GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
How's your hat hair going? Hey, at least we've got a sunny day! We start out this morning well below zero, and ultimately get into the low or mid teens (with wind chills once again in the minuses) before we start dipping a toe in the 20s tomorrow. Winds today from the west, lows tonight either side of 0.Woodworking 101. Not that there's anything basic about...
What Kelly Stettner calls the "extermination job" this pileated is doing on a sugar maple overhanging her house in Springfield, VT;
Or the creative tree-sculpting a different pileated has been doing in Thetford Center, from Vic Henningsen;
Or the hard work this N. Thetford beaver's been up to, caught on video by Doris LaMontagne. "I'm not sure what this engineer plans to do with a tree this size, but I have been watching her progress for several weeks," Doris writes. "She has already felled two smaller trees in the area."
Leb libraries open as warming shelters. Both the downtown library and the Kilton are open from 10 am to 8 pm today and tomorrow, and until 5 pm on Friday. They're also handing out donated socks, gloves, and hand warmers, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan. Library director Sean Fleming tells him, "You don’t necessarily have a purpose for coming to the library. You can come in and while your time away reading a book, looking at the newspaper, and in the meantime also finding a place to get warm." Here's a list of cold-weather shelters elsewhere around NH; and here's VT's.In West Leb, Happy Dumpling aims to be “less formal” than other Chinese restaurants. That's co-owner Michael Lui, who opened the restaurant in the Powerhouse Plaza with his wife, Jaycee Yu, last November, talking to Ulla-Brit Libre in the Valley News. The couple, Libre writes, moved to the US from Shanghai, where Lui was a lawyer and Yu a financial journalist—and opened the restaurant, Yu says, because "we have family culture in dumplings." One repeat customer tells Libre, "This is a totally different flavor, a totally different food… It’s the only place like this in the Upper Valley."“It was a kick in the gut.... It was heartbreaking." It's fair to say that when Lake Morey Resort owner Mark Avery got the news from his new insurance company that they wouldn't cover the Lake Morey skating trail, he was both chagrined and unnerved. As VT Public's Howard Weiss-Tisman notes, it's been an important part of the resort's winters—and not just the resort's. "To have it go away just didn’t seem right, that the insurance industry could dictate something that’s far more important to people than insurance," Avery says. That's when the town of Fairlee stepped in. Weiss-Tisman tells the story.SPONSORED: King James—Two friends find their game at Northern Stage! Tracking the rise of LeBron James and the incredible friendships forged through his legacy, King James is a funny, heartfelt story of sports, fandom, and connection. Directed by abigail jean-baptiste and written by acclaimed playwright Rajiv Joseph, this production brings the court to the stage in ways you won’t expect. Jan. 29 – Feb 16 at The Barrette Center for the Arts. Tickets from $34, with $24 Student/Youth tickets. Sponsored by Northern Stage."Warm, funny, and seriously playful": a book about death. Actually, Caroline Hagood's Death and Other Speculative Fictions: An Essay in Prose Poems is just as much about life, as she uses her short prose poems, often less than a page, to "conjure up her dead father", as Kate Oden puts it in this week's Enthusiasms, bringing him back to life. "It's an enlightening and emboldening read," Kate writes. "You might wind up feeling that Hagood is a friend, so welcoming and delightful is her voice. And you'll definitely appreciate, with her, 'how every instant we get is a shattering miracle.'"SPONSORED: K-6th graders! Join us for February and April School Vacation Camps at Hulbert Outdoor Center! Your kids will choose from a wide range of fun outdoor and indoor activities, like barn hockey, snow fort building, baking/cooking, woods walk, watercolor, Lego mania, indoor bowling, egg drop, and much more. We have two sessions in February and two in April (session 2 is new!). Cost varies from $77/day to $221-$330/session (3-5 days in length). Financial aid available. Hit the burgundy link for dates, bus service, and other details. Hope to see you there! Sponsored by the Aloha Foundation. Ayotte names government efficiency commission. Not surprisingly, it's filled with NH business leaders. Led by two longtime allies