Wannaskan Almanac

    Tomorrow my brother Mark turns seventy. He's the first of my brothers whose arrival I remember. I was about to turn eight. Brother Bill, my nemesis, had arrived when I was two, and Steve slipped in a couple of years later. In another six or seven years Mary-Jo would arrive.   When I got a few years older I liked taking the subway downtown to explore and Mark was amenable to riding along. He remembers me taking him to restaurants and as soon as the water was poured and the waitress left us to peruse the menu, I would make him get up so we could sneak out of the place I had discovered was beyond my means. I only remember this happening once, or twice. I made three dollars a week from my paper route and had to watch the pennies. I've since learned to judge a place from the outside, but I recently forced Teresa to slip out of a restaurant in Venice on our most recent trip abroad.   As our family grew I was moved to the attic. I had a finished room in which my father ...

  Dear Joe,    Here I am at the toy factory, stealing from the company again near shift's end. It's the stroke of 11:00 p.m. and I'm sitting on a cushioned stool, my legs propped up on a work bench straight out from me, my ankles padded by one of those long-sleeved painters coats that you and I wore when we mopped out the Roseau County Courthouse basement during Roseau's great flood of June 2002.  Joe and I, among others, helped clean flood water debris from the basement of the then-new Roseau County Courthouse in June of 2002. I donated this digital image and it now hangs in the courthouse foyer.    His crew having all departed for home a half hour earlier, a foreman walking through the doorway near where I sat was shocked as hell to suddenly see me. His eyes locked on mine like a cat on a rat.     "You sleepin?" he asked me.    " Nope," I said in reply, "Just catchin' up on my evenin's notes. I ain't sleepin' yet. "  ...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 29, 2025, the fifth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of winter, the fifth Wednesday of January, and the twenty-ninth day of the year, with three-hundred thirty-six days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for January 29, 2025 Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis is a non-migratory species that is generally monogamous. If you see one in Wannaska, it's probably been here for its lifetime, which averages three years, but has been documented up to fifteen years in the wild and twenty-eight years in captivity. Romantic birds, Cardinals participate in a bonding behavior where the male collects seed and brings it to the female, feeding her beak-to-beak . In terms of words, the Cardinal sings many a cheery tune : cheeeer-a-dote, cheeer-a-dote-dote-dote purdy, purdy, purdy...whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit "what-cheer, what-cheer... wheet, wheet, wheet, wheet, and cheer, cheer, cheer, what, what, what, what ...

A brief history of television. September 7, 1927:  Philo Taylor Farnsworth first demonstrated the electronic television.  1930:  First commercial aired on Charles Jenkins’s television program, BBC begins regular TV transmissions. 1937:  CBS is formed in the United States.  This enables people to see BS.   1948:  Cable tv is introduced in rural America. 1950's:  First two color television standards approved by FCC. 1962:  First television sattelite launched by AT and T.   1967:  Color TV's become commonplace in households.  First Superbowl is shown live on TV. 1975:  American overweight crisis attributed to rise in television watching and easy access to McDonald's.  1988:  Stereo TV signals broadcasted for first time.   1993:  Closed captioning is introduced.  Opened captioning is not yet available.   2018:  Wannaskan Woe Be On Days is introduced to literally dozens of ...

  If my garage were a kangaroo, it would be unable to jump. That's a ridiculous comparison since garages are stationary buildings, and no garage is ever known to have sprouted legs. And yet, when I first met my garage 48 years ago, I immediately regarded it as a sentient being.  Ours is a detached brick two-story number with two bays and a separate windowed area downstairs with shelves for tools and stuff. The second floor's pitched roof generously allows anybody to stand tall, and its spacious dimensions are welcoming. The first thing anyone says when they see it is someone could live there. I was thirty when we moved in, and when I saw the wide-board pine plank flooring upstairs, I immediately pictured them gleamingly refinished one day. I was a homebody enthralled with the fiber arts and could easily imagine a future studio. From the start, the garage was a place of possibilities. A gracious host, it was as if it said,  You can turn this space into anything you want....

