Daybreak Wednesday, 12/3/25

Hard to believe, but: Partly sunny, calm. The low pressure that brought us yesterday’s snow has moved off, the clouds began parting overnight, and this morning, at least, we get mostly sunny skies with temps rising toward a high in the low or mid 30s on air flowing in from the southwest. Clouds will start to build in again this afternoon, ahead of a new cold front tracking this way (which tomorrow night will bring us the coldest temps of the season so far). Lows tonight in the low 20s.

On the wing. Last month, before there was snow on the ground to divert him, Jim Block spent several weeks photographing birds in flight. There are chickadees and titmice, woodpeckers and goldfinches, doves and jays and nuthatches. Don’t let the succession of photos dull your appreciation: Each one is a little breath-catching masterpiece.

“What began in June with strawberries and radishes ends in November with leeks and sweet potatoes.” Though in Jenny Sprague’s final CSA blog post for Plainfield’s Edgewater Farm, cookbook author and Kitchen Sense writer Mitchell Davis goes for turnips and gourds as he offers two recipes: Lebanese pickled turnips, which “garnish falafel and other pita sandwiches and are an integral part of every relish plate”; and squash or pumpkin chiffon pie, which “has a light texture and delicate spiced flavor, not nearly as heavy or overpowering” as traditional pumpkin pies. And don’t miss Jenny’s tribute to the people who nourished her heart in a tough farming year.

“People who are buying eggnog are always happy.” Which makes this a great time of year for Earl and Amy Ransom, whose Strafford Organic Creamery at Rockbottom Farm has been turning out eggnog for the last 23 years. WCAX’s Elissa Borden visited to talk dairy farming, Jerseys and Guernseys, and, of course eggnog itself: milk, sugar, nutmeg, and egg yolks. “Inside the creamery, employees spend hours cracking eggs by hand,” Borden reports. “Yolks are carefully separated from whites, measured and mixed into the creamery’s secret ratio.” Which, clearly, is working: At peak, they fill about 1,000 quarts a day, and still can’t keep up with demand.

“There’s been an enormous outpouring from the community. And every single person says the same thing: what a great kid.” That’s Woodstock’s Bruce Johnsen talking to the Valley News’s John Lippman about his son, Ben, whose body was found Saturday afternoon along the Ottauquechee River many hours after the car he’d been driving was found following a Friday night crash—on the other side of the river. “How Johnsen came to be on the other side of the Ottauquechee is not known and police have not offered a possible explanation, frustrating Johnsen’s family members as they have sought answers,” Lippman writes. Bruce Johnsen speculates, based on the wreckage, that his son might have had a head injury and become disoriented.

SPONSORED: Help someone who needs a hand right now! Based in the Upper Valley, Hearts You Hold supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees across the US by asking them what they need. These include Haitian immigrants in Lebanon who need everything from a toaster oven to a crib, Afghani refugees in Vermont who need basic clothing and winter wear, and families in VT from all over the world who need baby gear. Everywhere, there are immigrants who need boots and jackets and help with the basics, from shampoo to clothing to school supplies. At the burgundy link or here, you'll find people to help all over the country. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.

Hartford Selectboard vice chair tapped to fill vacant VT House seat. Mike Hoyt, who grew up in Norwich and now lives in West Hartford, will fill out the remainder of Heather Surprenant’s term in the Bridgewater/Pomfret/Barnard/Hartford seat she vacated in September. Hoyt was chosen by Gov. Phil Scott from a list submitted by area Democrats, and as VTDigger’s Ethan Weinstein writes, both he and his parents worked in state government; his mother was Kathy Hoyt, an advisor to former Govs. Madeleine Kumin and Howard Dean. “I’ve enjoyed my time in state government,” Hoyt tells Weinstein. “It’s part of who I am.”

Is a river alive? And deserving of legal status as a person? Those are the questions the renowned British nature writer Robert Macfarlane tackles in his new book, Is A River Alive?, and in this week’s Enthusiasms, the Howe Library’s Jared Jenisch lays out Macfarlane’s case. He pursues it in the course of three river journeys—through the cloud forests of Ecuador, coastal Tamil Nadu in India, and in remote Quebec—and though the book is filled with Macfarlane’s usual “luminous beauty,” Jared says, its power comes from the wilderness guides, legal scholars, and others who people it: “a motley assortment of deeply eccentric people, brilliantly evoked.”

SPONSORED: Join your community in Haven Giving Days! Local businesses, organizations, and residents across the Upper Valley are supporting the Haven this December through creative events, drives, and contributions. Your gift helps provide food, shelter, and supportive services to people working toward stability. All donations this month will be matched by the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation. Learn more about donating or participating at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Upper Valley Haven.

