GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
More rain. The front's actually moving along nicely, but it won't look like it at first. We'll see showers continue for a bit; they should start tapering off late in the morning, though a chance of rain continues into tonight. Otherwise, cloudy, winds from the southeast, highs in the upper 40s, upper 30s tonight as temps start dropping toward more December-like norms.So while it's dreary out there... Let's catch up on the colors the sky throws our way. Sunrise and sunset photos keep showing up at the doorstep, and the "Daybreak Where You Are" album is fuller than ever, including with photos you've never seen.Missing Cornish woman found in Brattleboro. On Monday, the Cornish Police Department posted on its Facebook page seeking the public's help in finding 35-year-old Ashley Heath, whose family hadn't heard from her since early November. Yesterday afternoon, the department announced (also on FB) that Heath had been located by the Brattleboro police. "Thank you to all who shared the post and helped to make contact with her," the Cornish PD wrote.Ryegate power plant shut for weeks as loggers stop delivering wood chips. The temporary closure, Kevin McCallum reports in Seven Days, comes after years of complaints by loggers in the region that the plant, owned by Maine-based Stored Solar, has failed to pay them for deliveries of the wood chips that keep the plant running. The shutdown is aimed at helping the company build up enough chips to keep the plant running for at least a week. Stored Solar filed for bankruptcy in September for seven of the biomass plants it owns in the Northeast, though the Ryegate plant wasn't one of them.Hartford solar proposal draws opposition, would require clear-cutting. The town planning commission took up the project proposed by a Manchester, VT-based company to put up 15 acres of panels behind Connecticut Valley Auto Auctions on Route 14. The project would generate enough electricity for 1,000 homes, writes Frances Mize in the Valley News, but would come at the cost of cutting seven acres of trees on the site, which would either be burned or turned into chips. That drew criticism from commission member Robin Adair Logan, who called it "one step forward, two steps back."SPONSORED: Chapman's General—making the holidays merry! For over 125 years, Chapman’s General has served Fairlee, the “Town Under The Cliff." Today, it's a modern take on a Vermont country store with a curated selection of local art, art supplies, New England food products, and ethically sourced jewelry—and a favorite destination for holiday gift-buying with its robust toy selection, wines, greeting cards, hand-picked gift baskets, and vibrant community gathering-spot vibe. Come visit us for all of your holiday gift-buying needs! Sponsored by Chapman's General.In Norwich, new police chief wants boost in wages and benefits, larger department. In all, writes the VN's Patrick Adrian, Wade Cochran is seeking a 37 percent increase in the department's budget, most of it in salaries, as he seeks to rebuild and expand the decimated force. Its starting wages "are below average in the Upper Valley," Adrian reports. Cochran's proposal for seven full-time employees has drawn opposition from several selectboard members who argue that now is not the time for big budget changes; board chair Marcia Calloway counters, "We owe it to the people of town to think this through.""There are not too many 70-year-old restaurants left in the Upper Valley.” But yesterday, the Four Aces Diner in West Leb became one of them, and it celebrated with 1952 prices: less than a buck for a cheeseburger, fries, and a drink. Even so, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan, most of the people who showed up to help celebrate just seemed to want their regular. Q106 was broadcasting live, and the diner was filled. "The prices are good, the meals are good, the people are good," said Plainfield's Mark Horne, a daily regular."To have overcome adversity means you are strong, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid." In Claire Keegan's slim new novel, Small Things Like These, Irish coal merchant Bill Furlong is getting along fine—his family's okay, his business is doing well...and then he stumbles on a girl locked in the coal shed of one of his country's infamous Magdalene laundries, Catholic Church–sponsored homes for girls and women. Suddenly, writes Courtney Cook in this week's Enthusiasms, Furlong finds himself along "the knife edge of precarity and privilege" in this "perfectly wrought book." More at the link.Eleven peaks in VT's Northfield Range conserved, along with the headwaters of the third branch of the White River. In all, reports Vermont Public's Abagael Giles, 7,400 privately owned acres in Rochester, Braintree, and Granville are now under a conservation easement, in a deal arranged by the Conservation Fund and the VT Land Trust. The parcel runs from the valley floor on one side to the ridgeline. That allows "enormous potential for adaptability" as the climate changes, says the Conservation Fund's Sally Manikian. “It provides multiple levels of climate refuge."
We love the Upper Valley, and we need to raise money to support community-owned housing development. We've created a new online store where you can purchase Upper Valley-branded clothing, including a warm winter hat with your town's name on it. Just in time for holiday shopping! Proceeds support Livable Real Estate Cooperative, whose mission is to provide accessible, affordable, comfortable, safe, and sustainable housing in the Upper Valley.
Sponsored by Livable Real Estate Cooperative.
