GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Any snow showers ending, skies clearing, temps falling. So, that arctic front dropped in overnight, and once it's passed we'll see skies clear out. On the other hand, today's high temp came at a second past midnight: We'll likely be somewhere around 20 by midday, and then into the low teens or single digits overnight. Meanwhile, there's an Alberta clipper barreling our way, bringing a chance of more snow tonight. More on that tomorrow.Oh, and yep: That was an earthquake yesterday morning. It was relatively strong for this part of the country: 3.8 and centered about 6 miles southeast of York Harbor, ME. Down the coast, people all the way to DC apparently felt it, and at least to Springfield VT and Hanover inland. NH has seen only 65 earthquakes above a 2.1 on the Richter scale since 1638, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian. USGS report here. And here's WMUR's video compilation of people and pets reacting.The year in wildlife footage. It began simply enough, when David Kotz installed a few cams around his yard in Lyme in 2023. "It was fun (and surprising!) to see how much wildlife was visiting my lawn," he writes. So he expanded: another landowner in Lyme gave him permission to install some more (adding bobcat and coyotes to his mix). Then he expanded some more: "Within hours, one of my cameras was attacked by a bear, mauled, and left for dead… but it caught the whole thing on video!" Now he's got nine out there. At the burgundy link, you'll find his "best of" collection from 2024. Here's his blog.Fire destroys house, displaces family in Hartford; home saved in Windsor fire. The first fire broke out around 5 pm yesterday afternoon on Valley View Road in Hartford, bringing fire crews from as far away as Woodstock and Windsor, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak. Cold temps hampered efforts to draw water from a nearby pond, so crews set up a tanker shuttle from a hydrant on Route 4. Greg and Bonnie Sieglinger, one of their parents, and their four children were able to escape, but lost their home. As Windsor firefighters were returning south, a call came in about a fire on Main St.; they were able to confine it to a kitchen, saving the rest of the house. Eric reports, with photos.A courthouse regular steps down. Thetford's Charlie Buttrey has been practicing law for 38 years, but as he tells the VN's Jim Kenyon, "It’s time. I’ve taken the law as far as I can take it.” Though Buttrey may best be known for his personal injury practice—and, of course, his tv commercials, including during the winter Olympics—the bulk of his time, Kenyon writes, went into taking criminal justice cases "on behalf of people society had written off as lost causes." He plans to spend his retirement working with Orange County’s restorative justice program and trying to bar life-without-parole sentences.SPONSORED: King James at Northern Stage is a funny, heartfelt story of fandom and friendship—two friends discover how to keep their bond strong when life keeps changing around them. Directed by abigail jean-baptiste and written by Rajiv Joseph, this poignant production runs Jan. 29 – Feb. 16 at The Barrette Center for the Arts. Tickets from $34, with $24 Student/Youth tickets. Sponsored by Northern Stage.From Shaker Bridge Theatre, a debate about the nature of love—with "the expert timing of an Agatha Christie story." The company's production of Lucy Prebble's play The Effect went up at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ last week, and in the VN, Marion Umpleby writes that the play, which centers around a pair of clinical trial volunteers and the researchers studying them, "intensifies as new information about the trial is revealed in a set of shock twists that elicited several gasps from the audience" at a performance last week. The production's directed by Shaker Bridge founder Bill Coons.SPONSORED: Dartmouth Health: Caring for our communities. As New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest employer, Dartmouth Health is committed to helping our communities thrive. Our care goes far beyond our hospitals and clinics. As part of our mission, we provide charitable care to those without the means to pay and support many critical community needs, including improving care for mental health, leading change for rural healthcare and advancing research for improved health outcomes. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Dartmouth Health.A look at the MA-VT "drugs-for-guns" pipeline. It runs straight up I-91 and I-89, and as WCAX's Cam Smith reports, it's brought both overdoses and violent crime: "Between 2022 and 2024, data shows out of the 74 homicides in Vermont, 28 involved either a suspect or a victim from out of state," he says. The exchange of drugs from major urban areas for guns from VT—thanks to gun laws that are less restrictive than in other states—is hardly new, Smith notes, but it's been growing, while the age of people nabbed for drug trafficking or violence has been dropping.Woman charged in shooting of VT border agent appears in court, allegedly has ties to CA murder. Teresa Youngblut, 21, "had her arm in a sling and also wore a mask over her face" for her date in federal court in Burlington, reports Rachel Hellman in Seven Days. In a court filing, prosecutors argued for keeping her in custody, alleging she'd been in “frequent contact with” an individual who was detained after a double homicide in PA and was arrested Friday for a homicide in Vallejo, CA. Youngblut had been reported missing by her parents in Seattle. "A middle-age couple who appeared to be distraught lingered after the court proceedings had concluded," Hellman writes.
