Wannaskan Almanac

Two fat robins sip water from the gutters overlooking my open window. Warm air, buds on branches, fresh-cut grass, daffodils—everything about April gets me out the door and into the garden. I've already bought a big, red geranium plant, and I'm keeping it watered. My parsley usually winters over but gave out this winter, so I've replaced that. I've bought more Dahlia tubers; I can't ever have enough dahlias. This year, I'm trying red onions for the first time, and I will also try growing garlic. I like getting my hands into the dirt and getting my hopes up for what will follow. Along those lines, while paging through gardening books the other night, I came across a section on mazes and labyrinths—two classic garden walkways encouraging my tendency to muse. The Smithsonian assures me that mazes have been part of the human experience for thousands of years. Not surprisingly, for ages, only the elite had access to mazes. PBS television shows have made it easy for

  Any fool can appreciate the mountains.  It takes a subtle eye to love the flatlands.  Self-improvement project: 1. Clear away debris 2. Look for building material 3. Realize the debris  is  the building material  One good thing about old age: when someone talks about something two, four, or six decades ago, I know just what they're talking about. Procrastination is not bad when applied to suicide Mushy love to some is A delectable treat  Gulp it down quick Or it turns to concrete man  is in woman he  is in she yes yes we can make splendiferous we The advantage to being an animal And not plants stuck in a bed We can be tumbleweeds Before we are dead For those born clumsy there’s no escape. If I put my coffee cup on the floor to avoid knocking it off the table, I’ll soon be kicking it across the room.  Why is it that after the immigrant struggles across the border, his or her grandchildren become dogs in the manger? The story of Philosophy is all about the good ship  Mind  tacking

Hello and welcome to a (finally) sunny Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is April 20th. While the hubs and WAKWIR* have been adventuring at the FIRST Robotics Championship in Houston, Texas, the littles and I have been "bach-ing" it at home, per the definition provided in the American Heritage Dictionary : "To live in the manner of a bachelor, as when one's spouse or partner is away. To bach. [Short for BACHELOR.]" The first order of business was to put the kibosh on cooking. Cereal was the week's menu for breakfast, snacks, and dinner. I bought three kinds. (Bread and butter, apples, carrots, and whatever the school served for lunch, stayed the same.) The second order of business was to minimize messes so there would be no need for cleaning. And the third order of business was to have fun together. With basic physical needs met, I wanted to really "be" with the kids. In "ordinary time" - when everyone's home and we'r

    Travel is uncomfortable. Why do we subject ourselves to it? We get restless sitting at home. We want to see distant relatives. Our people will listen to us and we'll listen to them and together we'll make medicine.   We took four days driving to Mesa, Arizona from home on a combination of interstate and two lane secondary roads. The interstates are helpful to shrink the distance but they're monotonous. On the back roads you view the countryside and the towns up close. You see humans and their effects. Sometimes you meet one.   We spent three days with Uncle Vern (age 101) and Cousin Kelly (youthful), the fourth of his five daughters who helps him stay in his condo duplex on the east side of Mesa. Mesa is flat with lots of tall palm trees and all kinds of cactus. I especially like the giant saguaro, standing with their arms up like desert yeti.   We were in Mesa during the solar eclipse. I had ignored the hubbub because we were too far west to see the show. On the day of

" I am of the mind that concerning our 160-acre situation it is better to do something than do nothing to prevent, or at the very least stall, a wildfire on our tree farm ..."   All too reliably, forecast rain systems had avoided drought-stricken Palmville Township in 2023, and just taunted our crops. I had little reason to think these scattered showers that day would act any different.   Disking my over-grown firebreaks on Thursday, April 11th, to help prevent the spectre of wildfire did the same thing as washing a car did long ago, for toward evening it progressively rained, sleeted, and hailed on me a quarter mile from home forcing me to take shelter in a dense windbreak of white spruce trees north of the one-room Palmville schoolhouse; I loved the irony of it: disking against the threat of wildfire and 'producing' rain.      It was a partly cloudy evening. I was disking a 16-foot wide north/south firebreak between the county road ditch and a 4-row win

 And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 17, 2024, the sixteenth Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of spring, the third Wednesday of April, and the one-hundred-eighth day of the year, with two-hundred fifty-eight days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for April 17, 2024 Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains through Wannaska across Canada to Alaska. It is the most widely distributed game bird in North America, and it is a non-migratory, not-so-clever bird. The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse species in its courtship display, where it relies entirely on a non-vocal acoustic display, known as drumming, unlike other grouse species. The drumming itself is a rapid, wing-beating display that creates a low-frequency sound now heard throughout Wannaska, starting slow and speeding up: thump ... thump ... thump..thump-thump-thumpthump). Even in thick woods, this can be heard for a