Northern Lights from Etna, NH © Jim Block
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
Want to submit your own Dear Daybreak item? Just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
How to make ice bubbles:
1 Cup Warm Water
2 1/2 Tablespoons of Corn Syrup
2 1/2 Tablespoons of Dish Soap (Dawn works well)
2 Tablespoons of Sugar
Mix well and chill.
Then take the mixture outside when temperature is below zero with little to no wind and use a big slotted spoon to sling the mixture by the spoonful into the air (away from your friends!)
— Jane Masters, Hanover
Dear Daybreak:
— Randy Leavitt, from Logan Airport.
Dear Daybreak:
During Covid isolation times my walking partner and I were uplifted by observing numerous rocks that someone had painted and left along the roadside on Cowshed Road in West Windsor. That inspired us to paint and deposit rocks beside some Hartland roads, hoping that people who walked by might notice them and take them if they were so moved.
Fast forward to 2025, when by now another more artistic friend had joined our occasional “production line.” On a walk, the three of us found a heart-shaped rock that someone had intentionally placed in a tree on Garvin Hill Road in Hartland. We “borrowed the rock”; the artistic friend painted it, and then we returned it to the tree where we had found it during the summer. When we walked by the tree a week ago, we were delighted to find it was still there, firmly cemented by ice into the tree. Our hope is that others who have passed by and seen this rock have had at least a moment of positivity seeing our message that Kindness Rocks! We are glad that this rock has stayed where we left it, and hope that it survives the winter and snow plowing!
Kindness really does rock!
— Harriet Dumas, Hartland
