GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Warm, windy, possibly wet. We're looking at temps reaching the high 60s or maybe even 70 today under partly to mostly cloudy skies. There's a front coming through, with wind gusts from the southwest out ahead of it and a slight chance of showers later this morning. Calmer overnight, lows in the upper 40s.Where we live. A little scenic eye candy this morning.
Sunset on the Connecticut in Lyme, by Jay Davis;
The sky above Patch Orchards in Lebanon, by Janice Fischel;
A ginkgo carpet on the Dartmouth campus, by Libby Barlow.
In New Hampshire, Republican Kelly Ayotte wins governor's race. Democrat Karen Liot Hill elected to Executive Council. As of this morning, with 91 percent of the votes counted according to the AP (via NHPR), Ayotte had 394,602 votes, or 53.3 percent of the total, to Democrat Joyce Craig's 330,764 votes, or 44.7 percent. Meanwhile, in the Exec Council District 2 race, which includes the Upper Valley, Liot Hill has a commanding 57.2 percent of the vote this morning, with 93 percent of the votes counted. Republicans are on track to hold onto the council's other four seats. You'll find statewide and Exec Council results here on NHPR's page.
Final unofficial results for the NH Legislature are still out, but Republicans appear in a position to expand their hold on the state Senate by two seats; currently, they have a 14-10 majority. Locally, Democrat Suzanne Prentiss easily held onto her District 5 seat (in Grafton and parts of Sullivan counties), while Republican Ruth Ward is leading comfortably in Sullivan Co.'s District 8. You'll find current totals for all state Senate and state House seats here.
Scott's overwhelming victory (71 percent to 21 percent) over Democrat Esther Charlestin came as no surprise, but Rodgers' win was a clear upset. As Seven Days' Kevin McCallum writes at the burgundy link, the lieutenant governorship is largely ceremonial, but "
the race had become something of a referendum on the affordability challenges in Vermont." With all towns reporting, Rodgers had 171,730 votes to Zuckerman's 165,771, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State's office. Democratic incumbents in other statewide offices easily held their seats.
Democrats also lost their super-majority in the VT legislature. They still hold majorities in both houses, but no longer have enough seats to override vetoes from Gov. Phil Scott. In all, reports VTDigger's Neal Goswami, Republicans picked up 18 seats in the state House, giving Democrats and Progressives 92 seats in the 150-member chamber to Republicans' 55 seats. One of the House seats the GOP flipped was in Orange County, where Corinth Democratic Rep. Carl Demrow lost to Republican Michael Tagliavia, a retired business owner. In other Orange and Windsor county districts, Democratic incumbents held their seats.
Meanwhile, in the state Senate, longtime Orange County Democratic incumbent Mark MacDonald lost his seat to Republican Larry Hart, a building supply store salesman. MacDonald's was one of six Democratic-held seats taken by Republicans. The chamber now stands at 17 Democrats and Progressives, and 13 Republicans. In the Windsor County Senate district, Democrat Joe Major will join Democratic incumbents Alison Clarkson and Rebecca White. VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein reports on the Senate results.
You can find all unofficial results, from federal and statewide offices to state Senate, House, county, and local races, on the VT Secretary of State's results page. Link takes you to the results for statewide offices, but you can toggle to legislative and other contests at the top left, then hover over the map and click for district-by-district results.
