GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Showers continue, still cool. The front behind it all is moving pretty quickly, and so's the dry air behind it, but even so, we're in for a rainy, cloudy day today. Things might start tapering off late this afternoon or in the evening, with any leftovers ending by tomorrow morning. Highs today around 60, lows around 50.The innocent and the guilty. For years, Terri Munson writes, she's been eyeing the goldenrod that flourishes around now and blaming it for her hay fever. The true culprit, of course, is ragweed, and in the spirit of making amends, she sends along photos of the two, so that others don't traipse down her misbegotten path. Here's a helpful post from the National Wildlife Federation on the difference. And here are Terri's photos:
The sinless (mostly).
It's Thursday, and time for Dear Daybreak! This is getting to be a habit, eh? Here we are with the third week of reader-submitted vignettes and short items about life in or related to the Upper Valley. Today: Deb Clough reflects on the run of fine weather we had even as the seasons changed; Jane Masters offers up a hunting-season haiku; Suzanne Dudley checks in with a poem for rainy weather; and Cynthia Crawford writes about a barred owl experience (with photo, of course).There may be a rabid fox on or around Mt. Tom in Woodstock. Officials at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller and the town of Woodstock warned yesterday they've gotten "multiple reports in the last 48 hours of an aggressive fox approaching visitors on or near the Faulkner Trail on Mount Tom. Rabies is suspected." They urge visitors to keep a safe distance from wildlife and to notify the park at 802-457-3368 or the Woodstock Police at 802-457-2337 if they see an animal behaving erratically. Seven animals in Orange and Windsor counties have tested positive for rabies this year, reports Clare Shanahan in the VN.In court, lawyer for Robert Tulloch argues against life-without-parole sentence. Tulloch, 17 at the time he and James Parker murdered Dartmouth profs Half and Susanne Zantop in Etna in 2001, is challenging his sentence on state constitutional grounds. At a hearing yesterday in Grafton Superior Court, his attorney argued that it is "cruel...to punish children the same way we punish adults," reports the AP's Kathy McCormack. Tulloch is awaiting resentencing in the wake of several US Supreme Court decisions; the NH AG's office has not yet suggested one. It may still ask for life-without-parole, McCormack writes.SPONSORED: It’s Gonna Be (moon)Lit! Get your tickets to the Positive Tracks Sweat For Good Games: SuperMoon Edition. Join us at Whaleback Mountain in Enfield on Friday, Oct. 18th from 6–10 pm for an adult destination party under the largest SuperMoon of 2024! Over 200 attendees will enjoy dancing, drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and games, culminating in a dance-off and optional moonlit summit. All proceeds directly benefit Positive Tracks, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing free leadership programs for ages 12 - 25. Sponsored by Positive Tracks.In Lebanon, historic mill smokestack starts to come down. The Mechanic Street stack, which has loomed over what is now the Rivermill complex since 1882, is one of two left in the city, writes Clare Shanahan in the Valley News. The city's planning department issued a demolition permit in July; Rivermill is not part of the downtown historic district and City Historian Nicole Ford Burley tells Shanahan the developers never notified the Heritage Commission. “We would prefer to be brought into these conversations and not find out after the fact, but that’s really up to the property owners,” she says. The city's other remaining stack, at the Woolen Mill on Foundry Street, is being preserved.As rescue costs mount, NH Fish & Game may pin revenue hopes on "Hike Safe" cards. The agency spends $300-$400K a year on finding and rescuing people who've gotten lost or injured in the woods. But it depends for its funding, NH Bulletin's Claire Sullivan reports, on various funding streams that can't support its needs, with very little coming from the state budget. Now, a committee studying the agency's fiscal difficulties is recommending expanding sales—and marketing—of its "Hike Safe" cards ($25/person, $35/family), which saves cardholders from worrying about getting dinged for the cost of a rescue.SPONSORED: The Media and Health Behaviors Lab is seeking parents of 2-year-olds to participate in research! Children may watch age-appropriate shows, perform simple computer tasks, be offered food and complete surveys. We may also collect some saliva to research common health-related genes. Visits last 1-2 hours and all participants will be compensated via gift cards. Mileage reimbursement available. Contact us to see if you and your child are eligible! [email protected] or 603-646-5432. Participation is voluntary and confidential. Sponsored by MHBL@Dartmouth.