Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to the Girls State Hockey Championship, Saturday, here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is February 21st. Go, Lady Warriors! Catch the stats here.  Game time is at 4pm. Today, on this wonderful morning, I will be talking about how this week went. This was an interesting week, and by this I mean Bob Ross paintings, UNO tables, and fasting. When I say Bob Ross paintings, you may be thinking, Bob Ross, how do you know he exists? My answer is that my teacher is a painter, a really good one too. But anyway, because my teacher likes painting with Bob Ross, she decided that we were going to try to paint with/like Bob Ross too.  We didn't finish out paintings, but it was basically a river in the middle with clouds and trees in the background.  Mine turned out pretty good, but then I looked at my teacher's painting, and it was identical to Bob Ross's painting.  Oh, and by the way, this week we were supposed to have 3 days of gym, but because of President's Da...

     Many people become train wrecks by causing  lots of damage to their circle of acquaintances but are soon forgotten by history. Not so with Henry VIII. Henry dragged England into foolish wars, destroyed an ancient religious culture, and killed friends and family because they got in his way then regretted some of  it on his deathbed.    My initial reaction is to call Henry a bad dude, but who am I to judge? Going deeper into Henry's complicated story causes me to reconsider. Henry had started life as the spare heir to his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales. When Henry was 10. Arthur died of no one is sure what. At the time it was called "a malign vapor".   Arthur had married Catherine of Aragon shortly before his death. This was an important diplomatic tie with Spain and Henry was expected to take his brother's place as Catherine's husband. Henry was allowed to wait until he was 17 to marry the 23 year old Catherine. Henry's father died soon...

    There is an old J.I. Case steam-driven threshing machine along a fence line northwest of our house. I can remember playing on and in it as a child when my family would drive up from Des Moines to visit family here. A horse-drawn haystacker stands nearby; its parallel chains drooping. I've always felt that there's something unique about this area of northwest Minnesota , where the forests end and the prairie begins, in as much as during my lifetime there was still so many ' farm ruins, ' as my daughter calls ancient horse-drawn and steam-powered farm equipment, to be seen across the landscape here in Roseau County.  [To Be Continued.]  

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for February 18, 2026, the seventh Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of winter, the third Wednesday of February, and the forty-ninth day of the year, with three-hundred sixteen days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for February 18, 2026 Bobcat Lynx rufus , gidagaa-bizhiw in Anishinaabe, also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of four species within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. Native to Wannaska and other parts of North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. An adaptable species, fer sure. It prefers woodlands—deciduous, coniferous, or mixed—but does not depend exclusively on the deep forest. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby (or "bobbed") tail, from which it derives its name. It is an adaptable predator inhabiting wooded areas, semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland ...

There is one paper that always brings a tear to my eye...a form that is a form of punishment for even the toughest self proclaimed accountant.  That form, of course, is the 1040, and, subsequently, their little cousins the state tax forms.   I would rather stand in the rain These forms and the directions for these forms were most likely written by evil linguists/accountants (a popular major at the University of "Crook"ston) who test every known boundary of the English language.  Their motto is...if it is easy to understand and work with, we'll fix that!  Their challenge each year is to not just make simple directions more wordy and less understandable, but also to create run on sentences that are devoid of meaning to precede and follow any meaningful information.   Latest copy of just the index for the tax code We quit doing our taxes several years ago.  Now before you report me to the IRS, just know that we still file our taxes.  We just bri...

Ah, another Dragon. Those of you who said early on that you looked forward to the Dragons in our story should be getting your wish about now. There are nine all together in the narrative. See if you can list the ones so far. If you are feeling feisty, imagine what the Dragons to come may be like – what purpose they may serve in the tale. Still, the title of this song is “Dragons True,” in contrast to others like Seagrace and the blue dragonfly of earlier songs. Still, the “humans” and the canine in the story line are worth knowing, and each has more than one story to tell. In this segment we discover more about each, and their relationships deepen and intertwine. Below, after winding their way through cave and cavern, the four current characters stand together in an uneasy circle. “Prithee, come to us now – feel our welcome.” Do I sense sinister intention here? Curiosity and place leave no choice I round the corner. Argose stays behind . . . My bowels loosen as I turn to face a l...