GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Stuff. Coming out of the sky. It's mostly snow out there now, but the weather consensus seems to be that warm maritime air is nosing its way through NH and into Windsor and Rutland counties, turning what might have been a decent first snow into more of a first snow-then-sleet-then rain. Up north and higher elevations in VT, at least, could get some good inches. Temps into the mid 30s, and things should be coming to an end by dinnertime. Upper 20s tonight. And hey, we're all a little rusty, so take your time on the morning commute.Let's dig in a little...
Here are the expected snow and ice totals for VT. You'll notice that Rutland and Windsor counties get mixed precip, with a trace of ice throughout the Upper Valley; elsewhere it's mostly snow.
In NH, there's a mix throughout the state, with a a trace amount of ice accumulation.
Oh, also, this is a good time to get to know where to check road conditions.
First stop: New England 511, which lets you see what's going on in NH, VT, and ME—including reports of incidents and links to the region's network of highway cams.
Meanwhile, VTrans offers "Winter Weather Central," which lets you figure out where state snowplows are and also links to its network of webcams.
Before we forget what late autumn looks like... Here's a classic scene from Springfield, NH, from Terri Munson.And just in time... Tire shops reporting lower-than-usual inventories of snow tires. In the Valley News, Justin Campfield writes that the shortage is especially hitting the larger tire sizes used by higher-end cars, though some dealers are reporting trouble or delays getting tires across their product range. It's all the usual pandemic-era culprits, Campfield reports, plus the fact that seven major international manufacturers have (or had) plants in Russia.SPONSORED: Renew Campion! To all Campion Rink users and supporters: You have a chance to ensure the rink's future. Please donate before year's end! We have raised 94 percent of the money needed to earn a $1 million match from the Byrne Foundation by Dec. 31, so that we can begin critical renovations on the rink next Spring. Plus, please consider helping our GoFundMe effort to raise the funds for naming a locker room in honor of HHS hockey coaches Dick and John Dodds. Sponsored by the Hanover Improvement Society."We need to try to build things to a point where companies aren't going out of business because they can't find people to work." And Tunbridge's Brian Kippen is doing something about it. The 39-year-old entrepreneur, who went to S. Royalton High School back when it existed, expanded his prototype-manufacturing company from CA to E. Randolph a few years back. Now, he's stepped back from daily operations to focus on teaching advanced manufacturing at Randolph Technical Career Center. In VTDigger, Ethan Weinstein profiles Kippen's and other manufacturing-education efforts.Halfway there in Enfield. Maybe. The town's boil-water order, which has been in effect since Nov. 4, moved one step closer to being lifted yesterday, after a sample taken Monday tested negative for bacteria, the Valley News reports. The state requires at least two negative tests to lift an order, and the town sampled its system again yesterday. Once its results are known, the state will decide if a third test is needed, public works director Jim Taylor says.Vermont Fresh Pasta changes hands. Tricia and Ken Jarecki started the business in 1992 in the basement of their Killington restaurant; these days, it lives in a 5,500-square-foot facility in Proctorsville that averages a ton a week of ravioli and other pastas, writes Melissa Pasanen in Seven Days. Looking to retire, the couple have sold to Chad Brosher, who's moved to VT from Columbus, OH to take over. The former electronics manufacturer tells Pasanen, "I wanted to get back into manufacturing, but in something I had a passion about. And Vermont was an easy choice.""One of the most uplifting and positive stories I have enjoyed in a long time." Which is interesting, because Rita Zoey Chin's debut novel, The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern, starts dark, with Leah spending the day getting set to end her own life. But as the Yankee Bookshop's Kari Meutsch explains in this week's Enthusiasms, that plan goes by the boards. What ensues is a book about family, art, mothers, daughters, road trips, friendship, and magic. "I absolutely adored every second of it," Kari writes.SPONSORED: The Family Place needs your input! The Family Place is currently doing long-term planning, and we want to make sure we are meeting the needs of families with young children in our community. A key part of this is gathering feedback from a variety of families and community members. We would love to hear from you! Please complete our survey at the burgundy link. We will also be doing interviews and focus groups. If you’re interested in participating in those, please indicate your interest through the survey or send us an email at [email protected]. Sponsored by The Family Place.NH House now at 201-199 as ongoing recount gives a second seat to Democrats. On Election Day, incumbent Democrat Eamon Kelley appeared to have lost his seat, in the North Country city of Berlin, by four votes to GOP challenger John Greer. Yesterday, however, the House recount taking place in Concord put Kelley up by two votes, reports NH Bulletin's Amanda Gokee. At least 20 more House recounts are still pending, including, Patrick O'Grady notes in the VN, for three Sullivan County seats on Friday.New report identifies 55 imperiled VT bee species, 12 Important Bee Areas in the state. It's the work of the VT Center for Ecostudies, created using