GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still cool, but high pressure's moving in. Probably some patchy frost tonight. There's a very slight chance of showers to start things off early today, and then it'll be mostly cloudy, which will keep temps from getting out of the mid 40s, though at some point this afternoon we might start seeing more sky. Skies will start clearing overnight—which means there's not much to keep temps from dropping into the upper 20s. Winds today from the northwest."Okay, everybody line up! No, Rufus, don't look at the camera!" Of course, these turkeys on a foggy morning in Meriden the other day weren't actually posing, which makes Missy Smith's photo all the better.In Bradford, the Bliss Village Store will stay open—at least for now. You may remember that owner Marilyn Rainville announced a couple of weeks ago that she'd decided to close the store as of yesterday—eliciting an outpouring of visits, regret... and some offers. On Monday, she made a brief announcement on Facebook that she's changed her mind. "We have decided to remain open while we are considering offers," she wrote. "We have heard you loud and clear." The Valley News reports that Rainville hopes she might have a deal with a buyer “in a week, two weeks or a month."Town of Woodstock places police chief on administrative leave. The move came “as a precaution” after a report of Joe Swanson's "alleged involvement in an incident that occurred on Sunday,” Municipal Manager Eric Duffy said in a press release. VT State Police spokesman Adam Silverman tells the Valley News's John Lippman in an email that the VSP has been asked “to conduct a criminal investigation that involves the Woodstock police chief.” Silverman adds that "just because an investigation involves a specific individual, that does not necessarily mean the individual is a target of the investigation.”With $6.7 million gift, DH aims to expand DHART's rural reach. The money comes from the estate of Les Haynes, a Lakes Region resident who credited the emergency transportation service—which uses both helicopters and ambulances—with saving his life. DH will use the money for new vehicles, expanded training for the DHART workforce, and new dispatch software for its facilities. "It's going to change the way that we're delivering health care on the road and in the air," director Mike Mulhern tells WMUR. "It's going to allow us to touch the lives of 2,500-plus more people a year that need health care."SPONSORED: Oak Hill Outdoor Center is back and better than ever! Cross-country ski additions include lighting on the snowmaking loops with a new connector trail that reduces the required climbing, paved and expanded parking, and (soon) a warming hut. Get your season pass, or better yet, your Sustainer Pass, for access to the full 25-kilometer trail system. Help support reliable, accessible skiing for the entire Upper Valley! Sponsored by the Oak Hill Outdoor Center.Software upgrade disrupts phone, internet services around the Upper Valley. Yesterday's early-morning snafu at Consolidated Communications, reports Clare Shanahan in the VN, took out phone service at all DH locations except Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, forced Charlestown's town offices to close around 11 am, and disrupted service at both the Claremont schools and the Claremont Savings Bank. The school district got its internet service back around 12:45 p.m. "We appreciate our customers’ patience," a Consolidated spokesperson told Shanahan.Croydon NH man killed in Waterbury VT shooting. Just after midnight Monday morning, VT state police got a call reporting a shooting at a home in the Kneeland Flats Trailer Park in Waterbury; they found two men shot there. One, whom they identified late yesterday as 34-year-old Shawn Spiker of Croydon, was already dead of multiple gunshot wounds. The other, Michael Perry of Barre City, was listed in critical condition at UVM Medical Center last night, reports VTDigger's Alan J. Keays. At a press conference yesterday, state police Maj. Dan Trudeau said the shooting was “targeted,” not random.SPONSORED: Join The Sharon Academy's Fall Info Session on October 20, 4:00-5:30 pm! Meet students, faculty, and leaders while exploring our new STEAM building and learning about TSA's academic rigor and personalized support. Discover how we foster confidence, creativity, and a love for learning. Light refreshments provided. Please RSVP at the burgundy link or here. Questions? Contact Misty Evans, [email protected]. Sponsored by The Sharon Academy.Memory and surviving—and surviving memories. That's Carin Pratt's quick summary in this week's Enthusiasms of the heart of Question 7, the new memoir by Richard Flanagan. You may have read Flanagan's shattering novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But Carin says his memoir is closer—by being both "odd and magnificent"—to Flanagan's earlier novel, Gould's Book of Fish. It's comprised of fragments, from his father's experiences in a POW camp near Hiroshima to the genocide of indigenous Tasmanians to a river-running trip gone awry. "What interesting lives can claim coherence?" Carin writes.Blindfold tag, walking, running, and "helping kids grow": a look at Finding Our Stride. One of the Upper Valley nonprofit's newest chapters is in Windsor, where the VN's Christina Dolan hung out with teachers Megan Roberts and Melissa Fox and about a dozen 2nd-to-5th graders. Though there was plenty of running, Dolan writes, it wasn't really about building speed or endurance. “The goal of the program is not to create runners, the goal is to create healthy kids," says Greg DeFrancis, FOS's new executive director. Though endurance does matter: About 400 students, parents, and coaches from the group's 22 schools will run in this weekend's CHaD HERO.Pretty in pink. Even if you're a slime mold. As Mary Holland writes on her Naturally Curious blog, slime molds are a "stellar form of life." And right now, they're out there in the woods. Unlike fungi, she writes, "they don't penetrate the wood or substrate they grow on; rather they sit on top of the substrate using a structure called plasmodia. Plasmodia consists of masses of protoplasm which can move and engulf particles of food, much like an