GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Maybe some sun to start, but clouding over and light snow eventually. We'll climb into the mid 30s today, as clouds barge in ahead of a system approaching from the west. Chance of snow this afternoon, a likelihood this evening, and then snow overnight and into tomorrow, though at the moment we're not looking at much more than an inch in the way of accumulation. Down to the lower 20s tonight, as winds shift to come from the north.Nature's turntable. This is a really striking disc of rotating pancake ice in Grantham's Brookside Park, videoed by Anne Langsdorf.VT Supremes nix Newbury's bid for reargument on juvenile facility. Well, that was fast. You remember the saga: the state supreme court in December had said the state could go ahead with its plans to build a six-bed secure facility in town, agreeing with state officials that it would be a therapeutic group home, limiting town zoning review. The town and Concerned4Newbury then filed for reargument, but two weeks ago, reports VTDigger's Alan J. Keays, all five justices signed a one-line ruling rejecting their motion, saying they hadn't met requirements for a re-hearing.VT reaches $2.4 million settlement for cleanup of former dry cleaning site in WRJ. The site, at the corner of Union and Hazen streets, was once the home of Parkway Cleaners, which closed in 1995. Testing in 1989 and 1996 found ground and air contamination with PCE, "a solvent that was commonly used in dry cleaning until it was tied to causing cancer," writes John Lippman in the Valley News. In 2010, VT sued Richard Daniels, who'd bought the site in 1995, and then pursued the case against his estate after he died in 2021. The state's Agency of Natural Resources will carry out remediation efforts.SPONSORED: Award-winning CONSTELLATIONS plays at Northern Stage starting tomorrow! What if you’d made a different choice? What if you’d said the thing that popped into your head just after you walked away? From marriage to heartbreak, through sickness and health, and back again, Nick Payne’s Olivier-winning romance Constellations follows two people from their first meeting through a multitude of possible futures. What will your choice be? Join us at Northern Stage for a spellbinding exploration of love and the cosmos! Through 2/11 at the Barrette Center for the Arts. Sponsored by Northern Stage."The confused demeanor of someone who just woke up on a friend’s couch and isn’t sure how they got there." That's Elise Tillinghast's delightful description of immature bald eagles—haphazardly checkered, feathers all cockeyed— during the four or five years before they grow into the dignified and commanding presence that makes them a national symbol. This week in the woods, she notes, young eagles are out feeding on carcasses they find on the ice. Also out there: hairy and downy woodpeckers, and she offers a quick tutorial on how to tell them apart.Also out there right now: Red foxes on the hunt for a mate. The season starts this month, writes the VT Center for Ecostudies' Kent McFarland in VCE's "Field Guide to January"—a piece he illustrates not only with a remarkable close-up of an adult red fox, but with audio of their "barking screams," which are sometimes confused with fishers'. This is also a good time to be on the lookout for Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls, and a few other species that don't migrate, writes Julia Pupko; she also details why this is a really good time to identify deciduous trees. Plus: spruce grouse and lichens in winter.Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team helps rescue hikers in below-zero temps from Mt. Monadnock. The three—two from MA, one from Thailand—got lost as darkness fell near the mountain's summit on Friday; it was about -10, NH Fish & Game reports in yesterday's press release. Rescuers were able to call them and guide them to tree line—at which point the hikers, who lacked headlamps or warm clothing, were unable to continue. Rescuers found them and carried one, who was unable to walk due to exposure, 1.3 miles to the trailhead. "Thankfully," writes Fish & Game, "due to the herculean efforts of rescue crews...the three victims survived their blunder."In NH, a new twist on a dark political art. It's not like voter misdirection and suppression are anything new, but New Hampshire made headlines yesterday for what seems to be a first in the state: a deepfake robocall of Joe Biden's voice telling Democratic voters to stay home today. After NBC News reported on what appears to be an effort to subvert his write-in campaign, the AG's office yesterday announced its election law unit has launched an investigation. The calls "reinforce a national concern about the effect of artificial intelligence on campaigns," Secy of State David Scanlan tells NBC.Former NH researcher takes the long view on science's impact. Daybreak usually steers clear of national politics stories, but there's an interesting sidenote in Michael Kranish's Washington Post (gift link) piece on how candidates in the 1988 GOP presidential