Daybreak Wednesday, 9/17/25

Look at this! Only partly sunny. Though, sadly, the clouds won’t be accompanied by rain. There’s a low off the coast feeding some clouds into the region even after this morning’s bout of fog clears. Highs today into the mid 70s, mostly cloudy overnight and back down to around 50.

Drought has stream flows at record lows. As WCAX’s Gunnar Consol reports, stream flow on most waterways in VT and NH “is currently the first to fourth percentile, which means that more than 95% of the time, there is more water flowing through our rivers than there is right now,” while overall flow rates are 15 percent to 30 percent of normal—the Connecticut at West Leb is about 27 percent of normal right now. At the burgundy link, Consol’s story and a map of rivers and streams in the region showing most of them at “well below” normal. Meanwhile, here are current USGS gauges for:

Hatless. Last year, Canaan landed a state grant for a set of much-needed repairs to its much-loved Canaan Street Meetinghouse—including repairing rotting posts in its bell tower. Well, that’s happening, and Christine Costello sends along this photo of the cupola resting on the ground next to the building, with the bell and the support posts there for anyone to admire. Here’s last year’s VN’s story about the grant, with a photo of the tower as it looks most of the time.

In wake of Charlie Kirk assassination, Dartmouth groups turn focus to political violence. The prominent activist had been scheduled to take part in a sold-out debate next week hosted by the Dartmouth Political Union, and while his killing sparked horror among students across the political spectrum, it’s also put the issue of political violence high on their agendas. The DPU is replacing the Sept. 25 debate with a discussion on the topic, reports Annabelle Zhang in The Dartmouth. Says the VP of the college’s chapter of Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA: “His children will grow up not knowing where their father is. There’s a real human cost to violence.”

At the Woodstock Inn & Resort, “a pair of hotel restaurants that can simultaneously sate its faithful clientele and push the art of cuisine.” That’s Seven Days food writer Suzanne Podhaizer on how executive chef Matthew McClure has pushed the inn’s restaurants and other eateries since taking over in 2022. A James Beard Award semifinalist seven times (in his home state of Arkansas), his approach for the inn, he tells Podhaizer, is, “This should be the dining table of Vermont…The farmers are going to dump 100 pounds of [a vegetable] on us, so we need to make a couple dishes out of that.” Podhaizer details how he’s built a local-food-driven empire—including with the bounty from the inn’s own four-acre Kelly Way Gardens.

As HCRS director prepares to retire, taking stock of its impact. The initials stand for Health Care and Rehabilitation Services (of Southeastern VT), and George Karabakakis has been CEO since 2014; he’s stepping down next June. In the Valley News, Clare Shanahan profiles Karabakakis—but also the organization itself, which runs an array of social services in Windsor and Windham counties, from embedding staff with local police departments to offer mental health services, to taking the lead on the statewide dial-988 mobile program for people in crisis. “Our staff know, they know it in their bones, they know it in their souls, that we are making a difference,” he says.

SPONSORED: Getting her life back. Battling a second bout of frozen shoulder, Amy Redpath says, “I was having a hard time sleeping, moving, doing daily tasks, and was miserable.” But she found lasting relief and renewed independence with the expert care and support at Cioffredi & Associates. At the burgundy link, read about her inspiring recovery story and how the right team made all the difference. Sponsored by Cioffredi and Associates Physical Therapy.

In a 1926 bestseller, a “charming British slice-of-life tale [that] takes a turn for the strange.” That’s how the Norwich Bookstore’s Emma Kaas describes Sylvia Townsend Warner’s first novel, Lolly Willowes, and in this week’s Enthusiasms she writes that it “may be the perfect first read of fall”—a sharp, witty story about a woman who, at 28, is declared a spinster by her family, is shuttled off to care for her brother’s children…and after years of a straitjacketed life, suddenly decides to run off to the woods to become a witch. “It's for those of us who wish we could run barefoot into the wilderness and never look back,” Emma writes.

State investigation finds misconduct allegation against Springfield prison superintendent is unfounded; she returns to post. Michaela Merrill was placed on leave in July, after the allegations about her actions at Southern State Correctional Facility were lodged. But an investigation by the state’s Department of Human Resources found them without basis, reports VTDigger’s Ethan Weinstein, and Merrill is back in the job. “While investigations can be difficult, they are an essential tool for accountability,” says interim corrections commissioner Jon Murad.

