Word-Wednesday for April 9, 2025

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 9, 2025, the twenty-fifth Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of spring, the second Wednesday of April, and the ninety-ninth day of the year, with two-hundred sixty-six days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for April 9, 2025
Pussy Willows are Out
One of the earliest and surest signs of spring, Salix discolor catkins have started to sprout here in the forest. First appearing as gray, furry kittens, the male pussies eventually flower into their yellow tabby mature forms in which the bees love to bath. Americans and Northern Europeans use flowering pussy willow shoots for spring religious decoration on Palm Sunday, as a replacement for palm branches.

April 9, 2025 Hummingbird Migration Update
Current long-range weather forecasts and ruby-throated hummingbird migration sightings suggest that now is the optimal time to place those feeders; the high glucose content will prevent freezing, and yours will be the first feeders they visit.

April 9 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


April 9 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.


Earth/Moon Almanac for April 9, 2025
Sunrise: 6:44am; Sunset: 8:06pm; 3 minutes, 31 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 4:52pm; Moonset: 5:43am, waxing gibbous, 87% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for April 9, 2025
                Average            Record              Today
High             45                     77                     44
Low              22                      4                     33

Early Spring in the Field
by Tom Hennen

The crow's voice filtered through the walls of the farmhouse
makes sounds of a rusty car engine turning over. Clouds on a
north wind that whistles softly and cold. Spruce trees planted
in a line on the south side of the house weave and scrape at the
air. I've walked to a far field to a fence line of rocks where I am
surprised to see soft mud this raw day. No new tracks in the
mud, only desiccated grass among the rocks, a bare grove of
trees in the distance, a blue sky thin as an eggshell with a crack
of dark geese running through it, their voices faint and almost
troubled as they disappear in a wedge that has opened at last
the cold heart of winter.

April 9 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Unicorn Day
• National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day
• National Chinese Almond Cookie Day
• National Winston Churchill Day
• National Name Yourself Day
• National Cherish an Antique Day
• National Library Outreach Day
• National Education and Sharing Day

April 9 Word Pun
Sven became annoyed with Ula’s bird puns, but he quickly learned that toucan play that game.


April 9 Word Riddle
Where do cow farts come from?*


April 9 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

    But yesterday I should have thought me blest
    To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
    Of middle life and look adown the bleak
    And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
    Where solemn shadows all the land invest
    And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
    Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
    The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
    Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
    To stay the shadow on the dial's face
    At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name
    I chide aloud the little interspace
    Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
    Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.
                        —Baruch Arnegriff

    It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.


April 9 Etymology Word of the Week
leviathan
/lə-VĪ-ə-TH(ə)n/ n., a very large aquatic creature, especially a whale; a thing that is very large or powerful, especially a ship; (in biblical use) a sea monster, identified in different passages with the whale and the crocodile (e.g. Job 41, Psalms 74:14), and with the Devil (after Isaiah 27:1), from late 14th century, "sea monster, sea serpent," sometimes regarded as a form of Satan, from Late Latin leviathan, from Hebrew livyathan "dragon, serpent, huge sea animal," of unknown origin, perhaps from root l-w-h- "to wind, turn, twist," on the notion of a serpent's coils. If so, related to Hebrew liwyah "wreath," Arabic lawa "to bend, twist." Of powerful persons or things from circa 1600. Hobbes's use is from 1651.


April 9 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1667 First public art exhibition at the Palais-Royale in Paris.
• 1866 Civil Rights Bill passes over President Andrew Johnson's veto.
• 1894 First performance of Anton Bruckner's 5th Symphony in B.
• 1928 Eugene O'Neill's play Lazarus Laughed premieres.
• 1928 Mae West's debut in a daring new play Diamond Lil.
• 1939 American contralto Marian Anderson sings before 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• 1942 Alexander Gretchaninov's 4th Symphony premieres.

