Word-Wednesday for April 10, 2024

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 10, 2024, the fifteenth Wednesday of the year, the fourth Wednesday of spring, the second Wednesday of April, and the one-hundred first day of the year, with two-hundred sixty-five days remaining. Today brought to you by Bead Gypsy Studio, featuring their VINTAGE FLATWARE JEWELRY April Sale: 10% off the first piece; 20% off the second piece; 30% off the third piece.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for April 10, 2024
Robins!
The American robin (Turdus migratorius) has swooped down upon Wannaska in large numbers over the last few days. Some live year-round in southern Minnesota, but Wannaska is part of their breeding range. The American robin is active mostly during the day and assembles in large flocks at night. Its diet consists of invertebrates (such as beetle grubs, earthworms, and caterpillars), fruits, and berries. It is one of the earliest bird species to lay its eggs, beginning to breed shortly after returning to its summer range from its winter range. The robin's nest consists of long coarse grass, twigs, paper, and feathers, and is smeared with mud and often cushioned with grass or other soft materials.

I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I'm some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though —

I thought If I could only live
Till that first Shout got by —
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me —

I dared not meet the Daffodils —
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own —

I wished the Grass would hurry —
So — when 'twas time to see —
He'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch — to look at me —

I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wished they'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go,
What word had they, for me?

They're here, though; not a creature failed —
No Blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me —
The Queen of Calvary —

Each one salutes me, as he goes,
And I, my childish Plumes,
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking Drums —

Emily Dickinson

April 10, 2024 Hummingbird Migration Update

April 10 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


April 10 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for April 10, 2024
Sunrise: 6:42am; Sunset: 8:08pm; 3 minutes, 31 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 7:23am; Moonset: 11:21pm, waxing crescent, 6% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for April 10, 2024
                Average            Record              Today
High             45                     77                     60
Low              22                      4                      39

Spring
by Jim Harrison

Something new in the air today, perhaps the struggle of the bud
to become a leaf. Nearly two weeks late it invaded the air but
then what is two weeks to life herself? On a cool night there is
a break from the struggle of becoming. I suppose that's why we
sleep. In a childhood story they spoke of the land of enchantment.
We crawl to it, we short-lived mammals, not realizing that
we are already there. To the gods the moon is the entire moon
but to us it changes second by second because we are always fish
in the belly of the whale of earth. We are encased and can't stray
from the house of our bodies. I could say that we are released,
but I don't know, in our private night when our souls explode
into a billion fragments then calmly regather in a black pool in
the forest, far from the cage of flesh, the unremitting "I." This was
a dream and in dreams we are forever alone walking the ghost
road beyond our lives. Of late I see waking as another chance at
spring.

April 10 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Erase Self-Negativity Day
• National Farm Animals Day
• National Cinnamon Crescent Day
• National Siblings Day
• National Encourage a Young Writer Day
• National Library Outreach Day

April 10 Word Pun
Sven told Ula he could look at the eclipse with a colander. Ula tried, but it just strained his eyes.


April 10 Word Riddle
How does Ula make holy water?*


April 10 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

    I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,
    And pick with care the disobedient wire.
    That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook
    With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.
    I bide my time, and it shall come at length,
    When, with a Titan's energy and strength,
    I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,
    The world shall suffer when I let them go!
    —Farquharson Harris


April 10 Etymology Word of the Week
eclipse
/əˈklips/ n., obscuring of the light from one celestial body by the passage of another between it and the observer or between it and its source of illumination, from "interception or obscuration of the light of the sun, moon, or other heavenly body by the intervention of another heavenly body," circa 1300, from Old French eclipse "eclipse, darkness" (12th century), from Latin eclipsis, from Greek ekleipsis "an eclipse; an abandonment," literally "a failing, forsaking," from ekleipein "to forsake a usual place, fail to appear, be eclipsed," from ek "out" (see ex-) + leipein "to leave" (from Proto-Indo-European root leikw- "to leave").


April 10 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 837 Comet 1P/837 F1 (Halley) approaches within 0.0334 AUs of Earth.
• 1633 First bananas go on sale in London in the shop window of Thomas Johnson's apothecary .
• 1710 The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain.
• 1816 Samuel Taylor Coleridge recites his poem "Kubla Khan" to fellow poet Lord Byron, who persuades him to publish it.
• 1841 New York Tribune begins publishing under editor Horace Greeley.
• 1925 Scribners publishes The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• 1935 Vaughan Williams Fourth Symphony premieres in London.
• 1988 Herschel Walker performs Fort Worth Ballet.
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to John Updike for novel Rabbit At Rest.
• 1998 The Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments.

