GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunny, drier, and definitely cooler. Yesterday's warmth has given way to cold Canadian air behind it, and temps today will run about 10 degrees below normal, rising from the upper 20s to the upper 30s. That's despite a good bit of sun as clouds clear out later this morning. The big question is what happens late tonight, as an approaching system meets cold air near the ground and warmer air from the southwest nosing in up high, putting rain, snow, sleet, and freezing rain all on the table toward dawn. Hmm. We'll sort it out tomorrow.Quiet start, quiet end.
Edge-of-dawn in Thetford, from John Pietkiewicz;
And sunset in Hanover, the temp hovering just above freezing, from Steven Atkins.
"When it's time to play basketball, it's time to play basketball. When it's time to do school, it's time to do school. When it's time to go to the union, same there." That's Robert McRae III, a senior and a guard on the Dartmouth men's basketball team talking to the AP's Aaron Beard about the team's attention-getting effort to unionize. Because the Ivies don't give out athletic scholarships, McRae tells Beard, many team members are holding down part-time jobs; they want to make the team their part-time job. Last month, the college's lawyers contended they're "scholar athletes", not employees.After second break-in charge for S. Royalton man, prosecutors seek to revoke bail. The first break-in charge for Jesse Durkee was last month, when you probably remember that a homeowner, awakened by his barking dog, fired a gun in Durkee's direction. Then, a week later and just before Halloween, reports John Lippman in the Valley News, another neighbor reported a break-in in which a crossbow was taken; that same morning, a third neighbor reported finding Durkee outside her home with the crossbow, yelling and "frantic" with fear that Hell's Angels were trying to kill him; she was able to calm him down. On Monday, a judge put off ruling on prosecutors' request.Grafton, Haverhill, Orange, Orford in line for fiber-optic project. It grows out of a $17 million "Middle Mile" fund using $12 million in federal dollars and the rest in Grafton County funds to bring fiber optic cables to 24 towns around the county, writes Liz Sauchelli in the VN. Most of the cables will be strung on existing telephone polls, and county administrator Julie Libby tells Sauchelli that even towns that aren't part of the grant will benefit. “The link coming from Orange goes right up to the edge of [Canaan] and is less than a mile away from the Canaan Town Hall,” she says, making it easier to serve the town.SPONSORED: Whaleback is recruiting Mountain Hosts! We are seeking volunteers to serve as Mountain Hosts both on and off the mountain: to greet guests, answer questions, and enhance the skiing/riding experience. If you love skiing & snowboarding and want to give back to your community, this position is for you! To learn more about this great opportunity, contact Heidi Wrighton, Mountain Host Coordinator, at [email protected]. Sponsored by Whaleback Mountain.In elections around NH, Manchester gets a new mayor, Nashua keeps one, and Dems inch closer in NH House. Here are some rundowns:
In Manchester, Jim Ruais, a National Guard member and former Republican congressional staffer, defeated Democratic Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh in a contest that "turned on core economic issues" reports NHPR in their roundup—concerns that were echoed in other cities around the state.
In unofficial results, incumbent Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess beat County Commissioner Michael Soucy. And Democrat Paige Beauchemin beat Republican David Narkunas in a special election to fill the state House seat long held by Democrat David Cote, who resigned in July. That win brings the House numbers to 197 Democrats, 198 Republicans, and 3 Independents, reports the Globe's Amanda Gokee (paywall).
And in a result that brought laughs to the candidates and the tally-counters, Rochester NH City Council candidates David Walker and Chuck Grassie tied for the seat—a year after tying in their contest for state legislature, a race that Grassie, a Democrat, ultimately won after a runoff. The Globe's Steven Porter (paywall again, sorry) has that one.