April 9 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1611 Giacomo Maria Predieri, Italian composer.
• 1627 Johann Kaspar Kerll, German composer.
• 1680 Philippe Néricault Destouches, French dramatist and author.
• 1716 Johann Georg Zechner, Austrian composer.
• 1717 Georg Matthias Monn, Austrian composer.
• 1751 Emanuel Schikaneder, German playwright and composer.
• 1754 Antonio Frantisek Becvarovsky, Czech composer.
• 1757 Wojciech Boguslawski, Polish composer.
• 1773 Étienne Aignan, French writer.
• 1794 Theobald Boehm, German inventor of the modern flute.
• 1798 Giuditta Pasta, Italian soprano.
• 1821 Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, French poet.
• 1830 Eadweard Muybridge, English photographer.
• 1847 Francis William Davenport, English composer,.
• 1847 Paolo Tosti, Italian composer.
• 1850 Hermann Zumpe, German composer.
• 1854 Seaborn McDaniel Denson, American composer.
• 1855 Gyula Reviczky, Hungarian author and poet.
• 1855 Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Austrian composer.
• 1861 Charles Holroyd, English artist.
• 1874 Julius Bittner, Austrian composer.
• 1879 Gerald Kelly, British painter.
• 1883 Renzo Bossi, Italian composer.
• 1884 Franco Vittadini, Italian composer.
• 1888 Florence Price, American composer.
• 1894 Edmund Jenkins, American clarinetist and composer.
• 1894 Ernest Kanitz, Austrian-American composer.
• 1895 Beau De Glen "Mance" Lipscomb, American blues singer and guitarist.
• 1895 Rudolf Kattnigg, Austrian composer.
• 1898 Julius Patzak, Austrian tenor.
• 1898 Paul Robeson, American bass-baritone.
• 1902 František Suchý, Czech oboist and composer.
• 1906 Antal Doráti, Hungarian-American conductor.
• 1906 Victor Vasarely, Hungarian-French painter and author.
• 1908 Fred Lohse, German composer,.
• 1909 Ivan Ivonovich Dzerzhinsky, Russian composer.
• 1912 Lew Kopelew, Russian author.
• 1915 Leonard Wibberley, Irish author.
• 1917 Johannes Bobrowski, German poet and writer.
• 1918 Jørn Utzon, Danish architect.
• 1920 Art Van Damme, American jazz accordionist.
• 1922 Carl Amery [Christian Anton Mayer], German writer.
• 1923 Bruno Kiefer, German-born Brazilian composer.
• 1924 Harald Heilmann, German composer.
• 1935 Aulis Sallinen, Finnish contemporary classical composer.
• 1936 Jerzy Maksymiuk, Polish pianist, composer.
• 1937 Barrington J. Bayley, English science fiction author.
• 1950 Pierre Gagnaire, French chef.
• 1951 Andrzej Krzanowski, Polish classical composer and accordionist.
• 1952 Magnar Åm, Norwegian composer.
• 1953 Dominique Perrault, French architect.
• 1955 Joolz Denby, English poet and novelist.

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

• baa: /bä/ v., to make the bleat of a sheep.
• faff:  /faf/  n., a puff of smoke; a breath or gust of wind or air.
• giraffact: /juh-RAF-akt/ n., a fun, educational fact about giraffes.
• kithless: /KITH-luss/ adj., having no acquaintances or family; being alone and without kin.
• mugient: /MYOO-jee-uhnt/ adj., lowing, bellowing.
• nuddle: /NUD-uhl/ v., to push with the nose; to push or make one's way forward, esp. along the ground; to push and bustle about.
• quire: /ˈkwī(ə)r/ n., four sheets of paper or parchment folded to form eight leaves, as in medieval manuscripts; any collection of leaves one within another in a manuscript or book; 25 (formerly 24) sheets of paper; one twentieth of a ream.
• seatherny: /SETH-er-nee/ n., the serenity one feels when listening to the chirping of birds or the baaing of sheep.
• stimming: /STI-miNG/ n., the repetitive performance of certain physical movements or vocalizations, as a form of behavior by persons or sheep with autism or other neurodevelopmental conditions; self-stimulation. This behavior is thought to serve a variety of functions, such as calming and expression of feelings.
• textrovert: /TEK-strə-vərt/ n., a person who is expressive and funny when texting but shy in-person.

