Wannaskan Almanac

In 2019, when you’re sitting in a tractor for hours at a time like I’ve been doing lately, idle until it’s time to meet the combine at some designated place on the field, there’s often been an opportunity to lazily gaze across the expanse of field all around and just think.  Such as happened when it dawned on me, that I’m taking a role in an activity because of which my three sisters and I were born. Our folks, Guy Reynolds and Violet Palm, met during wheat harvest on the E.L. (Alex) Haaven farm near Osnabrock, North Dakota in 1928. https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Osnabrock,_North_Dakota  Dad was twenty-three. Mom was nineteen. In fact, as almanac facts go, my folks would’ve celebrated their 90th wedding anniversary this last March 6th, as this chance romantic meeting lead to their marriage in 1929.   As I explained to my neighbor, David, during a terrific conversation after a day’s work was done, Dad had been dating a young woman named Ruth Brubaker, back...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, October 30, 2019, the 44th Wednesday of the year,  the 304th day of the year, with 62 days remaining. Nordhem Lunch: Tator Tot Hotdish WannaskaWriter has a photograph featured on today's Wiktel homepage . Earth/Moon Almanac for October 30, 2019 Sunrise: 8:07am; Sunset: 6:08pm; 3 minutes, 16 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 11:02am; Moonset: 8:03am, waxing crescent Temperature Almanac for October 30, 2019                 Average           Record           Today High             43                   71                   29 Low ...

Halloween is only two short days away.  This year I, being the very novice magician that I am, have been working on a head falling off trick.  I have learned several tricks this year, and I think that this would be the most unusual of them.  Plus it will give me an excuse to wear my trench coat in public without being accused of potential indecency. Magic has always fascinated me.  I can still remember when preteen me went to a circus and I encountered my first live magician.  He chose me to have my hands tied together and then with a quick jerk of the rope my hands were free.  For the longest time I was convinced that he had really pulled the rope through my wrists.  I spent hours trying to duplicate the trick, which I actually can do now.  The saddest day in regards to magic is when you realize that it is all just illusions.  The job of the magician is to make people think that something amazing has happened.  Unfortunately, there is ...

After eight Songs and over 130 pages of  Wannaskan Almanac posts, we have reached the end of “Movement One: Arriving,” a very long way from the “Dark Waters” of a birth coming into the light. After this post, we enter the “Second Movement: Becoming.” Although I’ve made little mention of the three movements that divide this epic poem and its Songs, the milestone points where the movements end and begin carry important information.  Consider “Dark Waters,” the first Song in the First Movement: “Arriving.” Our main character has come a long way, indeed. Perhaps, you would like to quickly review the journey we have made so far. If so, the entire poem to date is contained on a separate website here  for ease of reading. Nothing but The One resides at this site, and the poem is set up in order, from beginning to the most current posts. One caveat: as you know, due to the length of each Song, we post each Song in segments; however, only after all segments of a Song have b...

    After four days in Roussillon, it was time to move. We found an Airbnb in the smaller town of Lauris. There’s really nothing of note in Lauris which made it sound attractive.      Lauris was only eleven miles south of Roussillon, but with a little zig-zagging we could see some sights. We stopped in Ménerbes and walked up to the castle. Like so many of the towns in Provence, Ménerbes was built on the top of a hill.       Ménerbes was was the site of an amazing siege during the religious wars of the sixteenth century. This was papal territory and the Protestants decided to tweak the pope’s nose by holing up in Ménerbes. The pope eventually sent 15,000 soldiers to roust out the Protestants. It took five years to do it.       We had time to kill before checking in to our Airbnb and a sidewalk café is the perfect place to kill time productively sipping a cup of coffee and watching the life of the village go by. ...

Hello and welcome to a brisk last Saturday in October here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is October 26th, aka, Brewing Day. Yes, hubby is out in the detached garage cooking up his last batch of brew for 2019. It's been a good year brew-wise. After 7 years of brewing, hubby's family (i.e. us) finally gifted him with a proper leather bound brewing journal with specific prompts and boxes to organize his scritch-scratch. This has resulted in consistent recording and analysis which, in turn, produces a consistently high quality beer. The clarity has been clear, the carbonation crisp, and the hop ratio pretty spot on for the taste buds of this area. In his words, he is, "fine tuning the Bohemian lager to the finest level." Admittedly, although I'm not a beer aficionado like hubby, even I have found myself passing on a glass of wine, preferring his lager. And I sleep better, too! Combines were in full force across Wannaskan country yesterday as I made my way do...