Wannaskan Almanac

    My then-six year old Ojibwe grandson, Ozaawaa, asked me, as I knew one day he would, "Grandpa, are you Native?" to which I answered, "No Ozaawaa, I'm not. I'm about as faraway from being Native as I can get."      And he replied, "Maybe you're Native, but your mother never told you  Grandpa. I really need you to be Native."     How would I explain to him that my Scot-Irish ancestors, on my father's side, were initially brought here from Northern Ireland as a historic military force for the protection of Puritan settlements against the Indians, and in fact, were viewed as savages in their own right owing to their behavior on and off the battlefields?   The history book, " Born Fighting: How The Scots-Irish Shaped America," by author James Webb (Broadway Books, NYC, 2004, I think, infers the Scots-Irish were comparable to an out of control invasive species introduced to control Indians and everyone else who got in their...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 29, 2023, the forty-eighth Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of fall, and the three-hundred thirty-third day of the year, with thirty-two days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for November 29, 2023 hibernate /ˈhībərˌnāt/ v., (of an animal or plant) spend the winter in a dormant state; (of a person) remain inactive or indoors for an extended period, from 1660s, "action of passing the winter" (of plants, insect eggs, etc.), from Latin hibernationem (nominative hibernatio ) "the action of passing the winter," noun of action from past participle stem of hibernare "to winter, pass the winter, occupy winter quarters;" related to hiems "winter," from Proto-Indo-European root gheim - "winter." Meaning "dormant condition of animals" is from 1789. Besides Sven and Ula, Wannaskan hibernators include black bears, woodchucks, chipmunks, bats, turtles, sn...

Well.  That is a good word to say.  Anyone who has heard the C word, cancer, spoken to them is glad to hear that W word...well.  A few weeks back I went to my dermatologist.  She is always using a can of some sort of freezing stuff to kill off areas on my face and ears that are exhibiting signs of being precancerous.   This time, however, there was a quarter inch mark on my forehead that had suddenly appeared.  She was a little bit concerned as she looked at it, but reassured me as she decided that I needed to get a biopsy from that area.  Being a medical illiterate, I was fine with that.  Then they gave me several shots to numb the area around the mark.  I was less fine with that.  Finally, they took out a blade and cut out an area in my forehead.  My fine meter dropped all the way to zero.   I ended up with a big bandage on my forehead and was told that they were going to send my sample away.  I mumbled out a d...

The Almanac’s Dark Poet . . . and now for something completely different **************************************************** Oh, excuuuse me!  Brrrup Brrrup-a! Acid reflux? Opening the throttle of a Harley Davidson? Taking hard ukemi* on a wooden floor with no mats. A very large bullfrog croaking – or is that “Rrrrivt Rrrrivt?” Whatever your interpretation or guess, you good be correct. Spelling such non-word sounds isn’t easy, but it does have the advantage of getting the spelling right even when it’s not wrong. Ha! For the academic minded, this spelling of a sound has a name: onomatopoeia. Most of you, gentle readers, have been exposed to this literary technique in some English class “back in the day.”  But back to Brrrup Brrrup-a! We’ll let you chew on that a while . . .. Ooops! Was that a clue? Could be. Another clue: If you ingested a traditional TG meal, and did it in true fashion, this sound (times two) probably erupted from deep within your hollows and nethers. Ooops ...

  Portions have gotten so big at restaurants,    I just order the house salad. Soon my fellow diners are passing me what they can’t eat. It hurts a bit when they call me doggie bag.  The explainer's dilemma: Will more words clarify or muddify what I'm trying to say.  Humility is the virtue that lets us see our faults clearly. Hope is the virtue that saves us from despairing over them.  When you're afraid of mice, every little black thing looks like a turd. The abnormal is what you haven't gotten used to.  The strong woman puts varnish on her nails and removes it from her speech Euripides wrote 92 plays. Nineteen survive. Sophocles wrote over 120, with seven surviving.  The poet Keats died at 25.  Dear Jane was dead at 41. I’m too busy reading to grieve what’s been lost or what might have been.  A flashlight should shine brightly  And tough must be its hide Never should it roll away When laid upon its side Our bad parts must be vapor...

Hello and welcome to a Thanksgiving weekend Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 25th. As we wind down the year, I can already tell you what the overarching theme of 2023 has been and that is adventure. This Thanksgiving weekend contributed a whole handful of more family "firsts" for us. Thanksgiving Day we headed south to central Minnesota where we spent the day with my mom. It was the first time, post-pandemic, our family spent the day with Babi (grandma) in her home. My husband and kids played tag in the basement - something that was a first for my kids, but brought back some kind of childhood memories of my own. I couldn't tell you where or in whose house, but I'm sure that I had my own kid moments squealing and screeching in delight while running around someone's basement. We had our first-ever boxed meals. Rather than spend the day cooking, Babi ordered meals from the Community Thanksgiving Dinner at the Brainerd American Legion .  The t...

    When the first Europeans came to southern New England they found woods looking like the parks of the aristocrats back in England.  The locals had burned the underbrush to make it easier to hunt deer. After the newcomers had taken over the land, the previous owners having conveniently died off from European diseases, they cut down the trees to build houses and clear the land for farming. The deer, bears and wolves retreated to the north and west. Southern New England became so barren of trees the people had to import firewood from Maine.   Eventually farming moved to more productive lands out west. The New Englanders concentrated on mills and factories. The forests returned and with it underbrush. The deer loved it. If you drive around the area now, much of the undergrowth is interspersed with impassible thorny vines.    Our Wannaskan woods don't have thorny vines but they are full of brush and deadfalls. We've always meant to get out there and tidy up t...

        "I can make out the noise of the tractor somewhere in the darkness."     I can hear a big tractor working a field a half mile away as the farmer takes advantage of the lack of snow cover and warm November temperatures of 40-45 F. I am deer hunting, enclosed in one hundred sixty acres of trees, brush and wetland, with several hundreds of similar acres behind me.     Southwest of our place is an intersection of two roads where on-coming vehicles often the hit rumble strips preceding the stop sign, or truckers use their engine-brake for reasons known only to themselves. This increased vehicle activity, so natural in the spring of the year, seems quite alien now. I would wear ear plugs to drown out the unnatural man-made noises, but listening to what’s going on around me during hunting season is important just as deer and other animals must accept its presence in their world and gauge what threatens them -- as if their lives d...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 22, 2023, the forty-seventh Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of fall, and the three-hundred twenty-sixth day of the year, with thirty-nine days remaining. Sponsored by Bead Gypsy Studio , and the November 24 Trunk Show, 10:00am to 3:00pm.   Wannaska Phenology Update for November 22, 2023 Minnesota's wild turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo ) is an upland game bird native to North America. Males are also called toms, jakes, if you're a juvenile, and gobblers of any age, but unless you're a juvenile female, called a jennie, you're only known as a hen. Once extirpated from Minnesota, wild turkey restoration has been a phenomenal success. Today's turkey population descended from a successful release of turkeys that occurred between 1971 and 1973 when 29 adult wild turkeys were trapped in Missouri and transplanted to Houston County in extreme southeastern Minnesota. Since this modest beginning over 30...