GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Rain ending, skies clearing. At least, later today. You can't really tell from ground level, but yesterday's front already passed through; today, we get a second one, bringing a chance of showers all morning. Still, at some point this afternoon we might actually see sun. There's some suggestion in the weather models that we could get up to 60 today, but the forecasters are playing it safe and predicting mid-50s. With mostly clear skies, we'll be down to around freezing tonight.Who doesn't love a good apple? They're pretty popular out there...
In Orange, NH, Andrew Terhune was wondering why his apple trees had fruit only on the higher branches. Here's how he figured it out. And no, it's not someone in a costume.
And in Thetford, Jim Zien reports that this squirrel somehow dragged an apple onto their deck—then used it as a handy snackstop for days.
In Thetford, proposed bridge closing raises questions about firefighting readiness. One of the casualties of NHDOT's plan to close the Lyme-E. Thetford bridge may be mutual aid between the Lyme and Thetford fire departments, write Sidenote's Nick Clark and Li Shen. And that has some Thetford residents worried because of persistent rumors that the town's volunteer fire department has lost many of its members. Chief Chad Whitcomb says the TVFD has 15 members on its roster, but Shen and Clark were unable to verify it—and say accounts from former volunteers bolster concerns.Want to collect out-of-state license plates? Head to Pomfret's Cloudland Road on a fall weekend—but don't expect a parking spot. It's gotten so crowded with photographers along the road by Sleepy Hollow Farm, writes Kirk Kardashian in Seven Days, that the town's made Cloudland one-way for a few weeks and hired a sheriff's deputy to enforce it. Kardashian gets the flavor of the scrum surrounding one of the most photographed spots in VT and talks to neighbor Mike Doten—who's collected two bags of trash along the road in the last couple of weeks, though he says "most people are considerate."SPONSORED: It's time to switch to a solar-powered EV—and we've got the numbers to prove it! Generous new tax credits toward the purchase of solar arrays and electric vehicles make this the right time to start filling up on sunshine. With solar charging now running well below the equivalent of a dollar per gallon, the savings add up fast! Hit the maroon link to see how fast you can pay back your investment in a Solaflect Tracker and how much you can save over the life of an electric vehicle. You’re going to like what you see! Sponsored by Solaflect Energy. Three local NH general-election contests get the spotlight:
In the Valley News, John Lippman covers the face-off for Sullivan County's chief prosecutor between longtime incumbent Republican Marc Hathaway and Democrat Jay Buckey, the county's chief public defender. The two have often tangled in the courtroom, Lippman writes, and on the campaign trail are proposing thoroughly different approaches to dealing with the drug epidemic in the courts.
Also in the VN, Patrick O'Grady delves into the contest for the Sullivan District 7 state House seat between Plainfield Republican Margaret Drye and Cornish Democrat Jason Bourne. The district covers Charlestown, Cornish, Newport, Plainfield, and Unity.
And in the Keene Sentinel, Rick Green details the differences between incumbent Democrat Cinde Warmington and Republican state Sen. Harold French for the NH Executive Council District 2. In redistricting, much of the NH side of the Upper Valley was added to the district. Among other things, the two disagree sharply on state funding for Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers.
Fifty years on, remembering Jim Wright's legacy in the classroom. In the week before the former Dartmouth president's death, newspaper columnist David Shribman wrote two columns that called on what he learned from Wright in different courses a half-century ago. Wright "shaped my week before his death darkened my week," Shribman writes in a tribute, and reflects on inspiration he and public figures like Harvard Law professor Annette Gordon-Reed and CNN anchor Jake Tapper gained from "the quintessential teacher, in and beyond the classroom."After three centuries, the Upper Valley gets a North American first. At the end of this month, Upper Valley Baroque—led by Filippo Ciabatti and consisting of professional musicians from the region, Boston, and NYC—will perform two concerts of the newly discovered Mass in F major by composer Giuseppe Maria Orlandini. The North American premiere, writes Susan Apel in Artful, came about because Ciabatti is a childhood friend of Umberto Cerini, who as a PhD student and scholar discovered Orlandini's work in an archives in Prague. They agreed that UV Baroque "would be in a position to do justice" to the piece.For beavers, it's really stick season. This is their busiest time of year, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog. "Their entire winter’s food supply must be cut, gathered, transported and piled next to their lodge so that they will have access to it under the ice," she writes. And just as important, their dams have to be patched and strengthened to withstand winter—because without a dam there's no pond, and without a pond, there can't be beavers.But of course, beavers aren't the only ones who are busy out there. For one thing, writes the VT Center for Ecostudies' Emily Anderson in the org's Field Guide to October, Eastern Red, Hoary, and Silver-haired bats are all migrating to warmer climes, while the six species of cave bats are fattening up ahead of hibernating. Meanwhile, writes Spencer Hardy, Masked Bee moms are creating wintertime nests