GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Just as sunny, warmer. Once the fog clears, another fine summer's day with colorful leaves as we get into the low 80s (though we are starting at around 50); it's possible some high-temp records for the date will be broken out there. Light winds from the northwest, down into the mid 50s overnight.Speaking of color... In Quechee, Janice Fischel caught a roadside tree in that wonderful half-summer, half-autumn phase we're in right now.In Reading, VT, another photo-bait farm is declared off-limits. This one, reports Ethan Weinstein in VTDigger, is the Jenne Farm, a working beef and maple farm, which has appeared in Budweiser commercials, Forrest Gump, and, more recently, a lot of Instagram feeds. Nearby residents "had complained of cars blocking the road and even tourists walking into people’s homes to use the bathroom without permission," Weinstein writes. The selectboard has closed Jenne Road to all but locals through the end of this month.First, 3,000 feet. Then about 47,000 feet. Then, finally: 95,000 feet. That's how high test observation balloons launched by Hanover High students participating in a NASA solar-eclipse project have gotten. You may remember that the school is just one of five high schools nationally participating in the program, and the team is getting ready to head to Oregon next week to gear up for the Oct. 14 annular eclipse (and then to Burlington in April for the total eclipse). In the VN, Frances Mize describes the project, what the balloons' equipment will study—and what's gone into getting them into the stratosphere.From municipal law and zoning details to 1,750 miles on the AT. Bernie Waugh, who served as Lebanon's city attorney and still chairs Hanover's zoning board, retired recently from his law practice, and this summer hiked the AT from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Hanover. Demo Sofronas, who checks in with thru-hikers from time to time on his About Norwich blog, asked Waugh to tell him about his experiences. Which he's just done, along with plenty of photos and an explanation of why his trail name is "Conductor": his railroad-style cap and "my puffing like a locomotive up steep hills."Local news, community life... and pine needles. Lots of pine needles. One of the most interesting conversations I've had recently was with Alex Torpey, Hanover's town manager, for his monthly podcast, Hanover Happenings. It delves not just into town affairs, but into Torpey's wide-ranging interests, and on a walk through Pine Park, we talked about everything from why Tupelo, MS was once a community development model to Daybreak's history and values to why local news and information are so crucial to local democracy and to knitting communities together. There's an automated transcript, but it's quirky.SPONSORED: Make a true difference! Hearts You Hold is a VT-based nonprofit that supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees by taking the time to ask them what they need. There are many requests waiting to be funded for people who are trying to build their lives: clothing, bedding, work boots, kitchenware, equipment for refugees from Ukraine—and, always, cards that help with gas and laundry. Hit the burgundy link above or here, pick something to fund, and make a difference now! Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.Passion goes to public broadcasting. You may remember that back in the midst of the pandemic, Jennifer Chambers, then Hanover High choral director, enlisted Dartmouth conductor Filippo Ciabatti to teach students to sing opera. Filmmaker Nora Jacobson was there, and caught it all on camera, turning it into a nearly hour-long film, Passion in a Pandemic. Now, writes Susan Apel in Artful, the film's been picked up by New Hampshire PBS. Making that happen, Jacobson tells Susan, is "rather labor intensive—including creating a study guide for teachers. JAM will also screen the film Oct. 12 at the Briggs.Up and down the Upper Valley, a long history of bridges built—and destroyed. In fact, writes Steve Taylor in the VN, over the course of a couple of centuries, dozens of wooden bridges were constructed to tie together the two halves of what Howard Dean once called a "third state"; only one, the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge, built in 1866, remains. Flooding and a turn to new construction materials took care of the rest. Taylor looks at the history of those efforts—including the multiple unsuccessful efforts to join Hartland and Plainfield, one of only two unlinked pairs of towns between MA and Quebe.Lighting out for the territory. Those would be young ruffed grouse, first males—who stand a better chance of attracting a mate in the spring if they've got a patch of earth to call their own—and then females, writes Mary Holland on Naturally Curious. Males only go a mile or two from where they spent their first months; females, up to ten miles. One possibility: mortality rates for males are higher in the spring, since their tendency to drum on logs for mating tends to attract attention. They're higher for females in the fall, since they're traveling farther. "In this way," Holland writes, "the male-to-female ratio is balanced."With updated plan for older Granite Staters, NH focuses on expanding home- and community-based services. The new plan, required every four years by the feds, is aimed at coming to grips with an estimate that within seven years, over a third of the state's population will be 65 or older. An analysis last year, reports NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth, found that the state underfunded home- and community-based care over the past decade; the plan calls for more funding and for making the system easier to navigate.In NH, electric utilities ponder a once-unthinkable prospect: wildfires. Ice storms, tornadoes, floods, microbursts—they're all part of Eversource's planning, writes David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog. But wildfires haven't been, until recently. "It’s definitely something we talk about," says the president of the company's NH operations, especially since Quebec and Maui. He walks Brooks through some of the changes, including how crews deal with cut brush, using different equipment on poles and power lines—and different poles altogether—and a new emphasis