GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A lot like yesterday. There'll be more clouds around today, but still, we get another mostly sunny day, with steady winds from the northwest making things feel cold. After starting in the teens, we'll climb to somewhere around freezing, before dropping to about 20 overnight.And once again, ice becomes a presence in our lives...
Like, in this formation in a stream on Bald Top in Fairlee, from Robin Osborne;
And across a growing expanse of Eastman Pond in Grantham, from Mark Arnold.
Two die in Bethel house fire. The fire was reported early yesterday morning, and when crews arrived they found the brick home and an addition "fully engulfed," the VT State Police said in a press release. Inside, fire crews found the bodies of a man and a woman in their 70s, identified by neighbors as Davis Dimock and Victoria Weber, reports Alex Hanson in the Valley News (burgundy link). Dimock and Weber, a former librarian at Vermont Law School, were longtime residents of the Christian Hill Road house, Hanson writes, and active participants in Bethel's civic life.White River Growpro doesn't just want to help others do it; it wants to grow cannabis itself. And the longtime WRJ horticulture store has applied to Hartford's zoning board to build a nursery and processing center for growing, drying, curing, and packaging cannabis for the commercial market, reports Patrick Adrian in the VN. The facility would be on Hartford Ave. across from St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and attached to a new retail store where Growpro plans to relocate from its downtown location. The store, Adrian writes, is expanding both its cannabis and traditional gardening supplies."There are so many good Irish writers out now with books..." So it was hard for the Norwich Bookstore's Carin Pratt to limit herself to just three books in this week's Enthusiasms, let alone one. But she exercised (some) self-restraint, and offers these: The Cold Cold Ground, the first in Adrian McKinty's series of police procedurals about a Catholic member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary; Louise Kennedy's Trespasses, "one of the best novels of the year"; and Fintan O'Toole's memoir/history of Ireland since 1958, about which Carin writes, "I have never read anything like it." Which is saying something.SPONSORED: The VINS Nature Store has a collection of local items for all ages! From books to games to jewelry, outdoor clothing, Holiday Adopt specials, and more, you can round out your holiday shopping at VINS! Shop in-store daily, 10 AM - 4 PM (closed Christmas Day) or visit our online store at the burgundy link above. Order by Dec. 15 for guaranteed delivery for Christmas. In-store pickup available daily. Sponsored by VINS.Sandy Hook vigil marks a decade. Ever since the Dec. 14, 2012 mass shooting of schoolchildren and teachers at the school in Newtown, CT, a band of participants have held a candlelit vigil along the fence of the Marion Cross green in Norwich. They were out last night in memory of the victims, and Valley News photographer Alex Driehaus was there.“You have to calibrate, calibrate, calibrate.” And navigate a nine-question flow chart. And maybe take a course at UNH. Then you will, perhaps, be skilled enough to … salt the roads. Marilee Enus, director of the UNH Technology Transfer Center, tells Granite Geek's David Brooks why it’s not just a matter of flinging some crystals on the pavement. “Salt really has a science to it.” And, apparently, an art: how to keep cars on the road without destroying the environment. Brooks delves into road salt and brine, and why it's no simple matter to choose between the two.As RSV recedes, flu takes its place in NH hospitals. The good news is that they're seeing fewer infants with respiratory syncytial virus, which surged in the fall and strained ICU capacity, reports NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth. Now, state epidemiologist Benjamin Chan says, "Influenza is increasing and taking its place.” Health care providers say the flu spike is coming earlier than usual in the season—and worry about the next few months because flu vaccination rates are low and many people haven’t been exposed to it in recent years.NH House leaders unite on legalizing marijuana. A bill to allow anyone over 21 to possess or give away up to 4 ounces, as well as to open up state licensing of retail sales, has the backing of both GOP leader Jason Osborne and Democratic leader Matt Wilhelm, reports NHPR's Josh Rogers. But House passage has never been a question, which has backed the move in the past; legalization has repeatedly failed in the Senate. And, Rogers reports, Gov. Chris Sununu last week called legalization “still rife with a lot of problems.