April 9, 2025 Word-Wednesday Feature
Stinky Pinky
/STIŋ-kē PIŋkē/ n., a puzzle that consists in the defining of one phrase with another made up of words that rhyme; the simplest form of a rhyming squib, thought to originate in Palmville Township circa 1941 when school boys discussed the sexual practices of communists. According to Richard Nordquist, professor emeritus of Rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks, the stinky pinky is best described as a rhyming epithet composed of an adjective and a rhyming noun — a rhyming compound that functions as a playful definition. As a word game name, stinky pinky name variants include hink pink, hank pank, wordy gurdy, and brain train.

The game requires two or more players. One player thinks up a rhyming pair of words and provides a verbal clue—a non-rhyming definition. The other player(s) must discover the rhyming word pair — perfect for entertainment during the evening meal after a hard day's work building the Stone's Thoreau. The list below contains defining phrases, where the stinky pinkies appear at the end of this post:**

• an artificial body of water
• a bashful insect
• a bed on fire
• a better cafe
• a better knife
• a boxer who has lost weight
• a cautious bird
• cerebral overwork
• the chief of police
• a chubby kitty
• colored lemonade
• a dark-colored sled dog
• a deceased Marxist
• dehydrated soup
• a dismal chorus
• a ditch in Paris
• a fast elevator
• the funniest joke
• an explosion in a hen house
• a fat fish
• a fuzzy fruit
• a greased hen
• a group yell
• a grumpy mountaintop
• a happier small dog
• a holiday in Panama
• the home of a small rodent
• an impolite man
• an inactive flower
• an ink-stained little finger
• a large toupee
• permission to take something away
• a rabbit that makes you laugh
• a sensible pupil
• a skinny little horse
• a smarter author
• a smiling father
• a Snickers bar dropped on the beach
• a strange looking goatee
• a superior pullover
• a supervisor in a bad mood
• a suspicious looking clergyman
• a tardy spouse
• a five cent gherkin
• a temperate youngster
• a tiny insect
• a useful rule
• a wet puppy
• a young cat in love

From A Year with Rilke, April 9 Entry
From Their Listening, a Temple, from Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 1

A tree rose there. What pure arising.
Oh, Orpheus sings! Now I can hear the tree.
Then all went silent. But even in the silence
was signal, beginning, change.

Out of the stillness of the unbound forest,
animals came forth from dens and nests.
And it was not fear or cunning
that made them be so quiet,

but the desire to listen. Every cry, howl, roar
was stilled inside them. And where
not even a hut stood

or the scantest shelter
to contain their ineffable longing,
you made them, from their listening, a temple.

Trees and Undergrowth
by Vincent van Gogh

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.







*The dairy air.

**

• fake lake
• shy fly
• hot cot
• finer diner
• nicer slicer
• lighter fighter
• wary canary
• brain strain
• top cop
• fat cat
• pink drink
• dusky husky
• dead red
• chowder powder
• dire choir
• French trench
• swift lift
• best jest
• gizzard blizzard
• stout trout
• hairy berry
• slick chick
• team scream
• cynical pinnacle
• merrier terrier
• isthmus Christmas
• mouse house
• rude dude
• lazy daisy
• inky pinky
• big wig
• removal approval
• funny bunny
• prudent student
• bony pony
• brighter writer
• happy pappy
• sandy candy
• weird beard
• better sweater
• cross boss
• sinister minister
• late mate
• nickel pickle
• mild child
• wee bee
• effective directive
• soggy doggy
• smitten kitten