Daybreak Tuesday, 12/2/25

Snow. The first real winter storm of the season comes to us courtesy of an Arctic cold front sweeping through, and the only real question is when it’ll start. The weather service is expecting 7-8 inches for the core of the Upper Valley (here’s Vermont, here’s New Hampshire), though there could be more or less; totals creep up the farther south in the twin states you go. “Much of the event will be a steady, light to moderate snowfall of roughly 0.5"/hour snow,” they say, “leading to snow-covered roads and slippery conditions for both the morning and evening commutes.” Highs today around 30, lows around 17, with clouds starting to clear out overnight.

A standout daybreak photo. From Kevin Ramos-Glew in Meriden.

Just in time for Giving Tuesday, a crowdsourced Upper Valley giving guide. When I asked readers last month to suggest Upper Valley organizations to support with donations or volunteering, I figured a few dozen people would respond. Nope. More than 300 did, pointing to over 100 groups that make their homes here. At first I thought, “Well, I’ll just pick and choose.” But as I read, I realized you all had created a many-hued portrait of good will, a story about the ways we in the Upper Valley serve, entertain, educate, and care for one another here and elsewhere. So here’s that guide—with all the groups people wrote about. Scroll through and you’ll learn a ton about life here. There’s a link at the bottom if you want to add more.

Introducing MiniBreak, a new mini crossword! Laura Braunstein heads Digital Scholarly Engagement at the Dartmouth Libraries, where she manages a team of, as she puts it, “generally awesome people.” She is also a veteran crossword constructor (and competitive solver) who’s been published in major newspapers and indie outlets. In 2018, she and Wordle editor Tracy Bennett founded The Inkubator, which published crosswords by women and non-binary constructors (you’ll find their collection at Still North and elsewhere). Her new, Upper Valley-themed mini will run Tuesdays, with a slightly longer “midi” on Thursdays. After today, they’ll live next to Wordbreak below.

“A wild plant I feel very attached to.” That would be arctium minus, or common burdock, and once again it’s front and center—and on the sides and head and arms—for the denizens of DB Johnson’s Lost Woods. “I like weeds,” Henry tells Wally. “They’re wild and tough and need little care.”

SPONSORED: A Forest of Lights is back at VINS! The VINS Nature Center has come alive for the holiday season again this year with A Forest of Lights, running on select evenings through January 3rd. The exhibit is bigger and better every year. So far we've heard the following from our visitors: "Enchanting!" "So creative!" "A new family holiday tradition!" "A perfect way to brighten the long, dark evening hours." Don't miss your chance to experience the magic! Tickets at the burgundy link or at vinsweb.org. Sponsored by VINS.

“Nonverbal & disabled, but never quiet.” That’s the email signoff of Randolph’s Owen Dybvig, who is 24 and has to communicate using an AAC (augmentative and alterna­tive communication) device “that responds to slight movements in his knee,” writes Isabel Dreher in a profile in The Herald. Which, Dybvig says, “basically makes me a cyborg with incredible thighs.” In addition to writing songs, fiction, and screeds, Dybvig is a font of petitions, including one to OpenAI, which recently launched ChatGPT Atlas for MacOS devices only. Its capabilities could be a game-changer, Dybvig believes, but only with Windows, which powers the accessibility systems he needs. ““I got excluded faster than a wheelchair at a treehouse party,” he tells Dreher.

How the Cornish-Windsor bridge was (at long, long last) rebuilt. It was pretty clear, by 1983, that what may be the longest wooden covered bridge in the US was failing. State highway officials, writes Steve Taylor in VN, wanted to tear down the 1866 structure and build a new, modern bridge—sparking years of debate over whether, and how, to rebuild. A dogged state rep, Merle Schotanus, pushed the project through and mediated the many arguments about what should happen until, on a bone-chilling Dec. 8, 1989, “the Upper Valley’s Statue of Liberty” reopened to much fanfare in a “festival of interstate admiration.” Taylor dives into the bridge’s “rich and colorful” history.

SPONSORED: Pompanoosuc Mills Holiday Open House Set for December 4-7. Mark your calendars! Pompy's annual Holiday Open House is coming this week, December 4-7, offering a festive long weekend full of highlights. Visitors will find extended showroom hours, exclusive seasonal promotions, and complimentary refreshments throughout the event. Guests can also enter for a chance to win a handcrafted Thetford Hill Rocker. Stop in anytime from Thursday through Sunday to shop, mingle, and celebrate the season. Sponsored by Pompanoosuc Mills.

“The art and sport of creating theater on the spot.” That’s improv, and that—organizer Ben Guaraldi tells Susan Apel in Artful—is what Valley Improv does. In a profile of the 24-member troupe, Susan asks what motivates them. “People enjoy being on stage, making people laugh, learning improv skills, being in a community, creating collaboratively, challenging themselves, doing something different than their day job, or simply having a fun and welcoming place to be when we practice each week,” Guaraldi tells her. They’ve got a show Dec. 10 at Sawtooth, with their largest cast ever taking audience suggestions on “any holiday you celebrate.” Susan’s hoping for Festivus.