“Well, it's official: VT's constitution now bans slavery. And guarantees access to abortion. The state's top elected officials gathered in the House chamber yesterday to watch Gov. Phil Scott sign the proclamations that make voters' November approval of the two amendments official. The slavery ban removes clauses "that allowed for slavery or indentured servitude under certain circumstances," reports VT Public's Peter Hirschfeld. The "reproductive rights" amendment, known as Prop. 5, enshrines "an individual's right to personal reproductive autonomy."Will Raap, founder of Gardener's Supply, dies at 73. His death on Monday night came after "a long illness," his family said in an email, reports Seven Days' Colin Flanders. Raap founded the store for gardening goods and plants in 1983; it now has four locations, including its spot in Lebanon. Raap went on to found the Intervale Center in Burlington and more recently launched an effort to create a collective of environmentally sustainable farm businesses in Charlotte. “I just don’t know him ever making a decision that was based on his need over what was the right thing to do,” a friend tells Flanders.When it comes to winterberries, "a long tradition of stealing." This time of year, Armand Patoine tells independent radio producer Erica Heilman, "along the roadsides, you see cars pulled over with ladies outside with loppers...cutting massive boughs from those winterberries for Christmas decorations." That's because winterberries are prized for their bright red berries—and, Patoine adds, "The stuff in the stores was just too tacky. Too gaudy. Those big tinsel garlands? It looks like something at a McDonald's. Winterberry was not manmade. It was God's gift to us." For the record: He asks permission to cut.Officially, it's Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, but you can call them cloud waves. Or wave clouds. Either way, there was a stunning example in Wyoming last week, over the Bighorn Mountains. "Those looking westward from Sheridan, Wyo., witnessed exceptional examples of giant cloud waves as they curled and crashed over the snowy landscape," writes Ian Livingston in the Washington Post (gift link). Plenty of photos and a link to a time-lapse video on FB of the clouds trooping across the horizon. (Thanks, JS!)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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At 6 this evening, the Chelsea Public Library hosts a screening of The Quarry Project at Chelsea Town Hall. The project itself was Hannah Dennison's seven-year effort to create a site-specific dance/theater piece for the Wells Lamson, one of the oldest, deepest granite quarries in the country, in Websterville, VT—and the 40-minute film is of the sold-out performances at the site this past August. The film began its tour of VT and NH on Monday, and the screening will be followed by a conversation with members of the ensemble.
Also at 6 pm, it's the last acoustic jam session of the year at The Filling Station in WRJ. The jams are laid-back and informal, and run with an eye toward involving newcomers who want to join in—and tonight, it'll be coupled with a going-away-party for the evening's co-host, Samuel Purdom (fiddle ninja and jam organizer Jakob Breitbach is nursing his bow arm).
This evening at 7, cultural critic Mark Dery gives an online talk hosted by Vermont Humanities on "Suspicious Minds: Conspiracy Theory Explained." He'll look at the history of conspiracy theories, explore possible causes, and detail their current proliferation—as well as delve into their appeal and social media’s role in spreading them,
And at 7:30 pm, Pentangle Arts hosts the VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Chorus for the only local stop on their tour of the state this season. Brass and voices and, as they write, a program of "music and cheer."
And to get the day off right...
There's a passage in Fintan O'Toole's
We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland
, in which as a 12-year-old he inadvertently releases some pigs from a house and, as the novelist Colum McCann writes in his review of O'Toole's book, "later comes across an elegant jumble sale of a man who wields his walking stick like a 'conductor’s baton.' The man guides the pigs home with utter assurance and panache. At Mass the next morning, O’Toole sees the same man conducting the choir, and he finds that 'the melody was like a meandering river, slow and serene, yet utterly implacable.'" That conductor, it turns out, was Seán Ó Riada, the composer who, probably more than anyone, was responsible for the rebirth of Irish traditional music. In keeping with Carin Pratt's Enthusiasm above,
played by Jed Mugford, Kate McCullough and Mike Gardiner at a pub in the UK.
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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