GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly cloudy, continuing to warm up. There’s a frontal boundary and low pressure approaching, which will keep things on the cloudy-but-dry side, though there might be rain or snow showers in the northern mountains and gusty winds below their eastern slopes. The bigger weather development is that with air flowing in from the south, we’ll warm to above freezing for the first time in a while, with highs either side of 40. Lows tonight in the mid or upper teens under partly cloudy skies.
Why light matters. A pair of Upper Valley scenes.
The watchers. Two snowpeople stand guard under lowering skies at Pine Park in Hanover, from Kathy Smith.
And “Peaceful Strength”, Bob Herrick’s title for his beautiful photo of the covered bridge at the north end of Eastman pond.
Colburn Park’s food-trailer-to-restaurant pipeline notches another win. In the Valley News, Marion Umpleby reports that Kulwinder Kaur and Manjit Singh, who built a following with their Taste of Punjab trailer, are prepping to open a new spot in the former Subway in Glen Road Plaza. “We’ve been trying to open it because you can only make a certain amount of food in a trailer,” says the couple’s son, Raj. Kaur’s sister is married to Balbir Singh, owner of Hanover’s Jewel of India, where Manjit Singh worked for about a decade. The couple and Raj have been working to install restaurant infrastructure and plan to add a clay oven to allow for more tandoori dishes. The trailer’s out in the plaza lot now; they hope to open the restaurant next month.
SPONSORED: LISTEN is helping twice as many people as we did five years ago, and demand is rising. With your help, we can keep Upper Valley families safe, housed, and fed this holiday season. One hundred percent of your gift will go directly to providing vital services like preventing evictions, keeping homes heated, and putting food on tables. Will you join us? Your gift brings immediate help and hope. Sponsored by LISTEN Community Services.
The Upper Valley, farm life in Barnard, and Dartmouth, all through the eyes of a German refugee. As Rena Mosteirin notes in this week’s Enthusiasms, Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer and her husband left Germany at the start of WWII. They wound up on a farm in Barnard, and Herdan-Zuckmayer turned her letters home into a book, The Farm in the Green Mountains. It’s just been re-issued, and Rena writes that its author “looks at our region in a way that few people have before or since”—with a sharp, funny voice that captures the yearly lumberjack celebration, the telephone (you needed a sense of rhythm to catch that the ring was for you) and both the college and its library.
Feeder birds. In particular, tufted titmice and dark-eyed juncos, which both feature in this week’s “This Week in the Woods”. “While many other bird species have declined the past century, the tufted titmouse’s population has increased and its range has expanded,” writes Northern Woodlands’ Jack Saul; “human-provided food and forests taking over former farmlands” have allowed its range to expand from the upper mid-Atlantic into southern Canada. They have something in common with dark-eyed juncos (in addition to flocking to feeders): dark upper surfaces and light lower surfaces, which even out in sunlight, making them harder for predators to see.
SPONSORED: Still looking for the perfect holiday gift? There’s still time. At Dutille’s, you’ll find a wide selection of finished jewelry handcrafted right here in our shop, along with a thoughtfully curated collection from talented artisans around the world. We also feature a newly selected group of one-of-a-kind estate pieces you won’t find anywhere else. We’re open with extended hours this Saturday and right up until Christmas. You’re always welcome to shop online at dutilles.com/shop, or stop in and say hello—we’ll even brew a fresh cup of coffee while you browse. We look forward to seeing you. Sponsored by Dutille’s.
Mt. Washington summit strained by crowds, invasives, maybe even chemicals. That’s the preliminary conclusion of “one of the most in-depth studies” ever undertaken of both the natural and built environments atop the mountain, reports NH Bulletin’s Molly Rains. The summit’s rare ecosystem, the consultants found, has been stressed by some of the more than 250,000 visitors a year trampling on plants, importing invasive plants’ seeds on their boots and cars, and speeding erosion off-path. The assessment also finds problems with the built infrastructure, and raises concerns about potential chemical contamination at the site of a former USAF research facility.
New fees coming to NH. Starting Jan. 1, writes Phil Sletten on the NH Fiscal Policy Institute’s blog, up to 58 new or increased fees and fines take effect, all part of an effort by the legislature to boost state revenues as income from the business tax drops and disappears entirely from the now-repealed Interest and Dividends Tax. Many of the increases relate to motor vehicle registrations, decals, licenses, and license plates. Next largest in total revenues will be new premiums on some Medicaid enrollees, including some families in the Children’s Health Insurance Program. There’s a full table of the state’s new fees at the bottom of the post.
“I could see I was wearing my family thin with obsessive talk of aromatics [and] how to doctor an overly salted broth.” Nope, not a chef. A poet. Though, as it turns out, Major Jackson is also a fervent soup eater and chef. Jackson, who taught at UVM for nearly two decades, now splits his time between Rochester VT and Nashville, where he and his wife Didi both teach at Vanderbilt. His forthcoming book, A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems With a Side of Soup, pairs the two loves in the subtitle: 65 poems, 24 recipes, reflections on soup by others. In Seven Days, Melissa Pasanen talks to him about how the project came about, the surprising number of poems about soup, soup parties, and whether a stew is really a soup.
Moths sip moose tears in Vermont. “The less glamorous relatives of butterflies have been known to use their long proboscis to sip the tears of everything from birds to reptiles to even domestic animals,” writes Gennaro Tomma in Scientific American. It was thought to be a tropical thing, but that was before UVM researcher Laurence Clarfeld scrolled through 2024 video from the Green Mountain National Forest and found what looked like a bull moose with extra eyes, until he realized it was moths drinking his tears. A colleague found a second video of the same thing from a year later. The moths are thought to be seeking minerals and other nutrients, Tomma writes.
“One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking.” It could be a perfect evening at the theater, but Mark Meth Cohn is describing the young gorilla whose image won him top prize in The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. They’re all good for a laugh, but the wrestling frogs, surfing herons, and cavorting foxes are also greatly appreciated and valued by the photographers. Take Germany’s Paula Rustemeier, whose fox image came from “just being present.” And Australia’s Annette Kirby called watching endangered Steller’s Sea Eagles fishing from drift ice a highlight of her trip to Japan.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
HEADS UP
In Post Mills, Peter Blodgett reads holiday stories. It’s a Peabody Library tradition with the former director of the Thetford Libraries. “With candles glowing in the lovely and historic library, Peter will read aloud his selection of holiday stories from many cultures to mark this special season.” 7 pm.
Upper Valley Ringers and “The Holiday Handbells” at the Center at Eastman. Familiar carols and other seasonal music on handbells (and other instruments). Rescheduled from last week. 7 pm in the Draper Room.
And for today...
Count Basie’s band first recorded “Jumpin’ At The Woodside” in 1938. Some 42 years later, Oscar Peterson hosted him on a BBC show at London’s Royal Festival Hall, with the two greats on matching Bösendorfer grand pianos. And just because we can, here they are:
Thanks, NC!
See you tomorrow.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on Daybreak’s homepage.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.
Thank you!