As you pull on your blaze orange to go for a walk in the woods, how worried do you need to be about hunters? Today's the start of regular rifle season in NH (it's on Saturday in VT), and in the Monitor the other day, David Brooks took a look at the recent history. In NH, there might be one or two accidental shootings a year, almost always another member of the hunting party. Only once in the past six years has a bystander—in that case, a passing mountain biker—been hit; the bicyclist wasn't seriously injured. The most dangerous part (for people) of hunting, he notes? Falls from tree stands.Bugged by Sunday's time change? Blame Massachusetts. While we're paying attention to David Brooks, on his Granite Geek blog (so, no paywall) he traces how NH got Daylight Saving Time (that's what we just left behind). The short version: MA opted for it in 1920, ignoring NH Gov. John Bartlett's plea not to do so; the state tried to resist for a few years, but the pull of commerce was too strong. Every so often, Brooks notes, a state legislator tries to abolish DST in the Granite State, usually saying it'll take effect if MA does so, too; MA lawmakers say they'll do it if NY does. "I think we're stuck," Brooks writes.For the next week, you won't have to worry what time it is when it comes to the VT DMV. Because as you may remember from the other day, the agency is upgrading its online systems and all offices will be closed starting today, and lasting through Nov. 14. Online vehicle registration renewals and replacements, WCAX notes, won't be back online until Monday, but other online services remain available.In new report, VT state treasurer says housing crisis is a drag on state's population growth. "There is significant demand to be in Vermont," Mike Pieciak tells Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen. "But it's running headfirst into our housing stock." In all, the report notes, while 26,000 people moved to the state last year, 23,000 left—and housing difficulties topped their list of reasons. Moreover, Pieciak says, the state's having trouble replacing older workers who retire because younger people who might replace them can't find a place to live.Here's something you probably hadn't thought about post-flood: How do you move furnaces, oil tanks, and other cellar-dwellers out of harm's way? Given the realities brought home by July's floods, writes Will Lindner in the Montpelier Bridge, "Increasingly [the basement's] mechanical denizens will begin to live upstairs. With us." Montpelier's basically requiring it for new equipment; Lindner spends time with Scott Cameron, who owns Yankee Wine and Spirits in the city—he was able to rebuild a furnace in the basement, but a new heat pump hot water heater's now in a closet on the shop floor.VT tackles mosquitoes on farms with a new tire slicer. Pretty much every dairy farm you pass has a tarp-covered mound of feed held down by old tires—and the problem, the Agency of Agriculture's Patti Casey tells VT Public's Lexi Krupp, is that "they breed mosquitoes like crazy." Using a new tire slicer, state crews recently cut the sidewalls off hundreds of tires; Casey's offering them to farmers, who are snapping them up. Now she's hoping to lend the slicer out to farms directly. “My goal is to have every farm in Vermont using sidewalls someday,” she says. “It’s kind of a pipe dream, but that would just be amazing.”On a snowmobile trail in the middle of nowhere: a hot dog stand. Actually, Kendyl's Buns on the Run isn't really in the middle of nowhere: It's in the woods of Norton, VT, on a popular snowmobiling trail between Island Pond and Canaan. And Kendyl Bell herself is pretty easy to find, writes Jordan Barry in Seven Days: "She decks herself out in pink, from her hot-pink metallic snow pants to her sweater to the napkins she hands out." The stand—soon to add a bus for seating and warming—is "an oasis for snowmobilers looking for warm food, a drink of water, a conversation break or a Porta-Potty," Barry writes."You don’t even know what you need right now, but here’s my number—call anytime." That was the offer from the principal of a Kentucky school where three girls had been killed by a shooter in 1997 to Frank DeAngelis, the principal of Columbine High School, a few days after the 1999 Columbine shootings. DeAngelis took him up on it—and in the decades since, writes Gloria Liu in Men's Health, has become a linchpin of a growing group no one wants to join: the Principal Recovery Network, a nationwide support group of and for principals whose schools have seen gun violence. It is a remarkable story: wrenching, gripping, impossible to do justice here. “If, God forbid, something were to happen on your campus,” says one member, “we will reach out.”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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Today at 12:30, Hood Museum curators Jami Powell and Amelia Kahl will lead a special tour of the museum's collections of contemporary Native American, African, and Indigenous Australian art focused on common themes of kinship.
At 6:30 pm, the Etna Library hosts Jörg Matschullat and Sophie von Fromm for their talk, "Secrets from the 'Green Lung': Findings from climate research conducted in the Amazon." Since 2021, the two have been studying lakes in the Amazon region, looking into whether flooded lake basins act as carbon reservoirs or emitters. New to Etna, Matschullat, a geochemist and geoecologist, directs the Interdisciplinary Environmental Research Center at the Freiburg (Germany) University of Mining and Technology; von Fromm, a terrestrial biogeochemist, is currently a Neukom fellow at Dartmouth.
And at 7 pm this evening, New London's Tracy Memorial Library hosts an NH Humanities talk by John Harris, "Returning North with the Spring: Retracing the Journey of Naturalist Edwin Way Teale." Harris, who teaches nature writing and environmental literacy at Franklin Pierce and was a co-editor of Beyond the Notches: Stories of North Country New Hampshire, will talk about Teale, a widely read naturalist who in 1947 followed the progress of spring over four months from the Everglades to the summit of Mount Washington—a journey Harris retraced.
And to take us into today...
I know, I know, yesterday was Joni Mitchell's 80th birthday, and we'll get to her tomorrow, but really, when there's a new Beatles song out... So, just in case you've missed the hoopla: Late last week, The Beatles officially released what they billed as their last new song, the third in a series (the first two were in the '90s) of songs created from John Lennon demos that were on a cassette Yoko Ono handed to Paul McCartney in 1994, with “For Paul” written on it. Paul, George, and Ringo tried to record a version of "Now and Then" the following year, but gave up and shelved the tape. Now, using AI and better tech, along with George's guitar part from 1995 and new recordings by Paul and Ringo, "Now and Then" made it to daylight.
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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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