GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Things start to cool down. It's nothing compared to what we'll get when true Arctic air arrives Friday and Saturday, but at least we're below freezing again. Low or mid 20s for much of the day, winds from the northwest, then the north; temps will start dropping mid-afternoon toward an overnight low staring zero in the face. The day starts cloudy, but we should see mostly sunny skies by noon.Waxwings on the town in Norwich, a Red-tail on the lam in Canaan. There's a large waxwing flock (Bohemians and Cedars) on Route 5 S. in Norwich, and over three days Etna photographer Jim Block caught them in flight and feeding on a stand of highbush cranberries (which are not actually cranberries). Lots of extraordinary close-ups. Then, while hanging out at Mascoma High trying to photograph snow buntings, he saw a Red-tailed hawk—and only after getting home did he notice the straps used to tether a falconry hawk. He even got the escaped hawk's story from its former falconer.Despite cuts, proposed school budget in Hartford up $3.9 million. That translates into a 7.5 percent increase in the school portion of the property tax rate, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News. That's despite $330K in cuts made by the school board, including money for building repairs, and a $550K drawdown from the $2.8 million reserve fund, aimed at reducing the tax impact. Overall, Adrian writes, the budget increase is due largely to staffing costs, "including a $1.9 million increase in district salaries and a $590,000 increase in health and retirement benefits."Proposed Mascoma schools budget up 0.1 percent. “When we put this budget together we did our best to (level) fund it, fully understanding that the cost of living has increased; inflation is impacting our families,” district superintendent Amanda Isabelle tells the VN's Liz Sauchelli. Voters in the district, which includes Canaan, Dorchester, Enfield, Grafton, and Orange, will also get a chance to weigh in on a new teacher's contract.SPONSORED: Thank you for supporting Hanover Rotary’s 2022 Bell Ringing Campaign! Hanover Rotary would like to thank the sponsors, donors and volunteers who made their 2022 annual holiday Bell Ringing Campaign a big success! Every dollar raised went to LISTEN Community Services’ Heating Helpers program, which supports our neighbors struggling with fuel and electricity bills and emergency heating repairs. With rising fuel costs, the need has never been greater. Hit the burgundy link to see a list of our sponsors and volunteers. Sponsored by Hanover NH Rotary Charities, Inc.“They kind of feel like Jell-O.” That’s Izzy Calsbeek, study co-author, describing the matter she collected for a research paper in Acta Herpetologica on the effects of temperature on wood-frog eggs. Perhaps not the technical terminology you’d expect from a scientist, but then again, Izzy is 11. She and her younger sister Ava, who live in Hanover, teamed up with their dad, Ryan Calsbeek, a Dartmouth biology professor, to research the effects of sunlight and hot/cold cycles on the eggs. Jeongyoon Han has the story on NHPR. Popular with goats, grouse, and grosbeaks. Well, and other birds, too. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland offers up a mini-portrait (and full-on photographic portrait) of Viburnum lentago, also known as Nannyberry (possibly because nanny goats like them more than billy goats). "One trait that keeps it from looking like every other woodland shrub in the winter is the distinctive shape of its terminal buds," Mary writes. "There are two scales protecting the bud, whose edges meet. Some compare the shape of this bud to the bill of a goose, but I find it far more graceful."In the pack for the day: a splicer, pruning shears, extra tubing and wire, a handsaw (tucked in a boot)... and a little maple syrup. That, writes Mallory Arnold in Outside, is what sugarer Meg Emmons carries with her when she heads out into the woods these days—plus, of course, lots of taps. Emmons, who grew up on Pomfret's Cloudland Farm, which her parents run, now helps run Woodstock's Bourdon Maple Farm, where she, owner Don Bourdon, and their crew tap some 10,000 trees. Emmons and Arnold head into the woods, where they talk tapping, boiling—and the real stuff vs. the fake stuff."He had a heart as big as a house." That's Lee Cutting's neighbor and friend, John Walsh. In November, the day he was due in court in WRJ on a DUI charge, Cutting died by suicide. The VN's Jim Kenyon sketches his life, from high school dropout to bank vice president to restaurant cook to regular drinker. Last winter, after learning that he and his neighbors were going to be evicted by their apartment's new owners, Cutting withdrew from his family. “I mostly want Lee to be remembered for the kind man that he was and not what he ended up with,” his sister, Nancy, wrote Kenyon a few days later. In crisis? Call 988 or, in NH, the state’s Rapid Response crisis line at 833-710-6477.New England states look to feds for help on energy transmission for wind, hydro. In all, the six states have submitted two proposals to the US Department of Energy for the expansion of their transmission system, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian. The proposed approach focuses on developing more offshore wind transmission with current technology, while building a future system with offshore cables connecting offshore wind projects. The second proposal seeks federal support for a transmission line to bring hydropower from Quebec to Vermont and then on to the rest of New England.Digging into Census data, group finds NH diversifying—but slowly. In a demographic brief, the NH Center for Justice & Equity, a