Mascoma Community Health Center in a race for funds. The clinic’s current medical provider is pulling up stakes at the end of October, after announcing this summer that high costs and low patient volumes were forcing it out. The center’s owner and dental provider, Mascoma Community Health, is due to take over medical services as well—but first, reports Clare Shanahan in the VN, it has to raise $200K. “We need some initial operating fund to kind of see us through the first three months or so for medical,” says board chair Sandra Hayden. Shanahan digs into the numbers, patients’ assurances that they plan to return, and the key role of the dental practice.

In new “How Religious is Your State” report, VT and NH trail the country. NH is 50th and VT is 51st (DC’s also in the mix) in the results from a survey by the Pew Research Center that looked at how often adult residents say they pray each day, “believe in God or a universal spirit with absolute certainty,” consider religion to be very important in their lives, and go to religious services at least once a month. In all, the study’s authors report, 15 percent of Granite State adults and 13 percent of Vermonters qualify as highly religious. ME’s just ahead, at 17 percent. MS (50 percent), SC (46 percent), and SD (45 percent) lead the country. Specifics at the links:

VT and feds sign new agreement on using state prisons for immigration detentions. It’s a continuation of the state’s longstanding agreement with US Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol to hold federal detainees, reports Seven Days’ Lucy Tompkins, with one change: VT will be paid $185 per detainee per day, starting today, compared to $180 before this; rates will rise again next year. Tompkins notes that state legislators this summer had asked that any new agreement also address adequate staffing, notification of incoming ICE detainees at least 24 hours in advance, and “proper and timely” legal representation for detainees.

Atop Mt. Mansfield, trying to understand why Bicknell’s Thrush populations are dropping. In all, former VT Center for Ecostudies director Chris Rimmer tells VT Public’s Abagael Giles, they’re shrinking about 4 percent a year, “which is a pretty steep rate of decline.” The songbirds spend their time in two spots on earth: summers on the summits of southern Quebec and New England, and winters in the cloud forests of the Dominican Republic. And they appear to be threatened in both places—here, because climate change is driving the trees they nest in higher and higher. Giles tags along for VCE’s mountaintop research, and explains the stakes.

Sitting next to a 1953 Ford Jubilee, a conversation about tractors—and then a tractor pull in Randolph Center. Wolcott VT mechanic Ralph Rockwell has loved tractors all his life, restores old tractors (he’s got 29 right now), and likes to spend summers at antique tractor pulls. So no surprise that when radio producer Erica Heilman caught up with him, that’s what they talked about. “Each vehicle story contains the vehicle's history as far back as he can go,” Heilman says, “and there's something almost Biblical about this attention to a vehicle's provenance.” Then they head to a tractor pull: “loud, happy, and everyone knows what the hell is going on.”

State maps, with a twist. In the Boston Public Library’s From the Vault, Julia Williams gives us a tour of some of the state promotional maps housed there. A 1926 charmer by Elizabeth Shurtleff and Helen F. McMillin shows all roads leading to New Hampshire and, inside the borders, amusing figures telling Granite State inside jokes (enlarge it to appreciate the subtleties). It’s a starkly different view from other locations: Maps of Boston and New York give them outsized importance, while the “Map of Canada (as seen by a Maritim)” renames locations, cheering the east—"World’s Most Spectacular Coastline”—and dismissing the west—“Gas Line Here”. (Thanks, BW!)

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

Telluride at Dartmouth gets going today. It’s back in its spacious digs in Spaulding Auditorium at the new and improved Hopkins Center, but even so, advance tickets for the first three days are already sold out—though they’ve got a small number of walk-up tix available. There are still reserved-seat tickets available for The Secret Agent on Saturday and for La Grazia and Nouvelle Vague on Sunday. Details at the link.

Beecharmer at Artistree in S. Pomfret. The Wilder-based acoustic duo of Jes Raymond and Jakob Breitbach play the next-to-last concert in Artistree’s Music on the Hill summertime series. As the pair write, they’ve “distilled 10 years of international touring into a sound that is part festival and part mountain top,” with flatpicking, banjo, fiddle, upright bass, and “time polished harmonies.” 6:30 pm, bring a picnic.

And for today...

Carter Sampson lives in Luther, Oklahoma, in a house that was moved there by mule in the early 1900s and came to be occupied by a pecan farmer before, eventually, making its way into her hands. It’s emblematic: The singer-songwriter was born and raised in the state and her songs are infused with its history and sense of place. One of her projects: the Oklahoma version of Rock and Roll Camp for Girls (the original’s in Portland, OR). “I want girls to know that they have a voice, and I want to teach them how to use it,” she says. Here’s her signature song, “Queen of Oklahoma”.

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 the Daybreak Facebook page, or 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!