Wannaskan Almanac

    “Always vote for the Democrats. The Democrats are the party of the working man.” That advice came from my grandfather when I was a kid. My grandfather was a  Boston police officer, a working man. My grandfather was also a good Catholic and would not agree with the Democratic Party’s support for abortion rights, but I can’t imagine him voting for our current president.    When we moved to Roseau County in northwest Minnesota in 1976, the county was part of a purple district, though no one was using colors to differentiate parties back then. Sometimes the Democrats were up, then the Republicans would get a turn.    The country was trying to keep on an even keel after Watergate, the Arab oil embargo and the nightmare of Vietnam. After eight years of Republicans, we elected the positive Jimmy Carter, who was not up to handling the hostage crisis in Iran. So we put the Republicans back in, then the Dems again. Meanwhile our great opposite number, the So...

Dirty hands can grip a pen when inspiration arises for I gotta write my blog post.   Finding the right starter, requires getting the right numbers for your year and model of vehicle. The best way is to take the old starter in, but in my case I hadn't removed it yet. I was told that a Remy starter was the best. As I was familiar with that brand from years ago it gave me added confidence.       I just took out a starter on my 1993 Chevy Silverado K1500 in what I'm absolutely sure is record time -- six hours and some unrecorded minutes -- between rain showers, naps, and brain farts. It was an arduous event interspersed with lots of swearing and hysterical laughter/ hysterical laughter and swearing/swearing/swearing and more swearing. I only regret that I didn't video it just as all the other home-shop/in the backyard DIY sorta mechanics do BECAUSE IF THEY HAD, I WOULD'VE NOT HAVE ATTEMPTED IT .     THE BASTIDS!       However, I am grat...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 30, 2025, the twenty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of summer, the fifth Wednesday of July, and the two-hundred eleventh day of the year, with one-hundred fifty-four days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for July 30, 2025 Dark Fishing Spider Dolomedes tenebrosus is also known as Nursery Web Spider, Raft Spider, Dock Spider. Despite the moniker of “fishing spider,” this particular species is frequently found far away from water like the one spotted recently on the window sill at Word-Wednesday headquarters. Females are over an inch long, measuring from the head to the spinnerets on the abdomen. Dark Fishing Spider is a pale to dark brown color with several chevron markers and lighter stripes around its legs. The legs are banded with brown/black annulations on the femora and reddish-brown/black annulations on the tibia. Dark Fishing Spider is often mistaken for a “wolf spider” (members of family...

 Over the next couple of weeks I will be sharing a story that I wrote recently.  Today we look at chapter 1.  Enjoy! Chapter 1 The rusty hinges of the garden shed shrieked in protest as Elias wrestled it open. Sunlight, thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, spilled into the dim interior. He was on a mission, a treasure hunt of sorts, though the treasure was less gold and more… forgotten melody. His grandmother, Nana Maeve, had passed away a few weeks prior, leaving behind a house overflowing with memories and an attic crammed with the detritus of a long and vibrant life. Elias was tasked with sorting through it all, a bittersweet excavation of his family’s past. Nana Maeve had been an eccentric soul, a painter of vibrant landscapes and a collector of equally vibrant stories. She’d often hum tuneless melodies while tending her riotous garden, snippets of songs that seemed to drift in on the breeze and vanish just as quickly. Elias had always been fascinat...

  Crespedia globosa, more commonly known as Billy Buttons, are those long, straight-stemmed flowers that, when dried, add a fun pop of color to arrangements. Long after a bouquet has been tossed, they are still good because they retain their shape and color well. I came across one lone stem the other day while packing up for our move out of the house we've been living in since March of 1977. I had plans for that flower when I  stashed it in the back of the laundry room cabinet, where I found it. All these years later,  the yellow colored ball was lovely and still had value, but I had to throw it out.  I've had to throw out many things in the last few weeks: perfectly good clothes, kitchen stuff, art, all the many things that would not possibly fit into the 1200 square foot townhouse in DC where we are moving. Of course, we made countless donations to the local Thrift Store, but some things -  old pillows, stuffed animals, building materials, paint cans, lawn fur...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 1 Number 26 Man Almost Misses the Point Joe McDonnell, 78 and residing in Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently came close to missing the point of his trip to a town sixty miles away. “My wife asked me to pick up a print job for her in a nearby town,” McDonnell tells the press. “I rounded up a couple of friends who enjoy going to a favorite breakfast place in that town. As we were headed home I noticed a print shop on the edge of town. It reminded me what the point of my trip was. My wife’s print job was in a different shop across town.” After picking up the print job, McDonnell noticed a long train sitting across the road out of town. McDonnell and his passengers had to go back into town and leave town on a different road. McDonnell reports that trains in this town can sit blocking the road for half an hour. "We once missed the first period of hockey game because of a train at that location," he says. Man Discovers What He Likes Joe McDonnell, 78 an...

Hello and welcome to a theatrical Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is July 26th. Hello, it's Antonin and I'm back. As you know, I've been in Europe for the past month. But while I was in Europe, I was also in something that was going on, but I couldn't be there. And that was play practice. If you don't know, I'm in the Matilda musical  with Warroad Summer Theatre. And if you're wondering which character I play, it's Eric. Eric is a small boy who goes to school at Crunchem Hall. The school is very unpleasant, especially the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. Miss Trunchbull is a very rude and unpleasant headmistress. She throws kids. She puts them in Chokey. And if you're wondering what Chokey is, it's a small cupboard in the Trunchbull's office with glass shards and wooden splinters sitting all around. And it's very unpleasant to be in. And, finally, the words she calls people. She calls people maggots, worms, toads, revolting, d...

     The town of Roseau 15 miles north of Wannaska is all in a clutter these days. Minnesota State Highway 11 which runs east-west just north of downtown Roseau is being torn up and widened this summer. We knew this was coming. The first indication came last year when rumors spread that the stoplight at Hwy 11 and Main Street was to be permanently removed. This was the only light in the entire county when we moved to Wannaska fifty years ago.  Two more lights have been added over the years as the town spread out. It seemed crazy that the light at 11 and Main would be taken out. At the meeting to get local input, state officials listened politely to the citizens who said they wanted the light to stay. The highway is being widened just to the point where a light there is against the law. "Then the law is an idiot," said a citizen.    Highway 11 is now torn up from the intersection with State Highway 89 (the Wannaska Road) on the west to just past the bridge o...

Marcia Folland, of Greenbush, Minnesota, told us about her grandma who raised chickens, and so inspired my poem.       “Just  of Scientific Mind: The Chicken Coop Revisited.” by Steven G. Reynolds Gramma Eff was not deaf, not dumb, nor was she blind. She was not daft this Gramma Eff, just of scientific mind. She wore knee boots, a long white coat, goggles, special gloves, and entered in, a study of, chickens, and their loves. “Chickens, and their loves?” you ask, incredulously , with one raised brow, as if of what she studied hence made a mockery of you now. Gramma kept her chickens clean and although you might think it mean she washed their feet, their beak, their bod --the neighbors thought it very odd. That no one out should enter in Gramma’s little chicken pen For Gramma too, removed her clothes her boots, her coat, her goggles--those gloves, that Gramma always wore whenever she opened that very door of all her chicken coops there we’ve learned strangers there, ...