GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cloudy to start, partly sunny later. If there are any snow showers left, they'll end quickly this morning as fresh high pressure builds in and temps start climbing toward 40. It'll be mostly cloudy through the morning, but things should open up in the early afternoon for a bit, until clouds move in again overnight. Down into the low 20s tonight—the last we'll see of that temperature range for several days, as even warmer air heads our way after tomorrow.Sometimes, the wild comes to you. Or at least, your back deck in Lyme, which is where Anne Baird saw this bobcat. Burgundy link goes to her .gif, and here it is enjoying the sun in profile.After outside evaluation of Dartmouth's Lyme Road apartment plan, Hanover zoning board to vote. The board's decision will come Thursday, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, and will focus on whether to give the controversial project a variance allowing it to move ahead. Last week, the board heard from engineering consulting firm Greenman-Pedersen, several of whose findings—among other things suggesting the buildings' heights are out of keeping with the existing scale of the area—are aimed at a later step: hearings by the town planning board. Adrian sketches the firm's recommendations.Where the Norwich selectboard candidates stand. As you may have seen last week, Norwich Observer blogger Chris Katucki had some questions for the five candidates running for three selectboard seats in Norwich. Four of them responded; the fifth, Rob Gere, opted to post on the listserv instead (you may have to prove you're a human first, then hit the link again). And hey, if you live in a town with one or more contested selectboard races this year and some civic-minded resident offers candidates an online chance to explain where they stand on issues that matter in town, let me know: [email protected].SPONSORED: This Valentine's Day, spread the love for local food. Love local produce? Want to share a CSA with neighbors who can't afford one? Consider donating a full or partial CSA share from your farm of choice, and Willing Hands will pick up the produce and deliver it to one of over 80 food shelves in the Upper Valley. You'll be directly supporting our food insecure neighbors and our local farm economy. It's a win-win! Sponsored by Willing Hands.About that ice out there. Yesterday's wild skating item brought in two wildly divergent pieces of information. A week ago Lake Willoughby was pretty much paradise, as this photo by Montpelier's Kate Stephenson suggests. Yet up in Ottawa, a reader writes, not only has the Rideau Canal not opened yet for skating this winter, but there's a chance they may give up altogether this year. And in VT, three deaths in the past week on Lake Champlain have state officials warning of variable ice conditions. If we ever get another cold stretch again and you're tempted, make sure you've got the right safety gear.“I don’t know if people realize how fragile our trails are because of our reliance on private landowners." In all, reports Frances Mize in the VN, some 70 percent of the Upper Valley's publicly accessible trails are owned by private landowners, and what's open to public use can change from year to year. So Sullivan County Manager Derek Ferland has launched an effort to develop an inventory of the county's trails, Mize writes, hoping to build public awareness of what's available—and, the UV Trails Alliance's Russ Hirschler told a public meeting last week, to help landowners grasp how NH law protects them.“A bear in a winter den can be easily aroused within moments, but an animal that is a true hibernator may take several hours to come to its senses,” writes Kent McFarland in the "Field Guide to February" from the VT Center for Ecostudies. He cautions that there’s a notable difference between true hibernators—like woodchucks, whose body temperature and heart rate plunge and who are slow to wake—and black bears, which can quickly be jarred awake by an intruder (you). Read about red crossbills, coyotes, and Spencer Hardy’s tips on searching for wasp galls in plants.SPONSORED: At Long River Gallery, we've got you covered today! Whether your Valentine is craving fancy Tavernier chocolates, yearning for framed art, hoping for heart-themed jewelry, or wishing for a funky piece of pottery, let us help you find the perfect gift at Long River Gallery, 49 S. Main Street in White River Junction. Open today 11-5 for you last minute shoppers. Sponsored by Long River Gallery.That's a big rabbit! At least, if you're the ermine that just downed it. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland writes that ermines can weigh as little as a tenth as much as an Eastern cottontail, which makes preying on them a challenge. But when you need to eat 30 percent of your body weight a day to stay alive...Bottom line of new well water study: Test during warmer months. The study, co-authored by visiting UNH prof Ranjit Bawa, looked at wells in North Carolina that were downstream of hog farm lagoons and found the lowest levels of contamination with fecal bacteria and E. coli in February and March, while levels spiked when temps reached 90 degrees. Rainfall, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian, didn’t seem to affect bacteria levels. The point, Bawa says, is that testing in colder months "could be a kind of false sense of security."NH wants to know what you think about outdoor recreation in the Granite State. The state parks department and UNH's recreation management department have gone up with a survey aimed at understanding residents' "attitudes and perceptions towards outdoor recreation" (though it seems to be open to anyone who hits trails, parks, and waterways in the state). It asks everything from what people do (hike, ski, snowmobile) to how crowded they've found the trails to whether they've experienced "conflict" with other users, to their experience with conditions such as trail degradation and litter.NH's new "provisional ballot" system gets a dry run in special election next week. The stakes are actually pretty high, since the election in Rochester is to settle a contest that ended in a dead tie last November—and under the 2022 law establishing provisional ballots, a new voter who's missing documents to establish their identity when they register and doesn't supply a copy of those documents to officials within seven days can have their vote invalidated. State officials just released ten pages of guidance to cities and towns, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt. Voting advocates say it should have come sooner."Dramatic" increase in illegal crossings on the northern border. In the period between Oct. 1 and the end of January, reports Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days, the Customs and Border Protection sector that includes NH, VT, and a swath of NY reported more "encounters and apprehensions" than in all of 2020 and 2021 combined. The surge is putting migrants' lives at risk—especially in the bitter cold—and straining CBP personnel. "Worldwide economic and political instability is fueling the highest levels of migration since World War II, according to the Department of Homeland Security," Allen writes.The stories behind the stories about five Vermont sheriffs. As you know, there's been a lot of news about VT sheriffs over the past year. On VTDigger's "Deeper Dig," Tiffany Tan talks about how she zeroed in on a Bennington County sheriff who spent a big chunk of the year in TN; Alan Keays explains the Addison County sheriff arrested for domestic violence and sexual assault; Ethan Weinstein goes into the turmoil in the Orange County sheriff's office; Tan talks about the bonuses handed out by Caledonia County's sheriff; and Shaun Robinson details the criminal charge facing Franklin County's new sheriff.So, what would happen if Ben & Jerry's meshed with Mountain Dew on a new product? That's just one of the many delirious possibilities raised by BrXnd.ai, a site recently opened to the public that uses OpenAI's tools to do brand mashups: Arby's and Balenciaga, say. Some, as Rob Walker writes in Fast Company, are "outright train wrecks," like Clorox and Mountain Dew. You can play around yourself here (they'll ask for an email address). Daybreak's contribution is DeNeon, "the bold flavor of Mountain Dew mixed with classic Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors." (Thanks, ML!)And you thought it was the Show-Me State. Devotees of underground exploration—and those who were paying attention in 7th grade—will know that Missouri is also called the Cave State. In Thrillist, Nicole Rupersburg runs down that state’s Meramec Caverns and other caves around the US that are open to visitors. Like Craighead Caverns, in TN, with the second-largest nonsubglacial underground lake in the world (overnight tours available) and Devil’s Den Spring in FL, a dive site with a prehistoric underground river. Head to TX for Natural Bridge Caverns’ adventure tour (“Yes, you will be covered in mud, and it's a glorious experience”) and the world’s largest bat colony. Or maybe not.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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Tonight at 7, Sawtooth Kitchen and Here in the Valley kick off an every-second-Tuesday collaboration, Tuesday Jukebox. This evening it's a Valentine's edition with Beecharmer—Jakob Breitbach and Jes Raymond: flatpicking, clawhammer banjo, fiddle, upright bass, plenty of harmony...and all from just two people.
And the Tuesday poem...
Coming down out of the freezing sky with its depths of light, like an angel, or a Buddha with wings, it was beautiful and accurate,striking the snow and whatever was there with a force that left the imprint of the tips of its wings — five feet apart — and the grabbing thrust of its feet,and the indentation of what had been running through the white valleys of the snow — and then it rose, gracefully, and flew back to the frozen marshes, to lurk there, like a little lighthouse, in the blue shadows — so I thought: maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us — as soft as feathers — that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes.—
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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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