SPONSORED: Help someone right now! At Hearts You Hold, the locally based nonprofit that supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees across the US by asking them what they need, we're flooded with requests as the weather cools. At the burgundy link or here, you'll find requests from people from all over the world who need clothing, work boots, and basics like diapers for their kids while they try to make a life here. Including South Sudanese girls in Winooski, Ukrainian and Haitian refugees in Leb, and a farmworker who needs boots in Orange County. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold."The landscape shows its skeleton." It's the first week of November, and Northern Woodlands' Jackson Saul devotes "This Week in the Woods" to what's going on as stick season starts. There are goldenrod ball galls, for instance, which formed in the summer and are now homes to insects seeking insulation from winter. And rosette galls, caused by goldenrod gall midges that have now laid their eggs and shuffled off this mortal coil. And then there's the eastern red-backed salamander, which will remain above-ground until temps are consistently in the 30s and 40s."I respect turkeys. I study turkeys. I think like a turkey." Brett Ladeau grew up in Norwich and, though he was a deer hunter as a kid, he eventually got hooked on turkey hunting. He now lives in Hartland and, late last month, he and his daughters Whitney and Sydney met up with Seven Days' Melissa Pasanen to sample cooked wild turkey (beginner tip: don't go roasting them whole) and both talk and go hunting. Brett showed off his turkey-calling prowess, Whitney (a line cook) offered advice—"Salt at every step"—and they crisscrossed Windsor, Hartland, and Brownsville on the search for a flock.SPONSORED: Ten November comes to the Grange Theatre! "A wonderful mixture of music, historical research, and personal reflection." Inspired by the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, this docudrama is a compelling inquiry into the unanswered questions about that tragedy. The show runs from Nov. 8th - 17th at Artistree Community Arts Center's Grange Theatre in Pomfret, VT. Sponsored by Artistree.Politics up close. Not here and now, but in Dublin in the early 20th century, when James Joyce was writing the stories that make up Dubliners. "Ivy Day in the Committee Room", writes Peter Orner in this week's Enthusiasms, is "one of the very great stories about politics." Not because Joyce makes politics beautiful—"I'm from Chicago. I know politics isn't beautiful," Peter writes—but because "it takes on a kind of shabby intimacy I always find hopeful." It ends with a scene that "pulls at the hearts of those damp cynical men in the committee room," Peter writes. "And the reader’s too."Town management less up close. At least, two out of five days a week, which is how often Norwich town manager Brennan Duffy can continue to work from his home in Rutland. In late October, reports Emma Roth-Wells in the Valley News, the selectboard voted in executive session to axe a contract requirement that he relocate to the Upper Valley and work full-time in town by next March. Now, he can be in Tracy Hall three days a week indefinitely. Selectboard member Mary Layton tells Roth-Wells housing has been a challenge: “He’s the Selectboard’s only employee and we want to keep him happy."NH "is known for a lot of things: Mt. Washington, the presidential primary, our slightly alarming motto. And then there’s heliophysics expertise." That's space weather, and on his Granite Geek blog, the Monitor's David Brooks notes that UNH is behind a lot of instruments that get carried into space to study solar radiation—which "has become vital now that we’re dependent on GPS and other satellite-based systems." He talks to Harlan Spence, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Ocean and Space, who tells him it goes back to contracts in the early days of NASA, whichVT's prison health services provider preparing for bankruptcy. Wellpath gets some $40 million a year from VT for running health care in the state's prisons. Since it began last year, "concerns have emerged over the quality of the company’s care in Vermont prisons," notes VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein. Now, he writes, Bloomberg is reporting that Wellpath's credit has been downgraded by multiple rating agencies "due to its debt and poor earnings." A state corrections spokesperson told Weinstein Monday they're waiting for more information from Wellpath on how bankruptcy might affect the company's work.I don't know about you, but Olive and Mabel hanging out for some leaf raking seems about right today. No particular antics, just a pair of labs, Andrew Cotter, a lot of leaves... Oh, and sticks.
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We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
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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!
Goode, an author and Plymouth State English prof, traces our understanding of "sustainability" from Thomas Jefferson's vision of American agricultural abundance through 19th century writers like Walt Whitman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, to today. 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.
The mixed student-community choral ensemble performs A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms, with Filippo Ciabatti conducting, vocal soloists Eva Rae Martinez and Luke Scott, and Chenyu Wang & Shuangning Liu on twin pianos. 8 pm, limited tickets left.
You Won't Leave Hungry Today
Charlestown folk musicians Dan and Faith Senie, who perform together as Dan & Faith, have a new album out, with several songs related directly to the Upper Valley. Including one about Romaine Tenney,
, their ode to the Hartland Diner. "It's a hundred and ten in the kitchen / Nicole's slinging corned beef hash..."
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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