Wannaskan Almanac

  In health care there’s ranks so care’s not delayed The doctors are generals in the war upon pain The nurses are sergeants who must be obeyed  We patients, the troops, some saved and some slain Geese mate for life Until the other dies Humans link for life Until split up by lies The more euphemisms are used for sex, the more ordinary language becomes too hot to handle.  The day of my birth was my personal big bang Ego splattered everywhere and is expanding yet I now love the things I once thought were tacky Time changes all with a coat of shellacky  Multi-tasking is efficient only for the multi-brained.  In the coming age when love rules the world, our age will be viewed with a shudder as being barely one step above our Roman teachers.  But at least we no longer hang our criminals on a cross to die.  I say to the atheist that he can’t prove God doesn’t exist, which leaves me open to endless whacky beliefs that  I  can’t disprove. That’s a ris...

Hello and welcome to a (sadly) super-snowy Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is March 30th. Most of you know that Easter is tomorrow, right? So, we're going to be talking about Easter and Easter Sunday.  If you're Catholic like our family, or if you know about God, you probably know what Good Friday is, right? And, you probably know that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, so that's why we have church on that day. But did you know that there's a special name for Saturday? Yeah! It's called Holy Saturday.  Holy Saturday is a day of happiness because it's the day before Jesus resurrects. So, now that we've got all of that holy stuff out of the way, let's talk about what our family does during these important days. This is what we do: 1. We dye and color Easter eggs. This is really, really fun. We get to pick our own colors, dip them in other colors, and then dip them in more colors. And then you've got a colorful egg. It just makes me ...

     WW and I drove to the Salol dump the other day. He is in the middle of a project to remove eighty years of farm trash from his property. The previous owners did not have trash pickup and like most of their neighbors threw everything they couldn't burn or feed to the hogs into a pile in the woods.    When he's in the mood, WW will throw a pile of this trash into the back of his truck along with some of his own stuff (he doesn't have trash pickup) and for just a few dollars he can leave his trash at the dump or the transfer station to use its gentrified name.    WW will usually let me know when he has a load and asks if I have anything for the dump. Teresa and I try to recycle everything we can. Edibles go to the compost bin, plastic and tin to the recycling bins in Roseau, and WW and I even make a monthly run to Thief River Falls because Roseau doesn't take glass or cardboard.    I usually have something to add to his pile and I often rid...

 

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for March 27, 2024, the thirteenth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of spring and the eighty-seventh day of the year, with two-hundred seventy-nine days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for March 27, 2024 Let the Nesting Begin Enjoy these longer, warmer days to seek out the first signs of birdspring. The first eastern bluebirds and wood ducks return in March to look for nest boxes, and most waterfowl migration occurs from mid-March through mid-April. Great horned owls are already nesting and raising their young and Canada geese and bald eagles begin incubating eggs by early April. Minnesota is among the best states in the U.S. to see bald eagles, and with all the bare trees, March is perhaps the best month to see eagles in Wannaska. Also arrive to nest in the coming weeks: Eastern bluebirds, horned larks, tree swallows, meadowlarks, blackbirds, and Eastern phoebes. Spot the Space Station: Time: Wednesday, Mar 2...

There are only 12 more shopping days until April Fools' Day.  Have you been out shopping for pranks?  If you wait too long all the good pranks will be gone and you could be left with easily discerned practical jokes that your friends will see immediately see through.  Don't be that person.  Click here if you don't want to be left out!   Did you ever get stuck trying to figure out where...or if...April Fool's needs an apostrophe?  People write this day as April Fools Day, April Fool’s Day, or April Fools’ Day.  A lot of that depends on whether you were raised in Vermont or not.  The grammar police claim that the properly punctuated name is April Fools’ Day, and you may already know this if you’re an apostrophe doctor.  A lone apostrophe after an S indicates a plural possessive, and you will see plenty of fools, plural, on April Fools’ Day. If it were April Fool’s Day, that would imply there is only one person named April Fool—which ...

  Last week, Word Wednesday's feature , WILUTWWC*, offered choices that begged writers to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. He evoked fairy mounds, Irish drums, fervor, and snakes. He also threw in a dash of decidedly Irish begorra for good measure. Have I made my case? The challenge was fun and stirred memories of my trip to Ireland years ago with my husband, Jim. While in the northwestern town of Westport, on top of our list was to climb The Reek, the holy mountain formally known as Croagh Patrick. Compared to Mount Everest, which stretches 29,029 feet above sea level, Croagh Patrick's 2,507 feet hardly impresses - yet this rocky stack still qualifies as a mountain. Initially, we'd ruled out a climb since we traveled without hiking boots or typical mountaineering gear. Once we arrived in the parking lot at its base to check things out, we realized how wrong we were. We watched as young and old hikers descended a very accessible slope. Piece o' cake , we nodded in agre...

  Lazy eye is easily cured Not so easy to fix lazy brains The good eye can guide while the other one’s patched Too bad that we have just one brain Our births bring joy Our deaths bring sorrow  The years in between  We spend and we borrow We love the stories about discoveries made by accidents in the lab. Most breakthroughs though happen after years of experiments and thought. The world seems a mess Yet how many people of the thousands you’ve met have actually harmed you? Some people won't take an afternoon nap because they say it leaves them feeling groggy. No pain no gain, I say. When searching for God, I must remember that the bottom may be up.   Soldiers used to say the Army was 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror.  Now that everyone has the internet it’s 33% sports, 33% porn, and 33% miscellaneous. Sheer terror has stayed at 1% Around 22 million of my eight billion brothers and sisters are celebrating their birthday today.    And for 385,000 of th...