Wannaskan Almanac

     A RAVEN subscriber named Tom M., lived in Beltrami Island State Forest many years ago. Tom had contributed story ideas to me that he thought would fit our human-interest story format, one or two of which we published. One day, he encouraged me to talk to Joe Stenzel, his neighbor, because Joe and his wife Catherine had moved there from Minneapolis and were quite the characters; the difficulty being the only way to Joe was by permission of 'Catherine' who vetted any interaction with, what Tom described as, severity. Then warned me, "You might not make the grade."     I immediately imagined a tall Nordic woman with piercing blue eyes, broad shoulders; no-nonsense white-blonde hair, and a winter-biathalon physique honed from Olympic cross-country skiing & shooting competitions carrying a seven-pound rifle plus ammunition. During their move to The Big Woods I figured, she alternated her rigorous skiing regimen with AM/Enduro Bicyle racing during t...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 1, 2026, the thirteenth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of spring, the first Wednesday of April, and the ninety-first day of the year, with two-hundred seventy-four days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for April 1, 2026 Eastern Meadowlark Sturnella magna is a medium-sized icterid bird, very similar in appearance to its sister species, the western meadowlark, inhabiting from eastern North America to northern South America, including Wannaska, to which they now return. Mayaagi bineshiinh, in Anishinaabe, translates to "strange bird" or "migrant bird". Adults have yellow underparts with a black "V" on the breast and white flanks with black streaks. The upperparts are mainly brown with black streaks. They have a long pointed bill; the head is striped with light brown and black.  The song of this bird is of pure, melancholy whistles, and thus simpler than the jumbled and flutey s...

The "Creek Path" wasn't a path in the way people in Millersville would understand it. It wasn't groomed or paved, and if you followed it for more than twenty yards, you’d likely end up with a boot full of mud and a face full of spiderwebs. It was a winding, stubborn trail that hugged the water where the willow trees leaned so low they looked like they were trying to drink the creek dry. Folks said the Creek Path was the original "Main Street" of Walnut Bend, back before the gravel road was cut and before Earl’s grandfather built the store. It was where the women did the washing and the men traded pelts. Now, it was just a place where the kids went to hide from their chores and where the shadows seemed to stay a little longer than they did anywhere else. One humid Tuesday, when the air felt like a wet wool blanket, I found myself in the back of Earl’s store. Earl had asked me to help him move some of those heavy bread crates because his "bad hip was acti...

THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING SONG TWELVE MEMORIAL DAY II Walking farther North, leaving even trees behind no arching limbs against this white-empty sky the sun rises above the horizon but a few hours then sinks into night again into deep cold that rakes the flesh like fire Here’s a long night to be sure – an endless night with no time yet for sleep I watch shards of ice rise to the dark surface of a winter lake fed by an underground river that flows below mountain peaks crushed silver under moon Walking by myself, I listen to the stories I have left behind good stories that I tell myself – the ones I’ve never told another – not even once – good stories that I am re-membering about the One who has always been here, the un-named One -- now  named Here, walking in this longest night, I cannot tell if the stars are lights above me or fires below I am ice-cracking splinters into shards and I am jubilant in the breaking Mapping to the center dead-reckoning...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 9 Man Expands Compost Storage Joe McDonnell. 79 and a resident of Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently discovered a method to get more food scraps into his kitchen counter compost bin. "Once the bin is full," McDonnell tells reporters, "my wife or I carry the bin to the big compost bins near the garden. I noticed recently that if I happened to leave fruit or vegetable skins on the counter overnight, they shriveled up by morning. One morning I weighed a fresh banana skin: 75 grams. Twenty four hours later the skin weighed 52 grams. That's a 27.8% weight loss. I theorized that I could get a lot more in my bin if I let everything dry out for a day before putting it into the covered bin." McDonnell thinks he probably won’t do that. "The purpose of the bin is to keep the counter tidy," he says. In a follow up communication McDonnell says he calculated that the inedible skin of the test banana made up 37.6% of the banana...

Hello and welcome to the last Saturday of March, here at the Wannaskan Alamanc. Today is March 28th. Good grief, Charlie Brown! Someone please tell me that the month of March was out of planetary alignment, the stars were scattered, and chaos reigned, because that sums up my experience. Wild.  The original Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence, aka WAKWIR, was home on his spring break. "Help me write the blog," I told him on our drive down to the Twin Cities last night. "Write about me and all the things I did," he answered. So, here we go. He flew to Minnesota a week ago and spent a night with his brother. He later reported that it was "the best time," and "honestly, Ma. If my flight home had been delayed, I wouldn't have minded spending another day with him." His flight north was on time, however, and after his dad picked him up, they went to Walmart because, as you know, when in civilization, shop. According to the WAKWIR this was NOT ...