GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still mostly cloudy, a bit warmer. That low pressure system is hanging tough off the coast at least through tomorrow, and though the mountains will continue to see snow showers, in the valleys they'll be sporadic at best. The high today is in the upper 30s, down into the upper 20s tonight.A sun pillar three ways. If you were up at daybreak yesterday morning, maybe you saw it?
Here's one view from Norwich, by Cam Cross.
And another from a different side of Norwich, by Ned Redpath.
And the view from Fairlee, by Diane Church Sherman.
I-89 bridge work starting up again. Assuming the weather cooperates, says NHDOT, work on the new median bridge across the Connecticut will pick up again on Monday, with temporary daytime lane closures on both the northbound and southbound spans. Their duration will vary from day to day, but will generally be between 7 am and 3 pm.And VT town meeting results start coming in... In Hartford, incumbent selectboard members Lannie Collins and Michael Hoyt held onto their seats. Chelsea voters narrowly chose Jesse Kay in the one contested selectboard race. Norwich chose selectboard chair Marcia Calloway over fellow incumbent Rob Gere, challenger Priscilla Vincent over Aaron Lamperti, and opted to keep electing both its town clerk and its listers. Royalton voters nixed the idea of a town manager. Strafford opted to end its traditional floor meeting and switch to Australian ballots for all town and school decisions, while Bethel decided to elect town officers by Australian ballot, as did Bradford at its meeting on Saturday. Fairlee residents reversed a budget committee move to axe money for the town's July 4 fireworks display, adding the $8,000 back into the town budget. For all that and more:
Valley News reporters did yeoman's work covering events around the region; not all results are in, but you'll find them for a number of towns at the "results" links here.
An extensive look at child care in the Upper Valley. Thanks to a grant from the Couch Foundation, UNH's Carsey School of Public Policy gives the region a level of attention it doesn't usually get from the Twin States' population centers. In a trio of policy briefs, researchers find that despite some losses, providers in the region were more stable over the past few years than elsewhere in VT and NH; that pandemic-era funding helped providers survive, but the stability it offered is temporary; and that there are real differences between NH & VT in financial assistance—and more to be done in both states.SPONSORED: Share a CSA with a neighbor. Love local produce? Want to share a CSA with neighbors who might not be able to afford one? Consider donating a full or partial CSA share from your farm of choice, and Willing Hands will pick up the produce and deliver it to over 80 food shelves in the Upper Valley. You'll be directly supporting our local farm economy and our food insecure neighbors. It's a win-win! Sponsored by Willing Hands.Doing the laundry every day, gazing at a bronze of fat toads dueling, writing in the family sitting room... All of these were artists (in the broad sense) at work. In this week's Enthusiasms, the Norwich Bookstore's Carin Pratt tells us why she loves Mason Currey's "peculiar little book," Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. It's a compilation of the daily habits of hundreds of writers, composers, painters, poets, filmmakers, scientists, playwrights, and others, filled with quirks (did Edith Sitwell lie in a coffin every day before taking up her pen? Probably not, but still), wit, and stories about the creative spirit.Construction may be more affordable in rural areas, but that doesn’t make it more economical. In Sidenote, Nick Clark takes a look at all the reasons small-scale development in the Upper Valley's smaller towns is so hard to come by. Towns would "benefit from responsible housing development," he writes, but scant town staff, resources, and services, more restrictive zoning, and other factors tend to drive development—especially workforce and affordable housing—to population centers. The challenge, he writes, is how to "encourage less profitable projects where the economics alone might not pencil out."Yesterday was last town meeting for longtime Norwich town clerk. As Jim Kenyon writes in the VN, Bonnie Munday has "issued dog licenses, recorded property transactions, handled election preparations," and for nearly 30 years gone out of her way to help residents navigate the minutiae of town government. But she also, Kenyon notes, went out of her way to help Judy Trussell, a single mom with a young son, who'd been working three jobs—including at the town transfer station—when Munday got voters to approve funds to hire her as the clerk's assistant. Kenyon profiles Munday and Trussell.SPONSORED: Hartford Dismas House needs a transition coordinator. The ideal candidate is a good listener with strong communication and organizational skills who can be present for house dinners and regular house meetings (three evenings a week). They will serve as an anchor for residents, overseeing individualized service plans, housing plans, and house management. The Transition Coordinator also is responsible for inviting people throughout the Upper Valley to become a part of Dismas of Vermont, through regular contact with current and new volunteers. Sponsored by Hartford Dismas House.“If Vermont Town Meeting is democracy in action, then the town hall is where democracy lives.” That’s the Preservation Trust of VT's Ben Doyle, talking to Erica Housekeeper about the state's town halls for her Happy Vermont blog. Fairlee’s, on the National Register of Historic Places, is a newcomer compared to the picture-perfect (and oft-photographed) Strafford Town House—it’s hosted Town Meeting Day since 1801. Housekeeper tours a set of town halls built between 1799 and the 1920s that are still being used. They connect us to "traditions of community and civility,” says Doyle.