Daybreak Tuesday 12/7/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Colder, sunnier, drier. Really, it's like the complete opposite of yesterday. Temps might get up to freezing where you are, but at least it'll be mostly sunny through the morning, some wind but nothing like last night, and clouds starting to build in during the afternoon ahead of some low pressure headed our way. Lows tonight around 20, chance of snow before daybreak.Before they disappear under tomorrow's snow... "I hiked up to the North Peak of Moose Mountain on Saturday and was trying to photograph the beautiful ice formations in the moving water of the stream, which proved to be somewhat difficult," writes Robin Osborne. So instead, she turned her camera on the patterns in fallen leaves, as frost slowly encases them.Thetford police chief to step down. Michael Evans, who spent 23 years with the Hanover PD before taking the reins in Thetford in 2015, will leave his post Dec. 23 for a job with Tasco Security in Enfield, reports John Gregg in the Valley News. "Thirty years in policing is probably a fairly good run, especially in the climate now,” Evans told Gregg in a phone interview. “It’s harder now, not always as fulfilling. But there are more things that I enjoy than I don’t enjoy.”Hartford High schools become second in VT to see students stay home after threats. On Friday, a custodian found a note in a bathroom stall reading, "I’m gonna blow the school up Kaboom on Monday,” reports the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr. Local and state police swept both Hartford High and the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center, finding nothing, but some students stayed home yesterday. Meanwhile, at Mt. Abraham Middle/High in Bristol, students stayed home on Friday after a week of intense political division had some students vowing to bring weapons to school, reports Seven Days.SPONSORED: Love goats? Love caramel? Fat Toad Farm in Brookfield has you covered this holiday season with 8 flavors of award-winning Goat’s Milk Caramel, as well as gift boxes with local syrup and honey, sweatshirts featuring our favorite Fat Toad, and our epic jar of caramel—big enough to do all your holiday cooking with! This week enjoy 15 percent off all Fat Toad Farm products by shopping at fatttoadfarm.com. Use code ILOVEGOATS. Sale ends Sunday, Dec. 12 at 11:59 pm. Sponsored by Fat Toad Farm.Ever wonder what it looks like when a truck hauling lumber rolls over? Not long after dark yesterday on I-91 up in Barnet, a Quebecois trucker with a trailer stacked with lumber veered to avoid a deer in heavy rain, lost control, and "rode approximately 100 feet of guardrail and rolled over back onto the passing lane," according to the Vermont State Police report. The truck rolled, spilling its cargo. The Barnet Fire Department, two towing services, and "other members of the local community" helped clean things up. The trucker wasn't hurt. (Click on photos to enlarge.)"May 'Ironwood' and 'Pollinators' be the first of many." That is Susan Apel's wish in Artful, after seeing the first two works of art to adorn the walls of downtown Lebanon's new pedestrian/bike tunnel. They were unveiled on Saturday. Greg Stott's "Ironwood" repurposes old railroad spikes—which, it turns out, were not easy to come by—into tree branches. And "Pollinators," by a group of AVA Gallery artists, highlights hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, and... a fish? Turns out fish eat dragonfly larvae, which helps bees and butterflies. Still, Susan notes, there's a lot of empty wall space to fill.Patagium. I'm sure you knew this, but I didn't: That's the skin flap between flying squirrels' front and back legs that allows them to glide. You can't see one in the pic of a southern flying squirrel that Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast includes for this second week of December in the woods, but you can read all about the difference between southern and northern flying squirrels, both of which live in these parts. Also out there: paper birch bracts, birds fluffing their feathers to keep warm, preening mallards, and sphagnum moss.Also out there: acorns. Which, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog, make up a major part of the diet of over 96 species of birds and mammals. They're easy to open and digest, are high in fats and carbohydrates, and make white-tailed deer, turkeys, and black bears especially happy. (Though can you imagine how many acorns a bear needs to eat before hibernating? The mind boggles.) Interesting, they're so important that "the geographic distribution of many animals coincides with or depends on the range of oaks," Mary writes.Regional planning agency extends comment period on NH-side transportation plan. The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission, which has been taking public comments for months on its regional transportation network plans, had planned to close them yesterday, but has extended the comment period until next Monday, Dec. 13. The plan covers the routes you drive, including 4, 4A, 10, and, of course, 12A and 120. It's taking into account demand for everything from safety improvements to improved bike and pedestrian access to EV charging stations.Early-season avalanche at Tuckerman's. The Mount Washington Avalanche Center yesterday posted that on Sunday, a solo skier was