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
   It was an Abyssinian maid
   And on her dulcimer she played,
   Singing of Mount Abora.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

April 10 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1633 Werner Fabricius, German composer.
• 1737 Francois Giroust, French composer.
• 1741 Basílio da Gama, Portuguese poet.
• 1827 Lewis "Lew" Wallace, American author.
• 1837 Forceythe Willson, American poet.
• 1867 George William Russell, Irish poet.
• 1877 Alfred Kubin, Austrian writer and illustrator.
• 1881 William John Leech, Irish painter.
• 1894 Ben Nicholson, English painter and sculptor.
• 1910 Abu-Bakr Khairat, Egyptian composer.
• 1915 Leo Vroman, Dutch-American poet.
• 1926 Jacques Castérède, French composer.
• 1928 Ota Hofman, Czech playwright.
• 1930 Dolores Huerta, American civil rights activist.
• 1931 Marcel van Maele, Belgian poet and playwright.
• 1932 Adrian Henri, British poet and founder of poetry-rock group.
• 1933 Rokusuke Ei, Japanese author.
• 1934 Zsolt Durko, Hungarian composer.
• 1937 Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet.
• 1941 Paul Theroux, American travel book writer and novelist.
• 1957 John M. Ford, American science fiction author and poet.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Write a story or pram from the following words:

• apagoge: /æ-pə-ˈɡəʊ-dʒɪ/ n., an indirect argument which serves to prove something by showing the contrary to be absurd or impossible.
• bambosh: /BAM-bäSH/ n., humbug; deceptive nonsense.
• coice: /ko-ēs/ n., kick; recoil.
• drey: /drā/ n., the nest of a squirrel, typically in the form of a mass of twigs in a tree.
• kakorrhaphiophobia: /kak-ə-raf-ē-ə-FŌ-bē-ə/ n., abnormal fear of failure.
• liúdramán: /LEE-oo-drah-mawn/ n., IRISH, a lazy person; a loafer.
• maunga: /MOW-nguh/ n., in Māori contexts: a mountain, esp. viewed as a site of cultural and spiritual significance.
• shiftening: /SHIFT-ən-iNG/ n., a long, loose-fitting undergarment; a set or change of clothes.
• sploot: /splūt/ intrans. v., (of an animal) to lie flat on the stomach with the legs stretched out; n., the act or an instance of splooting.
• trephination: /tre-fə-NĀ-shən/ n., an act or instance of perforating the skull with a surgical instrument.

April 10, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
Irish Terms of Endearment
Still reading The Bee Sting, by Irish author Paul Murray — with Irish words peppering Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge list — Word-Wednesday extends the Irish theme into this season of budding love with some Irish terms of endearment, in Irish. As previously noted in these pages, the Irish language has many different ways to say the same thing. Though not a Romance language, Irish is surely a romantic language with more than a few of ways to address someone that means a lot to you:

a chara: /uh KHAR-uh/ n., friend, and can be used to address anyone, in formal or informal settings.

a chéadsearc: /khayd-shark/ n., my first love; my one and only.

a chroí: /uh khree/ n., my heart, a stronger term of affection than stór, meant more for lovers to use.

a chumann: /uh KOO-muhn/ n., my sweetheart, but is also the word for society.

a ghrá geal: /uh graw gyahl/ n., my bright love, often the term used to describe a boyfriend/girlfriend.

a ghrá mo chroí: /uh graw mu khree/ n., my heart's beloved; the love of my heart.

a pheata: /FAT-a/ n., a mother's darling, for a mother to express endearment for her children.

a stór: / uh stoar/ n., my treasure, usually used to express affectionate friendship, especially for parent and children.

a thaisce: /uh HAY-shkeh/ n., my treasure, another version of a stór.

anamchara: /AH-nuhm-khah-ruh/ n., soul mate.

mo chuisle: /mu KHWISH-leh. n., my pulse, for the person who makes your heart race.

mo fhíorghra: /mu HEER-graw/ n., my true love, one of the most romantic Irish phrases.

mo ghrá: /mu graw/ n., my love.

mo mhuirnín: /mu WIR-neen/ n., my darling; my sweetheart.

mo mhuirnín dílis: /mu WIR-neen DĒ-lish/ n., my own true love; my faithful darling.

mo rúnsearc: /mu ROON-hark/ n., my secret love.

mo shearc: /mu hark/ n., my love, another simple version of mo ghrá.

mo shíorghra: /mu SHEE-ur-rah/ n., my eternal love, sometimes used as a term for soulmates.

seanleannán: /SHAN-lan-awn/ n., old love; old flame.


From A Year with Rilke, April 10 Entry
Woman in Love, from New Prams

There is my window.
I awoke just now so gently, I thought I was floating off.
How far does my life extend
and where does night begin?

I could believe that everything
surrounding me is I,
transparent as a crystal,
dark and still as a crystal's depths.

I could contain within me
all the stars; so vast
is my heart, so gladly
it let him go again, the one

I have perhaps begun to love,
perhaps to hold.
Strange and unimagined,
my fate turns toward me.

What am I? Set down
like this in such immensity,
fragrant as a meadow,
moved by each passing breeze.

Calling out, yet fearful
that my call will be heard,
and destined to be drowned
in another's life.

Rainbow
by Auguste Rodin

Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.





*He boils the hell out of it.