GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Some sun! But not for long. We get a brief respite from the clouds this morning, but clouds will move in quickly ahead of a weak system coming through that may drop rain this afternoon and then sleet and freezing rain overnight (little or no accumulation is expected, but keep an eye on those roads tomorrow morning anyway). The high today will be in the upper 30s, down to around 30 tonight. Winds from the northwest.Well yes, stopping is a good idea. That's one watchful barred owl that Jessica Brown caught at Patsy Lane in Thetford. (Thanks, DS!)Region's hospital system jammed up. DHMC has been at 110 percent of capacity for weeks, reports Nora Doyle-Burr in the Valley News, boarding patients in the ER and surgery-prep spaces as respiratory illnesses bring new patients in and a logjam at places with lower levels of care makes it hard to discharge others. And it's not just DHMC. About a fifth of the beds at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Doyle-Burr writes, are filled with patients who are awaiting discharge elsewhere, Valley Regional has had to send some patients out of state, and long-term care facilities are amassing long waiting lists.“We found him, we found him!” It's already been a somber winter for rescue teams on Franconia Ridge, with two dead hikers so far. For the teams' members, searching is difficult, exacting work, in which even a moment's inattention can mean the difference between life and death—as Lyme's James Mason makes clear in this new account of a successful 2009 rescue effort on the ridge, published by the Appalachian Mountain Club's Appalachia Journal. Mason, a furniture maker, is the safety officer for the Upper Valley Wilderness Rescue Team, which is often dispatched to help find people lost in the Whites.When it comes to school funding, says Claremont school board member, NH politics is "a scary place." In the VN, Alex Hanson profiles Whitney Skillen, whose mother is black and father is white, and who tells him that while the city has a ways to travel when it comes to racism, she's looking at the bigger picture. Skillen has delved into poverty, bullying, and resources for students with special needs. “To me, poverty is a much more severe issue in Claremont than racism,” she says, adding, “The economic challenges that our schools face can only be addressed at the state level."SPONSORED: Join Cantabile Women for "All Shall Be Well!" This Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 21 and 22, the Cantabile Women's Chorus, directed by Kathy Sherlock-Green, performs its first winter program in three years. Concerts begin at 3pm both days, at the Norwich Congregational Church on Saturday and the First Congregational Church of Lebanon on Sunday. Through performance of pieces written for women across centuries and traditions, Cantabile seeks to provide comfort and encouragement in this winter season. Tickets and more information at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Cantabile."Some of the best Thai food in America." So says CBS's Jan Crawford, who just visited Saap in Randolph for CBS Mornings' series, "The Dish." Crawford sits down with Nisachon "Rung" Morgan and her co-chef and husband, Steve. They talk about her move to Vermont from Thailand—"I like it here, but not the cold," Rung says; the origin of the restaurant's name ("Saap," with the proper tone, means "delicious" in Rung's native Isaan dialect); and Rung and Steve's early disagreement over whether to include non-Isaan dishes like pad thai on the menu (she was for it). (Thanks to Susan Apel and Artful for noticing.)Budget time. Two stories in the VN illustrate the challenges towns and school districts face as they try to rein in tax increases.
In Norwich, reports Patrick Adrian, the selectboard has approved a proposed budget that's 11 percent higher than the current fiscal year's and would result in a 12.5 percent increase in the town tax rate—and that's without the $80,785 a group of citizens in town are hoping to put on the town meeting warrant to fund an additional police officer. The selectboard's budget includes two new staff positions, but cut funding for parking improvements at Gile Mountain.
And in Hartford, the school board is contemplating a $3.1 million boost to the current year's operating budget, half of which would go toward salaries and benefits, Adrian reports. It would result in a 10.5 percent property tax increase. As a result, the board last week asked Supt. Tom DeBalsi to propose alternate budgets capping tax rate increases at 7.9 percent and 8.5 percent while protecting "new or recently added positions created to provide additional support to students with higher learning needs," Adrian writes.
