Daybreak Wedneday 12/22/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Stuff coming out of the sky, then sun. Whatever precipitation falls around here (and it won't be that much) is likely to be a mix, with snow, sleet, and freezing rain. In fact, freezing rain is already falling in southern reaches, so careful if you're commuting this morning. Things will clear up in the afternoon, high in the mid-30s, down into the upper teens tonight, with some gustiness all day and especially tonight.Cold Moon. You know how when you see a full moon in real life it can take your breath away, but when you try to take a photo all the magic disappears? Not so with photographer Cynthia Crawford's stunning pic of the last full moon of 2021. "When you focus a camera on something like the moon behind some trees, you usually get either the trees in focus, or the moon, but not both at once," she explains. "So I got one shot of each in focus and then did some work to blend the two."VT DMV to reopen office in WRJ. The satellite office, which has been an iffy thing since the start of the pandemic, will open its doors Jan. 5, though you can make an appointment starting today, the agency announced in a press release. The office will be in the Agency of Transportation District Maintenance building at 221 Beswick Drive. “We’ve completed the renovation of this space and are now ready to re-open,” said DMV Commissioner Wanda Minoli—and, in something of an understatement, added, “Our customers have made it clear that this location is needed to meet their needs.”An arable plot doesn’t come easy for NH’s new farmers. NH Bulletin’s Amanda Gokee reports on the obstacles that can greet Granite Staters hoping to fulfill dreams of growing their own crops: Even if you find a suitable piece of land, you’ll need patience and an appetite for complex lease negotiations. For one farmer, Andal Sundaramurthy of Wilmot, it took a decade to meet the right landowner willing to let her test out a small-scale vegetable operation. Nonprofit Land for Good offers support—from securing land to getting started—which helped Sundaramurthy end her 10-year search with a 10-year lease.SPONSORED: Looking for the true meaning of the season? St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hanover invites you to experience faith, hope, and love with in-person or online worship. We have two special Christmas Eve services at 4 pm and 10 pm to lead you deeper into the joy and mysteries of this season.  Find out more here or at the maroon link. Sponsored by Saint Thomas Episcopal Church.Smart, funny, poignant, wise, a little sad... but triumphantly hopeful. That is how the Norwich Bookstore's Sam Kaas describes David Benioff's City of Thieves. Benioff (yep, he was also the co-writer for Game of Thrones) published the novel in 2008, but, Sam writes in this week's Enthusiasms, "I’m regularly surprised by the number of people who have never read this absolute treat of a novel." It's as close to perfect as a book can get, he thinks—whether to give to someone else or just escape into yourself. More, with the engaging plot setup, at the link.One reason affordable housing is scarce: accessibility requirements. Around here, explains Fairlee developer Jonah Richard, it's not so much the federal rules as Vermont's gloss on them. They extend to building multi-family units in ways the federal guidelines do not, and even go so far as to make the federal spending ceiling a spending floor. "Out of the gate, this adds 20% to any renovation budget," he writes. "And there’s a very clear line to be drawn between that and having to increase rents by 20%." Link goes to a commentary in VTDigger.  You can read his longer original argument here.Feds to send Covid emergency response teams to NH, VT. We're two of the six states getting them, Pres. Joe Biden announced yesterday, putting us in the company of MI, WI, IN, and AZ. Each team will be made up of over 100 medical personnel—and both NH and VT will be getting 30 paramedics each, along with ambulances to help transport patients between hospitals.NH grew slightly over the previous year. And that was only because people moved there, writes David Brooks in the Monitor. As the Census Bureau's annual estimate of population changes, released yesterday, makes clear, deaths in the state exceeded births for the fifth year in a row. “COVID was a primary cause of the uptick in deaths," according to demographer Ken Johnson at UNH's Carsey School, "but New Hampshire’s aging population, small cohorts of child-bearing age women, and low fertility had already caused natural decrease before COVID.”In NH, the vaccine-resistant aren't budging. The latest Granite State Poll from UNH's Survey Center finds that 20 percent of the population continues to say they won’t get vaccinated, with a tiny percentage saying Omicron will change their minds. On the other hand, interest in booster shots has grown among the vaccinated. On the other other hand, the percentage of parents who say they “almost certainly”or "probably" won't have their child vaccinated.“Omicron is here and likely has been for several weeks." That was VT Health Commissioner Mark Levine at Gov. Phil Scott's weekly press conference yesterday, pointing out that even though only three cases have been confirmed by genomic sequencing, the variant has probably been circulating undetected since early December. The result, writes Erin Petenko in VTDigger, is that the state could see a surge similar to last winter's, with new cases topping 1,000 per day on some days—though the impact on hospitalizations and deaths remains purely speculative.Truffles... in Vermont? Back in October, Calais writer Rowan Jacobson published his eighth book, Truffle Hound, to rapturous reviews. Seven Days' Melissa Pasanen catches up with him to ask what drew him to the topic—he gave a talk on terroir in Italy during white truffle season, where he got his first whiff of good truffle, "And I was like, Holy cow!"—and explore the possibility that truffles exist in these parts. Jacobson's dog Friday isn't really up for truffle hunting, but it turns out there's a farmer not too far to the north, in Quebec, who's got a successful operation going."It's tough getting away with things in small-town Vermont when everyone knows each other." That's Redditer taez555 pointing out what happened when the Newport Dispatch ran a story—with a surveillance-camera photo—about a woman who backed into gas pumps in Derby the other day after buying a six-pack, then fled the scene.In arid Ethiopia, “church forests” have life-sustaining significance. Seen from above, they are tiny green islands dotting otherwise barren terrain. Although a century of excessive farming has evaporated 90 percent of the country’s forests, east of Lake Tana these oases, each with a church, represent Gardens of Eden to the Orthodox Tewahedo faithful. Photographer Kieran Dodds’ striking images reveal the vibrancy of life and worship within the forests, “biological treasures” essential to rebuilding ecosystems and “vital for the future survival of human life in Ethiopia” as it faces a changing climate.

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“My father told me to stop wasting my time,” Fatou Seidi Ghali once told an interviewer about how her father reacted to her picking up a guitar. “I should be busy looking after the cows.” Instead, five years ago she founded a mostly women Tuareg band with her cousin (her brothers join in, as well), Les Filles de Illighadad, named for their home village in western Niger. The band quickly found international success—and now, back home, Ghali says, she's treated "like a queen."

See you tomorrow.

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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                                 About Michael

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