GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Partly sunny to start, then clouds and, eventually, snow. A fast-moving clipper out of the Canadian plains is headed our way, with a chance of snow this afternoon and evening and the main event arriving overnight and lasting into tomorrow morning (and maybe beyond). All told, we're due two to five inches or so. The storm will also bring wind gusts this afternoon and tonight, and colder temps in its wake. Today, highs near freezing, little change tonight.Cardigan winter light. Jay Heinrichs was up there early yesterday and caught the rising sun from between Rimrock and the south peak. "Drifted snow was more than 3 feet below the summit," he writes. "A perfect winter morning."Simon Pearce inks "strategic partnership" with Bay Area firm. The deal with SBJ Capital, which invests in smaller firms with an eye toward helping them grow, was announced yesterday—after weeks of rumors that had centered, falsely, on a possible sale of the glassware maker's Quechee restaurant. "We believe that we need to find more customers like the ones we have with the products we make today," said CEO Jay Benson yesterday. "To do that we need to make more glass and hire more glassblowers. We're bringing in experts who can help us choose the right strategy to grow." Hanover police issue warrants for three in alleged hazing incident; Dartmouth suspends fraternity. The warrants came to light last week after a Valley News public records request, reports John Lippman, and stem from an alleged incident earlier this fall. They involve a current and a former member of the college's football team, as well as a third man with no known affiliation with the college. The fraternity at the center of the allegations, Omega Psi Phi, was just reestablished on campus last year; its suspension "remains in effect pending the outcome of an investigation by Hanover police," Lippman writes.SPONSORED: Oak Hill Outdoor Center is back and better than ever! Cross-country ski additions include lighting on the snowmaking loops with a new connector trail that reduces the required climbing, paved and expanded parking, and (soon) a warming hut. Get your season pass, or better yet, your Sustainer Pass, for access to the full 25-kilometer trail system. Help support reliable, accessible skiing for the entire Upper Valley! Sponsored by the Oak Hill Outdoor Center.The sneaky way to have someone bake for you. It's not that the Norwich Bookstore's Emma Kaas puts it exactly that way in this week's Enthusiasms, but she is a bookseller and it is the holidays and she's highly recommending Sift, a new book by Nicola Lamb that does for baking what Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat did for cooking: breaks it down and equips a baker to branch out, tweak, and experiment. "It is exactly the deep-dive I was looking for," Emma writes, "answering questions I've recently pondered as well as questions I didn't even know I had. I am reading it cover-to-cover and taking notes." NH playwright wins Neukom Award for thriller about handing personal data to tech companies. The annual award from Dartmouth's Neukom Institute goes to plays that "address the question of what it means to be human in a computerized world." This year's winner is NH's Catherine Stewart, whose Intimate Surveillance looks at apps that track health data. “Hardly any of us stop to think about just how much power we cede to companies when we simply click on a ‘terms of service’ agreement," Neukom's Dan Rockmore tells Dartmouth News. The play will be workshopped in February at Northern Stage.SPONSORED: Not sure you want to have plastic surgery where everyone knows your name? Mountain Lake Plastic Surgery is pleased to announce our new White River Junction office, where you’ll find exceptional care in a private environment close to home. We’re two female plastic surgeons focused on honest, top-quality care and natural results. Susan MacLennan, MD has two Dartmouth degrees; Alexandra Schmidt, MD grew up in Norwich. We're excited to be back in the Upper Valley! Give us a call at (802) 444-4421, or find us at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Mountain Lake Plastic Surgery.Out there this week: Ferns. There's the sensitive fern, writes Northern Woodlands' Jackson Saul in "This Week in the Woods"—it gets its name because its leaves "succumb so quickly to first frost." Then there's the rock polypody and the Christmas fern, which stay green all winter long. The Christmas fern flattens to the ground once temps drop, staying sheltered from the wind and keeping warmer than the air above. Other things to notice this first week of December: pileated woodpeckers going to town, and what red squirrels leave behind as they eat the buds and seeds of pine cones."An admirable structure of bladelike scales and wind channels." Nope, not some human-made structure, but those pine cones. Or, at least, female pine cones. On her Naturally Curious blog, Mary Holland takes a look at conifers' cones—both male and female cones are often produced by the same tree, but male cones "are much smaller and not as sturdy as woody female cones, usually withering after maturity. Their function is to produce pollen in the spring." Which is when female cones—evolved to make the best of air currents and the pollen they carry—open.“Live free or die, unless you’re hanging artwork." That's Sean Young, the owner of Leavitt's Bakery in Conway, talking to the WSJ's Ginger Adams Otis (gift link), and if you've been following along, you know what the story's about: Young's battle with the town zoning board over a mural painted by local high school students atop the bakery's facade, which the board is insisting he take down. Young has filed a First Amendment suit against the town, and it's headed to federal court in February, Otis reports. Young's lawyer says, “You don’t lose your right to free speech because you open a doughnut shop."'Tis the season for scams. They know no state boundaries, but there are two warnings from NH sources this week.