primary in NH went full-bore on acid rain, vs. this year's near-silence on climate change. Acid rain was front and center that year thanks to 1963 research by Gene Likens and his team at NH's Hubbard Brook Forest tying it to Midwest power plants. Last week, Likens spoke to a youth forum, noting it took 27 years from discovery to legislation that, eventually, reduced acid rain "to the near background-level that it is today."Case over "Rebel Girl" historical marker heads back to court. Tomorrow, writes the Monitor's David Brooks (here via NHPR), a Merrimack County Superior Court judge will hear arguments over whether two activists had legal standing to sue the state after it removed the Concord marker they'd championed devoted to labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. If the decision goes in their favor, then the case will move forward on last year's brouhaha over the state's about-face, after it installed the marker then, beset by opposition from GOP members of the Exec Council, took it down.Watch it out there with iced-over bodies of water. Recent temps have ice forming, but it's not necessarily safe, especially on larger lakes and ponds, says NH Fish & Game (in a warning that could apply to VT, too, of course). “To see ice just beginning to form the third week of January [on Lake Winnipesaukee]—that's like, unheard of," one longtime observer tells NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian. "I mean, I'll be honest, I'm not sure we're going to have ice-in this year." If you're venturing out, says Fish & Game, use a chisel or ice pole to check thickness first."There’s so much goddamn intellects coming in from outside, I can’t keep track.” That was former VT governor and US Sen. George Aiken in 1982, talking about the people moving to Putney, his home town. For decades a mix of progressive and working Vermonters thanks to its downtown paper mill, the town is suddenly at a crossroads, thanks to the announcement last week that the mill's shutting down. VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor has deep family roots there, and he explores how the town's adjusting, and how locals are turning to its history of roll-up-your-sleeves civic determination for comfort.Let’s go for a drive. Erkam Seker, a master’s student in Munich, must have been feeling as cooped up as the rest of us during the pandemic. Unlike the rest of us, he found a way to travel … everywhere! nowhere! Seker dreamt up Drive & Listen, a website that lets you drive the local roads in more than 50 cities around the world while—and this is the thrill—listening to a local radio station. Drop onto a street in Izmir, Melbourne, Curitiba, and join the rest of the cars tooling through the city. Try Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland or Nice, France for a break from the daily routine. Oh, also: you can change stations.The Tuesday Vordle. With a fine word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 4:30 pm, Dartmouth's English and Creative Writing Department hosts Andrei Malaev-Babel, the grandson of legendary early Soviet-era short story writer Isaac Babel. Malaev-Babel, an actor, acting teacher, and director, will perform three stories by his grandfather, followed by a conversation with writer Peter Orner; then at 7, there will be a film screening of Finding Babel, director David Novack's documentary about the elder Babel—who grew up in Odessa and was executed by Stalin's secret police in 1940—and the younger Malaev-Babel's journey to find the people (his grandmother among them) and places from Ukraine to Paris that informed his grandfather's work. Conversation afterward between Novack and JAM's Samantha Davidson Green. All in Dartmouth 105.
This evening at 6:30, Whaleback kicks off a four-week Tuesday night series of group tours and multi-lap skimo races (skin up, ski or split/drift-board down). No snowshoes or boots without boards attached, you'll need a headlamp, and if you're racing, they'll be using Strava for timing.
Also at 6:30, the Plainfield and Etna libraries are teaming up for a night of virtual trivia. It's no holds barred: the topics could be anything. Via Zoom.
And at 8 pm, Hop pianist-in-residence Sally Pinkas gives a concert called "Musical Couples: The Schumanns and the Oliveiras". It's a program of works by Clara and Robert Schumann and by the Brazilian composers Jamary and Alda Oliveira, including the world premiere of Alda Oliveira's newest work, Autumn in Boston. At Rollins Chapel.
And the Tuesday poem...
It was winter, near freezing,I’d walked through a forest of firswhen I saw issue out of the waterfalla solitary bird.It lit on a damp rock,and, as water swept stupidly on,wrung from its own throatsupple, undammable song.It isn’t mine to give.I can’t coax this bird to my handthat knows the depth of the riveryet sings of it on land.
— "The Dipper", by
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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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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