“New research finds that a thing happening because of climate change may not be all that horrible.” That's how David Brooks describes a new study from UNH on his Granite Geek blog. The study is the first to look at the combined effects of warming temperatures and rising nitrogen levels in forest soils. And what it found, UNH says, is that "carbon storage remained stable due to increased belowground plant inputs from roots, challenging earlier studies and suggesting that the loss of soil carbon in Northeastern forests impacted by climate change may be lower than previously predicted." Details at the link.Those yellow trucks that were once ubiquitous on rural NH, VT roads? They're gone after Nov. 8. Schwan's—which rebranded as Yelloh in 2022 but will forever be Schwan's to anyone who grew up getting ice cream, meat, even full meals delivered by its trucks—is shutting down. In a Monday press release, board member Michael Ziebell said it's partly staffing and supply disruptions, and partly “changing consumer lifestyles and competitive pressures that have...made success very difficult. Digital shopping has replaced the personal, at-the-door customer interaction that was the hallmark of the company."Taking stock of VT's school-district consolidation law. Act 46, enacted in 2015, required smaller districts in the state to consolidate. And as legislators and education officials ponder the state's education system, the question of whether the act saved money is burning bright. So VT Public's Lola Duffort spoke with Grace Miller, a Newport VT native who, as a Yale undergrad, did the heavy statistical lifting to figure it out. What she found was that consolidated districts spent less on services and administration, but more on paying teachers and supporting students. She and Duffort talk over the implications at the link.As households are evicted from VT hotels and motels, pressure builds on VT governor to step in. Limitations on the state's emergency housing program were passed by lawmakers in this year’s budget, and last week, several hundred households—including families—left the motels that gave them shelter. Yesterday, reports Carly Berlin in VTDigger, dozens of housing groups and service providers called on Gov. Phil Scott to move quickly to prevent more evictions; the legislature isn't in session. “The thought that the state of Vermont is going to just let this happen is just unconscionable,” said one advocate."The women back in Afghanistan never escape my mind." Anisa Rasooli was once "the most powerful female judge in Afghanistan," writes Alison Novak in Seven Days. Now, Rasooli and several family members—who first settled in the Upper Valley after a worldwide network of female judges helped them escape the Taliban—live at St. Michael's College as they adjust to American life. Novak, Colin Flanders, and Ken Picard profile a handful of VT's 600 new Afghan residents and their lives in Afghanistan, their escapes, their struggles to come to terms with their new lives, and their worries about family left behind.Boston mag bestows its first New England travel awards. And the Upper Valley's in there. No real surprises, either: Barnard's Twin Farms took the award for best luxury resort, the Woodstock Inn got an honorable mention in the category of "Inn", Saint-Gaudens an honorable mention for best historical site. But it's pretty fun to look through the categories: Best Food Festival (Burlington gets an honorable); Best Museum (Mass MoCA); Best Camping or Glamping Destination (Lumen Nature Retreat in N. Woodstock, NH); Best Hiking Trail (the Franconia Ridge Loop, as if it's not crowded enough), and lots more.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
Voigt, who now lives in Cabot, VT and St. Paul, MN, has a long and distinguished career, including stints as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, as VT's poet laureate (then called the state poet) from 1999-2003, and as a MacArthur "genius" awardee. She'll be reading from her work at 4:30 pm today in Dartmouth's Sanborn Library.
Founder of the
Weekly Standard
, a go-to conservative political analyst and TV commentator, Kristol is also a prominent critic of former president Donald Trump and the founder of Defending Democracy Together, "an organization dedicated to defending America’s liberal democratic norms, principles, and institutions." Sponsored by the Rockefeller Center, he'll be in-person in Filene Auditorium, and
starting at 5 pm.
The Baxter Memorial Library is hosting the event, one of several in libraries around the state organized by Vermont storyteller Samara Anderson along the lines of NYC's now-famous "The Moth"—first-person stories that run between five and seven minutes long.
Starts at 6 pm at Seven Stars Arts.
As SBT puts it, "Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally woke teaching artists scrambles to create an elementary school pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month without ruffling any feathers. What could possibly go wrong?" 7 pm tonight, runs through Oct. 13.
. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Bernard is the author of a new biography of the iconic singer,
Bring Judgment Day
. Using deep research in archives and prison records and a series of oral histories, she rewrites Huddie Ledbetter's history to show how his popular image was essentially created by his "discoverers" in the context of the Jim Crow South.
And to bring us into the day...
Folk-rock violinist (and occasional glockenspielist) Andrew Bird and folk-rock singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham digging into indie-pop territory
Or as the credits put it, "Cunningham Bird Do Buckingham Nicks." They make a fine duo.
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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