struck by a slab avalanche and carried downhill, "hitting several rocks and coming to rest above the debris field, traveling downslope nearly 600 feet." Bystanders, a cabin caretaker, and Forest Service Snow Rangers responded immediately; the skier was severely injured. MWAC warns, "If we have new snow and wind you are likely to find slabs of drifted snow that can act unstable, resulting in an avalanche." (Thanks, JF!)A "one-way relationship with power sources"? So yesterday. That phrase, in a press release from Plymouth State, describes traditional electric vehicles—unlike the two "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) Nissan Leafs the university is leasing, which can both pull from and feed power into the grid. In a new arrangement with NH Electric Coop, the university will use the cars to provide electricity to NHEC at times of high demand, recharge them during off-peak periods...and, ideally, pocket the price difference. It's also using the cars to launch a new ride service for students needing to get around."Adults really do need to get out of children's way." In a conversation yesterday with NHPR's Rick Ganley, outgoing NH Child Advocate Moira O'Neill says that not only has the pandemic exacerbated mental health issues for kids, it's gotten them annoyed at adults. "They want to go to school, they want to see their friends, they want to resume their activities, and they really don't mind wearing masks," she says. "And they're very uncomfortable with the arguments, [like] the things that are happening at school board systems. I think it's really time that people stop and pull back and talk to kids themselves."Faced with too few mental health beds for kids, NH looks to VT. In particular, the state health department will ask the Exec Council tomorrow to approve a $684,000 contract with the Brattleboro Retreat for 10 beds through June, reports NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins. The state's only inpatient option, Hampstead Hospital, is full, and with a 200 percent increase in need, the department says, the spillover ends up waiting weeks in emergency rooms—as 22 kids are right now. “This is a crisis and a crisis takes a crisis response," says Ken Norton, executive director of NAMI NH.But in VT, there's a "mass exodus" of community mental health workers. Of the 5,000 staff positions at the state's 16 publicly funded community mental health organizations, 970 are now vacant, reports VPR's Peter Hirschfeld, leading to service cutbacks and raising concern about their ability to "provide timely treatment for psychiatric conditions." The state, say agency directors, "is on the cusp of irreversible damage to its mental health infrastructure," Hirschfeld reports.That would be 76 below. Below zero fahrenheit, that is. As in, whopping cold. Which is what it took for the kids in Oymyakon, in far northeastern Siberia, to get a snow day, writes Sam Anderson on Explorers Web. Schoolkids in the town of 500 don't even get to start getting excited until temps drop to below -55C (-67F), but on Dec. 1, they finally got some relief when the mercury fell to -60C. Obviously making good use of their time in science class, two students got outside for a bit to make a video of what it looks like when you arc a cup of boiling water over your head in that kind of cold.Hand ballet. Back in September, the closing event for the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo (postponed a year) featured 126 performers in wheelchairs, both amateurs and pros, doing an eye-bending piece by French choreographer Sadeck Berrabah, who these days goes by Sadeck Waff. It's a handoff to the Paris 2024 games, building on a variety of dance styles, including tutting, which uses the body to create geometric positions and movements. Which gets pretty wild when 126 perfectly synchronized people do it. And, just for kicks, here's "Murmuration" from a year ago, based on, yes, starlings. (Thanks, RS and DM!)

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This evening at 6:30, Lyme's Converse Free Library, the Plainfield libraries, and the Canaan Town Library

jointly host art historian Jane Oneail for the second of three free, online talks.

In "Art & World War II: Hitler’s Cultural Ambitions and Nazi Theft," she'll explore Nazi theft from theft from European churches, museums, and private collections, and the continuing challenge of restoring works to their rightful heirs.

And at 7 pm,

the editorial team behind Volume 2 of the Vermont Almanac—Virginia Barlow, Dave Mance, and Patrick White—will be talking online about this latest volume

, hosted by Phoenix Books. The latest edition features some 70 Vermont writers, artists, loggers, scientists, and others writing about everything from garlic and syrup-making to cow-judging and grafting apples. No charge, but you'll need to register.

I liked how the starry blue lidof that saucepan lifted and puffed,then settled back on a thinhotpad of steam, and the wayher kitchen filled with the warm,wet breath of apples, as if allthe apples were talking at once,as if they'd come cold and sourfrom chores in the orchard,and were trying to shoulder inclose to the fire.  She was too busyto put in her two cents' worthtalking to apples.

—From

"Applesauce"

by Ted Kooser.

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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