of William Colao was found with knife and gunshot wounds in his home not far from Goose Pond in Canaan. Lippman also notes that the incidents come two weeks after police sought help identifying a man caught on camera breaking into homes on Goose Pond Road.
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Norwich selectboard sets lower property tax rate after listers finalize grand list "under protest and with reservations.” Overall, reports Emma Roth-Wells in the Valley News, the value of properties in town grew 59 percent, to $1.24 billion, after the first town-wide reappraisal since 2016. But as lister Cheryl Lindberg tells her, arriving at the grand list “has been a haul” after the MA-based firm hired to do the reappraisal was over a year late, made errors in its appraisals, and failed to do interior inspections. At a Tuesday meeting, the selectboard voted to set the municipal portion of the property tax rate at 51 cents per $100 of assessed value, down 18 cents from last year.
“My husband really didn’t want to get a cow. He was like: ‘They’re too big. They’re too smelly.’” And so, as you might suspect from the name of their Hartland spread, Fat Sheep Farm and Cabins, Suzy Kaplan and Todd Heyman got sheep instead. The pair had moved up from the Boston area, and Suzy spent three years working with Cobb Hill’s cheesemakers learning the ropes before striking out on her own with what are now award-winning cheeses. She talks over the rewards and the challenges and the quirks of farm life with the Boston Globe’s Kara Baskin. ”Sheep are a very special animal; people say that they’re born looking for ways to die,” she says.
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Weathersfield man, subject of three-state manhunt, captured in CT. Mason Payne, 23, was being sought by Dover, VT police after a domestic assault Tuesday evening—but when the Windsor sheriff’s department arrived at his home in Weathersfield he’d fled, reports WCAX’s Adam Sullivan. Massachusetts troopers spotted his black Audi on I-91 in Holyoke Tuesday night, but Payne sped off, dragging a trooper (who was uninjured). “Efforts to stop the car, including helicopters, stop sticks and a 100+ mph chase, proved unsuccessful,” Sullivan reports. Last night, police in Stamford, CT found him at a Red Carpet Inn. He was arrested without incident.
“More than a novel, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter is a vibe.” If you’re an astute reader of Enthusiasms, you might have noticed that author and writing prof Peter Orner hasn’t been in the rotation for a while. That’s because he was working on a novel, and it just came out, and it’s been getting glowing reviews, including this one in the NYT (gift link). It’s steeped in the grit of Chicago and in a real-life mystery: the still-unsolved 1963 murder in LA of Karen Kupcinet, the 22-year-old daughter of Sun-Times gossip columnist “Kup” Kupcinet and his wife, Essee. “The novel tempts those prone to Googling,” writes Adam Langer, “but to do so would break its poetic spell.”
Ice climbing in the Mt. Washington Valley turns out to draw 12,000 visitors a year. And inject $6 million into the local economy, reports NHPR’s Kate Dario. That’s per a new study by Ben Mirkin, an outdoor educator at VT State-Lyndon who’s an ice climber himself. Mirkin was asked by climbing advocates to look into the economics as part of “ongoing conversations” with the Conway Scenic Railroad, whose tracks climbers use to get to climbing spots—a practice a railroad exec calls “dangerous, illegal and stupid.” The goal, Mirkin says, is to get legislators and others involved in “trying to formalize safe and legal access for ice climbers to these resources.”
3,400 feet of waterfront, 130 employees, 30 miles of crown molding, and… $8,000 doors? “It's a solid door,” explains Ed Rocco, co-owner and general manager of the soon-to-open high-end Lake Estate hotel in Tilton to NHPR’s Todd Bookman. “People are paying a luxury rate. They're expecting luxury furnishings and luxury experience.” The 114-room, 25-fireplace project is coming up on a $90 million price tag, Bookman reports; in its shakeout period it’ll be charging $400 a room, though prices could double in high season. Plus, hamburgers starting at $26. Bookman talks to Rocco and his wife about what they’ve got in mind as they strive for a five-diamond rating.
What’s it take to race at Thunder Road? An insane amount of focus. Though family helps, too: It’s not unusual for several generations of the same family to be each others’ competitors, coaches, and crew at the legendary Barre track. Still, while family connections are helpful, fortitude is critical. Seven Days’ Ken Picard writes that “succeeding at Thunder Road is as much about the driver's endurance as the car's.” At least two dozen cars race 150 laps, and temps inside the car can hit 125 degrees. “Most weeks,” write Picard, “their only reward is the adrenaline rush of driving really fast on one of the most challenging short tracks in North America.”
The world’s largest water-filled sinkhole, a dinky but stunning crustacean, and “the striking illusion of a blooming sea flower.” Those are some of the finalists in the 2025 Ocean Photographer of the Year competition. Of that last one—Vietnamese fishermen harvesting seaweed—photographer Natnattcha Chaturapitamorn says, “maintaining harmony with nature is essential." In Indonesia, Luis Arpa used “a slow shutter speed, snooted light, and deliberate camera panning to create motion and drama” in a batfish with a blazing halo. Winners will be announced in September.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. If you're new to Daybreak, this is a puzzle along the lines of the NYT's Wordle—only it's not just some random word, but a word that actually appeared here yesterday.
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HEADS UP
Beecharmer at Feast & Field in Barnard. The duo of Jes Raymond and Jakob Breitbach and their “a playful twang with artful arrangements, tight time-polished harmonies, virtuosic fiddle, skillful flatpicking, clawhammer banjo, and upright bass” starts up at Fable Farm at 6 pm, gates and food/drink at 5:30.
Gone Guys at the Briggs Opera House. The 45-minute Vermont-made documentary—presented by the Richard E. and Deborah L. Tarrant Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation—takes off from (and partly features) the work of writer Richard Reeves, who for the last few years has been focused on the struggles of boys and men. Montpelier director Chad Ervin looks at adolescent boys in VT, the challenges they’re facing, and their own and others’ efforts to tackle them. This evening and tomorrow evening at 6 pm, with a panel discussion afterward tonight and a filmmaker Q&A tomorrow. Here’s Seven Days on the film.
The Ellington Collective in New London. Summer Music Associates brings in the Boston-based tribute ensemble for an evening of classics—”Take the A Train”, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”, and more—by the master. 7 pm at the First Baptist Church.
American Movie at JAM. The Upper Valley Food Co-op’s Documentary Club screens the cult favorite (winner of the 1999 Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance) about the efforts of a Menomonee Falls, WI newspaper delivery man and aspiring filmmaker to complete his horror film. Discussion after.
Andy Grammer at the Lake Morey Resort. The singer-songwriter’s come a long way since his busking days in Santa Monica, with multiple albums and tours and, of course, "A Friend Like You" for Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Things get going at 7 pm with Aussie-raised singer Ben Abraham as the opener; Grammer’s on at 8. Food and drinks trucks as always.
And for today...
The Boston Globe once wrote that Charles Yang “plays classical violin with the charisma of a rock star.” But the 2018 Leonard Bernstein Award-winner doesn’t even come close to confining himself to classical music. As you’ll hear in this house-concert blend of《十面埋伏》(Google gives it as “Ambush on All Sides”) and “A Change Is Gonna Come”.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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