GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny and warm to start. Showers eventually. It’ll be another day a lot like yesterday until late afternoon, when a cold front starts its way through the region. Highs will be in the low 80s; clouds start moving in as the afternoon wears on, and we’ll see a chance of rain and slight chance of thunder starting up in the late afternoon and through the evening, with widespread showers overnight. Like the last time, it’s not even close to a drought-buster, but it’ll be welcome even so. Lows in the low 50s.
Oskar, Felix, and Oliver mess around; Kelly hides. They’re four of the cubs at the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme, which put this video up (X out of the popup to see it). (Thanks, HHC!)
Ring lichen, bombus lapidarius… Out in DB Johnson’s Lost Woods this week, Henry’s finding all sorts of material for the Book of Seasons he’s working on.
A cornucopia of late-season vegetables on your table. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, corn, leeks… It’s all coming in, and over on the Edgewater Farm CSA blog, home chef, cookbook author, and Kitchen Sense blogger Mitchell Davis has a pair of recipes to use them to full advantage. One of them is a three-fer: Roasted Eggplant with Crushed Tomato, Peppers, and Pecorino. The other sounds like a drink—Leeks Vinaigrette Mimosa—but isn’t. “To begin,” writes Mitchell, “you must clean the leeks, which can have dirt and sand stuck in the darndest places.”
Or you could just wander over to Woodstock and have Farmer and the Bell do the cooking. It’s been well over a year since April and Ben Pauly, who built a devoted regional doughnut and cruller following with a pop-up and then a “residency” in Quechee, announced their project to create a permanent home in Woodstock’s east end, right where Route 4 makes its sharp turn toward downtown. Now, reports Corin Hirsch in her debut piece for Daybreak, it’s open, with 82 seats inside and out and a pared-down, doughnuts and pastry menu to start before it expands to sandwiches and more. Meanwhile, Corin writes, Positive Pie is aiming to open mid-month a few minutes away, at the village’s prime downtown corner; it’ll be its fourth location.
SPONSORED: Come to VINS for an unforgettable day of Halloween fun on Saturday, October 25th! Launch pumpkins from catapults, navigate a spider maze, hunt for treats along the Canopy Walk and watch majestic raptors soar during daytime festivities (10 AM-5 PM, included with general admission). As darkness falls, experience the thrilling Hoots & Howls evening tour (5:30-8 PM, separate ticket), a guided journey through the Nature Center featuring storytellers, skits, and puppet shows, ending with special Halloween treats. Costumes encouraged! Visit vinsweb.org for tickets. Sponsored by VINS.
Hanover police on Dartmouth swastikas: First was real, second misread. Looking at the photo of the latter in the HPD’s press release yesterday, it’s not hard to understand why—in the wake of the first Sept. 17 report of a swastika drawn outside a Jewish student’s room—you might leap to conclusions about the second one. But after “extensive follow up,” the press release says, “Hanover Police believed that the image drawn was likely not a swastika…. The person that did the writing later came forward and confirmed they had written the word ‘HI’ with a heart over the I.” You can see that, too. The first drawing is still under investigation.
The fruits of window-builders’ labors. Ever since last Thursday, a group of volunteers at the Sharon Congregational Church has been working to put together 157 window inserts to help keep 29 homes in the Hartford, Hartland, and Sharon area warm in the winter. It’s part of the Maine-based Window Dressers effort, and at the burgundy link, you’ll see what the results look like: Eric Francis’s photo of Lucy Clawson, daughter of Hartford Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Dana Clawson, surrounded by window inserts. The build continues today and tomorrow, 9-12 and 1-4 (with lunch served) and they badly need volunteers. You can sign up here.
SPONSORED: Ford Sayre Looks to Expand Youth Skimo Racing Team. The sport of "Skimo" is debuting at the Olympics this winter! Come check out this growing sport with Ford Sayre's skimo team, where your child can learn about fast and light uphill skimo racing in a fun, inclusive atmosphere. Practices are Wednesday evenings at Whaleback and are designed for active kids (ages 8-18). Gear available to rent. More details and registration at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Ford Sayre Youth Ski Mountaineering.
Dartmouth will replace homecoming bonfire with light show. That’s because back in September, NH Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced a statewide burn ban. So this Friday, the college’s Office of Communications said on Friday, “instead of open flames, the festivities will take the form of an interactive light and laser show set to a soundtrack performed by Dartmouth student DJs.” In addition, freshmen will get light-up wristbands synchronized to the soundtrack.
When cross-river Upper Valley football games drew thousands of spectators. That was in the days of the Connecticut Valley League, from 1979 until 1993, writes Steve Taylor in his at the “golden age” of high school football in the region. The league “fostered traditional rivalries that far predated its founding” he explains: Bellows Falls against Fall Mountain, Windsor vs. Stevens, and Leb or Hanover against Hartford. All drew crowds of 2,000 or more. The problem: “CVL schools had backed away from scheduling games with schools in other areas of the two states, and those schools would mount a determined battle to punish and isolate the upstart league.”