Whaleback will open for skiing Dec. 26 after fundraising campaign. But even then, general manager Khara Benoit tells the Valley News’s Liz Sauchelli, the nonprofit mountain expects to lose money on the season. That’s because it’ll be operating without its chairlift, which broke down in March and has needed repairs so extensive that it won’t be ready this winter. Instead, two surface lifts will take skiers about halfway up the slopes. The $210K fundraising campaign will help offset some $300K in anticipated losses due to skiers who don’t show up and to reduced-price passes. Meanwhile, “There’s a lot to be excited about if you’re into uphilling,” says Benoit.

To tackle PFAS pollution in her home town, a recent Plymouth State grad turns to mushrooms. Angela Graves grew up in Merrimack, where the former site of plastics manufacturer Saint Gobain is surrounded by chemical contamination. Watching its impact on the community, she got tired of waiting for a remediation plan, writes Molly Rains in NH Bulletin. So she came up with her own: She’s proposed creating a 10-square-foot study plot on or near the old plant to study the effectiveness of a class of fungi known commonly as white rot, which can break down the chemicals. She’s gotten preliminary state support for her trial. Rains explains its potential and limits.

“Behind the cameras, I saw a row of director's chairs, and I saw one that said ‘Bruce Springsteen’…and I saw one that had my name misspelled on it.” That’s one-time Del Fuegos rocker and current author Warren Zanes, who lives in Concord, NH and wrote the book on which the new Springsteen biopic is based. He sat down with NHPR’s Rick Ganley to talk it all over. “‘Nebraska,’ for me, is possibly the greatest left turn in the history of popular music,” he says: a veer from Springsteen’s building anthemic work to songs with “a kind of despair and hopelessness.” Forty years after he first heard it, he tells Ganley, he wanted to understand why.

TikTok hype sending unprepared skiers into VT’s backcountry. On Monday, Stowe Mountain Rescue posted this on its FB page: “TikTok videos of whooping skiers in knee-deep powder are luring inexperienced skiers and riders into Stowe’s backcountry at a time of year when the snow pack is unreliable. Mt Mansfield Ski Patrol is currently plagued by unprecedented numbers of lost skiers in backcountry terrain accessible from the resort.” The problem’s especially acute with skiers following others’ tracks off the Toll Road trail—where conditions “quickly turn into brambly terrain with woefully inadequate snow.” Their advice: stay in-bounds at the resort.

After nearly a year, VT is without a US attorney. It’s one of just two districts in the country without anyone in the role, reports Colin Flanders in Seven Days. That’s because after Biden appointee Nikolas Kerest resigned in January, his deputy, Michael Drescher, took over in an acting role—but his time legally ran out Nov. 16, and he’s back as first assistant. President Trump hasn’t named anyone to take on the role full-time. The result—especially since a Monday federal appeals court ruling affecting Trump appointee Alina Habba—is that some VT defendants may wind up “challenging Drescher’s authority to charge them,” Flanders writes.

VT is the only state in the Northeast without a freestanding birthing center. Some midwives are trying to change that. Many of them worked in the birthing unit at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, which was closed Nov. 1, and hope they can open shop somewhere around Waterbury in 2027, reports VT Public’s Lola Duffort. Their effort rests in part on a legislative move earlier this year to change the regulatory process for birthing centers so that hospitals no longer have the ability to sign off on whether one is needed. Birth centers, Duffort explains, “offer a midway point between a homebirth and a hospital birth for low-risk deliveries.”

Looking to check out holiday windows? Try Brattleboro. Where you’ll find some 90 dollhouses, dioramas, toy trains, and a working “Mouse Metro” escalator displayed in shop windows around downtown, reports VTDigger’s Kevin O’Connor. It’s the inaugural Festival of Miniatures—”We’re Going Small in a Big Way!” trumpets the downtown business alliance—running this month. Among other things, you’ll find a three-foot model Victorian at Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts filled with 100 furnishings crafted by local potters, weavers, glassblowers, and others. “Small is…whimsical and charming—and also accessible and affordable,” says organizer Melany Kahn.

Best photos of 2025? It’s that time of year, and in a look back, the team at My Modern Met has chosen their top photos from “every end of Earth [and] from every perspective imaginable.” The technical skill and artistry are topnotch, of course, but the editors say it’s the backstory that gives a special depth to each these images. Earth, space, oceans, wildlife, remote icebergs, and a fireball sun. Scroll down for a skateboarding granny, a batfish, Asok Sengupta’s brilliant black and white portrait, and fencers in an art museum. And do not miss life as a French fry on a city street.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP

Turnip Truck at the Tunbridge General Store. The Corinth-based bluegrass, swing, and folk band keeps the store’s Wednesday-night “Winter Music” series going this week from 5-7 pm with “some tunes, good company and delicious eats...It’s an early one and you can get back to your woodstove before too long after dark,” they write.

And for today...

This is not bluegrass, swing, or folk. It’s a short, swooping, pyrotechnic drone’s-eye video of McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans back in October, during his “Got Back” tour.

That should wake you up this morning. See you tomorrow.

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