Wannaskan Almanac

  Palmville Infirmary Translated from Old Norsk to New English as requested.    “I think I need to go to the infirmary, Ula. Just look at this,” Sven said, his voice trailing off as he examined his upper arms.    “Why is that, Sven? You get hurt?” Ula said over the top of his newspaper as he awaited Sven’s answer from the inside of the outhouse yonder. He was sitting on his house porch where he was safely upwind.      “No, I didn’t get hurt, Ula. I just noticed my arms just now ...” Sven said, looking into the outhouse mirror.    “You just noticed your arms?” Ula said with some incredulity in his voice, his newspaper crushed against his lap. “How is a seventy-one year old man of your distinction just now noticing his arms? What?”      “Well, it’s not like they are new to me, eh,” Sven said, his arms straight down to his side. Raising them slowly one at a time he continued, “They just don’t look the same anymore.”  ...

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of new words... the trill of frippary... and the apogee of offbeat... the human drama of semantic explication...here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, June 29, 2022, the twenty-sixth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of summer, and the 180th day of the year, with 185 days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for June 29, 2022 Fireflies are out!   The long days of summer even have more light at night. After overwintering as larvae, adult fireflies in the aptly named family, Lampyridae , Photuris lucicrescens emerge in early summer and begin to look for mates. You can find them resting on foliage during the day. The light show in Wannaska often continues into August, as the fireflies flash a particular message signal in search of a mate, where variables include flash pattern, flash duration, number of flashes per signal, distance flown between signals, time of day, and even signal color. June 29 Fickle Pickl...

I have been waiting for today!  Just last night I hung up my insurance stocking, sharpened my awl, and got ready to email some of my enemies.  Ah, the anticipation.  I am just salivating. June 28 is the time to do the following observances: It is insurance awareness day.  I know that citizens across Roseau County will be twirling their rotary phone dials and excitedly making their neighbors aware of their current insurance coverage...but that isn't what this day is really about.  It is about making sure you have insurance...lots of it...because you never know when that next deer will jump in front of your Schwinn!  Find out about this and more at this link .   Today is also International Body Piercing Day...because a celebration like this should not be limited to one little country!  From ears to eyelids...from belly buttons to tongues...who doesn't enjoy another piece of metal stuck through them.  This ancient holiday has been around si...

पायो जी मैंने राम रतन धन पायो "I have been given the richness of Lord's name blessing" Mirabai – Lover of Krishna 1498 – circa 1546 Today is the fourth post featuring women poets who changed the landscape of the art of poetry. We meet an Indian poet, Mirabai, (also known as Meera Bai, or simply Mira) who is a literary and spiritual figure of legendary proportions in India and elsewhere. Born a princess in the region of Rajasthan in 1498, Mira fought tradition and celebrated a woman's right to an independent life. Her royal family had arranged an early marriage for her, but she felt a marriage to Krishna (deity of compassionate protection and love) was more important. Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treating Krishna as her husband, and being persecuted by her relatives for her religious devotion. As a result, her life became a model of social defiance and spiritual integrity. This...

  When people forward a funny video, I wish they could send along their sense of humor with it.  Well-adjusted people are ok with the fact that some of their dearest friends are not going to respond to their texts, emails or TikTok videos in a timely manner, if ever.  We pawns dash about shouting “What about this!” and “What about that!” while the rooks, the knights, the bishops, kings and queens stand in the back row, waiting for the real war to begin.  I’ve learned not to re-watch movies I once loved. With age I notice their faults. My own as well.  The equinox will make good in three months on the solstice’s promise today.  We’re all born with a ration of vitriol. Some of us never get it under control. Others put it in a squirt gun. The saints seal it tightly in a flask.  The huge baby boom when it came of age waited on itself. Trying to enjoy its retirement now, all it hears is “Get in line Boomer.” I drink coffee in the morning until I start to de...

Hello and welcome to a post-summer solstice Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is June 25th. Yep, folks, the days are getting shorter. Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. This first stanza of Walt Whitman's poem "Song of the Open Road" is printed on the cover of my most recent journal. I look at it often before I open it up to the next blank page to write down my thoughts. I admire those people who chronicle their days, recording the everyday stories of  their lives. That they jot a note when the peonies start to bloom or write down the recipe they tried for supper that was especially tasty. For years, I've been telling myself I ought to keep a log of meals cooked so when I ask, "What should we have for dinner," I get more than "Pizza!" or, worse, a blank mental slate.  My summer theme is adventure and this journal I write in reminds...

