Wannaskan Almanac

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the 13th Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of spring, and the 90th day of the year, with 275 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for March 31, 2021 Ninety percent of all wildfires are started by humans . Nordhem Lunch: Closed. Earth/Moon Almanac for March 31, 2021 Sunrise: 7:03am; Sunset: 7:53pm; 3 minutes, 34 seconds more daylight today Moonrise: 10:41pm; Moonset: 8:42am, waning gibbous, 90% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for March 31, 2021                 Average            Record              Today High             42                     71       ...

I can't think of anything to write today, I can't come up with any words to say. My tired brain is on vacation, My wit is dry...evaporation. So then I'll type on my computer, A bunch of words that are less astuter.   (Yeah, that's not a word, I'm well aware before you point it out and make me swear) For this writing I'm not paid a dime So pardon me if the words don't sound alike. Hence from this prose I will now quit, Before you think I am full of sh...aving cream. Maybe some extra caffeine will help me write a little better.   But too much caffeine will make me into a little fretter. There once an Almanac writer Who couldn't write limericks at all. Have a great day, and may your mental blocks be used to build something useful!

In our far northern borderlands, we do things unimaginable to city dwellers. Even among us, many have never felled a large pine tree. Perhaps these same folks snip at hedges, mow lawns, spread lightweight fertilizer, and plant spring flowers. But how many, even here, have cut down a one hundred-foot, ancient pine tree with such girth that it exceeds a person’s arms circling its trunk?  We “own” 20 acres in Beltrami Island State Forest which contains 703,382 acres. That total equates to just shy of 1100 square miles. Owning our tiny spot of land and taking down one tree (the subject of my poem today) seems too trifling to mention. But it’s impossible to think so when Forest trails in this magnificent place. If you lived here, you would hear the crackle and roar of the gigantic tree harvesting machines that run nearly every day of the year. If those who harvest are working close enough, the crashing of the trees as they fall is disturbingly audible. Those “in the know” say that chopp...

  I look at the clock, I'm early, I look again, I'm late.  One minute I am finished, The next is the starting gate.  Religion for me is more a Tum than an opiate.  Don’t like spinning your wheels? Don’t stomp on the gas. I had three different conversation today. The first was a rapier like exchange of witticisms. The next was alternating blasts of big guns. And the last was a swinging Jane and Tarzan-like through a jungle of words on constantly breaking vines.  The language judges are strict about spelling and grammar. With word order and idioms things loosen up. And for slang, the people rule.  In a true democracy elections always take place in purgatory. Neither side has the strength or time to take the country all the way to hell. Or to paradise.  Chairman Joe 

Hello and welcome to a sunny Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is March 27th. The blog's WAKWIR (Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence) turned fifteen yesterday. This is the third child in our kid crew to turn fifteen and, I've got to be honest, with each kid who hits this milestone, I'm looking less and less forward to it. Fifteen.  Author Beverly Cleary passed away this week at the age of 104. While Cleary's most famous literary characters were Beezus and Ramona Quimby, my favorite Cleary book was Fifteen about a young girl falling in love. My young self considered Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret  by Judy Blume and Fifteen by Beverly Cleary to be the definitive sources on all things involving boys and love. I would often stare at that green cover and imagine it was me gazing up adoringly at a handsome young man as he clasped a bracelet around my wrist. Dirty Dancing (1987) and all the Molly Ringwald films did me no favors, fueling my fantasies...

   Birthdays are no longer a big deal for me, but I do insist on giving myself a gift on my special day. This year I'm posting a eulogy to myself. A sort of a mini-autobiography. How shall I go about it?  An autobiography written in the first person must be revelatory. Written in the second person, it will be accusatory. And in the third, exculpatory. I shall write in the first person since it seems the least hokey.     I was born on this day in 1947 at 6:00 p.m. in Boston, Mass. It was a cool and sunny Wednesday with gusty west winds. I was the first born to my parents, Joseph and Mary, who were living with my mother's parents in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. A year later we moved to our own house in Roslindale where my brothers Bill, Stephen, and Mark and sister Mary-Jo were born.    I went through the Catholic school system and when I was done, Uncle Sam was waiting for me. I had no problem with the Vietnamese people and to avoid having ...

    Larry and the moose he didn't shoot circa 1980s     I received a mailer the other day on the cover of which was written:  “WannaskaWriter, Wannaska, Minnesota, 56761 Dean Davidson 8mm movies with WWs family.”     Curious, I read the handwritten note that accompanied the DVD. It was from Dean’s son, in reference to an old photograph of him I had in my collection and had sent him a week or two earlier, just reaching out to friends and family during this time of Covid. The son responded:     “I remember that moose. It came up behind the deer stand I was sitting in. I heard something coming in the brush behind me. Slowly I turned around and there he was staring me down. A group of Indians took him later, on Raymond’s land.[Note: This is Red Lake Reservation land now.] This DVD contains clips of you and your family from Dad’s 8mm movies that could be transferred. I don’t know if you have ever seen them, [but] if you have it’s b...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, March 24, 2021, the 12th Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of spring, and the 83rd day of the year, with 282 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for March 24, 2021 Skunks do not hibernate, and they are now emerging from their dens. Nordhem Lunch: Closed. Days with Chairman Joe on planet Earth : 27,027. Days until his next birthday: 3. Earth/Moon Almanac for March 24, 2021 Sunrise: 7:18am; Sunset: 7:42pm; 3 minutes, 36 seconds more daylight today Moonrise: 2:30pm; Moonset: 5:49am, waxing gibbous, 75% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for March 24, 2021                 Average            Record              Today High             38           ...