Daybreak Tuesday, 6/9/26

Sunny, getting hot. We’re still under a ridge of warmer air today, and as it shifts eastward dewpoints will start to rise—though for today, they’ll remain pretty comfortable. Which is good, because highs will be getting into the mid 80s. Winds today will be from the west, and clouds start building in after midnight as some slightly cooler, unsettled air approaches from that direction. Lows tonight around 60.

There is a bear in the woods! Leslie Leslie was in Woodstock’s Faulkner Park when she came on a black bear near the trail. “He saw me and got scared,” she writes, “ran away up the hill then turned and stopped so I could wave and take this photo!”

“Lost Woods is a great place to lose yourself.” Henry, of course, means it’s a fine spot to let nature suck you in (sometimes literally) in this week’s strip by Leb’s DB Johnson. Meanwhile, Lydia contemplates the scenery—and the state of her studio.

Shapely, a new board game born in the Upper Valley. It bears some similarity to Pictionary, only as creators Matt Golec (formerly of Norwich) and Hanover’s Arun Mehra say, it’s less stressful. “People would be like, ‘I’ve always felt anxiety when I had to draw during a game,’ but when they get to compose shapes, it's really easy, it's fun,” says Mehra. Or as Golec put it, “Let them be artistic without having to worry about drawing.” The game’s been eight years in the making, and the pair tested it all over the Upper Valley as they developed it, with help from local game designers and players. For Daybreak, Duncan Green profiles what went into it all. Release celebration 6/28.

Enfield’s Bark & Bevy closes. Owners Anne Chapin and Marshall Banks shuttered the restaurant/bar/indoor dog park a week ago Sunday, reports Marion Umpleby in the Valley News, after business slowed and they struggled to make payroll, Chapin tells her. “Chapin attributes the decline in sales to steep living costs, including high gas prices, which might have cut into people’s budgets for dining out,” Umpleby writes. Most of the couple’s seven employees, Umpleby writes, has found new work. Meanwhile, building owners Mickey and Darcy Dowd are looking for new tenants, though they’re also thinking of bringing back “a version of” Mickey’s Roadside Cafe.

SPONSORED: Final hours. Final savings. The Pompanoosuc Mills extended Memorial Day Sale ends tonight, with 30% off new furniture orders and 40-60% off in-stock items. Every Pompy piece is made with the belief that good furniture should be built once and built well. Stop by your local showroom before these savings disappear. Sponsored by Pompanoosuc Mills.

A look at the full Windsor County primary field for the legislature. In the VN, Marion Umpleby rounds up the crowded field for the county’s three state Senate seats (six Democrats, including two incumbents, and three Republicans), plus all the contested and non-contested state House races: three Democrats for two seats in Hartland/Windsor; three Democrats and two Republicans for two seats in Springfield; two Democrats and two Republicans for the two Tunbridge-area seats; three Democrats for two Norwich/Thetford/Sharon/Strafford seats; and two newcomer Dems for the Hartford seat, where Esme Cole and Kevin Christie are stepping down.

Standout pizza in Randolph? Confession: There are a few of us here in the Upper Valley who grew up in New Haven, CT, and no other pizzas come close, right? But Dave Celone—who also grew up in New Haven and knows his dough and toppings—has just stumbled on Ripple Pizza & Bar in Randolph. “I’ve been searching for that ‘little slice of heaven’ served up simply and without fanfare on a simple paper plate, and now, at long last, I’ve found it,” he writes. “These pizzas had the thin crust I love and were cooked well enough to offer a slightly crisp bite without the floppiness or mushiness of a soft crust.” He likes the topping ingredients and the ambience, too. More at the link.

SPONSORED: Celebrate the 5th season of Oak Hill Music Festival, the Upper Valley’s summer chamber music festival! Four concerts, featuring Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals for piano duo, Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartet No. 3, Dvořák’s beloved Dumky Trio, and Mendelssohn’s exhilarating Octet, all performed by acclaimed musicians from around the country in Lebanon, Norwich, and Hanover, June 20–28. A week of extraordinary music and unforgettable performances. Tickets and more information here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by the Oak Hill Music Festival.

“We love it when visitors come and have a conversation with a work of art.” That’s Elizabeth Rice Mattison, who curated the Hood’s “Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda” exhibition, talking to NHPR’s Julia Barnett. The exhibition, Mattison explains, looks at how the Revolutionary War has been used in American art and imagery and how it touches on “ideas of American history, of the mythology of the United States, and…propaganda over the centuries.” They touch on evolution of artistic takes on George Washington, the ways in which the Revolution was seen during the Civil War and WWII and in an age that questions the past.

