GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Fog, then sun. Really. High pressure's actually moving in and the air is starting to dry out, and though there'll be clouds around all day it should be mostly sunny for much of it. Highs today will be in the upper 70s, low 50s tonight.Morning views...
It looked like frost the other morning in W. Fairlee, but John Pietkiewicz assures us it was just heavy dew, with temps in the 40s.
And the view across Mascoma Lake the other morning, with "Montcalm masquerading as Mt Fuji peeking through the fog," writes Judith Golden.
And from Mike Hebb in Strafford, a front retreating to the east in the early morning, with Thetford's Houghton Hill backlit and Smarts hidden behind the cloud bank. "I call it 'Back of the front,'" Mike writes.
Tired of the "used car shopping" model, Colby-Sawyer drops list price on tuition to $17,500. From $46,364. President Sue Stuebner cites that used-car analogy to the Valley News's Nora Doyle-Burr in talking about why the college wants to abandon the high-prices-with-opaque-discounting model colleges typically deploy. With room and board, Doyle-Burr writes, the change, which takes effect next fall, puts Colby-Sawyer on a par with UNH. “We will definitely be one of the most affordable private colleges in the region,” Stuebner says.After daughter's death, Barnard family takes on "troubled teen" industry. Debbie and Al Wood raised six kids at their home in Barnard, three of them birth children, three adopted from Liberia. In May, 2020, one of those adopted children, Naomi, was found unresponsive at a Teen Challenge-affiliated school in Florida to which the Woods had sent her after she'd begun acting out. Naomi died that evening, and a Florida investigation into her death revealed medical neglect by the school. In Seven Days, Alison Novak tells the story of how the Woods—and their kids—became activists for reform.SPONSORED: Upper Valley Circus Camp presents Fall Fest! On Sunday, Sept. 11 enjoy a fun-filled, relaxing day of workshops, music, local food, face painting, adoptable animals and a live performance at CCBA in Lebanon! UVCC is teaming up with Cirque Us to present their revival of One Man’s Trash: Acrobats, high-flying aerialists, and quirky clowns welcome you to their junkyard adventure as this repurposed circus turns trash into treasure. Dive into their dumpsters to see how they recycle, reuse, and reinvent rubbish into a circus extravaganza. Sponsored by Upper Valley Circus Camp, LLC.So, what are you having for breakfast? Well, not you, the reader, but you, Jarett Berke, owner of Lou’s. Today, Daybreak and Artful launch a new weekly collaboration: a quick conversation with a local resaurant owner, chef, or staffer about their favorite dish—breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The idea comes from fellow newsletter magnate Cara Corridoni, whose Hello, West Chester you should definitely point out to friends who live in or near that town in PA. First up here? Jarett on what he’d have for breakfast at Lou's—if he had the time.At final NH voter-confidence panel hearing, Dartmouth, MIT profs suggest tweaks, not wholesale reform. The committee met Tuesday in Keene, reports NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth, and heard from Dartmouth's Brendan Nyhan and Michael Herron and MIT's Charles Stewart. They urged clear communications about voting numbers, the extent to which discrepancies that give rise to fraud claims are often due to clerical mistakes, and the legal response to actual instances of fraud. “I know of no major voting reform of the last 20 years that has increased voter confidence in measurable ways," Stewart told the panel.With a "web" of private and public landholdings atop Mt. Washington, debate over its future is fierce. You may remember that Wayne Presby, owner of the Cog Railway, wants to build a hotel and restaurant near the top—a plan that's drawn fiery opposition from locals and environmentalists worried about overuse near the iconic mountain's summit. There's a complex set of concerns, and in NH Bulletin, Amanda Gokee pulls apart and explains the competing interests—the state park, the national forest, the AMC, the Cog, the Auto Road—that all have a claim on the mountain and its future.NH rolls out new boosters. Health care providers and pharmacies have already received 16,000 doses of Moderna's and Pfizer's Omicron-specific updates, and the remainder of the 93,400 doses the state ordered should arrive this week, reports NHPR's Cuno-Booth. Some pharmacies are booking appointments online; other providers say they're likely to start next week, as more doses become available. DHMC canceled appointments over the weekend for shots of the original formulation, and says it should be able to start offering the new boosters next week.Covid levels "low" in VT, hospitalizations down. Both the state and the CDC (with the exception of Essex and Bennington counties) rate case levels as low, reports Erin Petenko in VTDigger. Overall, there were 35 new Covid hospital admissions in the past week, down 40 percent from the week before. The state health department also reported 8 Covid deaths in the last days of August, bringing August’s total to 19 deaths, compared to 12 each in June and July. And here's Petenko's FAQ on boosters in Vermont.If you're on the roads, be on the lookout for moose. It's breeding season, and VT Fish & Wildlife says they're more likely to be on the move. So far this year, motorists have hit 23 moose (compared to 49 all of last year)—and, since 1985, 19 people have died in moose-car collisions in the state. Drive defensively, don't overdrive your headlights, slow down in posted Moose Crossing areas... but, wildlife officials say in their press release, "Always be aware of the danger—moose cross the road randomly, as well as at their regular crossings."How VT is encouraging forest landowners to fight climate change. While carbon neutrality is the goal, the technology to get there isn’t fully formed. “So at this point in the game,” says Jim Shallows of VT’s Nature Conservancy, “we need to rely on nature” to help sequester carbon emissions. VT Public’s Abagael Giles reports on a new initiative by the Conservancy and the American Forest Foundation that pays small landowners simply to let their trees keep growing—through a carbon registry that determines their carbon offsets and credits them accordingly. A modest planet-saving effort, but still progress.Someone is the new owner of Jay Peak, but we won't find out more until today. Bidding for the ski resort began yesterday morning at $58 million, and continued behind closed doors until it ended at 5:30, reports WCAX's Katharine Huntley. Jay Peak has been in receivership since 2016, when the feds and state brought legal action against its owner at the time, Ariel Quiros, and the resort’s president, Bill Stenger, as part of what's become known as the EB-5 scandal. Both men are now in prison. Burke Mountain Resort is also under a receiver. "It remains uncertain when it will be sold," Huntley writes.The bank robbery that gave us Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon—50 years later. On an August day in 1972, a man with a secret life was desperate for money, so he hired some guys from NJ to help him hold up a bank in Brooklyn. As if written for the big screen, John Wojtowicz strung the cops along for hours, negotiated a limo ride to JFK airport for a grand escape, only for FBI agent Jim Murphy to foil his plans (tragically) there on the tarmac. In City Journal, Daniel Edward Rosen pens a riveting account of that day, with recollections from Murphy himself, who drove the limo and pulled the trigger that ended it.The Thursday Vordle. With a fine word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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On top of everything else, we're heading into flu season, and DHMC's got drive-thru, on-site, and public clinics in the offing. For the drive-thru and hospital clinics you'll need to register in advance either online through a myDH account or by phone at 603-653-3731. Those run Sept. 12-Nov. 4 at various hours on weekdays. In addition, there will be public clinics starting Oct. 1 that need no registration in Plainfield, Enfield, Orford, and Canaan. All schedules at the link.
Also, you should know about Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala, which just premiered at the Hood and runs until December before taking off on a two-year voyage around the country. It's the first major exhibition of aboriginal bark paintings to tour the US, and was curated by the Yolŋu people of northern Australia. It includes "90 seminal paintings—many never before seen in the United States—from the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia and other institutions worldwide," the Hood writes.
It's Thursday and time for BarnArts' Feast & Field, at Fable Farm in Barnard/Royalton. Tonight's band is two of the three members of Mountain Dog, with mandolinist Justin Park and guitarist Mark Burds, both steeped in traditional music but happy to take it in new directions. Fiddler Julia Wright is out for the summer. Gates open at 5:30, music starts 6-ish.
At 7 pm, Randolph's The Underground recording studio hosts both a live and streamed concertby Brattleboro-based indie, new-folk, bedroom-pop singer-songwriter Sage Hatfield.
Finally, this week CATV is highlighting an... eclectic... mix of content: a Co-op class on stir-frying, AVA Gallery's June Mudroom live storytelling event (plus a link to past Mudrooms), and the Upper Valley's own Impulse Pro Wrestling league (based in Windsor) with a full evening of bouts over in Hillsborough, NH. How could you miss The Rat Bastards v. The Neighborhood? Oh, and Bernie Sanders talking up the Inflation Reduction Act. Plus podcasts on Dismas House, carving out a sense of belonging in the Upper Valley, and the Shelf Help booksellers taking on books with magical cosmic beings.
And music to ease into the day...Over the course of her career, Mexican-born indie-pop singer and composer Carla Morrison has amassed legions of fans, Grammy nominations, and Latin Grammy wins for her honest plumbing of her own emotional life in song. It hasn't been easy—in 2018, she stopped writing and performing and moved to Paris, where no one knew who she was, to study music, deal with her chronic anxiety, and get a much-needed break from the spotlight. Now, though she's back on tour, she's also focusing on staying grounded—which is palpable in this intimate recent recording session
at Western AF in Laramie, where she performed one of her early breakout hits, the lyrical, deeply felt "Eres Tú", which is about love...
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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