Wannaskan Almanac

     It's convenient that our three sons all live in the same area south of Boston, but it's tricky to visit all three of them on the same trip because every two weeks they go to work for two weeks. They all work for the same tugboat company but their two weeks hitches overlap and it's rare that all three are home at the same time. To complicate matters, once a year they'll work three weeks on three weeks off to adjust the schedule so no one has to work six Christmases in a row.    This schedule used to drive my mother "Coo-coo" and she only had two sons working on the tugs. We plan our trips at the point of overlap to be sure we see all three sons. This June we arrived at our youngest son Ned's home in Marshfield. Our oldest son Matt was also home and the middle son, Joe would be home in a week when his brothers will be gone to work.     Ned turned 40 in May. He was adamant he didn’t want a party so his wife Victoria had to plan a secret party, k...

Looking for a pen during my stay at Hilton: Garden Inn, in Des Moines/Urbandale, Iowa, on this recent 4th of July 2026 road trip with my daughter, BJ, and her family, I awaited the arrival of two old old terribly old friends who I hadn't seen in real time for over two decades: 'Jeff' from where we used to live on Des Moines' East side; and 'Kerry,' an even older friend whom I met way back in 'Middle School,' in Minnesota-speak, (or as Des Moines locals call it, 'Junior High.') and their car driver, Kerry's son Pat, who I hadn't seen in the flesh for nearly four.  Arranging an early morning meeting around his son's busy social schedule, Kerry asked Pat to drive him; and Jeff, who they would have to pick up first, then me, for an early morning breakfast at the Cozy Cafe , in nearby Johnston. Kerry told me he estimated they'd arrive around 8:20 am to 8:30 am. I didn't sleep very well. Truth was, I couldn't get my cellphone ...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 8, 2026, the twenty-seventh Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of summer, the second Wednesday of July, and the one-hundred eighty-ninth day of the year, with one-hundred seventy-six days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for July 8, 2026 Blue Cohosh Caulophyllum thalictroides — bezhigojiibik, in Anishinaabe — is a species of flowering plant in the Berberidaceae (barberry) family, now sprouting green berries in Wannaskaland. A medium-tall perennial with blue berry-like mature fruits and bluish-green foliage, the common name cohosh is probably from an Algonquian word meaning "rough". The Greek-derived genus name Caulophyllum signifies "stem-leaf", while the specific name thalictroides references the similarity between the large highly divided, multiple-compound leaves of meadow-rues and those of blue cohosh. Indigenous peoples traditions centered around the use of blue cohosh by tribal mid...

While driving my usual 2000 mile summer trip I started to notice something.  It seems like every farm that we passed, and we passed a lot of them, has a slew of old, broken down farm machinery tucked away.  Some of them are right in the yard, others are out in the middle of a field, and some are scattered in forested areas.  I assume that the machinery is left where it either becomes unusable or breaks down. That is just one theory of how these relics end up all over the farm.  Another postulation is that they are decorations.  It is like the whole farm is a giant evergreen tree and each piece of slowly rusting machinery is a piece of garland or tinsel.   I do remember my Aunt and Uncle holding onto different pieces of machinery to use for spare parts.  This had a double benefit.  When you took off a piece of a parts unit you learned a little mare about how it worked and (hopefully) how to put it back together.  And it was much cheaper t...

               THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING   SONG SIXTEEN HUNTERS   I Now that I am dying  and all things can be told I see myself sleeping there believing I was safe within  the rainbow coils     I felt quite self-satisfied for once again I had crossed over set my foot upon an unfamiliar path I had breached another border there would be no turning back At that time I thought  I had come home and closed the door. I assumed I had been delivered to the port of destination             when in fact I had only             just begun to see the more   I looked, then stopped, for the dark child-man I imagined he had crossed a deeper threshold returned to his dream-time fires in some unnamed long ship   As it was I was held close for some length of time in presumed safety of rainbow splend...

  Man Switches Back Joe McDonnell, 79 and residing in Palmville Twp, Minnesota, changed his phone number to a new device then changed it back to the old device all in the same month. "I was recently given a new phone by a friend," he tells reporters. "The battery on my old phone was dying and the new phone had more memory and a better camera. I called the phone company to move my number over. Switching your number to a new device is one of the few things you can't do yourself on the website because it's complicated. I then discovered I couldn't clear my friend's info off the new phone because I didn't have her password and could not get it because my friend had died and hadn't written down the password. The maker of the phone was no help, so after carrying around two phones for a while I switched back to my old phone." In a later communication, McDonnell says he's now looking for a portable battery power pack. "These power packs are ...