on spotting potential problems early.Federal judge sentences Keene libertarian activist to 8 years in crypto case. You may remember that radio host Ian Freeman was convicted back in December of running a cryptocurrency exchange business that prosecutors contended was a laundering operation for scammers, as well as for tax evasion. Yesterday, in a courtroom packed with his supporters, Judge Joseph Laplante ordered him to prison: “There was real harm caused by his conduct,” Laplante said, though he cut the term recommended by federal sentencing guidelines in half. The Sentinel's Christopher Cartwright gives the details."The red flag formula of 'This is a scam.'" Talking to VT Public's Nina Keck about scams targeting older Vermonters, state AG Charity Clark says that if "emotions are high, they’re trying to get your money, it’s urgent, and you don’t know who they are," beware. Keck reports that VTers lost at least $8 million last year to fraud, from identity theft to deposits on undone repair work. She talks to experts about precautions: how to check if a business or charity is legit, don't click on attachments or even unsubscribe buttons from unknown senders... and have someone trustworthy to call for a second opinion if something feels off.Rowboat, maybe? First, Marc Gendron was given a choice: go talk to the Lake Champlain Transportation Co. about the “disrespectful” email he sent the ferry operator after it bumped up the cost of a ride—or find an "alternative route across Lake Champlain”. But then, writes Kevin McCallum in Seven Days, LCT barred him even from that, serving Gendron—who used the ferry to get to medical appointments—with letters via sheriff's deputies barring him from all company property for calling the ferry owners “evil” for sneaking a 40-cent increase into the fare. “I’m usually much more polite,” Gendron says.It's that time of year again, when the serious and the silly converge—for science. For more than 30 years, the Ig Nobel Prizes have honored "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." In Ars Technica, Jennifer Ouellette runs down this year’s winners, like the study of scientists who like to lick rocks, and the researchers studying what happens inside when you repeat a word "many, many, many, many, many, many, many times." The Ig Nobel ceremony requires experts to explain their projects in 24 seconds and again in seven words. Which, come to think of it, would be a phenomenal requirement for all sorts of experts.The Tuesday Vordle. With an excellent word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 1 pm today, the Hanover Garden Club presents a workshop by Honey Field Farm co-owner Valerie Woodhouse on how to grow, propagate, and properly care for succulents and cacti—including mistakes to avoid and how to grow successfully from cuttings. At the Montshire Museum, in-person only.
Today at 3:30, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center hosts Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson for a "meet and greet" in the center's Class of 1930 Room. Then, at 5 pm, she'll be in Hinman Forum for a conversation about her candidacy. Also available by livestream here.
And at 5 today, Dartmouth's Dickey Center and the Tuck School host Nassim Nicholas Taleb for "Connectivity, Global Fragility & the Added Dangers of AI." The essayist, statistician, former derivatives trader, and, most famously, author of The Black Swan, has long been known for his iconoclastic views on international finance and in particular on risk and uncertainty. He'll be talking about the global risks of disorder with Bernard Avishai, author, New Yorker (and other national mags) writer, and visiting professor of government at Dartmouth. In Filene Auditorium.
At 6 pm, the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock hosts former VT Gov. Madeline Kunin—who, of course, in recent years has made a name as a poet. She'll be reading from and talking about her new collection, Walk With Me, which cover, the publicity material goes, "not only what it means to be a woman on the eve of ninety years of life, but a feminist, a politician, a mother, a lover, a companion, and a living thing in the midst of an ever-turbulent world." No charge but seating's limited, so they'd appreciate your RSVP.
At 6:30 this evening, the Etna Library presents local writer and author Mary Kronenwetter for "Corbin's Animal Garden"—an NH Humanities presentation on Corbin Park, the private hunting preserve that covers a 22,000-acre swath (or maybe more) of Sullivan County and mostly hits the news when some wild hog is thought to have escaped from there. Kronenwetter will talk about the preserve and its history, and about Austin Corbin himself—the Newport NH-born railroad baron and plantation owner with, as the library politely puts it, a "complicated history and legacy."
Here in the Valley's Tuesday Jukebox is back for the season starting at 7 this evening—but in a new location. It'll be in-person at Hanover Strings, along with a livestream and a podcast, and tonight, host Jakob Breitbach welcomes in Chicago singer-songwriter and guitarist Nathan Graham—who "meshes South Side Blues with Nashville Americana"—with Ali T (Alison Turner), Royalton native and indie recording artist, opening. The link has a really nice cut off Graham's debut album, due out later this month.
Finally, tomorrow morning at 8 (which means it's probably something you'd want to know about today), the coffee and conversation group for "creative entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial creatives" AmeUp will meet at Billings Farm for a talk by and conversation with photographer JuanCarlos Gonzales. He'll be talking about the genesis of his photography collection, Vermont Female Farmers, which is both a book and an exhibition at Billings. There's a link on the page for your RSVP.
And the Tuesday poem...
Sometimes I choose a cloud and let itcross the sky floating me away.Or a bird unravels its song and carries meas it flies deeper and deeper into the woods.Is there a way to be gone and stillbelong? Travel that takes you home?Is that life? – to stand by a river and go?
— William Stafford, "Quo Vadis" (Latin for "Where are you going?", poetry editor Michael Lipson points out).
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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