GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cloudy, chance of snow, rain. There’s a chain of disturbances coming through, with whatever precipitation falls today and tomorrow depending a lot on where and how low or high up you are. For today, we’re looking at snow showers this morning, changing over to rain in the valleys as temps rise toward a high around 40, then back to snow later. Down to around 30 overnight. Winds today from the south, cloudy.
That hair! Those eyes… Okay, maybe you can’t really compare a red squirrel and a jumping spider, but here they are…
From WRJ, Taylor Haynes sends in what she thinks might be “the cutest jumping spider ever!” It’s smaller than a fingernail and is, in fact, a tan jumping spider: “A common Vermonter,” writes Ted Levin. “A jumping spider jumps 40-50 times their body length, the Bryon Jones of arachnids.”
And from Downer Forest in Sharon, here’s Annemieke McLane’s squirrel closeup.
“The sky was alive.” If you happened to be out last night in the right spots, it was a remarkable night for northern lights. At the link, a roundup of photos sent in to WMUR’s u local New Hampshire Facebook group (scroll down).
“The weather for the week looks totally dreadful and wintry and stick season appropriate.” And so’s the harvest at Edgewater Farm, where Jenny Sprague writes on the CSA blog that they’re bringing in Brussels sprouts, turnips, and the like. So, not surprisingly, Plainfield cookbook author and ace home chef Mitchell Davis has a couple of recipes that fit right in with that mix: a “simple side dish” of shredded Brussels sprouts with bacon; and an Indian carrot (or turnip) salad with cumin seeds and mustard seeds.
Dartmouth frat wants Hanover to okay it for student housing again. Alpha Delta, made famous by Animal House, had its student organization status revoked by the college in 2015 “after multiple disciplinary violations involving alcohol and hazing,” writes Joyce El Kouarti for the Valley News. That led the Hanover Zoning Board to revoke its ability to house students; a town vote upheld that move in 2017 and the privately owned building’s been used for office space ever since. Now, though, the frat wants to bring housing back, as well as host events, and has proposed an Alumni Oversight Board that’ll report to the town. The zoning board will meet Nov. 20.
SPONSORED: “It won’t always feel like this.” After a freak kickball injury left Army officer and avid runner Brooke VanRosendael with a shattered ankle, she suddenly couldn’t walk, drive, or care for her dog. With the expert care and encouragement of Taylor and Neil at Cioffredi & Associates, Brooke rebuilt her strength, confidence, and mobility—returning to full duty and earning her Senior Parachutist Wings. Read Brooke’s story here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.
An engrossing, moody book “fit for our current weather.” Sometimes, Quechee/Wilder libraries director Michaela Lavelle writes in this week’s Enthusiasms, an older book can find you at exactly the right moment. Which is what happened when she recently read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Not only is it a smart, richly layered novel about a group—though maybe “cult” would be better—of Classics students at a fictional VT college (Tartt went to Bennington), but as Michaela writes, “I was continually surprised by the book, and I loved that my surprise was not based on ‘How could this be?’ but instead, ‘I didn’t think she would actually go there!’”
Not your usual high school science course. Not when you have to head into the woods with one tool—saw, hammer, tape, tinfoil, or rope—to build a waterproof shelter. But that’s just one of the assignments students in Melissa Stark’s Science of Survival class at Mascoma Valley Regional High School have confronted so far this fall. In the VN’s Valley Parents mag, Patrick O’Grady profiles the new fall elective, which Stark designed both to teach hands-on skills and to engage students who aren’t always into science. “They may never build a fire outdoors but it is the critical thinking and the problem-solving skills,” Stark tells him. “They are exercising their brain.”
SPONSORED: Pompanoosuc Mills Living Room Sale — Up to 25% off now through Nov. 17! Refresh your living room today! Save up to 25% off new living room orders and 20% off most other furniture, including fully upholstered pieces. Explore our in-stock items ready for immediate delivery and create a comfortable, stylish space—whether casual or elegant. Don’t miss this chance to bring timeless craftsmanship and lasting quality into your home while saving. Upgrade your living room and enjoy furniture designed to enrich your everyday life! Sponsored by Pompanoosuc Mills.
Dead in the woods: One casualty of a breakdown in NH’s disability care system. In part 2 of his series on abuse and neglect in the Granite State’s intellectual and developmental disability system, NH Bulletin’s William Skipworth delves into the case of Stevie Weidlich Jr., who’d aged out of the Crotched Mountain School and, eventually, wound up in an Allenstown home with a live-in caregiver—a man employed by PathWays of the River Valley who, it turned out, was paying a different man with no training to provide the actual care. In December, 2022, Stevie’s body was found in the woods behind the home. Skipworth tells Stevie’s story, and what it reveals.
