Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to the very first day of August on this Saturday. Today is August 1st, folks, so make the most of it because school's right around the corner. The current Oldest in our house loves stories. Books, movies, YouTube shorts, graphic novels, anime, even writing her own short comic strips - she inhales them all with a seriousness and earnest fervor that sometimes leaves me a little breathless. She dives into her imagination with both feet and lands on solid ground that sets her on all kinds of journeys. One of them includes following the life and career of actor Lex Barker. According to her in-depth internet research, Lex Barker was an American actor. He was 6 feet, 4 inches tall. He had five wives and three children and was 54 when he died. He was in over 50 movies from 1945 to 1973, most notably the popular German film series Vinnetou . A rabbit hole worth going down is revisiting the Remembering Vinnetou post I wrote for the Almanac on March 30th, 2019. This trip do...

   When I drive by the county fairgrounds the week after the Fair, I'm amazed at how such a small area was so full of life. The noisy, colorful rides on the Midway, the carnival games and food stands have all packed up and are now churning away at another county fair down the line. The permanent buildings at the fair, the animal barns, the 4-H building, the local food stands are cleaned and shuttered for winter. Did it really happen? Where are the crowds of people, old folks reestablishing ties, the families giving their kids a fun time, the teenagers strutting their stuff?     The Fair is a shaking up and mixing together of normal life. For me, the Fair is a place of obligation. When our kids were small we stood by while they rode kiddie rides, checked out the animals, and ate unhealthy foods. We chatted with acquaintances we only saw at the Fair (what's his name again?). I worked a couple of shifts at the church stand, as waiter, then cook and eventually the s...

    I had the windshield in my 1998 Subaru Legacy-Outback, replaced by D&L Auto Glass in Roseau on Friday July 24th. What a great place to do business! Absolutely everyone with whom I had the pleasure to talk was small-town friendly -- including an octogenarian from Warroad whom one of the women there called "Grampa." They made that hail and lightning-filled Friday afternoon truly a port in the storm.      I was amazed when her grandpa said he recognized my last name from reading THE RAVEN years ago. (He had been a loyal subscriber). So for the whole two hours it took them to install my windshield , 'Leroy,' and I talked about a whole lot of things including who we both knew from Wannaska, as he had grown up southeast of there when he was a kid. We had a good time even as the hail came down, the winds blew, and thunder-rolled; I didn't want to leave at the end.    The grocery store was packed. The county fair and rain storm (It always rains a...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 29, 2026, the thirtieth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of summer, the fifth Wednesday of July, and the two-hundred tenth day of the year, with one-hundred fifty-five days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for July 29, 2026 Mullein Blooming Verbascum thapsus , the great mullein, greater mullein or common mullein — nookaadiziiganzh, in Anishinaabe — is a species of mullein native to Europe, northern Africa, and Asia, and introduced in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Mullein derives from the French word for soft, moelleux . A hairy biennial plant, nookaadiziiganzh that can grow more than six feet tall. Its small, yellow flowers are densely grouped on a tall stem, which grows from a large rosette of leaves. Nookaadiziiganzh grows in a wide variety of habitats, but prefers well-lit, disturbed soils, where it can appear soon after the ground receives light, from long-lived seeds that persist in the soil s...

I was driving around early this morning, enjoying the rare peace of a Saturday before the rest of the world woke up and started looking at their screens. That is when I saw it, hanging from a massive oak tree in a front yard down the road: a tire swing. My 58-year-old heart did a little backflip. A real, honest-to-goodness tire swing! I immediately flashed back to my childhood, remembering the smell of hot, sun-baked rubber, the inevitable black smudge left on your jeans, and that slight element of danger when you realized the rope was frayed. For a brief second, I felt a surge of hope. Maybe the kids these days were alright. Maybe we were reclaiming our heritage. Naturally, I pulled my truck over to get a closer look and savor the nostalgia. I rolled down the window, squinted through my progressives, and that’s when the crushing disappointment set in. It wasn’t a tire. It was a molded, hollow piece of black plastic *shaped* like a tire. A replica. A sanitized, safety-tested, UV-resist...

One of the things I notice lately is that when I wake up full-tank-ready for the day, by three or so, I need to refuel. Yesterday, I stretched out on the couch, put on a podcast, and zonked out immediately. I never used to take naps. ​I was just about to take one the other day when it started to rain. At first it seemed I could let the windows stay open, but it was a deluge. After I scurried through the house to shut them all, I followed up with rags to wipe the wet sills dry. By then I wasn’t sleepy anymore. Throughout the night, rain came and went. Pound. Quiet. Pound some more. Quiet. In between downpours, the wind took over and I listened. This morning, as I waited for my tea, I opened the door, stood on the stoop and looked straight up through the trees. Then, with a start, walked to check the garden.  ​When our small vegetable patch started to wake up early this spring, we found 13 or so volunteer tomato plants. I transplanted them by sinking them deeply into the ground. Afte...