Wannaskan Almanac

   Camera ready, darlin'? Look, here's a good trail. This'll fer shure be a No. 1 spot on the Wiktel Page. May even make the phone book cover! Ish Dah! Smell dat? That's because it smells us. Steel yourself. It'll be worth every stinkin' bit.  Lissen ... Hear it, girl? It's just ahead ...  Steady now... ready? You can do it ... Fee fon! It's a sneaky one. Slow a bit. It's ... there .  See it tween the trees? You can just make it out .... YES1 YES! YES! ATTA GIRL! YOU GOT IT!! A PALMVILLE THRESHERANNOSAURUS REX!

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 21, 2026, the forty-second Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of fall, the third Wednesday of October, and the two-hundred ninty-fourth day of the year, with seventy-one days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for October 21, 2026 Tamaracks Turning Larix laricina, commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and also south into the upper northeastern United States from Minnesota to Cranesville Swamp, West Virginia. There is also an isolated population in central Alaska. The Anishinaabe word for tamarack is mashkiigwaatig /mash-KEE-gwah-tig/. A boreal deciduous conifer tree common to low-land areas such as swamps, fens, and bogs, reaching seventy-five feet tall, with a trunk up to twenty-four inches in diameter. The tamarack leaves are need...

With all the unrest going on in the world of immigration and ICE, I want to take us to a small book tucked quietly in the New Testament—Philemon. It’s only one chapter long, but it carries a story that speaks loudly into one of the most heated conversations of our day: how Christians should think about illegal immigration. The story centers around a man named Onesimus.  He was a runaway slave—someone who had left his obligations, broken the law of his time, and fled. In Rome, he met the apostle Paul, and under Paul’s ministry, Onesimus became a believer… a brother in Christ. But here’s where the tension comes in. Onesimus had to go back.  Paul loved him and valued him. Paul even said, “He is useful to me.”  But Paul also knew Onesimus had unfinished business. He had obligations. He had wrongs to make right. He had a master he had fled from. And so Paul sent him back—not as punishment, but as part of repentance, restoration, and integrity. There’s a side of the immigration...

They’d needed milk, and bananas. Milk badly. She always needs a splash for her tea.  I’ll go, she’d insisted.  Now, on the way home, she hoists two over-filled plastic bags down their street. When she feels her back hunching, she stops at a stone wall to rearrange the load. Counts steps to the end of the last two blocks, lowers the bags and rubs the reddened palms of her hands. A woman with a too small dog passes on her left. Back home, when she has to stack last night’s dishes into the dishwasher for space on the counter, she slams the door shut. Pulls the bags up. Milk, blueberries, that so heavy cabbage. The two jars of pesto on sale.  Did you get spaghetti?  Yup.  He half stands up looking. Aren’t you afraid the ice-cream will melt? I can’t put all this stuff away yet. This refrigerator is filthy. We stayed up too late last night.  I know.   Don’t you want to sit down?  I’ve got to do this.  He goes back to his podcast. She push...

The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 38 Man Avoids Bicyclist  Joe McDonnell, 79 and residing in Palmville Township, Minnesota, recently avoided running into a man on an electric bike. "These electric bikes seem dangerous to me," McDonnell tells the press. "They give the driver a false sense of security. Recently I was turning from a busy street onto a quiet side street when a middle aged man in a red jumpsuit riding a motorized bike came driving toward me on the sidewalk. I slowed to let him go in front of me but he turned to go behind me so I kept going, then he turned suddenly to go in front so I slowed to let him by. As we got closer, he kept turning his front wheel back and forth indecisively. Then at the last second, he zipped behind me and disappeared." In a later communication, McDonnell reports that his passenger, as soon as the danger had passed, said, "With that jumpsuit, he looked like an escapee from the jail." McDonnell says that his friend...

Hello and welcome to a sunny-beach Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac by way of Puerto Rico 🇵🇷.  Today is October 17th. It's MEA weekend which is usually our family hiking trip adventure weekend. Lately my mind's been on getting out west, back to Teddy Roosevelt National Park. However, a wedding has us venturing to a new place. This destination is a first for us all and the whole family, including significant others, are here. Our accommodation hostess let us know to be prepared for lots of dogs, chickens, and ants. We have seen lots of cats, some dogs, a few chickens (we hear more than see them) and only a very few ants in one of the bathrooms. We have also seen crabs (this variety really does scuttle left and right instead of forward and backwards), a tropical type of weasel/otter, and lizards.  Other than securing the lodging a year ago, I left much up to chance and last-minute whim. Considering how fast-paced life has been in 2026, I was looking forward to a little u...