amoeba." And all those bacteria, fungal spores, protozoa, and tiny plants—why, they can become pink slime, too, if their engulfer is a raspberry slime mold.NH may not have retail cannabis, but it's expanding its medical marijuana program. That's due to three laws that just went into effect, writes the Keene Sentinel's Rick Green. The one with potentially the biggest impact frees medical providers from a list of eligible conditions by allowing them to certify adult patients for “any debilitating condition or symptom” if they believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Another makes generalized anxiety disorder a qualifying condition. And the third expands the list of providers who can certify patients to include naturopaths and others.After VT Secy of State's office gets suspicious package, it sends Narcan to town clerks. The packages containing white powder were sent to elections officials in an array of states including VT, reports VT Public's Liam Elder-Connors; in some cases, the powder was found to be flour. Even so, it seemed "prudent to make sure that folks who are opening election mail in Vermont have access to [Narcan], in case any of the powder turns out to be fentanyl,” Secy of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas told Elder-Connors yesterday. She added, "We wanted to provide this as a small bit of peace of mind that we've got your back.”"It's gone, it's gone, it's gone." For months, Rumble Strip producer Erica Heilman (who'll be giving a talk in Norwich this evening, see below) has been working on a piece on what was known locally as the Heartbreak Hotel, a collection of affordable apartments in Plainfield, VT, that was washed away by the July floods. Twelve people were living there; they survived, their cats did not. "We talk a lot about affordable housing here in Vermont. We talk a lot about the importance of community, and village center revitalization. And for the better part of a century, the Heartbreak was quietly providing all three of these things at once," Erica says. Her piece about what was lost that night is now up.In VT, a growing effort to help monarchs migrate. “The butterfly itself isn’t in danger of going extinct—it’s this great migration which we’re in danger of losing,” the VT Center for Ecostudies' Kent McFarland tells Kate Kampner of UVM's Community News Service. Heat, heavy rain, declining sources of milkweed, goldenrod, and other sources of nectar—all have proved disruptive to the monarchs' migration, Kampner writes. And so, as in other states, ordinary Vermonters have stepped forward: planting pollinator-friendly plants and contributing to community science platforms vital to tracking monarchs.They are our neighbors and intimate companions. Sounds sweet, but we’re talking bugs here. There's plenty to blame them for—malaria, crop failures—but Barrett Klein, in Smithsonian, champions certain insects for improving the world. Silk moths boosted economies and influenced medicine, engineering, and fashion. Cochineal is the source of the brilliant red favored by European aristocracy, Catholic clergy, and British soldiers. Klein writes about five insects with world-changing power, including fruit flies, “a speck of an insect that has taught us more about ourselves than any other organism on the planet.”Flood photos. But wait! This time they're in the Sahara Desert. Which got more rain in September than it's seen in 30-50 years. Photos and footage from the AP.
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We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
Jon Gilbert Fox and "Beware the Man With Only One Book". In a hybrid Osher lecture that's also open to non-members, the well-known and well-traveled photographer will take on an entirely different subject: book collecting. He'll talk about his own adventures, as well as offer advice on what to look for, how to identify first editions and rarities, and what to avoid. 4:30 pm, register for
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or for
Three prominent Russian dissidents—Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Pulitzer-prize winning opposition leader who was released from prison in the Aug. 1 prisoner exchange between Russia and NATO allies; Evgenia Kara-Murza, advocacy director at the Free Russia Foundation; and Tikhon Dzyadko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s only independent television station, TV Rain—talk about the Ukraine war and the fight for democracy in their country. 5 pm, live in Cook Auditorium at the Murdough Center, as well as livestreamed.
Not for books, but for food: Hardwick-area blacksmith and foraging instructor Lucian Avery will be talking about whether it's possible to survive only on foraged food, and about all things related to foraging in the state of Vermont. 5 pm.
Peabody-award-winning VT radio producer Erica Heilman will give a VT Humanities talk on how she creates her show, how she aims to build bridges and understanding in a society divided by geography, class, and politics, and her conviction that every town should have
someone
making a podcast about it. 6:30 pm.
Brzozowski is one of the authors ("Live Free or Die") included in the new anthology of "weird fiction and cosmic horror stories that are diverse down to the cellular level" edited by Vaughn Jackson and Stephanie Pearre. 7 pm.
The daughter of immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda—or as she describes herself, "an East African Midwestern girl"—Somi Kakoma has a rich voice, a long musical pedigree that blends African and jazz influences, and a career as a playwright and actor. She'll be at Rollins Chapel tonight at 8 pm.
The NYC-based comic headlines Sawtooth's regular Wednesday standup night. 8 pm.
Today, dance. And music.
But mostly dance. To celebrate World Dance Day in April, the Jakarta cultural space Galeri Indonesia Kaya worked with dance studios across the country's islands—on Belitung, Jambi, Bali, Central Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, North Maluku, and Papua, as well as in Jakarta and eastern Java—to showcase their talents and dance traditions (and the scenery of their home islands).
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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