The first comes from the AG's office, warning that it's received several reports from Granite Staters of emails with attached letters that contain "the recipient’s name, telephone number, home address, and a picture of the recipient’s home." The letter says the recipient's computer's been hacked, and that the sender has "embarrassing information"—which they threaten to send to the recipient's contacts unless the recipient pays a crypto "privacy fee." The AG's office says the blackmailers haven't "gained access to the recipient’s electronic device," but got the info from publicly available sources.
Meanwhile, NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth describes two retail scams: First, don't buy gift cards from retailers' open displays, since scammers can copy barcodes and other information, then drain the card of value once a buyer activates it. Buy cards from behind the counter or a retailer's website, says Christina FitzPatrick, director of AARP NH. Likewise, keep an eye out for fake texts or emails apparently containing shipping information and asking you to click on a link or enter personal info.
VT's wildfire season sets a record. So far this year, reports WCAX's Sophia Thomas, there have been 82 wildfires in the state, all human-caused. In all, they've burned 159 acres—the most fire damage since 2016. Nearly half that total, 70 acres, was from one fire: the October fire in Barnard sparked by improper wood stove ash disposal. It took two weeks to put out entirely. Ordinarily, Thomas notes, officials worry about spring wildfires, as temps warm and forests dry out. The state's now prepping to buy a wildland fire engine.VT's incoming Senate minority leader on school funding and housing. Last week, GOP senators voted to oust their longtime leader, Randy Brock, and replace him with Scott Beck, a St. J state rep who won a Senate seat in November. Yesterday, VT Public's Mikaela Lefrak sat down with Beck to talk. Beck argues that the state's school funding formula makes it too easy for local boards to make spending decisions that boost taxes for everyone, and that spending needs to be tied more closely to local taxes. On housing, he argues the key is to lower developers' costs to build middle-class housing.Okay, one last Smuggler's Notch article for the season. (Maybe.) As you may remember from Monday, VTrans removed the chicane keeping trucks from getting to the Notch on the Stowe side. But it turns out the agency left the Jeffersonville side closed, blocking access to winter-time parking areas. And that, reports Seven Days' Kevin McCallum, lit off a storm of protest from hikers, climbers, backcountry skiers, and the VT National Guard, all of whom want to get to the backcountry throughout the winter. So yesterday, the agency announced it's changed its mind; the Jeffersonville chicane will come down.Photographers capture auroras' brilliance. Solar storms were spectacular this year, and photographers got their chance at them in places you wouldn't expect: California, Namibia, France, even the Canary Islands. Which makes for an astonishing array of entries in Capture the Atlas‘ seventh annual Northern Lights Photographer of the Year competition: vibrant skies over cacti, windmills, and a lone ice climber in Aspiring National Park, New Zealand. See all 25 and definitely read the photographers’ descriptions at the link.
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: 50 years of the Hartford Parks & Rec Department, with reminiscences from its first assistant director, Bill "Downtown" Brown, current staffers Scott Hausler and Tatum Barnes, and lots of others; End-of-Life "Doula" Kasey March on what's involved in helping individuals and families navigate those tough times; and JAM's first-ever feature film, Loren Howard's
The Custodian
, about a musician who gets a job as a custodian at a fancy music studio so he can save for a new keyboard.
And some music for today.
From Alabama-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Peter Bradley Adams,
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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