A little help with summer planning. In Artful, Susan Apel looks at two festivals on the horizon: Opera North’s Summerfest and Lebanon Opera House’s Nexus Festival. As Susan writes, it’s been nearly a decade since ON moved its productions to a tent at Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish: “You can come as you are, wear your sneakers, and bring the kids. I have never seen a tuxedo there—not to say there hasn’t been one—but it too would be welcome.” Three shows starting June 26: La Cenerentola (“Cinderella with a twist”) then Ballad of Baby Doe, and finally, Fiddler on the Roof. Nexus is Aug. 7-9, and LOH director Joe Clifford offers a look at three of the acts.

SPONSORED: A world of art under one roof. The Hop's 2026/27 season fills every corner of the reimagined building with performances that challenge, delight and inspire. In the first full season in the new Hop, acclaimed artists including Billy Childs and Brian Stokes Mitchell join returning favorites Ragamala Dance Company and Kronos Quartet. Explore the new season and discover what's waiting for you. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Tonight and tomorrow are a great time to make a difference for NH nonprofits. NH Gives is a yearly 24-hour window that raises millions for community organizations across the state. At the burgundy link, you’ll find an astounding array of causes that command attention, from the Grafton Co. Senior Citizens Council to the Fort at No. 4 to the humane societies and food, arts, social service, and education organizations that make life better in the Upper Valley and beyond. Farther afield, there are groups we all benefit from, like NHPR and the Granite State News Collaborative’s Community News Fund. You can search by communities, subject, and name. Starts at 5 pm.

An intriguing look at the current state of NH and VT. The State of the Nation Project is an ambitious effort by a group of think tanks, academics, and former presidential advisers across the political spectrum to pinpoint where the country stands when it comes to issues like the economy, education, citizenship and democracy, violence, and more. They’ve just come out with state by state reports, and though the headline is that NH ranks second best in the country across 37 measures (behind MN) and VT ranks fourth, the interesting stuff is in the details.

One thing the Twin States share: They both just had their best ski seasons in years. Vermont’s alpine areas, reports Vermont Business Mag, saw 4.36M skier visits for the 2025–26 season, a 4.7 percent jump over the previous year and the best numbers in over a decade. Nordic areas saw a 5.1 percent boost over the previous season. Meanwhile, reports NHPR’s Kate Dario, NH “saw more than 2.28 million visits during the 2025-2026 season…. This means this year had the third most visits in 20 years and a 5 percent increase compared to last year.” As the president of Ski NH pithily sums things up, “It was cold and snowy and people came and skied.”

Stuckage? Now you’re actually going to pay. It’s not like the fines for getting a tractor-trailer stuck in Smugglers Notch are a pittance—operating a “prohibited vehicle” at the moment rates a $1K fine, and actually getting stuck is $2K. But thanks to new legislation, reports the News & Citizen’s Tracy Brannstrom, starting July 1 just trying to get into the twisty mountain pass with a tractor-trailer will bring down a $10K fine, and it’ll be $20K if you get stuck. Which you will. Moreover, writes Brannstrom, “The fines apply to the employer of a driver operating a vehicle within the scope of employment, or to the operator of a vehicle being used for personal purposes.”

The Tuesday Crossword. It’s a little mini appetizer for your day, thanks to Dartmouth librarian and master puzzle creator Laura Braunstein.

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

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HEADS UP
Mel Allen at the Orford Social Library. Last year, the former editor-in-chief of Yankee mag (and a writer there for nearly half a century) came out with a collection of his stories, Here in New England. Though some are about famous people (the Nearings, Stephen King), most are about unsung New Englanders “who refused to buckle,” as he put it last summer. He’s been making the rounds telling some of those stories, and will be in Orford tonight at 6:30. If you miss him, he’ll be in Grantham next Monday.

The Thetford Arthouse Cinema screens Port of Shadows. “This is truly what ‘arthouse’ is about,” writes organizer Arthur Kahn re: this week’s films. Tonight’s 1938 offering, directed by Marcel Carne and written by poet Jacques Prévert, stars Jean Gabin as an army deserter and Michèle Morgan as the young woman he encounters amidst the foggy, seamy underworld of the northern French port city of Le Havre in what Art describes as “a dreamlike world…that implicates something in our souls.” 7 pm in the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.

The Tuesday poem.

I write, erase, rewrite
Erase again, and then
A poppy blooms.

— “A poppy blooms” by Katsushika Hokusai, the 18th-19th century Japanese painter who’s maybe best known for The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

See you tomorrow.

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