In NH, a banner syrup year. Overall, says the USDA, sugarhouses in the state produced 167,000 gallons of maple syrup in 2022, the most since 2016, writes David Brooks in the Monitor. The news was especially sweet following a dismal 2021 for sugarmakers. Brooks does put all this in perspective: NH "is not a major player in maple syrup," he writes: It produces about 3 percent of the nation's supply, far below ME, which produces four times as much, and of course VT, the national leader at 2.55 million gallons of syrup in 2022. Still, Brooks writes, syrup "has a huge effect on the state’s tourism industry."NH moves ahead with evaluating ballot machines. The state's Ballot Law Commission is trying to find replacements for towns' decrepit fleet of AccuVote machines, and last week met to talk over three companies' proposed alternatives, reports NHPR's Jeongyoon Han. You may remember that a pilot last November of VotingWorks machines found they counted accurately, but had hardware issues; the company told the commission that it will revamp them to meet the state's needs. Members also voted to let towns pilot machines by Clear Ballot, and to let Winchester pilot a different machine.In VT, a growing gap between towns whose voters will support school upgrades and those whose voters won't. In the school district just west of Weathersfield and Springfield, voters recently nixed a bond proposal to fix basic high school infrastructure: "The systems are at their end-of-use life, and nobody knows where the money’s gonna come from,” the school's facilities head tells Vermont Public's Howard Weiss-Tisman. In fact, Weiss-Tisman reports, there's "a wide gap between towns that can afford modern schools, and those that can’t." It's been 15 years since the state has funded school construction.“A friend said, ‘Mary, it’s going to break your heart. Get ready.’ And I said, ‘I bet everything I have that it won’t.’ I was wrong.” Today, Mary Giamartino will close and lock the doors of the Hotel Pharmacy in Brattleboro for the last time. After 83 years in business—and 40 since Giamartino and her husband bought it—the town's last independent pharmacy is turning over its patient files to Walgreen's, a victim of the harsh economics of the business. “I lost $163.91” on a pain reliever, Giamartino tells VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor in his moving elegy for the store. “But do you not fill it? No, this woman was dying.”That’s some zoom meeting. Plankton are the most numerous animals on Earth, but most of us never see them, because they’re just so dang small. Angel Fitor, a wildlife photographer with a degree in marine biology, has been magnifying and photographing droplets of sea water in his studio on the coast of Spain. “It was like a window into a totally new world for me,” he says of the brilliant plankton living their lives in his lens. Smithsonian Magazine has the story and the dazzling photos.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 6:30 this evening, a new bi-weekly Tuesday night acoustic music jam gets underway at the town hall in Pittsfield, VT. It's organized by Dan Webb, who owns Gear Traders in Woodstock, and is open to all ages, all abilities, and all tastes in music. “Everybody calls a song, and then it’s the next person’s turn, and people will say, ‘It’s in the key of G, and it goes like this,’ and everybody plays along, and either you know it or you try to keep up with it," he tells the Mountain Times. "These types of events are good environments to improve your playing, and it’s just fun.”
This evening at 7 in the Hanover High library, Vermont Center for Ecostudies staff biologist, bee expert, and HHS grad Spencer Hardy will talk about the Vermont Wild Bee Survey (scroll down to "News and Events") and give an overview of the region's remarkable native bee diversity. More than 350 species have been documented in Vermont (and it's a fair bet a lot of them are in New Hampshire, too), and new, sometimes unknown species are still being found regularly. He'll wind up with a discussion of what individuals can do to ease the many pressures challenging wild bee populations.
And the Tuesday poem...
Now my five sensesgather into a meaningall acts, all presences;and as a lily gathersthe elements together,in me this dark and shining,that stillness and that moving,these shapes that spring from nothing,become a rhythm that dances,a pure design.While I'm in my five sensesthey send me spinningall sounds and silences,all shape and colouras thread for that weaver,whose web within me growingfollows beyond my knowingsome pattern sprung from nothing-a rhythm that dancesand is not mine.
— "Five Senses" by
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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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