Wannaskan Almanac

Y'all gather 'round now, and let me spin ya a yarn about ol' July 8th. Now, history books, bless their hearts, try to tell us all sorts of things, but sometimes a fella's gotta use his own imagination, especially when it comes to dates that just beg for a bit of tomfoolery. So, pull up a virtual rocking chair, 'cause we're about to dive into some of the most hilariously untrue things that ever didn't happen on July 8th, each with a little pun to make ya groan and grin! The Tall Tales of July 8th: When History Took a Vacation! Well howdy folks, it's your ol' pal Mr. Hot Coco back again, chewin' the fat and spittin' out some historical nuggets – though today, these nuggets are more like glitter than gold, if ya catch my drift! We're talkin' about July 8th, a day that, frankly, seemed a little too quiet for its own good in the real history books. So, being the mischievous sort, I decided to liven things up a bit with some… let's call...

Originally published December 30, 2019... After an interlude of Dragon Dreaming at the end of the previous segment, the MC “jolts out of sheltering warmth.” Hertwig remains engaged and concerned. The visit with Hertwig ends early in this segment, and the MC re-engages Skitch and Mim who wait like vultures outside Hertwig’s residence. Along with these two, our canine player, O’Gill, takes a larger part in the story, and adds non-human interest. More about him soon, as he joins the adventure. In this segment, the MC tells another lie. It is up to you to judge whether this action is appropriate. In contrast, the MC also experiences remorse and shame. This contradictory set of actions makes for deep learning about how to “be” in the world.  In addition, magic is afoot. Dragon presence foretells what is to come. Hertwig, himself, carries an air of fantastic intuition and eerie prescience. Everything feels poised, balancing on the end of a spear. The foundation for what’s coming next is ...

  Man Plans Mattress Removal Joe McDonnell, 78 and a resident of Palmville Twp Minnesota, has developed a plan to remove a mattress that has ended up in the wrong place. “I was walking through a beautiful conservation area recently when my guide pointed out a mattress in a ravine,” McDonnell tells reporters. “My guide, a good friend, says the mattress has been in the ravine ever since she started walking there in the 1980s. There’s a patina of green on the pad but overall it still looks like a mattress, and it is definitely out of place. My plan is to bring heavy duty wire cutters and a rucksack and to start cutting the exposed springs, carrying away as much as possible on each walk. A saw will be needed for the wooden sections and a night burn for any non compostable parts.” Man Receives Bonus Treat  Joe McDonnell, 78 and an amateur dessert chef, recently received a bonus treat. “I was traveling cross county, east to west, when my sister-in-law announced she hadn’t had a Dair...

Hello and welcome to a post-Independence Day Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac by way of Winnipeg. Today is July 5th. I’m going to preface what follows with an assurance that I do indeed love my husband. There. Now that I’ve said it, I can begin. I’m typing this in the comfort of my hotel room in Winnipeg, where I’ve spent the last 2 1/2 hours doing my final pack and re-pack. Now, if you thought that this should have been done at home, you are correct. However, for this year’s trip to Czechia, my husband gave me a special mission: to bring our nephew’s electronic skateboard. “Can you bring the e-skateboard?” he asked me while he was packing for his departure two weeks ago. No problem, I answered, because I trust my husband. He’s the kind of guy who scours the internet for the highest-level intel. So, if he says I can check a bag with an electronic skateboard, I’m going to believe him. Until about 2 1/2 hours ago, when I started to do my online check-in. “Hey!” I said, to College K...

   The goal of this trip is Manchester, Vermont. We could have gotten there in three long days on the Interstates, but we had given ourselves five days of back roads and only used freeways as needed. There were two areas I had always wanted to see but have never been to: the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain.    After two days on the road, we had made it to Saginaw, Michigan about 100 miles north of Detroit. We would avoid Detroit and Cleveland by nipping east across southern Ontario and back into the US at Buffalo. As we headed south from Saginaw on the freeway the rain started, heavy at times, at times blinding. The traffic slowed then everyone got off the freeway and onto the detour paralleling the freeway. Flint may be a beautiful city on a sunny day, but it seemed like Detroit had sent all its scrap metal to the great junkyards of Flint.    The detour went on for many miles and ended just in time for us to turn east and cross the St. Clair River ...

Do you know what it's like to drive 60 mph on loose gravel? Well, depending on what type of vehicle you're driving it can be uneventful, spine-tingling, -- or hubcap losing. Odds are (I don't know what they'd be, I'm just making this up as I write) that if you were in a full-sized four-wheel drive pickup or a Chevy Suburban (both larger-than-life vehicles), the experience would be markedly different than driving a road-hugging 1998 Subaru All Wheel drive 'station wagon.' (I think they call them SUVs now, but this Legacy-Outback was made 'way before then).   Comparing the ride in a L.T.L.V. to a 1998 Legacy Outback on a loose/semi-packed gravel road at sixty-plus miles per hour is like comparing a Volkswagen beetle to a Porsche 911 sitting side-by-side in a car museum. The uninformed think the two are dissimilar like comparing apples to oranges, horses to cows, or mitochondria to Powerhouse, but then be dumbfounded to learn that although Ferdinand Porsch...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 2, 2025, the twentieth Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of summer, the first Wednesday of July, and the one-hundred eighty-third day of the year, with one-hundred eighty-two days remaining.    Wannaska Phenology Update for July 2, 2025 Fireflies! Bugs to love. Lampryris nociluca , also known as glowworms and lightening bugs, ọkụ ọkụ, IGBO, and ホタル (hotaru), JAPANESE. The Japanese set aside special park areas just to enjoy the lightshows of this summertime performer. Synchronization of flashing occurs in several species; it is explained as phase synchronization and spontaneous order. Tropical fireflies routinely synchronize their flashes among large groups, particularly in Southeast Asia. At night along river banks in the Malaysian jungles, fireflies synchronize their light emissions precisely. In the United States, one of the most famous sightings of fireflies blinking in unison occurs annually near Elk...