Wannaskan Almanac

OMG...I can't believe what just happened to me! Could really use a friend right now. This was the worst day ever. These are all statements that I have pulled from my social media accounts.  They were written by people who I know, or at least sort of know, and they are all examples of vague-booking.  For those who may not be familiar with the term, vague-booking is the act of posting a status update on social media about a specific thing or person but providing little to no details as to what the thing or who the person might be.  In short...it is some drama queen or king looking for a reaction.   I wish I could tell you why I posted this picture...maybe if you beg Some people think vaguebooking is a perfectly fine way to get people to communicate with you.  Other's consider it a social media faux pas.  Still other's don't want to acknowledge that it exists.  Me, I like to use social media as a way to post jokes.  Most of the time I inclu...

“     .  . . the clanging tread of a warrior in mail” Beowulf  Ground Level – The Mead Hall  50,000-foot view - the first challenge initiated  No Anglo-Saxon epic would be complete without a “mead hall,” a place of gatherings, a shelter, and a place of praise as well as punishment. The hall is a place of hero-warriors so naturally, we will find Beowulf with his Geats (retainers) standing in such a hall after his journey to meet the challenge of the bothersome, complex Grendel. Here is part of the 50,000-foot view, for those who like to look ahead. Beowulf is divided into three main sections and then into units (i.e., chapters). The first section is Beowulf as a young man, while the last section deals with his life as an old man where, like all of us mortals, he dies; however his death is not the typical. The middle deals with his three major heroic adventures.  The Epic Opens: Hrothgar, king of the Danes, or Scyldings, builds a great mead-hall, or pa...

        On this day in 1520, Captain-General Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet of three ship made their way through the Straight of Magellan and arrived in the Pacific Ocean. The fleet had left Spain with five ships on September 20, 1519. That's fourteen months! Had they known where they were going, the trip should have taken around three months. But the expedition had a very unrealistic idea of geography.     They did make it to the coast of Brazil in three months, but it was here their troubles began. Magellan was Portuguese. When his own king refused to support his expedition he had applied to the Spanish king who said yes. The Spanish captains, jealous of Magellan, staged a half-hearted mutiny in the middle of the Atlantic. Magellan had been warned this was coming and was able to suppress it.    Once the fleet got to Brazil they started sailing south looking for the straight or passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There was a lot...

Hello and welcome to Small Business Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 27th and I encourage you to check out all the local craft shows and shops. I enjoyed seeing friends' Facebook postings of family and food during the Thanksgiving holiday. Captured moments of smiling faces that say: "We are grateful for each other, and we love because we are family." I admired the tables decorated and dressed with beautiful foods. And I wondered, what is wrong with me? Thursday morning, I got out of bed before everyone else, made coffee then slunk to my desk where I sheltered and settled into my mind. Aaaahhhhh ....a few hours at my desk to do some writing work. I had a deadline (self-imposed) that I wanted to meet. I relished being at my desk, like a "holiday" from cooking. I adamantly did not want to cook this year.  I felt grateful for the free day to cocoon, but also a tiny bit jealous and a wee bit sad we had no local extended family with whom to ga...

     Of all the modern conveniences I use, the one I hate the most is the chain saw. We've been burning wood most of the time we've lived here and the only way to burn wood and also hold down a job is by using a chain saw.    There's so much to dislike. My first saw was hard to start. Once I got it going, it was noisy and dangerous with its chain filled with teeth spinning a few inches from my vitals. Then there's the trees to contend with. Dropping a tree where you want it is an art. There's always the chance that as the tree falls, it will kick back and kill you. Then there's the dead branches that can break free to  bonk you on the head. The dead branches aptly named "widow makers."    What I really hate is when my tree gets hung up on other trees. I can cut down the tree that’s hanging up my tree, or I can work on my original tree which is still fairly vertical. Both choices are unattractive because both trees are under pressure and knowing wh...

    Year After Year.      I was sitting in my car after returning from Wannaska. I was listening to MPR yet again about how hundreds of thousands of children are starving to death in Afghanistan, a country besieged by the murder of armies of humans beginning in about 500 BCE, and the senseless slaughter of its inhabitants, young and old, (also now called ‘collateral damage’) all for reasons of insanity by various factions, including the United States for 20 years. https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-graveyard-of-empires/    I’ve become quite ignorant about what has been happening around the world since I retired; having lost my twice daily serving of world news via BBC; and my follow-up inquiries of such events on the internet into the wee hours of the morning, although I’ve come to the realization that I haven’t missed much; these horrid things never change.      Armies still kill their nation’s own inhabitants; poli...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, November 24, 2021, the 47th Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of fall, and the 328th day of the year, with 37 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for November 24, 2021 The wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo , is an upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey, and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes, /ˌɡæl-ɪ-fɔːr-miːz/ heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that also includes chickens, quails, and other landfowl. Although Wannaska and surrounding areas are seeing more wild turkeys, they're currently lying low until Friday. Nordhem Lunch : Today's specials include Hot Beef Sandwich, Chili and Grilled Cheese. Earth/Moon Almanac for November 24, 2021 Sunrise: 7:47am; Sunset: 4:35pm; 2 minutes, 14 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 8:43pm; Moonset: 12:29pm, waning gibbous, 77% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for November 24, 2021           ...

I have not fallen off my rocker...it is actually Mother's Day today.  To be more specific, it is my Mother's birthday.  Phyllis Armstrong was born on this day in 1864 in a little one room log cabin on the plains of southern Alberta.  There were no doctors or midwives to help with the delivery so a traveling shoe salesman was put in charge of the proceedings.  The happy parents bought a pair of shoes as a thank you.   Photo of the Armstrong cabin on the prairies Phyllis started school immediately, as all Canadian children do.  Canadian law requires all children to begin school by the time they are three days old.  The main reason for that is it took up to 3 years each way to make the dangerous trek to school.  Even on the plains the trip was uphill both ways and there was always a steep incline no matter which route you took there or back.   Photo of a teenaged Phyllis heading to school, summer of 1869 During the week of the Canadian...

Winter. Balancing on a log, you squat by the fire, near the others in the circle. Northern latitude of snow and ice – and darkness. All is quiet except the scop (pronounced  /SHäp/ ) telling the familiar story that springs new and different each time told. The energy in the circle crackles as the storyteller gestures, leers, jumps, shouts, and incites reactions from his audience.  Theirs is a story of heroes and monsters, of good and evil, of men whose stories roll through the centuries, alive today, surviving, shifting, taking our heart blood into itself, adding to the hero’s story that rolls through the ages. These Anglo Saxons regarded their bards as equal to their warriors, because similar to the warriors protecting the population and territory, so the scop protected the legends and authentic histories of his people. In previous weeks, this Monday Poetry post featured two Romantic Era poets – Wordsworth and Blake. Today, and for an undetermined number of weeks, we’ll virtu...

     The other night I got an email from our friend Carole Wilson. The subject line read “Happy Hour in Galveston.” There was a picture of a smiling Carole sitting in a cavernous and apparently empty hotel lobby or dining room.     I know Carole will go anywhere for a good happy hour, but Galveston seemed an odd place to sip a brew when you live in Minneapolis. It seemed to me she could have found someplace closer or trendier.    Everything I know about Galveston I learned from the Glenn Campbell song, Galveston, oh Galveston, I still hear your sea winds blowin’.”  Which reminded me that a terrible hurricane hit the city in the early 1900s. I responded to Carole and asked what the deal was with Galveston. I knew she went to Dallas a couple of years ago and maybe someone there told her about the killer happy hours down in Galveston. She wrote back saying there was wonderful history, museums, beaches, food, and terrific happy hours in Galveston...

Hello and welcome to a pre-Thanksgiving Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 20th. This week, I had a chance to pop into a lunch-n-learn based on Angela Duckworth's book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance   which a Wall Street Journal review describes as "a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that--not talent or luck--makes all the difference." Yes, grit's the stuff on sandpaper. Yes, it also helps a chicken's digestive system function well and break down food. It can even be the name we give the crud that gets lodged into the sweaty cracks of elbows and knees of toddlers playing in sandboxes. But this grit isn't about carpentry, chickens, or cleanliness (or lack thereof); it's about the stuff that makes a person decide to stick to something and see a project through. What is grit? The short answer based on Duckworth's research is "passion and perseverance for long-term goals." Gri...