in hollow plant stems for their grubs, while frogs and amphibians making their way upland to hibernate are doing their best to avoid snakes, raccoons, and Barred Owls, writes Kevin Tolan.Maple syrup in NH vs. VT: It's not just the label. The actual news peg is that NH is getting a $388,080 USDA grant to promote maple syrup produced in the state, according to Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin. But toward the end of her story, Gokee digs into why VT outproduces NH 15-to-1 on the syrup front. Partly, UNH Cooperative Extension's Steven Roberge tells her, it's the soil: VT's bedrock has more calcium and is therefore less acidic; sugar maples like that. And partly it's the land's history: A lot of NH farm labor left to work in the state's factories, whereas in VT, the on-farm sugaring tradition survived.A good recycling idea whose time may never come. That's how Granite Geek's David Brooks describes a Burlington VT project run jointly by recycling firm TerraCycle and Casella—which may want to roll it out in other Casella markets. Households put tough-to-recycle items like used K-cups, eyewear, pet food packaging, and more into a pouch, which then gets collected and the items broken down by hand. The problem? They pay $25 a month, "meaning it will never do more than nibble around the edges of the problem," Brooks writes. The solution is to make manufacturers pay, but that'll never happen either.An expanded Burlington airport finally opens to the public. Travelers flying in and out of BTV can expect shorter security lines, a spacious terminal, and more seating with the long-awaited unveiling of the airport’s new wing. An article by 7D Brand Studios (ie, sponsored by BTV) lays out the improvements, made possible by a $19M federal grant: state-of-the art checkpoint scanners that don’t require you to remove laptops and liquids from your luggage, a soon-to-come second floor with lots of additional seating…and views of Mt. Mansfield and Beta Technologies while you wait to board.“Within the domino community, this is iconic.” That's North Carolina's Nathan Heck talking about the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center's annual Domino Toppling Extravaganza. The 15th toppling was held this past weekend, and VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor caught up with Heck, YouTube star Lily Hevesh, and their compatriots. For all the domino-toppling opportunities out there in the social-media age, Hevesh tells him, they'll keep returning to BMAC. "This is unique because we get to do anything we want, and this is one of the riskiest because we’re making it up on the spot,” she says.“A dish of living brain cells has learned to play…Pong.” NPR’s Jon Hamilton sure doesn’t bury the lede. Australian scientists have been experimenting with brain cells to see if, by various electronic manipulations, they can be taught to perform a basic task. And what’s more basic than a 1972 arcade game involving a ball and paddle? A layer of these cells was grown on a silicon chip, through which computer signals were sent to “motivate” the cells into moving the paddle up or down. And, well, it worked. They haven’t exactly mastered Pong, say the scientists, but they’re better than mouse brain cells. Meanwhile, on the cat front: You'll want sound up for the full effect. But trust me, only once.And the Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Today at 12:30, economist Sergei Guriev gives a talk at the Tuck School and online on "Spin Dictators: Globalization and The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century." Guriev, who grew up in North Ossetia, went to high school in Ukraine and university in Moscow, is now the provost and a professor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He'll be talking about what Foreign Affairs calls "the evolving dark arts of authoritarian politics"—the ways in which authoritarians of both the right and the left use the manipulation of information to build their popularity.
At 5:30, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts a panel of legal experts and recent law school grads, both in-person and livestreamed, tackling the question, "Should you go to law school?" It's aimed at undergrads, but local high schoolers and college-age or post-college Upper Valleyites are welcome, too. The panel will be talking about what law degrees are good for and different ways of pursuing them.
And at 7 this evening, online only, novelist John Irving appears on Writers on a New England Stage to talk about his first novel in seven years, The Last Chairlift, which officially debuts today. Irving's latest (and, at 889 pages, longest) touches on all those familiar Irving points: religion, sex, politics, wrestling, Exeter, strong mothers and absent fathers, New Hampshire, (though no bears)... all "tempered by a fair dose of satire and absurdity, delivered...in an endearing, matter-of-fact prose" as the AP's Rob Merrill puts it. Irving will be talking to NHPR's Rick Ganley. It's a serious $56.50 for a ticket—though that also gets the book mailed to you, which can't be cheap. And then, Irving's 80 and he says this is his last major novel; how many more chances you going to get?
And the Tuesday poem...
The rabbis wrote:although it is forbiddento touch a dying person,nevertheless, if the house catches firehe must be removedfrom the house. Barbaric!I say,and who may I touch then,aren’t we all dying? You smileyour old negotiator’s smileand ask:but aren’t all our houses burning?
— "A Short History of Judaic Thought in the Twentieth Century," by
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 wee
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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