Then, late yesterday, the investigative news site Open Vallejo went up with a story reporting that Youngblut and 22-year-old Maximilian Snyder, who'd both attended the prestigious Lakeside School in Seattle, "appear to follow a fringe, self-described 'vegan Sith' ideology that started in the Bay Area and has connections to violence"; Snyder is in custody for the stabbing death of a Vallejo landlord who was set to testify in an assault case dating to 2022. Open Vallejo's Anna Bauman and Matthew Brown report that Youngblut studies computer science and computer software engineering at the University of Washington. (h/t VTDigger)
VTDigger's newsroom chief to move on. Paul Heintz, who's served first as managing editor and then as editor-in-chief since he was hired away from Seven Days in 2020, will step down at the end of February, the online publication says. He "plans to pursue reporting opportunities covering northern New England" and to work part time for UVM's Center for Community News, which has been expanding its role supporting Vermont newsrooms as well as expanding ties with similar university-led programs across the country.These "hills" in Coventry, VT are 15 stories tall. And made of trash. They belong to the state's only remaining landfill. And lucky Mikaela Lefrak, VT Public's Vermont Edition host, got to check it out for Brave Little State after a listener wondered why NH has six landfills and VT just one. One answer: Small-town VT dumps couldn't afford to follow state regs aimed at keeping, say, livestock from developing tumors thanks to dump leachate. The other: NH takes in a lot of trash from other states. Lefrak talks that over with Granite Staters, and visits the Coventry landfill, "a fantasy land for a truck-obsessed toddler."Frozen in time. Way before NFT collectors paid sky-high prices for vanishing artwork, self-taught sculptors were crafting their own fleeting masterpieces—out of snow. PetaPixel has just posted a gallery of snowmen from around the world, rolled, packed, and photographed from 1854 to 1950. A giant, “The Father of the Glaciers” from Alaska in 1902. Others from Wales (possibly the earliest such photo), Sweden (a huge fellow surrounded by 19 humans), Berlin, and Finland (a petite version, built in 1912 by children and, apparently, a cat). You’ll find snowstaches, a snow family, Queen Victoria, even Stalin.Snow's need for speed. It's a quick compilation video by Red Bull of the various ways you can make your way down the Streif, the legendary and insanely steep Austrian downhill course (an 85 percent grade at one point): plane, bike, wingsuit. Oh, and sure, skis. Really really fast on skis. At night.
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Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
Erhart, who served 13 months in Vietnam as a Marine, is also an essayist and scholar "who has written and published extensively on war, peace, politics, and the human condition." He'll be in Carson L01 starting at 5 pm for both a reading and a conversation with Dartmouth Vietnam Project faculty Edward Miller and Mara Gregory.
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Everyone has a place that is special to them. We develop a connection to place through our own experiences and memories of our time there, and through stories from other people who also care about that place," they write. The workshop covers how to collect and record those stories. 7 pm via Zoom (link after you register).
The Tuesday poem
I’d have to be really quickto describe clouds –a split second’s enoughfor them to start being something else.Their trademark:they don’t repeat a singleshape, shade, pose, arrangement.Unburdened by memory of any kind,they float easily over the facts.What on earth could they bear witness to?They scatter whenever something happens.Compared to clouds,life rests on solid ground,practically permanent, almost eternal.Next to cloudseven a stone seems like a brother,someone you can trust,while they’re just distant, flighty cousins.Let people exist if they want,and then die, one after another:clouds simply don’t carewhat they’re up todown there.And so their haughty fleetcruises smoothly over your whole lifeand mine, still incomplete.They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone.They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.
— "Clouds" by
, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh,
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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