More NH voters express confidence in 2022 vote count. In fact, the UNH Survey Center reported yesterday, fully three-fourths of Granite Staters who voted in the November general election say they're "very confident" that ballots were accurately counted, up from 65 percent in 2020. Still, there remains a partisan gap: Almost all Dems and 79 percent of independents fall in the "very confident" camp, but only 52 percent of Republicans agree—though that's a full 16 points higher than in 2020.And speaking of elections, here are a couple in NH where turnout really matters. Those would be for House speaker and secretary of state, the first two orders of business when NH's legislature convenes today. The House is split, 201 Rs to 198 Ds, and as NHPR's Josh Rogers notes, every vote counts. Incumbent Speaker Sherm Packard is expected to win re-election, but it's not a slam dunk. Meanwhile, Secy of State David Scanlan is asking lawmakers to give him a full term, pitching his experience, while former state Sen. Melanie Levesque is pushing to modernize the state's aging election machinery."A treasure of words." That's the hot-off-the-presses third volume of The Vermont Almanac, Susan Apel writes in Artful. Though, she notes, it's also "rich with artful paintings and photographs that track a year that begins with the harvest month of October." But there are also essays on beekeeping, cheesemaking, luthiery, Joe Citro’s take on The New England Fat Men’s Club, Jim Stoops’s “Witch Windows" (after reading it, Susan writes, "you will never have to ask again; you’ll be able to explain why they exist"—and Susan's own essay on "Vermonters Speaking." VT follows NH to voluntary family leave. Gov. Phil Scott announced yesterday that the state has contracted with the CT-based insurance company The Hartford to administer the program, reports VTDigger's Lola Duffort. The program will reimburse up to 60 percent of wages for at least six weeks when an employee takes time off for health reasons, to care for a family member, or to tend a newborn or newly adopted child. It will roll out starting next year for state employees, then for many private employees the following year. Democratic legislative leaders are vowing a broader initiative.The stuff of dreams? The Nutella pizza at S. Woodstock's Ransom Tavern. That's what the Yankee Bookshop's Kari Meutsch thinks, anyway. As it did last year, Seven Days has compiled advice from five Vermonters on how to get through the winter with your spirits intact: snowshoeing at VINS, Kari says; Braintree Mountain Forest or Brandon Gap for backcountry skiing, and E. Corinth's Northeast Slopes for skiing with kids, says The Skinny Pancake's Jonny Adler; cross-country skiing or the heated pool at Spruce Peak Lodge in Stowe, says Zenbarn's Marlena Tucker-Fishman. And there's lots more...."My Mom Has Two Sons: Me and a Squirrel." Tom Krawczyk isn't joking, either. Back during the pandemic, he returned home to visit his mom, a Polish immigrant in Chicago who'd raised him alone. There, in a shoebox, was a baby squirrel she'd found in her yard; it had apparently fallen from a nest above. No animal shelter would take it. So she raised it herself. "My intuition told me to pick up a camera," Krawczyk writes in the notes to an NYT "Op-Doc" that hit YouTube on Monday. Give it a few minutes. You'll be glad he did.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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Sweatshirts, hats, and, of course, coffee/tea/cocoa mugs. It's all available thanks to Strong Rabbit Designs in Sharon. Check out what's available and wear it or drink from it proudly! Email me ([email protected]) if you've got questions.
It's First Wednesday, and this evening at 6:30 author and climate organizer Bill McKibben will deliver an update at the Norwich Congregational Church: "Where Do We Stand? A Report from the Climate Battle." He'll be giving an overview of the state of play on climate issues, and his argument for where we need to go from here. If you happen to be in other parts of Vermont and want to check out tonight's other in-person lectures—including a conversation in Montpelier on the future of community news with Herald publisher Tim Calabro and Meg Little Reilly, advisory board chair for UVM's Center for Community News—you'll find them here.
Also at 6:30 pm, NH outdoorsman and wooden boat builder Kevin Martin will be at the Lyme School for a Northern Woodlands talk on "Big Trees of Northern New England." He's got a new book out with the same title, and will be talking about the Big Tree Program in NH and elsewhere, as well as the history of specific trees, their care and management, and their importance to wildlife. He'll also be paying attention to local trees in the Connecticut River region that you can go find yourself.
And whenever you like, check out JAM's highlights for the week: Valley Improv bringing comic relief to First Friday in WRJ last week, along with Route 5 Jive bringing the tunes; the Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra's first full performance since 2019 last month in Hanover, including selections from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Stravinsky's Firebird; and the Dickey Center's October panel of experts on vaccines, hesitancy, and countering misinformation.
And music for a rainy day...
When she was in the band at Fordham High School for the Arts in the Bronx, Samara Joy sang a little jazz, but she didn't get serious about it until she went to SUNY-Purchase, where she joined the jazz program. In the years since then—and we're not talking many of them; she's only 23—she's won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, begun showing up on late-night, and released a self-titled album that had reviewers comparing her to classic jazz singers before her. "Her understated, swingy rhythm can feel lighter than air,"
Fresh Air
critic Kevin Whitehead said last year. "There's also the attention she pays a witty, poetic or heartfelt lyric without overselling it. She knows good words will carry their own weight." Her album, he continued, "is a public service announcement for jazz education."
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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