GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sure enough! Fog in the usual spots this morning, giving way to sun for most of the day. High nearing 70, winds from the northeast, down into the lower 40s tonight, with fog forming after midnight.Water like glass. And fortunately, the air was crystal clear, too, the evening that Peter Bloch headed out with his "kayak cam" for the first time in 11 months. You may remember Bloch's videos above, on, and below various bodies of water in these parts. Here's his newest, on Grafton Pond (NH).Northern Rail Trail closed near Mascoma Lake today. Lebanon city staff and volunteers will be redecking and refurbishing the bridge over the Mascoma River just after it leaves the northwestern end of the lake, near Payne Road. The city's gradually been redecking the trail bridges that cross the river: "This bridge by Payne Road has many rotten locations with several temporary patches. We will be installing new joists, deck boards and railings," it notes. The bridge will be closed from 6:45 this morning to about 3 this afternoon.In Hanover, innovative primary care practice gives way to Amazon. Or, to be precise, to One Medical, which took over for the old Dartmouth Health Connect in May, is owned by Amazon, and, at the moment, is serving 1,300 patients with a single physician's assistant and a "robust Virtual Medical Team." In the Valley News, Nora Doyle-Burr charts the course of the practice, which serves Dartmouth and King Arthur employees: For years, it used a team approach, with both physicians and health coaches; the docs left after the handover to One Medical, which is recruiting and says it aims to “keep patients on track with health goals and confidently navigate their health journey.""He literally slung me over his shoulder and carried me 300 yards to the training room." This was direct health care of a different sort: a former Dartmouth football player with diabetes remembering the time his coach, Buddy Teevens, intervened as his blood sugar was dropping. In the VN, Tris Wykes collects stories and reminiscences from a dozen people who knew Teevens, from early teammates to former colleagues and college players to retired sports writer Don Mahler. Meanwhile, over at the Harvard Crimson, Griffin Wong profiles the long friendship between Teevens and Harvard head coach Tim Murphy, which began at a 1969 Little League game.SPONSORED: Free Home Composting Workshop! The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission is hosting workshops on best practices for beginning and experienced home composters. Learn which bin system works for you and which materials can and can’t be composted. Bring questions! Bonus composting supplies while they last. Why? Nearly 96% of food scraps end up in the landfill, costing money, space, and water quality, plus emitting greenhouse gases. In-person or virtually in New London (9/29), Cornish (9/30), and Orford (10/20). Sponsored by UVLSRPC.In the Whites, grant will boost network of remote weather stations. The sensing stations, writes Hadley Barndollar in NH Bulletin, withstand all sorts of weather extremes to collect weather data used not just by forecasters, but by alpine and climate scientists, search and rescue teams, and others. “The tech we are talking about on these stations is cutting edge,” says Drew Bush, director of the Mt. Washington Observatory. The new federal money will allow the network to update equipment and add new stations in the eastern and northern mountains.VT sees five-year high in black bear population. The estimate just put out by VT Fish & Wildlife is for the 2022 population, which it pegs at 7,000 to 8,500. Back in the '70s, the agency notes in a press release, the population was between 1,500 and 3,500. "Today’s robust bear population," it continues, "is the result of a decades-long research and conservation effort that includes land protection, regulated hunting and significant public education on proactive conflict prevention."Auditor looks into why, after seven years and $2.5 million, VT Tech still hasn't created dental therapist program. The role is akin to nurse practitioners, and the effort—created after the state legislature created the legal framework for the profession in 2016—was supposed to be the first of its kind in the Northeast, writes Peter D'Auria in VTDigger. But on Friday, state auditor Doug Hoffer argued in a report that the program has suffered from a lack of administrative support, as well as the state college reorganization, putting future recruitment at risk. The university says it's still committed to the program.As it markets a new light beer, Citizen Cider offends some staff. The beer, Hey Bub, is a departure for the Burlington-based cider company—both because it's beer and because, staff and former staff say, its marketing seems aimed at straight white guys, as opposed to the "cider for everyone" ethos the company's promoted since its founding. In Seven Days, Carolyn Shapiro dives into the controversy—over the last few weeks, more than a dozen employees have left the company. “In the absence of good communication," says the CEO, people can draw a lot of assumptions about one another that aren't true.”Around Boston and New York, VT takes to billboards to tout the no-billboard state. Well, actually, that's not really its message, but the irony does spring to mind. Looking at business reports that tourist traffic is 10 to 15 percent below normal, state tourism director Heather Pelham tells WCAX's Melissa Cooney there's concern that potential visitors are staying away out of concern that the state's not ready for them. So her department's taken out ads on 400 billboards in the nearest big metros reassuring passing drivers that the state's back open for business.Lyndon VT covered bridge hit by trucks twice over weekend—just weeks before protective re-design. You may remember that the Millers Run Covered Bridge hit the news last year after town officials, tired of trucks taking out the 200-year-old bridge, decided to install a steel I-beam in front of it. That work is scheduled to begin in a couple of weeks. But in the meantime, reports WCAX, the bridge had already been hit five times this year—before this past weekend—by drivers ignoring warning signs and following GPS instead."It's my tool of choice, I guess." Charlie Dion, of Townshend, VT, was just out of high school when he got hired for the day by a friend who was foreman for a tree service and taught to use a chainsaw. Now, some four decades later, he's still using one—as a logger, log-home builder, and wood carver. Sculptures of bears, in particular. His nephew, Daniel Herzog, spent a year following him for a film that's mostly about his life with wood, but also about the lead-up to the Big E exposition in Springfield, MA, which runs through Sunday and where Dion puts on daily chainsaw carving demonstrations and sells his work. VT Public is streaming the film—and Mary Engisch talks to Dion about it at the link.Why a trumpet made of brass sounds like a trumpet made of jello. At 16, Anna Ploszajski had to choose a path: science or music. She chose both. As a materials scientist, she delights in sharing her joy in plastics, metals, and even wool with the rest of us. As a trumpeter, she plays in a funk and soul cover band. In her latest video from the Royal Institution, Dr. Ploszajski shows how any trumpet—even one made from ice, or jello, or a hose and a plastic funnel—can produce a recognizable sound. And how dancing flames can show us what’s happening with the air and sound waves inside the trumpet.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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This evening at 7, Still North Books & Bar in Hanover hosts novelist and former journalist KJ Dell'Antonia for the launch of her third book of fiction, Playing the Witch Card. Dell'Antonia, who lives in Lyme, returns to Kansas—the setting for her popular previous novel, The Chicken Sisters—and to family complications, only this time they involve a reluctant witch, a couple of exes, and a pile of plot twists.
Also at 7, the Center at Eastman hosts educators from Marlborough NH's Caterpillar Lab for an up-close look at—wait for it—caterpillars. They'll be bringing late-season native caterpillars in particular, and talking about everything from camouflage to self-defense to what caterpillars eat and how they adapt to their environment.
And to bring us into the day...
We'll let Brìghde Chaimbeul carry us. She's a young piper, originally from the Isle of Skye and now living in Northern Ireland, whose mastery of the Scottish smallpipes is redefining where that traditional instrument can go—exploring music from Nova Scotia, Bulgaria, Spain, and France, and recently teaming up with Arcade Fire's Colin Stetson—an avant-garde composer in his own right—for an album rooted in Highlands folklore. Of the smallpipes, fed air by a bellows under the arm, Chaimbeul says, "It feels like part of me. Then you have its sound right in your ear, and you’re not just hearing one note, but a whole range of the frequencies, so you really get enveloped in the frequencies. It’s like a physical thing, a whole world of sound and vibrations.”
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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