GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sun eventually. That high pressure's still in place over Quebec, but the usual nighttime dynamics will leave patchy fog and then some lingering cloudiness, probably into mid-morning. After that, mostly sunny skies for the rest of the day, temps once again getting to either side of 70, and down into the mid 40s tonight. Light, variable winds.Fall. It's here.
As is this extremely handsome buck in Windsor—"outstanding in his field," writes Larry Morin.
And these geese, some three dozen of them, taking a long rest in E. Thetford, from Joel Teenyanoff. "Maybe they were planning to fly at night?" he writes.
And this N. Thetford bee in Doris LaMontagne's video, hard at work on her anemones.
So much creativity! Smokey, Weird Barbie, a stork with passenger, the Kingsbury Tavern Ghost... Link goes to the PPP's Facebook page;
that's sure to grow over the next month. And if you're on the road around NH Route 4, check out the Enfield scarecrows, too.
In its announcement yesterday, the college said the change was made possible by Hanover voters last year when they approved new zoning for West Wheelock Street. The initial step will be to build apartment-style units at 25 W. Wheelock for 250-300 students and, says senior VP Josh Keniston, "to make the West End corridor a pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly gateway to the university and the town." The college will reconfigure its controversial project at the northern end of the former golf course for 200-300 grad and professional students. Announcement at the link.
At the library: a knife sharpener, metal detectors, telescopes, a tortilla press... oh, and books. “A library is about reading, but it's also about bringing experiences to people,” Norwich librarian Lisa Milchman tells Matt Golec in his Daybreak article on the growing "libraries of things" at Upper Valley libraries. That knife sharpener? It's at the Howe in Hanover. The metal detectors? At the Kilton in Lebanon. All three libraries—and others around the region—have been building their collections of things to borrow, often in unexpected ways. "We think a lot about what our community needs," says Leb's Amy Lappin.SPONSORED: Calling all true crime fans! Paul Holes helped solve the mystery of the Golden Gate Killer and he's making only one New England appearance: Paul and his co-author, Pulitzer-prize-winning author Robin Gaby Fisher, will be at Pentangle Arts Woodstock Town Hall Theatre on Mon, Oct. 2 for an evening of conversation based on their NYT bestseller, Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases. Reception and book signing 6–7pm, followed by an interview/Q & A from 7-8 pm. Tickets are $30 and include the latest paperback edition. Sponsored by Pentangle Arts & Yankee Bookshop.What if you discovered that your home is actually just a living history museum? That was the premise of Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix's 1995 kids' adventure novel—a book that has stuck with Still North Books' Allie Levy ever since she read it a quarter century ago. She's always believed it deserved a wider audience—and now, she writes in this week's Enthusiasms, Haddix has just come out with another, Falling Out of Time—not so much a sequel as a companion set in the future. Or... not.A $3.5 million malpractice settlement involving Gifford Med Center—and the grieving mom behind it. Every day for a week in 2018, Ashley Hostetter took her newborn daughter to the medical center, worried that she was lethargic and not eating. Doctors, she tells Seven Days' Colin Flanders, dismissed it as normal for an infant born a few weeks early—though blood work suggested a possible infection. Turned out, it was, and it led to meningitis. The girl, Annabeth, survived four years, despite seizures and surgeries. Flanders details her story and the case that led to an "unusually high payout for medical malpractice" in VT. Gifford, he writes, did not respond to requests for comment.Killington aims to transform section of Route 4 with project that starts up next week. Eventually, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan, the Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges will be torn down, replaced by a new ski village with some 225 residences and more than 32,000 square feet of commercial space. First, though, there's a $47 million project to upgrade the access road and bring in a water supply. And once all that's done, town manager Michael Ramsey tells Sullivan, "we hope that we can have a designated village center around Route 4 and place affordable housing there."SPONSORED: Teens—become a youth leader for climate action! The Montshire Museum of Science is offering high schoolers and homeschoolers in grades 9-12 a chance to develop practical skills to apply to a climate-themed Independent Study, Extended Learning Opportunity, or personal growth. Saturdays in October, 9am-3pm, FREE! Oct. 14: Food with Cedar Circle and Regeneration Corps; Oct. 21: Floods, Fuels and Infrastructure with CT River Conservancy; Oct. 28: Forest Health and Biodiversity with Upper Valley Land Trust. Join for one session or all three. Sponsored by the Montshire.Something just happened at a Seabrook selectboard meeting. Police were called to town hall Monday night after two board members got into it with each other. Selectwoman Theresa Kyle says fellow board member Srinivasan "Ravi" Ravikumar hit her in the face with his finger; Ravikumar says Kyle tried to slap him and told him to "Go back where you came from"—he's originally from India. NHPR's got a synopsis, but the full story is behind a Seacoastonline paywall.Amid teacher shortage, NH appears to make gains; union says maybe not. The optimism is based on 8,154 renewals of teaching credentials tallied by the state ed department—the third highest number over the past decade. Officials say this indicates hiring conditions are improving, reports Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. But the president of the NEA of New Hampshire responds that in the classroom, schools are still seeing real shortages. “A certification or a license doesn’t necessarily correlate to a body in the classroom or in the school,” she tells DeWitt. Math, science, social studies—all are seeing gaps.Once again, VT sees year-over-year increase in deaths due to accidental opioid overdoses. From January to June, reports VTDigger's Tiffany Tan, 115 Vermonters died of overdoses according to preliminary numbers, a dozen more than during the same period last year. The increase comes as fentanyl and xylazine are often combined with other drugs, including cocaine. As in the past, the highest death rates are clustered in Windsor, Windham, Rutland, and Bennington counties. “The toxicity of the drugs in our communities is increasing, and it changes quickly," says deputy health commr. Kelly Dougherty."I'm not exactly