more than 55,000 observations of bees from hundreds of volunteers across the state. “Many people are enthusiastic about helping to save bees,” says Spencer Hardy, the lead author. “Our work is now shedding light on which species are in urgent need of conservation action and how we might begin to help their populations.” Those important bee habitat areas include northern Orange County and the lower White and Black rivers.On the other hand, a plant last documented in 1908 has shown up atop Mt. Mansfield. That would be the purple crowberry, and over the past few decades botanists had been looking for it in the state to no avail. But last month, a participant in the 2022 Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering was on Mansfield, noticed one, and reported it to VT Fish and Wildlife, the department said in a press release yesterday. “This is an extraordinary find,” says Bob Popp, a botanist with the department. You'll remember that a member of the public also found a small whorled pogonia earlier this year.Got Italian lineage? Want Italian citizenship? You’ll need some help. That’s what Burlington resident Lisa DeNatale discovered when she set out to make her Sicilian heritage official in the eyes of Italy’s government. Besides paperwork, applicants must track down ancestors’ birth and death certificates, among many other qualifying hurdles. Seven Days’ Anne Wallace Allen draws attention to DeNatale’s travails partly as a public service: DeNatale is executive director of the VT Italian Cultural Association, which now hosts online seminars intended to help other VTers navigate the complicated passport process.VTrans throws in the towel on trucks, closes Notch Road. Yesterday was a sad day on the stuck truck watch. VTrans announced that, with up to seven inches of snow expected in the mountains, it's closed VT 108 through Smugglers' Notch for the winter. Gates on both sides have been shut, WCAX reports. They won't open again until spring. You've gotta figure they're breathing a sigh of relief in Montpelier.Do cellphones belong in the mountains? That's what writer Stephen Kurczy asks on the Appalachian Mountain Club's site. There are arguments on both sides, but he gets some choice thoughts from NH Fish & Game's Jim Kneeland, who fields calls from lost and stranded hikers. Sometimes, he'll tell a hiker to wait for someone with a headlamp, or just to spend the night. "That rarely goes over well," Kurczy writes. Says Kneeland, “They’re going to call me every five minutes. Quite often they keep you up half the night, so you might as well go get them and be done with it." (h/t to David Brooks for noticing it.)Yep, the Inuit people do have 47 names for “snow.” To appreciate why it’s necessary to assign dozens of variations to what is essentially the same stuff, place yourself here: far northern Quebec, a remote Inuk village in deepest winter, where snow persists 9 months of the year. Snow is not just weather. It's a given, with nuanced, subtle differences in quality that affect how it functions. Filmmaker Rebecca Thomassie seeks out ancient knowledge from an elder, learning that snow has one name when it's right for building igloos, another when it’s best for drinking water. Not all snow is equal.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.
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T-shirts, tank tops, and, of course, coffee/tea/cocoa mugs. It's all available thanks to Strong Rabbit Designs in Sharon. Check out what's available and wear it or drink from it proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
Today at noon, the Howe Library in Hanover hosts Dartmouth history prof Matthew Delmont talking about his new book, Half American: The Epic Story of African American Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad. Delmont has been garnering considerable national attention for his history of Black Americans' service in a segregated military—especially as the backbone of the logistics and supply effort—and their response to the discrimination they faced at home. His talk will be both in-person and online via Zoom.
This evening at 6, the regular Wednesday Acoustic Jam Session once again takes over The Filling Station in WRJ, this time with a twist: fiddler and all-around Upper Valley music organizer Jakob Breitbach's mom, Pearl, will be joining in, so Jakob's calling it a “Special Edition Pearl’s Jam Session.” The jam won't be meeting next week, but will be back Nov. 30 and the first couple of weeks in December. The jams are laid-back and informal, and run with an eye toward involving newcomers who want to join in.
And if your taste runs more to a jazz jam, the monthly Interplay Jazz Jam Session will be at Upper Valley Music Center this evening at 6:30—or, if you're a vocalist, at 7:30. "Interplay’s jam sessions are social gatherings and communal practice sessions," they write. "They’re relatively informal musical evenings at which musicians play improvised solos and vamp on tunes, songs and chord progressions."
And for music today...
Well, you've heard the song before: It's The Beatles doing "I'm Only Sleeping" off
Revolver
, which is getting the deluxe re-release treatment.
She specializes in oil-based paint animations, drawing each frame individually. It took over 1,300 of them to make this, though Cooper says in a way her job was easy. "The song itself evokes such a mesmerising, languid, dreamy state, in a way my job was only to follow its lead with a paintbrush in my hand,” she said earlier this month.
Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake meLeave me where I am, I'm only sleeping
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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