nonprofit founded last fall to focus on race and economic issues, parses the numbers from the 2020 census and other sources. Overall, the state is now a bit over 10 percent Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color, and just under 5 percent Hispanic. The BIPOC population is largest by population in the state's populous southeastern corner, though both Grafton and Sullivan counties are growing more diverse.Trial set for man accused in Concord's Reid murders. Logan Clegg, 27, faces two counts of second-degree murder and other charges related to the shootings last April of Steve and Wendy Reid, including falsifying evidence and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Yesterday, reports Jamie L. Costa in the Monitor, a Merrimack County judge set a trial date of July. The defense argues that a so-far unsealed police affidavit and other documents relating to the arrest are one-sided and should not be revealed prior to the trial. The trial could result in a life sentence for Clegg if convicted.Tops in per-capita alcohol consumption in the US? New Hampshire. So says 2020 data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, reports VinePair. But here's the thing: It's based on alcohol sales, and given that NH and its state liquor stores are a magnet for beer, wine, and liquor drinkers from surrounding states and beyond, the ranking—4.83 gallons per capita, compared to 4.01 gallons in Delaware, next on the list—is maybe a tad suspect. Though it's worth pointing out that VT and ME are also in the top 10.The child care system: "It's so broken. It's so broken." You knew that already. But to bring it home, VTDigger's Riley Robinson went to Tunbridge, where she spoke with parents about how they manage when they're paying more for child care than they are for their mortgage—and that's only if they're lucky enough actually to land a spot for their kids—and to administrators and educators Hannah Nadeau and Monique Braman about burnout, low wages, and other issues besetting the profession. She and colleague Lola Duffort also game out a legislative session where serious new funding will be top of mind.WWED (what would Einstein do)? Let’s ask him! He’s one of the people on a new chatbot that lets you “converse” with historical and popular figures. On My Modern Met, Jessica Stewart looks at Character.ai and Hello History, and considers how AI platforms might enrich learning. Keep it all in perspective, urges Character.ai. “Everything Characters say is made up!” We asked Einstein if anyone was as smart as he was. The response: Newton, Galileo, Stephen Hawking. "I have always considered myself an average man who is simply curious and asks too many questions," Character Einstein says.Now that's a wind. It's not unheard-of for updrafts along cliff faces in southern Utah's red rock country to be so strong that they blow waterfalls upward. But it is pretty rare to catch it on film. That's what photographer RJ Hooper just managed with his drone, after a cold front brought 40-60 mph winds to Ivins, UT. Oh, if you get vertigo easily, don't put this on a big screen.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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From 6-7 this evening, Dartmouth Health and ALL Together are holding a training session at the Latham Library on Thetford Hill for community members on "The Opioid Epidemic: Where Do I Fit In?" They'll be talking about harm reduction approaches, opioid overdose, how to use naloxone in case someone you know overdoses, and common dangers with mixing medications.
This evening at 6:30, the North Branch Nature Center hosts a livestreamed presentation by Simone Whitecloud, "Indigenous Plant Uses in Southern Greenland." Whitecloud, who is Chippewa on her father's side and French/Cajun on her mother's, got her PhD in plant ecology and ethnobotany at Dartmouth, then continued there on a fellowship in the program on Polar Environmental Change; her focus is plant use among the Inuit. She'll be talking about how the Inuit of southern Greenland use plants for medicine, beverages, food, herbs and spices, fuel, ritual, and decorative arts., as well as about how the plants there relate to the alpine vegetation of New England.
This evening's presentation by the Hop of the Dublin Guitar Quartet (at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth) may be sold out, but it's always worth a call: 603.646.2422. The quartet, focused entirely on new classical music, will be performing works by Philip Glass, Rachel Grimes, Gyorgy Ligeti, and others.
And the Tuesday poem...
I sold my earrings at the gold store to buy a silver ring in the market. I swapped that for old ink and a black notebook. This was before I forgot my pages on the seat of a train that was supposed to take me home. Whenever I arrived in a city, I felt my home was in a different one.
Olga says, without my having told her any of this, “Your home is never really home until you sell it. Then you discover all the things you could do with the garden and the large rooms—like you’re seeing it through the eyes of a broker. You stored all your nightmares in the attic, now you have to pack them in a suitcase or two.” Olga falls silent, then suddenly smiles, a monarch among her subjects, there in the kitchen between her coffee machine and a window with a view of flowers... Let home be that place where you never notice the bad lighting, let it be a wall whose cracks keep growing until one day you take them for doors.
— From
by Egyptian poet and essayist
, who now lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Translated from the Arabic by Robyn Creswell.
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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