“There’s really nothing more exhilarating than that moment when you can see that students are getting it." That's the Dartmouth math prof who teaches Intro to Combinatorics—which, writes Dartmouth News' Hannah Silverstein, is the math discipline concerned with "counting and the structures of finite sets of objects." That prof also happens to be the college's president, Phil Hanlon, who for the last time this term is standing at the blackboard (writing in chalk is "a dying art," he says) as both teacher and president. Silverstein writes about the class, the discipline, and why Hanlon has taught throughout his administration.Vershire exceeds fundraising goal for new community pavilion. You may remember that back in January, Vershire launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $20K toward the $60K it needs to build a new timber-frame pavilion behind the Vershire Town Center as a community gathering spot. Yesterday, the committee in charge announced they've raised $28,086 so far, well before the March 19 deadline to unlock a $40K matching grant from Vermont's Better Places program. Construction is due to start in June.For 35 miles in NH, Amtrak passengers may have to go dry. This is just too good. The NH liquor commission has determined that Amtrak's Downeaster, which runs between Boston and Brunswick, ME, has been violating state liquor laws by serving alcohol not purchased in NH; it's sourced in ME for the Downeaster's run. After the Portland Press Herald's Edward Murphy reported that the commission decided to bar beer, wine, or mixed drinks for the roughly 40 minutes the train is in NH (burgundy link) and drew national coverage, it backtracked, reports NHPR; it's now working with the vendor to find a solution.In Concord, teacher back in the classroom, parents pack school board meeting. You may remember the story last week about the to-do over "gender-fluid" clothing worn by art teacher Silas Allard at the Christa McAuliffe School. At Monday night's school board meeting, reports the Monitor's Eileen O'Grady, parents turned out to support Allard; the school father whose complaints set off the whole thing was also there, dressed as Julius Caesar. "Your duty is to act in the best interest of the children, teach...facts not fiction, biology not a social agenda,” he told the board. Allard returned to teaching yesterday.NH Dept. of Education wants to be able to subpoena teachers. The department, which has the authority to investigate alleged violations of codes of conduct and ethics laid out by the state board of ed, says it's asking for nothing more than the power possessed by the state's Office of Licensure, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt. But the concern, says union president Deb Howes, is that the move would "take an already anxious and fear-filled workforce and make them feel even more concerned that every single thing they do is under a microscope." Right now, the issue's in the lap of the state House.It's not just boards, paper, and fuel: Trees being used for biochar, home insulation, "nanofiber cellulose," even support pillars. Granite Geek's David Brooks was on a Northern Forest Research Center webinar recently that featured startups working on a wide array of cutting-edge ways to put wood fiber to use. He found it hopeful. "Foresters can’t stay in business if they can’t sell low-grade wood—the stuff that can’t be turned into traditional lumber—and if foresters can’t stay in business, then our forests will suffer along with our rural communities," he writes... and explains why.Those small New England states. They're all alike. A sports info platform called Oddspedia has mapped the "richest female athlete from every state," writes Jared Russo on news aggregator digg. It's pretty clear that for VT and NH the key is snow sports—or having Hannah as a first name. Though there might be a little confusion about what "from" means: Atop VT is snowboarder Hannah Teter, whose net worth they estimate at $1 million. For NH... it's VT-raised freestyle skier and local hero Hannah Kearney, at $4 million. Tops in the country? MI's Serena Williams, with a net worth estimated at $250 million. Take those figures with a grain of salt.Monks just want to be monks. At least, that's what the Carthusians in France have decided. They've been making chartreuse liqueur for centuries, but have gotten tired of churning out cases of the coveted drink instead of focusing on solitude and prayer. So, writes Jason Wilson in his Everyday Drinking newsletter, they sent a letter to distributors last month confirming what some had begun to suspect: They’ll be doling out the precious bottles selectively. "We look to do less but better and for longer," they wrote. It’s unlikely they’ll reverse course; just three monks know the recipe, and they’re not telling.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.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
At 6 this evening, the Enfield Public Library will host Upper Valley crime writer Sarah Stewart Taylor, talking about writing, reading, researching her books in Ireland, publishing her Sweeney St. George and Maggie D'arcy series—and her new Maggie D'arcy novel, set in Dublin and due in June.
At 6:30 pm, both in-person and online, the Howe Library in Hanover presents West Newbury photographer (and occasional Daybreak contributor) Ian Clark, with "Under Steam: A Photographer's Quest for Steam Locomotives." Ian, the Howe writes, "has traveled the world, from mundane locations such as Inner Mongolia to the exotic Barnet, Vermont in search of working steam engines. He’s photographed over 130 engines under steam. In this talk he will share images of 64 locomotives from 34 railroads in 19 states."
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts novelist Lynn Steger Strong, reading from and talking about her new novel, Flight. Three adult siblings, along with spouses and children, convene for Christmas in an old house in upstate NY for the first time since the death of their mother. There's plenty of family drama—made more dramatic by the sudden arrival of the single-mom client of one of the sibs, along with her daughter. "More than just a domestic tale," the Washington Post wrote recently, "it is a larger portrait of hearts and minds at war with the tedium of everydayness and the rote routines of relationships."
And this evening at 9, the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover welcomes in Frank! With covers of Norah Jones, Etta James, and "other melodic lyricists," sung by Dartmouth senior Izzy Vratimos.
And to start the day...
Lia Naviliat Cuncic was raised in Belgium, moved to France, and began her performing career singing Saint-Saëns, Mahler, Schubert, and other classical composers. But her family roots are in Uruguay and Chile, and when it came time to create her first EP,
Como una Flor sin Raices,
she set out to explore, both lyrically and musically, the pairing of South American and European sensibilities she embodies, and the wistfulness of living far from native soil.
—with Lia's clear, expressive voice and what may be the first-ever pairing of clavichord and South American bombo drum.
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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