GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny, warmer. High pressure to the south and east will bring air flowing in from the south, and the result is that under a mix of sun and clouds today we should see temperatures climb into the mid 40s. Breezes today from the south, lows in the mid or upper 20s.It may be late fall, but there's still color to see out there.
"A surprise on a 20-degree morning," writes Corlan Johnson from Norwich, of the brisk little shot of purple that greeted her Monday.
And thanks to oaks, beech, black walnut, and a few other tree species, there's still color to stand out from the snow, as Robin Weisburger's pic from Orfordville Road attests.
Hanover, Norwich, Lebanon take to tech to help residents with recycling, compost. Well hey! Happy America Recycles Day! Yep, it's a thing today (thanks to the EPA). Which makes it fitting (and no coincidence) that Hanover and Norwich yesterday joined Lebanon in adopting the BetterBin app in a bid to help residents figure out what can be recycled or composted, what can't, and, maybe best of all, what to do when you don't know: Use the app to scan a barcode, and you'll get specific info for each town's facility. Burgundy link for general info, use app stores for the app (and sign up specifying your town).In Claremont recount, city council results remain unchanged. Yesterday morning's hand recount in the contest between incumbent and former police officer Jonathan Stone and newcomer Jonathan Hayden, reports the Eagle Times, confirmed the election-day machine tally: Hayden unseated Stone by six votes, 247-241.WRJ slated to get another roundabout in a few years: at the intersection of Routes 4 and 5. The intersection can see as many as 9,000 vehicles a day, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, and saw 27 crashes between 2011 and 2020. About half those involved vehicles trying to make the left turn off Route 4, but, Adrian writes, commercial trucks trying to turn left onto Route 4 sometimes struggle in icy conditions because of the Route 5 grade. At a meeting Monday night to discuss plans, VTrans officials said Route 5 southbound will drop to a single lane amid plans for a sidewalk and bike lanes.SPONSORED: Did you miss this Telluride at Dartmouth favorite? American Symphony returns to the Hop Saturday, Nov. 18 with a startlingly intimate portrait of Jon Batiste’s year of pain and triumph. Directed by Dartmouth alum Matthew Heineman, the film shows us how Batiste responded to his family's crisis with love, creativity and supernatural stamina. It's one of cinema's most soulful, honest portraits of an artist at work. Stay for a post-show discussion with the director. Tickets at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Hop.For craftspeople, designers, and others, inspiration in a quarterly mag. UPPERCASE has been around for almost a quarter-century, but it's new to the Norman Williams Public Library's Liza Bernard, and in this week's Enthusiasms, she explains what's captivated her. "The two editions I‘ve seen are chock full of colors, textures, shapes, and ideas to get the creative juices flowing," she writes. "The articles cover all manner of media, from molding clay to stitching fabric, collecting ephemera to letterpress printing, and painting with a myriad of materials." The NWPL's got copies, if you want to check it out."I don't skimp on the glaze": Breakfast (and lunch and dinner, too) in Randolph. Last week—the same day that the new all-things-Randolph Randolph Vibe hit the web—Seven Days' Jordan Barry hit town for a daylong eating excursion. That "glaze" quote comes from Kelsey Wolfe, owner of the Windy Lane Bakehouse, talking about her cinammon rolls, which tend to go fast. Barry then headed to Patty and Travis Burns' Filipino-inflected Kuya's at One Main for a "comforting" bowl of arroz caldo, and then, for an early dinner, to Short Notice, Randi Taylor and Lucas Battey's relatively new small-plate spot. I'm definitely in the wrong branch of journalism.For second time in less than a month, Upper Valley sees racist graffiti. Back in October, vandals hit properties in Newport, Croydon, and Claremont. This time it was across the Route 14 roadway in E. Bethel, where a spray-painted slur was discovered by a VN photographer yesterday morning. A road crew covered it yesterday and will return with "gray graffiti cover-up paint when they have the resources for a lane closure due to the paint’s long drying time," writes the VN's James Patterson in his photo caption. The VSP has referred the incident to the state AG's office as a possible hate crime.VT, NH in top three states for rise in traffic fatalities. Despite a decrease in overall driving, writes Stateline's Tim Henderson, traffic deaths nationally surged between 2019 and 2022. NH saw a 47 percent increase in traffic deaths during this period, rising from 101 to 148. VT led the nation in percentage terms, with a 64 percent increase from 47 to 77 traffic fatalities. Experts, Henderson writes, blame bad habits that took hold during the pandemic, and a pullback in enforcement. "People started driving crazy because they could," says the CEO of the Governors Highway Safety Association.DHMC steps into gun safety advocacy. NH's largest hospital network made the move last week with an op-ed by CEO Joanne Conroy and DH Children's physician-in-chief Keith Loud urging that the issue be treated as a public health concern—and that health care providers and responsible gun owners can play a role in reducing suicides and accidental injuries from guns. NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth talks to Conroy and Loud about where they're headed, especially when it comes to unsecured weapons. "We would advocate for anything we thought [would] protect our kids and protect our communities,” Conroy says.How the "who's Abenaki" debate came about. And where it seems to be headed. One of the first reports of the dispute between the Canadian Odanak First Nation and the four VT-recognized Abenaki tribes was Shaun Robinson's 2022 story in VTDigger about a panel at UVM, at which Odanak members contested VT Abenakis' claims to Indigenous status. Now Robinson's up with an in-depth dive into the whole debate, from how VT came to recognize the tribes after first rejecting their claims as unfounded, to what the evidence shows (not much), to what drives the Odanak and the VT Abenaki response.Those long fluorescent lights? They'll be a thing of the past in VT stores starting Jan. 1. Compact fluorescents have been restricted since February, so the new ban will entirely remove general-use fluorescents—which contain mercury—from the market in the state, reports VTDigger's Babette Stolk. Special-use bulbs, such as those used to disinfect products or for lithography, will still be allowed. Efficiency Vermont will be offering rebates and help with a change to LEDs through the end of 2024.No more stuck truck stories for a while. VT 108, the road through Smugglers Notch, officially closed for winter yesterday. As WPTZ notes, "The roadway closes each year as winter conditions, including icy roadways, make the steep and winding road too dangerous to travel on." But hey, there's always the Stowe "Stuck Truck" raffle for the first stuckage of 2024 to look forward to.Maple syrup? Fine. But ten golden retrievers? That's how you go viral. At least, that's how Jeffersonville, VT's Golden Dog Farm has gone viral, thanks to a travel influencer who noticed the farm's video touting its "Golden Retriever Experience." The farm, run by pandemic transplants from Cincinnati, specializes in syrup, honey, and a vineyard. Many (though not all) of the goldens, reports WCAX's Laura Ullman, get brought over every weekend by a neighbor. The "Experience" is sold out until mid-December, but you can get a taste here on the farm's Instagram page.ID 58229 / 1998-067WC. That’s the official space junk catalogue entry for a certain tool bag now floating above us. A NASA tool bag, left up there (oops) by two astronauts doing maintenance on the International Space Station, writes Clyde Hughes in Science News. C’mon, anyone could leave $100,000 worth of wrenches in space. And apparently, anyone with a good pair of binoculars can spot the white bag orbiting the Earth. “It was seen Sunday by Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa floating over Mount Fuji,” writes Hughes. The tools will disintegrate when the bag plunges to Earth in March.The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak. Give it a try!
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Starting today online, Pentangle Arts and Sustainable Woodstock screen Microplastic Madness, Atsuko Quirk and Debby Lee Cohen's 2020 film about a group of 5th graders in Red Hook, Brooklyn who get into the root causes of plastics pollution—collecting data and leading community and political outreach—with insights from scientists and researchers along the way. Runs through Friday.
At 6:30 this evening at the Marion Cross School in Norwich, a panel of experts on housing will take on the causes and possible solutions to VT's housing crisis: VT State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, who's made $55 million available for housing investment and who just issued a report exploring the housing shortage's impact on VT's population; Neil Odell, longtime school board numbers guy, former president of the state School Board Association, and an expert on how housing and workforce issues affect school finances (and vice versa); Jeff Lubell, a researcher and expert on affordable housing and housing policies; and Anne Sosin, a policy researcher at Dartmouth and an expert on homelessness and housing policy. Hosted and moderated by state Rep. Rebecca Holcombe.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts poet Chelsea Woodard, reading from and talking about her new collection, At the Lepidopterist's House. It's Woodard's third—"a meditation on the ways one can lose and reimagine home," runs the publicity material, "on what it means to love and to grieve, to find freedom and lightness among the weight of the material and the human." But Woodard, who also teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy, can also be highly specific: "I was sitting/on a bench on Nevsky Prospect once, waiting/for life to get exciting, when a monarch/broke the dullness of an iron gate/and tore the afternoon apart," she writes in the title poem.
And also at 7, the Center at Eastman hosts Rik Yeames and Dave McDonald, members of the NH Astronomical Society, for a talk on "The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2024." They'll be talking about next year's total solar eclipse, why they (and so many others) are excited about it (the next one like it won't be for another 55 years), and how to prepare for it. There'll be an Eclipse Mobile out in the parking lot, as well. In the Draper Room at the Center in Eastman.
And to get us through the day...
Let's turn to Lyme's Katie Davis, channeling all three of the Wailin' Jennys on her three-part version of their soulful, stripped-down, face-what-must-be-faced
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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