VT’s school redistricting task force backs voluntary mergers. The group created in the wake of the state’s big ed reform package is charged with creating up to three potential maps to consolidate VT’s school districts. On Monday, reports VTDigger’s Corey McDonald, a majority endorsed a proposal by three of its members—former Dresden supt. Jay Badams, state Rep. Rebecca Holcombe, and retired supt. Jennifer Botzojorns—to create a 10-year plan “where districts would be incentivized to merge to access state construction aid, and to coordinate on developing regional high schools,” McDonald writes. It’s already drawn opposition from Education Secy Zoie Saunders. McDonald dives into the ongoing politics of it all.
In VT, ski resort opening dates come into view. Killington, of course, will be first: It opens today for pass holders, tomorrow for the general public. But mountains all over the state have been blasting snow guns and reveling in the real stuff, and NBC5’s James Maloney has a rundown of what’s expected: Jay, Okemo, Snow, Stowe, and Sugarbush on Nov. 22 and others in the days and weeks that follow—including Saskadena Six in mid-December. Meanwhile, several NH ski areas have also set tentative opening dates, including Nov. 26 for Sunapee, Nov. 28 for Cranmore, and Dec. 5 for Gunstock.
Just to get you in the mood… There’s been natural snow in the mountains around here, but we’re mostly talking inches, not feet. Over in the Canadian Rockies, though, they’ve got feet, and on Monday, Canadian pro skier Alex Armstrong headed down a chute in what’s most likely the Banff backcountry (she didn’t say), GoPro at the ready.
Does this smell old to you? When researchers set out to study the ice at Allan Hills, in Antarctica, they were hoping to drill cores that dated back three million years. But a trio of samples revealed ice twice that age, amazing the team, writes Michelle Starr in ScienceAlert. And trapped inside? Six-million-year-old air. Conditions in the region allow “spectacularly old ice” to be closer to the surface, which “makes Allan Hills one of the best places in the world to find shallow old ice, and one of the toughest places to spend a field season," says the lead scientist.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. If you're new to Daybreak, this is a puzzle along the lines of the NYT's Wordle—only it's not just some random five-letter word, but one that actually appeared here yesterday.
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HEADS UP
If you haven’t already brought it out, it’s definitely time for blaze orange in the woods. New Hampshire’s rifle season for deer starts today and runs through Dec. 4. Vermont’s starts on Saturday, and runs through Nov. 30.
Woodstock’s Yankee Bookshop turns 90. Yep, it first opened in November, 1935 and has had eight owners in that time. Its current stewards, Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski, are throwing open the doors from 5-8 pm today with live music by The Preacher & The Teacher, light food & drink, 20 percent off during those three hours, and a chance to check out its newly expanded space next door.
Ambassador Nathaniel C. Fick at Dartmouth. The Dickey and Rockefeller Centers host the Dartmouth grad and former U.S. Ambassador at Large for the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, in honor of Veterans Day. 5 pm in Filene Auditorium as well as livestreamed.
The literary history of New Hampshire at the Howe Library with Mary Kronenwetter. The novelist and historian will give a talk after the Hanover Historical Society’s annual meeting, touching on everyone from Robert Frost, Grace Metalious, John Irving, Donald Hall, J.D. Salinger, and Jodi Picoult to the first African American woman to publish a novel in the US (NH-born Harriott E. Wilson), Sarah Josephine Hale, and the writers of the MacDowell Colony. 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
Warren Miller’s SNO-CIETY at the Lebanon Opera House. Skiing, riding, racing, backcountry, from CA, CO, and NH to Austria, Finland, and Scotland, all on the big screen. It’s a “celebration of the spirit of winter—wherever you ride and however you connect to the snow and the community around it.” 7 pm.
“Remembering the Old Man of the Mountain” at the Center at Eastman. Engineering geologist (and Eastman resident) Brian Fowler—who’s also a life trustee of the Mt. Washington Observatory and president of the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund—will talk about the late landmark’s geological and human history and legacy. 7 pm.
Valley Improv at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover. After-dinner on-the-spot comedy. 8 pm.
And for today...
So, Daybreak never does NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, because though they’re fun, they’re a little long. But hey, it’s The Doobie Brothers, so all bets are off. "Takin' It to the Streets", "Black Water", "Angels & Mercy", "Listen to the Music"…
See you tomorrow.
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