  A ration of bullets we're given at birth To hold off the Grim Reaper- they call him Old Nick  Till pushed in a corner we make our last stand  When we pull on the trigger, our pistol goes "click" The Good Thief did what he wanted in life then got a free pass, though  he still had to go through crucifixion. Meanwhile the rest of us are here in the used cross lot, kicking the crosstrees, fingering the nails.  No one uses rhyme or meter Free verse makes such a racket The madman only sounds coherent Locked up in his straight jacket  Is this the hard reality  Or am I only dreaming  There are no major poets now They've all gone into streaming  Some try to prove the existence of God by the splendor of the Universe.  God says, That’s nothing. Stand back and watch this- Further back More Keep going  The helpful guest asks for a job  Before he fills his belly Change the baby, pat the dog Do an oil change on old Nelly  Caffeine quic...

Hello and welcome to a lovely Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. My name is Antonin Hruby and today I will be doing the post this week (all by myself.) Today is January 25th. Paragraph: 1 Monday When it comes to Mondays Garfield is my friend and by that I mean I DISLIKE Mondays. But this particular Monday was worse MUCH WORSE because...I.. GOT. SICK.Not at home but at my mom's work. At first, my mom thought I was being obnoxious but then I got a chance to talk to her then I told her I wasn't feeling well so I went home. Paragraph:2 Tuesday Long long Tuesday I wake up darkness keep sleeping darkness eleven o'clock finally bright then I'm tired.On Tuesday I had to stay home from school and I slept and chugged tea ate popsicals and ate saltine crackers. But I also read a book for forty minutes which was fun then I had dinner. Paragraph:3 Wednesday On Wednesday I still stayed home because I was still sick which was bad but I got to have pancakes for dinner and those we...

    Whenever I go somewhere new, there's always the nagging feeling something will go wrong. In the best case scenario everything goes according to plan. Minor bumps in the road such as a late bus, a suitcase gone astray or finding a stranger sleeping in your room are inevitable. Worst case scenarios such as major injuries or death must be insured for. Coffin shipment home from overseas is expensive.   One step below death or dismemberment is having to spend the night in an airport. I've only had to spend the night in an airport once. It was at O'Hare, an airport so big that when your flight is cancelled, no one has any idea why. They just give you a cot and some food vouchers and send you to Terminal X. Two hundred of us lost souls set up our cots in the abandoned terminal. There was a line all night for the one small M/W bathroom. The overhead announcements stopped at 1:00 am and at 4:30 a retired drill sergeant rousted us out of the terminal.  I can recommend the ...

  Copyright free image         On Jan. 24, 1978,  a Canadian Mounted Police corporal located in Hay River, in the Canadian Northwest Territories, reported a meteor sighting. One hundred and twenty-five miles north in Yellowknife, a night janitor reported mysterious lights streaking across the darkened sky. What these eye-witnesses actually saw was the re-entry of the Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 into Earth’s atmosphere. Radioactive debris was spread across the eastern part of the Northwest Territories, the western part of Nunavut, and northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.  https://nnss.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/DOENV_1198-1.pdf  

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 22, 2025, the fourth Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of winter, the fourth Wednesday of January, and the twenty-second day of the year, with three-hundred forty-three days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for January 22, 2025 Frost Crack It's that time of year, when the trees complain about the cold temperatures, too. Trees make cracking sounds when temperatures drop rapidly in extremely cold weather because the watery sap inside the trees freezes and expands, splitting the bark and creating a loud cracking noise — "frost crack". Long vertical scars in some of your deciduous trees are obvious signs of frost crack, but evergreen trees that have scaly or plated bark don't always reveal the split beneath. Spot the Space Station : Wednesday, January 22 at 5:57 PM, visible: 6 min, maximum height: 54°, appears: 10° above West, disappears: 14° above East North East. January 22 Fickle Pickle ...