GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warmer. We'll start out frosty and foggy, but with high pressure moving in, the sky will clear and get clearer as time goes on. Temps up to around or above 60, calm winds from the west. Clear again tonight, low around 40.Before we move on... Thanks to all of you who've sent in fall foliage photos. It's impossible to run them all, but here's a taste:
On the Connecticut River toward sunset, by Amanda DeRoy;
Red leaves and birch, by Annemieke McLane;
and Lake Runnemede in Windsor, by Will Fischer.
WRJ hotel shooting suspect arraigned; was already on Newport NH police department radar. A Newport police officer is cited in a Hartford police affidavit saying that four people in town reported that Nathan-Mikhail Fuller, 25, had "been acting crazy for the past couple of weeks and using methamphetamine" before he shot a Mass. workman in the head on Friday at the Comfort Inn in WRJ. Numerous hotel guests, reports John Lippman in the Valley News, had also encountered Fuller wandering the hotel with a gun. Lippman lays out events as reconstructed in the affidavit; Fuller is being held without bail.Lebanon belongs in the "pantheon of world-class, energy-savvy municipalities.” That's Don Kreis, NH's consumer advocate, talking to the Union Leader's Shawne K. Wickham about the city's years-long effort to embrace energy efficiency, green technology, and new models for powering the community. From its pathbreaking community power plan to its landfill gas-to-energy project to its solar arrays, electric truck, plans for electric police cars and fire engines, even Leb Airport's work to prepare its infrastructure for electric planes, the city has been a leader in NH, Wickham writes.And Leb's also the first in the Upper Valley to help residents track their own carbon footprints. Sustainable Lebanon last week rolled out a new smartphone app, SNAPP, that lets city residents calculate their current footprint, makes suggestions for savings, then adds them up over time to show both how individual households and all participants are doing. Even small steps, says Sustainable Lebanon chair Jon Chaffee, can add up at citywide scale—and maybe save a bit on utility bills. "We hope that if our pilot goes well we can do a whole Upper Valley rollout in the future," Chaffee writes in an email.SPONSORED: Don't miss fall foliage at VINS. Immerse yourself in nature and fall foliage at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science! The VINS Nature Center offers hands-on exploration and learning opportunities, deepening your connection to the natural world. Visit with live raptors, immerse yourself in fall foliage on the Forest Canopy Walk & Nature Trails, shop local Vermont products in the Nature Store, and much more! Sponsored by VINS.The challenge NH is taking on: "Can you reassure voters that the electoral process is sound while providing skeptics a forum for their concerns?" In the Washington Post, Joanna Slater details the work of the state's Special Committee on Voter Confidence, placing it squarely within the impassioned national debate over whether the election system is trustworthy. She visits Nashua for one of the committee's sessions, talking to attendees who are convinced fraud is rampant and those who argue just as fervently that, as one ex-Marine puts it, "Feelings don’t matter. Facts do.” (Gift, no paywall)“[NH] is not in a good place for indigenous affairs.” That’s Denise Pouliot of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People, and hers is a frustration shared by many indigenous people in the state, which has no process in place for recognizing its native groups, report the Granite State News Collaborative's Jenny Whidden and Kelly Burch (via the Monitor). Gaining federal recognition is an even steeper hill to climb, requiring tribes to “demonstrate…a continuously organized community since the time of European contact.” But for generations, Abenaki say, they avoided persecution—and survived—largely by hiding their identity.Ultra marathoner carried off trail in Whites. As you can imagine, NH Fish & Game had a busy weekend, including a recent Nashua high school grad who was killed in a fall from a cliff in Weare. Meanwhile, farther north, a 24-year-old Intervale man was on a 40-mile run while training for an ultra marathon when, along the Mount Isolation Trail, he veered out of the way of passing hikers with a dog and hit his hip on a rock outcropping. He tried for two hours to make it down on his own before calling for help.VT Statehouse drops Covid testing, vax rules for visitors. Official policy since last December, writes Erin Petenko in VTDigger, had been that visitors needed proof of vaccination to enter the building and had to be screened for symptoms. But the rules were only enforced briefly, since the Sergeant-at-Arms lacked the staff to do it consistently. Yesterday, legislators voted to drop the rules and instead have the Statehouse post signs that "strongly recommend" vaccination. Current policy also recommends masking, though Petenko notes that none of the legislators meeting yesterday was wearing one.Oh, what the heck. One more visit to the leaves. Here's new fall foliage drone footage from Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne at UVM's Spatial Analysis Lab.It’s a wide world of wonder in these panoramic photos. A few things lend themselves to wide angle photography, if the 2022 Epson Pano Award winners and finalists are any indication. City skylines shrouded in fog, mountain ridges bathed in early light, iconic architecture in magnificent detail—they may dominate the list but never feel repetitive. They are the improbably exquisite scenes our eyes strain to capture, which our phones also fail to do, so we leave them in the hands of professionals. Jaw-dropping, all, but especially don’t miss Peter Li’s kaleidoscopic cathedral interiors.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 12:30 pm, Dartmouth's Irving Institute hosts a panel discussion on "Energy and Equity in the Upper Valley." LISTEN programs director (and 2022 NH social worker of the year) Angela Zhang, Dartmouth anthropology prof Elizabeth Carpenter-Song, and NH Consumer Advocate Don Kreis will talk over rising energy prices and their impact on area residents, as well as how nonprofits, state organizations, and communities are responding to these challenges. Cook Auditorium in the Irving Center, 31 Tuck Mall.
At 1 pm today, it's the last performance in this year's Front Porch Music Series—only instead of taking place on Bill Cole's front porch, it will be at the First Congregational Church of Thetford (also known as Thetford Hill Church). They're bringing the whole family of FPMS musicians together for a free concert that includes the premieres of new pieces composed by Cole and orchestrated by Joseph Daley based on proverbs of the Yoruba of Nigeria. Bill Cole on double reeds, flute, and didgeridoo; Warren Smith on percussion; Joseph Daley on tuba, baritone horn, and euphonium; Ras Moshe on sax and flute; Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, trombone, and—yes—conch; Althea SullyCole on kora; Mali Obomsawin on bass; and Olivia Shortt on baritone sax. (No link)
At 4 pm, DH will host a webinar on the new bivalent Covid booster vaccines DHMC chief quality officer Dr. Michael Calderwood and Dr. Sally Kraft, vice president of Population Health at Dartmouth Health. They'll be talking over the science behind the vaccine, its efficacy, age recommendations, and how to get it. They'll also be taking questions from participants. No charge, and no need to register: Just go here at 4 pm.
This evening's "An Evening with Andy Borowitz" is sold out at the Hop, but you can check in with the box office at 603.646.2422 for cancellations. And if you just have. to. laugh. and don't mind the drive, there are still some tix available for David Sedaris at the Flynn in Burlington at 7:30 pm.
The Tuesday poem...
O hushed October morning mild,Begin the hours of this day slow.Make the day seem to us less brief.Hearts not averse to being beguiled,Beguile us in the way you know.Release one leaf at break of day;At noon release another leaf;One from our trees, one far away.Retard the sun with gentle mist;Enchant the land with amethyst.
— From
.
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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