      One way to be remembered is to disappear without a trace. We still wonder about Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart, and a little further back, Ambrose Bierce, who took off for Mexico in 1913 to report on the Mexican Civil War. Bierce was a journalist and attached himself to Pancho Villa's army as an observer. He never made it home.    There are rumors that he was executed by a firing squad or that he snuck back to the U.S. and committed suicide at the Grand Canyon, but it’s all speculation. He had fought as a Union soldier in the American Civil War and his record reads like a history of the western theater of the war: Shiloh (the worst), Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw Mountain. He suffered a traumatic brain injury at Kennesaw Mountain and missed the last few months of the war.    He stayed in the army after the war ending up in San Francisco where he settled as a journalist specializing in crime reporting. He wrote short st...

  An Antique Like Us     The other day we had a couple young family members come up from The Cities. They were in their mid-twenties. The young man had wanted to come up here for a number of years, but for reasons that life sometimes throws at a person, he could never arrange his schedule of work and play to make it, until recently; he even brought a friend who he thought would like it too; and it seems she did.     Kindly soft-spoken people, they accepted our modest ‘deer shack’ (as my wife Jackie almost lovingly refers to it), as a pleasing place to stay a couple nights over Memorial Day Weekend. Granted it isn’t lake shore property; they missed that high water event by a couple weeks; nor is it a campsite nestled against stately mountains. Basically, it’s just a destination in the middle of nowhere: a homey place with clean comfortable beds, privacy (two bathrooms), quiet, and beauty with Mikinaak Creek flowing by, and where, if a person is patient...

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of new words... the trill of frippary... and the apogee of offbeat... the human drama of semantic explication...here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, June 22, 2022, the twenty-fifth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of summer, and the 173rd day of the year, with 192 days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for June 22, 2022 Wild Roses are in Bloom! Prairie Wild Rose ( Rosa arkansana or wannaskansana ) is now in full bloom throughout Palm Lake and Beaver Townships. Other roses native to Minnesota include Western wild rose ( R macounii ), smooth wild rose ( R. blanda ), prickly wild rose ( R. acicularis ). These  four native roses are highly variable in character, probably because they commonly hybridize in the wild. So they can be difficult to distinguish from one another. June 22 Fickle Pickle Menu Special : Potato Dumpling June 22 Nordhem Lunch : Meatball Dinner      Mashed potatoes & g...

It is the first day of summer!  Depending on where I am today I am either likely wearing a light jacket (Minnesota) or sitting in front of a fan with the air conditioner on full (Kansas).  Either way I am now four weeks into summer break.  I am probably sleeping in a little bit longer each morning.  The memory of how difficult middle school students can be to work with is likely starting to fade.  I have probably finished all the Easter chocolate I bought at the day after Easter.  A curse on you Walmart and your Cadbury egg half price sales! My Achilles heel It was a long time ago, but I remember when I was in school.  I attended elementary school in northwestern Ontario.  Back then we always seemed to go on summer break around the first day of summer.  When the season changed the scenery changed...from books and worksheets printed and scented with a mimeograph to hayfields and tree forts.  The only drawback is that the calendar often fo...

S appho: A Brief History of Womankind’s Poetic Evolution Dear Readers of All Genders, Two posts past , I shared the startling, and somewhat embarrassing, fact that since the beginning of the Wannaska Almanac ’s publication, of roughly 208 Mondays, only ten female poets have been featured. A real travesty especially because I am a woman. The only tiny saving grace is that my work has been featured many times; still, I only count as one woman. Sum total: eleven. I have begun and will continue to make amends for ignoring my own gender. For 10-12 weeks, we will continue to explore women who write poetry across great stretches of time, and who shine a light on these unusual artists and their contributions to poetry throughout history. Each of these poets was/is a groundbreaker in some way: form, style, subject matter, internal exploration, and more. This is not to say that we leave behind men who are poets. It’s like someone we know said last week, “I demand equal time!” Just sayin’.  T...