The Upper Valley Health Closet: “It’s too good to let die.” You may have seen the item here a couple of weeks ago about the health closet, which has a highly uncertain future. In the VN, Liz Sauchelli profiles Hanover’s John Bayliss and Canaan’s Harry Armstrong, the no-longer-spring-chickens who drive up to 1,500 miles a month collecting and then handing out used medical equipment—walkers, canes, crutches, shower stools, bed rails, mattresses for hospital beds—to anyone who needs it, at no charge. “Sometimes somebody going home, that wheelchair, that walker…is what keeps them independent,” says Mt. Ascutney Hospital’s Belinda Needham Shropshire.

Signs of a striped skunk (besides the obvious). Ever see unexplained swirls or holes in the ground? Often, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog, these “are created when a Striped Skunk is actively looking for food and probes the ground with its nose. If and when it smells a protein-rich earthworm or grub (larval insect) in the ground, it digs a hole with its powerful front legs and long nails in order to retrieve it. Often you find clusters of holes in one spot. These cone-shaped holes are dug at night, when skunks are active, and often appear after a heavy rain.” Of course, now that there’s snow on the ground, their time may have passed for the season.

In NH housing push, first came zoning, now comes water and sewer. Back in October, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, researchers at St. Anselm College “uncovered a revealing statistic: Just 12 percent of the state’s buildable land has access to either water or sewer services, and just 5.6 percent has access to both.” Which, of course, makes it hard to develop housing. And although there are some solutions, like alternative septic technologies and community septic, cities and towns that are already struggling just to maintain aging public infrastructure now face the prospect of spending even more to upgrade and expand pipes and other equipment.

NH unveils tax amnesty program. For the first time in a decade, the state is offering overdue taxpayers a chance to pay off those debts with no penalty—and, reports NHPR’s Todd Bookman, both individuals and businesses can get 50 percent off overdue interest. As Bookman reports, “A company that owes $1,600 in back business taxes due in April 2024, for example, currently owes $2,537 when factoring in penalties and interest. Under the amnesty program, that balance can be paid off with a payment of $1,788, a savings of nearly $750.” The program only applies to state taxes, not federal or local property taxes. Here the state’s page.

In early estimate, VT tax officials project nearly 12 percent property tax jump in 2026. That news, reports VTDigger’s Ethan DeWitt, arrived in the annual “December 1” letter from the tax department to the legislature; it’s based on anticipated increases in school spending for the 2026-2027 school year—and on uncertainty about whether the state will use some of its funds to lower tax rates, as it did last year. In a press conference yesterday, Bill Shouldice, the state’s tax commissioner, called the projected tax increase “simply unacceptable,” while Gov. Phil Scott and Ed Secy. Zoie Saunders called on the legislature to move forward with the state’s education reform plan.

But here’s the thing about that plan. As you know by now, it calls for sweeping school district mergers. That was the charge the school redistricting task force—which included Norwich state Rep. Rebecca Holcombe and former Dresden Supt. Jay Badams—ultimately set aside, after much feedback from school districts and others, in favor of regional service cooperatives and voluntary mergers. The draft report—the final version was due yesterday—drew condemnation from Scott and Saunders, but took into account the state’s “limited statewide capacity for major structural change.” In Seven Days, Alison Novak explains the task force’s suggestions and reasoning. Now, the debate shifts to the legislature.

A butterfly you’ll never be able to catch. That’s because it’s thousands of light years away. Last week, the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab released an exquisite photo of the Butterfly Nebula, captured by the Gemini South telescope in Chile. CBS News story at the burgundy link, NOIRLab writeup here.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
David Millstone and “Dancing with Jane Austen”. The veteran Upper Valley dance caller and scholar will give a Zoom-only (thanks to the snow) presentation sponsored by the Howe Library. Austen’s novels regularly feature social dancing, and Millstone’s presentation will focus on the dance form “from its roots in the mid-seventeenth century; we'll pay particular attention to English country dance as it was done in Austen's lifetime some 150 years later.” 6:30 pm.

And at JAM this month and next, "Video Stop II: Bad Video”. As JAM writes, “From the mind of Chico Eastridge comes…this pop up VHS store/ art installation December-January.” It’s in the back of JAM, where you’ll be able to rent movies—bad movies, movies like Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights—on VHS “like the good ol’ days! Don’t have a way to play it? No problem! VHS players are also available for loan.” Through Jan. 30. Oh, one other thing to know: “Open when we feel like it.”

The Tuesday poem.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

— “Don’t Hesitate” by Mary Oliver, from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Drive safe if you’re headed out! And enjoy the snow! See you tomorrow.

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