comfortable being on my own in Vermont." That's Dartmouth and Lula Wiles grad Mali Obomsawin talking to Seven Days' Ken Picard about the less-than-warm reception she's gotten from what she calls the "pretendian Abenaki movement" in the state. The bassist and composer, a regular at Thetford's "Front Porch" jazz sessions, has a new album out that tells indigenous stories through jazz, Wabanaki music, and other regional styles. An Odanak citizen, she talks to Picard about what's influenced her music, how members of indigenous communities identify one another, and "pretendianism."Mainstay Burlington retailer Outdoor Gear Exchange to downsize city store, open in Essex. It's the second big Vermont outdoor-gear-store announcement this week, after Sam's announced it's closing its Brattleboro store. In this case, reports VTDigger's Patrick Crowley, OGX, which has long anchored the Church Street shopping district, is seeing declining sales downtown as well as disruption from the stalled CityPlace development next door. Its two-floor downtown store will become one floor, and it will open an outpost in the Essex Experience shopping center.Now that's some standup paddleboarding! Three months, 1,200 miles, from Ottawa to NYC and back via the Rideau River, the Ottawa River, the St. Lawrence, the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, the Champlain Canal, the Hudson, the Erie Canal, the Niagara River, and Lake Ontario. Dan Rubinstein got back to Ottawa on Wednesday after averaging 18 to 20 miles a day on his inflatable paddleboard, mostly camping along the way. “When we’re on the water, things slow down,” he says. Rebecca McPhee reports on Explorers Web.“Generally you don’t get that level of experience and athleticism in a mashed potato ring.” Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Sol Neelman likes weird sports. As a non-athlete, he can appreciate mainstream sports, but they just don’t have the draw that Japanese log riding, llama racing, and yes, mashed potato wrestling do, writes Roxanne Hoorn on Atlas Obscura. Neelman’s latest book, More Weird Sports, came out this year. “A lot of people get kind of hung up on the weird part, but I think it’s really about the stories that you find when you’re there,” he says. The piece illustrates with plenty of photos.Sometimes, you just can't let the day end. That was definitely this golden retriever in the parking lot between the Harpoon Brewery and Silo Distillery in Windsor, caught on video by TikToker Patrick Ryan. It's gone viral. You'll want the sound on for Ryan's play-by-play.The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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From 1 to 3 pm today, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock is convening a public conversation on the future of mental health and wellness with current US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and all of his living predecessors—eight surgeons general altogether, from administrations dating back to George H.W. Bush's. The panel will be moderated by CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta. The in-person event in Leede Arena is full, but the meeting will be livestreamedstarting at 1.
Today at 4:30 pm, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts McGill Professor Gordon Hickey and Dartmouth senior Alyssa Noseworthy for “Tales of Rivers & Ice: Indigenous Art, Resilience, And Water Justice In The Arctic And The Amazon.” They'll talk about indigenous communities affected by declining water and a changing climate in the Arctic and Amazon, looking at how indigenous art is not only drawing attention to the current water crisis, but envisioning what a more sustainable future might look like.
This afternoon at 5 pm, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts former Republican US Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire for a lecture and conversation titled, "Is the Senate Broken?" "Once-rare occurrences like government shutdowns and impeachment inquiries now occur with such regularity that it seems the system may be critically dysfunctional," runs the writeup. Gregg will focus on the Senate and "whether such apparent dysfunction really poses risks to American democracy." In Hinman Forum and livestreamed.
At 5:30 pm, the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock hosts community doula Francesca Arnoldy for a workshop on “Death Journaling,” based on her new book, The Death Doula’s Guide to Living Fully and Dying Prepared. The workshop is part of series put together by the NWPL, the Thompson Senior Center, and the Ottauquechee Health Foundation on preparing for the end of life.
This evening at 6, Cindy Pierce will headline a fundraiser for the Walk to End Alzheimer's (which takes place on Saturday) at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover. Pierce, who packed the Briggs Opera House early this year with a family reminiscence that in no small part channeled her mom as she aged, will draw on her experiences as she looks at Alzheimer's as caregiver, daughter—and storyteller. She'll be followed by The Better Days Band. Includes a buffet dinner, and 40 percent of ticket prices will go to the Walk.
Also at 6, at the Windsor Town Welcome Center, VT's Department of Public Service (PSD) and the two Upper Valley regional planning commissions (TRORC and MARC) will host a public engagement session on the state's new Renewable Energy Standard. The public service folks want to hear from Vermonters about what matters to them most when it comes to electricity. Cost? “Renewable” vs. “clean” energy sources? Local generation sources like rooftop solar? Free and open to all.
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts writer and WRJ-based writing teacher Joni Cole, reading from and talking about her new collection of wry, comic, and soul-searching essays, Party Like It's 2044: Finding the Funny in Life and Death. From feuding with a dead medium to explaining why writers hate Amazon to sweating her way through a Zumba class, she writes essays that are "relatable and unsparing and filled with everyday human moments and thoughts," as Susan Apel put it recently.
And finally, anytime, you can check out JAM's highlights for the week: two tributes to Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens. One is a look inside the football team in 2019, in a short documentary by student filmmaker Elizabeth Jenny, who followed three players as well as Teevens; the other is a 2019 news digest featuring Valley News sportswriter Tris Wykes and then-news editor John Gregg on the football team's championship season and Teevens' leadership.
And because sometimes you need some funk to get you into your day....
Questlove on drums, Christian McBride on bass, and Norah Jones on keyboards, with
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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