of the new governor, former Gov. Craig Benson and Bedford businessman Andy Crews, it pulls from the state's business establishment (including several members with ties to Benson) one think-tank head (Drew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy), and two politicians: House Speaker Sherm Packard, who named himself to the panel, and GOP Sen. Mark McConkey, named by the Senate leadership. NHPR reports on the panel and its brief.The pandemic didn't just bring people to New Hampshire. It also brought their money. And in relative terms, there was a lot of it. A new study by Ken Johnson and Tyrus Parker of UNH's Carsey Center finds that not only did NH have a net in-migration of 26,000 from 2020-22, but "households migrating to New Hampshire during the pandemic earned an average of $111,000 compared to $87,000 for households leaving the state." Moreover, they write, in the three years before, migrants to NH "collectively earned $1.1 billion more than those who left. Between 2020 and 2022, this figure tripled to $3.3 billion."Details emerge on fatal shooting of border patrol agent in VT. Border Patrol Agent David “Chris” Maland was conducting a traffic stop in Coventry on Monday when he was shot in an exchange of gunfire; he later died. A German national in the US on a “current visa" was also killed, the FBI said in a press release last night. WCAX (burgundy link) reports that he and a second suspect, an American woman, had been staying at a hotel in Newport, VT for several days and "were on the radar of authorities before Monday’s incident and were reportedly looking to buy real estate in the Northeast Kingdom."VT state treasurer wants to erase up to $100 million in Vermonters' medical debts. Mike Pieciak's proposal, introduced yesterday, would buy up low-income residents' debts for pennies on the dollar, reports Colin Flanders in Seven Days, and then forgive them outright. He proposes using money already appropriated for buying down state bonds: “This program would have a bigger direct impact on Vermonters financially, from a health perspective, and from an emotional perspective," he told reporters. If Pieciak gets the authority, the program would be run by a nonprofit that oversees similar efforts elsewhere.VT governor wants to make housing "faster, easier, and less expensive" to build. Scott has talked about it for a long time, but at a press conference yesterday, members of his administration got specific. As Carly Berlin reports for VT Public (and VTDigger), they estimate the state will need over 41,000 additional homes by the end of the decade. To get there, they propose making it tougher to challenge new housing unless it's out of line with local and state land-use regs; expand the range of Act 250 exemptions passed last year; and make it easier for small towns to build infrastructure for new housing.The longest-running consecutive winter carnival in the US? Newport, NH's. It's coming up on 109 years next month, writes Erica Houskeeper in her Happy Vermont roundup of (mostly) Vermont winter carnivals. She gives a look ahead (and behind) at Brattleboro's event—and at the famed, concurrent Harris Hill Ski Jump competition, which is now "the place to see ski jumping in 2025"; plus festivals in Rutland, N. Bennington, Montpelier, and elsewhere.It’s a 15-minute flight to base camp, with you on board. It might be better than climbing Mt. Everest itself, this shockingly crisp, breathtaking video from Gorakh Photography of the helicopter flight from Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla (2,860m) to Mt. Everest Base Camp (5,364m). As the flight tracks rivers and valleys and soars over the Tengboche Monastery, trees fall away, clouds slip below, and color gives way to black and white, except for the still-brilliant blue sky. Miraculously, you spot villages—Dingboche at 4,410, Chola Tsho at 4,510—along the way. Watch on the biggest screen you can. Thanks, KrH!Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
Garth Hudson, the last remaining original member of The Band, died at 87 yesterday in Woodstock, NY. He was the band's keyboardist (as well as a saxophonist, accordionist, synth-player, trumpeter...) and also ran the equipment in the Saugerties house where Dylan and The Band created what came to be known as the basement tapes. Just for kicks, here's "Up on Cripple Creek" two ways:
of Hudson, Levon Helm on drums, Rick Danko on bass, and others; and
See you tomorrow.
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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