At Shaker Bridge, a play “that is perfect at both entertaining and challenging an audience.” The first half of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s satire revolving around the board of a progressive private day school—warning: you’ll hear “erased” and “a lot to unpack”—has plenty of laughs and includes a scene featuring school principal Gordon Clapp that “may be one of the funniest scenes I have seen on stage,” writes Susan Apel in her Artful review. But the second half, when the strong cast grapples with a potential mumps outbreak, vaccines, and what happens when people can’t agree on the truth, is where its core—and its challenge to the audience—lie.
Hood Museum director announces retirement. John Stomberg, who will have led Dartmouth’s art museum for a bit over a decade when he steps down next June, will also have been the Hood’s longest-serving director, writes the college’s Office of Communications. The museum will have “twice as many galleries, double the number of staff, and at least 7,980 more works in the collection than when he first came to Dartmouth” in January, 2016. Stomberg also oversaw a $50 million museum expansion. “John has the incredible gift of making everyone excited about exhibitions and the Hood Museum’s fabulous collection,” says its board chair.
NH Supreme Court Justice Hantz Marconi to plead to misdemeanor charge. As you probably remember, Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi has been suspended from her position on the court since last summer, accused of “attempting to solicit former Gov. Chris Sununu to intervene on behalf of her husband, Geno Marconi, the state Port Director, who was under investigation at the time for sharing confidential records,” reports NHPR’s Todd Bookman. Yesterday, her attorney announced she intends to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of criminal solicitation this afternoon; all other charges will be dismissed. The count carries up to a $1,200 fine, and no jail term.
Touring the “little roadside pieces” of the puzzle that is Vermont. You may remember that back in May, then-Dartmouth senior Kelby Greene was in Daybreak with an audio piece about local plow guy Scott MacDonald. Now Kelby’s got an entire podcast series under way. Roadside Vermont aims to tell the state’s local history through its historical markers and plaques. The first four episodes are up, with more on the way. There’s the 1793 “vampire panic” in what is now Manchester Center; the brawl—literally—that gave Barre its name; the story of a 1920s traveling musician, humorist, and recording artist; and the story of an old mill in Barnet kept alive by Ben Thresher.
Elves, fairies, ghosts … or chemistry in action? Ethereal and eerie as they may be, will-o’-the-wisps—faint blue flames that eerily bob over marshes—have long been recognized as simply organic material rotting and forming methane. But without a form of ignition, what causes the glow? New research, writes Stephen Luntz in IFLScience, points to small electrical discharges of water droplets from methane-air microbubbles, called “microlightning” by the researchers. They used high-speed optical imaging to capture the “interbubble flashes and measurable visible luminescence” (video and research here) for a “physically grounded explanation.” Not as mysterious, but still cool.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
The Hanover Garden Club presents “Your Neighborhood Botanical Conservatory: Growing the World’s Flora for You with Dana Ozimek”. Ozimek is a botanical horticulturist and assistant greenhouse manager at Dartmouth. She’ll be talking about “intriguing species, growing tips on how to care for a wide range of plants, and examples of how modern botanical conservatories are protecting the world’s flora. 1 pm at the Montshire and online.
Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Glorious People at Dartmouth. In a talk called “Donbas-Berlin: Migration and Memory”, the German playwright, essayist, theater curator and novelist talks about their 2024 novel, about the post-Soviet years in Ukraine, two Jewish women who left for Germany, and the lives they’ve tried to create there. 4:30 pm in Filene Auditorium.
At the Howe Library, “Managing Deer Density and Impact Within Forested Residential Communities”. Forest Service research wildlife botanist and wildlife consultant David deCalesta will talk over deer carrying capacity, management strategies (including hunting), historical successes and failures, and more. 5:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
Courtney Floyd and Higher Magic in Woodstock. It’s the launch of the local author’s “dark academia” novel about a mage grad student “who has one more chance to pass her graduate exams by proving classic literature contained magic, but is distracted from her goals when students start disappearing from campus.” At the Norman Williams Public Library, co-sponsored by the Yankee Bookshop, 6:00 pm.
Guitarist and singer Courtney Hartman in Thetford. The longtime folk/bluegrass artist and former member of Della Mae is on tour backing a new album (she hits The Word Barn in Exeter next). 7 pm in the Thetford Hill Church.
Danny Dover at the Norwich Bookstore. The poet and (not entirely) retired piano technician is a regular in Dear Daybreak, with poems that start small and particular then unfold into reflections that never fail to bring the reader up short and are filled, as James Crews puts it, with “light-filled kindness.” His new collection, Flamingo Nation, travels the world, the Upper Valley, and his own inner landscape. 7 pm.
Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast at the Thetford Arthouse Cinema. It’s the last week of the film series: Tonight, the French director’s surrealist 1946 classic, long before computer effects and modern makeup. Friday, it’s Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel: “Not just eye candy (but definitely that) Anderson never fails to influence your views of reality,” writes TAC organizer Art Kahn. 7 pm both evenings in the Martha Rich Theater, with its newly installed sound system.
And for today...
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you;
You are care, and care must keep you;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
— “Cradle Song” by Thomas Dekker. The lullaby was first published in 1603 as part of a play by Dekker, Patient Grissel; and yep, Paul McCartney found the sheet music and lyrics on a piano in his father’s Liverpool home and created his own version. So, of course: here you go.
See you tomorrow.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael