Wannaskan Almanac

Recently I found an article called the 1000 Most Asked "Why" Questions on Google .  I am not going to answer all of them, but I will attempt to answer the top 10.  Enjoy! 1.  Why is there a leap day?  This question apparently gets asked over 2 million times a month!  With so many inquiring minds I figured I had better jump on it!  (see what I did there...ha ha!)  The reason there is a leap day is to celebrate Van Halen's number 13 hit, Panama.  The members of Van Halen, as well as several members of the royal family and at least two US senators, felt that the song was poised to Jump much higher.  It never seemed to make that leap, and we remember their pain every four years.   2.  Why is the sky blue?  This question is not nearly as popular as the Van Halen question, checking in with an average of 135,000 queries per month.  This is a trick question.  Shortly before midnight I went out to check if the sky really ...

Winter: Naughty or Nice/ We say Nice to Exquisite Ice! * This is the last one; that is, the last post of our winter theme – Dead of Winter” to be exact. Or was it “Winter: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?” In any case, you may be saying, “About time,” or “I thought it would never end.” The latter statement is how many will feel about winter in sixty days or less. So, let’s enjoy one last fling with the season everyone loves to talk about, maybe even more than the weather in general. “Cold enuf fer’ya?” “Think it’ll snow?” “How many inches did’ja git?” “That storm was a doozie, eh?”     / “You betcha’ hey!” “Why’d we git somuch snow?      /     “Aconnabecuz it’s winter, ya idjet!” That last one is a Wisconsin-ism. Having lived there until I was thirty years old, I was subjected to assaults on the language like that. Our winter theme is capped off with New England writers: Emily, Frostie, the Long Fellow, and . . . oops! The bard isn’t exactly a New Engl...

  The flag at half-mast this week didn’t have a chance to go up again before another mass shooting occurred.  How long must it stay down before the country wakes up?   <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Fortunate the old timer who on his descent to hell is given the time to acclimatize.  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> They say that “Three’s a crowd.” If that be true Then I shall sing the praises of the ménage à two.  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Dreams may tell us what we want, but they’re a poor guide for what we should do.  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> If something ...

Hello and welcome to a freezing, frigid, layer-up-the-polar-fleece, folks, kind of Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is January 28th. In last week's blog post,  Wannaska Sweet Wannaska , I reflected on our family's move to Wannaskaland and what "home" looks like for us 17 years later. I had so much fun writing that post, and sharing our Wannaskan origin story with all of you, I decided to create the All Roads Lead to Wannaska Writing  Contest Opportunity  Celebration! Yes, it's  much more  than a contest! Why compete when we all have great stories! Let's share them! Although, technically it is a contest because I am offering prizes, so consider it a (very) loosely formed "contest." And it's far more exciting than an "opportunity" because your stories are personal and important to  you  and because you care, I care. Stories are older than dirt and are the connective tissue that binds our souls across generations and lifetim...

  Last week a friend informed me that much of Minnesota was under an Air Quality Alert. Warm air a mile up was trapping pollutants near ground level. Most of the pollution was from cars and wood-burning stoves. St. Cloud was the worst for poor air quality followed by Duluth and the Twin Cities. Those three areas were in the orange zone meaning people with lung problems should stay inside. Moorhead, Rochester and Brainerd were in the yellow zone. People in those cities could smell that there was something in the air. Roseau County was in the bottom of the yellow zone. I didn't notice anything.   It surprised me to hear our pristine air could be less than perfect. But there are factories in Roseau County and lots of trucks to serve the factories, and lots of people here burn wood. I burn wood in our Shêdeau (guesthouse) and feel mildly guilty for contributing to global warming.    I had just been reading an article by a professor in Edinburg, Scotland writing about his...

Just Neighbors A peaceful symbiotic relationship      I watched as three turkeys feeding below our bird feeder saw four deer approach. One turkey strode out to meet them as the other turkeys kept scr atching the packed snow cover for remnants of sunflower seeds. The deer stopped unafraid. One stretched its neck toward the turkey as if to confer as three other deer looked on. The turkey abruptly turned away as turkeys often do, their movements quick and jerky in all things; and the deer resumed their walk toward the shelter of the leafless green ash trees from which a bird feeder hung too high for them to reach, and where the snow is packed down hard and pebbled all around with deer and turkey poop. "Deer are in their brush & bark eating phase and so are rabbits."    What would be neat, in all manners of the word, is if turkeys ate deer poop as it’s very plentiful, very easy to find, and immediately visible in the snow. People sometimes have difficulty diffe...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 25, 2023, the fourth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of winter, and the 25th day of the year, with 340 days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for January 25, 2023 Large Snowflakes and Crystals In addition to hoarfrost and rime, Wannaska has also been experiencing an abundance of very large snowflakes and snow crystals with some snowfalls this winter. As Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht of Caltech notes in his book The Snowflake , the word "snowflake" is a general term that can refer to a single ice crystal, a small cluster of them, or a large aggregation that forms when crystals “collide and stick in midair, falling to earth in a flimsy puffball.” The difference in size comes down to how cold the temperatures are when it's snowing. Individual snow crystals are small, but sometimes they stick together and create much larger snowflakes. These larger aggregates occur when temperatures are near freezing (...

Regifting.  It is when you get something from from someone, pretend to like it, and then give it to someone else.  Last year I got my darling wife a nice gray hat...a touque as they say in Canada.  On the first cold day I noticed that my daughter was wearing it.  So many mixed emotions.  Oh well, at least we had something to laugh about... Not actual picture of wife or daughter...they are way better looking! Last Christmas I gave you a hat But the very next day you gave it away You said that it didn't fit So you gave it to someone special Last Christmas I gave you a hat But the very next day you gave it away I saw it on the head of my little girl You gave it to someone special One present that I chose to buy A special gray hat at farm fleet and supply Tell me baby, do you even see? That hat was a special surprise from me. Happy Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it With a note saying "I love you", I meant it Now I know what a fool I've been Believing you liked ...

A Snowy Roadside – Good, Bad, or Ugly? We continue today with “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Winter.” Winter, as Minnesotans know, comes on hard, and leaves the same way. Harsh driving conditions, all that walk-behind snow-blowing and shoveling, temperatures that freeze tushes, and no amount of cider that will warm the fingertips and toenails. You could call this the “bad.” You could also call it “normal” or “average for this time of year.” Have a quick look at the condition labeled “average” from the Appendix* at the bottom of this Post. Surprising, isn’t it? Or is it? One winter scene that could be called “normal,” is the frequent deer carcasses along our roadsides. It’s a common sight. One that we pass by as if it were a plastic grocery bag blown up against a fence. Can anything so common be ugly? Good?” A dead dog on the highway, a single, expired raccoon, or a brilliant red fox that will run no more, all have a greater chance of garnering our sympathy than the dead deer that...