Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to the Girls State Hockey Championship, Saturday, here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is February 21st. Go, Lady Warriors! Catch the stats here.  Game time is at 4pm. Today, on this wonderful morning, I will be talking about how this week went. This was an interesting week, and by this I mean Bob Ross paintings, UNO tables, and fasting. When I say Bob Ross paintings, you may be thinking, Bob Ross, how do you know he exists? My answer is that my teacher is a painter, a really good one too. But anyway, because my teacher likes painting with Bob Ross, she decided that we were going to try to paint with/like Bob Ross too.  We didn't finish out paintings, but it was basically a river in the middle with clouds and trees in the background.  Mine turned out pretty good, but then I looked at my teacher's painting, and it was identical to Bob Ross's painting.  Oh, and by the way, this week we were supposed to have 3 days of gym, but because of President's Da...

     Many people become train wrecks by causing  lots of damage to their circle of acquaintances but are soon forgotten by history. Not so with Henry VIII. Henry dragged England into foolish wars, destroyed an ancient religious culture, and killed friends and family because they got in his way then regretted some of  it on his deathbed.    My initial reaction is to call Henry a bad dude, but who am I to judge? Going deeper into Henry's complicated story causes me to reconsider. Henry had started life as the spare heir to his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales. When Henry was 10. Arthur died of no one is sure what. At the time it was called "a malign vapor".   Arthur had married Catherine of Aragon shortly before his death. This was an important diplomatic tie with Spain and Henry was expected to take his brother's place as Catherine's husband. Henry was allowed to wait until he was 17 to marry the 23 year old Catherine. Henry's father died soon...

    There is an old J.I. Case steam-driven threshing machine along a fence line northwest of our house. I can remember playing on and in it as a child when my family would drive up from Des Moines to visit family here. A horse-drawn haystacker stands nearby; its parallel chains drooping. I've always felt that there's something unique about this area of northwest Minnesota , where the forests end and the prairie begins, in as much as during my lifetime there was still so many ' farm ruins, ' as my daughter calls ancient horse-drawn and steam-powered farm equipment, to be seen across the landscape here in Roseau County.  [To Be Continued.]  

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for February 18, 2026, the seventh Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of winter, the third Wednesday of February, and the forty-ninth day of the year, with three-hundred sixteen days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for February 18, 2026 Bobcat Lynx rufus , gidagaa-bizhiw in Anishinaabe, also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of four species within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. Native to Wannaska and other parts of North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. An adaptable species, fer sure. It prefers woodlands—deciduous, coniferous, or mixed—but does not depend exclusively on the deep forest. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby (or "bobbed") tail, from which it derives its name. It is an adaptable predator inhabiting wooded areas, semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland ...

There is one paper that always brings a tear to my eye...a form that is a form of punishment for even the toughest self proclaimed accountant.  That form, of course, is the 1040, and, subsequently, their little cousins the state tax forms.   I would rather stand in the rain These forms and the directions for these forms were most likely written by evil linguists/accountants (a popular major at the University of "Crook"ston) who test every known boundary of the English language.  Their motto is...if it is easy to understand and work with, we'll fix that!  Their challenge each year is to not just make simple directions more wordy and less understandable, but also to create run on sentences that are devoid of meaning to precede and follow any meaningful information.   Latest copy of just the index for the tax code We quit doing our taxes several years ago.  Now before you report me to the IRS, just know that we still file our taxes.  We just bri...

Ah, another Dragon. Those of you who said early on that you looked forward to the Dragons in our story should be getting your wish about now. There are nine all together in the narrative. See if you can list the ones so far. If you are feeling feisty, imagine what the Dragons to come may be like – what purpose they may serve in the tale. Still, the title of this song is “Dragons True,” in contrast to others like Seagrace and the blue dragonfly of earlier songs. Still, the “humans” and the canine in the story line are worth knowing, and each has more than one story to tell. In this segment we discover more about each, and their relationships deepen and intertwine. Below, after winding their way through cave and cavern, the four current characters stand together in an uneasy circle. “Prithee, come to us now – feel our welcome.” Do I sense sinister intention here? Curiosity and place leave no choice I round the corner. Argose stays behind . . . My bowels loosen as I turn to face a l...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 3 Man Inspects Clock Interior Joe McDonnell, 78 and residing in Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently    inspected the interior of a friend's coo-coo clock. "I like a good tchotke myself," McDonnell tells the press, "but my friend is way ahead of me. He can't pass a thrift store or garage sale without picking up at least one souvenir. As I was on my way out after my latest visit, my friend diverted me to the garage to see a coo-coo clock he had picked up for free. I took the clock off the wall and unwrapped the weighted chains. I pulled on one of the chains to see the bird come out but the hands started going in the wrong direction. 'Take the back door off,' my friend suggested. The back cover was hard to get off and impossible to get back on straight. It felt like if I pushed on the back too hard, the whole clock would fly apart, and I had an appointment to get to. As my friend tried to hang the clock back up, the nail ...

Hello and welcome to a sweetheart Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is February 14th. Happy Valentine's Day! Here's the Lego League recap from the 5th Grader: Today, we will be talking about my last thoughts about this season of Lego League, since we didn't make it to Worlds. Last weekend, we arrived at the C'mon Inn for Lego League State Championship. Yes, we are champions. But, sadly, we didn't make it to Worlds. Instead, we got second place for the Innovation Project. We also got participation awards, which were medals, so they made you feel special. But anyway, when we got to the C'mon Inn, we were greeted by the following: Five hot tubs, a taco bar, an amazing Lego League team, and fish. Yes, real, living fish. We saw fish because they were swimming in an artificial river in the center of the hotel.  I woke up really early, and one of the staff members let me feed the fish. So, that was a fun experience. (My mom said they were koi fish.) And one...

     Before we went to England I read a book of English history, but I only got up to the Tudors before we left home. The Tudors (1509-1603) were a very interesting group, consisting of three kings and two queens. We think our own politics are rough and tumble, but back then looking at the king (or queen) the wrong way could get you beheaded.   The willingness to use the ax was understandable. If you were the king or queen of England, someone was always trying to kill you and take your place. You kept an army of spies and informers, and struck first. The advantage of being a royal was you could make your killings look legal.    Whenever I hear anything about the Tudors I perk up. I feel like I know them. Today for example, is the anniversary in 1542 of the beheading of Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard, for adultery. She was actually beheaded for treason. If the queen got pregnant by someone else, the whole royal succession was thrown into doubt. ...

      As evening comes on in the north woods, perspective diminishes. spruce trees and alder bushes slip back into the shadows as the poplar , and paper birch reassert their towering primordial presence all around.    "In the gloaming ." traces back to the Old English glōm , meaning “ twilight ,” which shares an ancestor with the Old English glōwan , meaning “to glow.” In the early 1800s, English speakers looked to Scotland and borrowed the now-archaic verb gloam , meaning “to become dusk” or “to grow dark.” And aye, it has, from the shadows up.

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for February 11, 2026, the sixth Wednesday of the year, the eighth Wednesday of winter, the second Wednesday of February, and the forty-second day of the year, with three-hundred twenty-three days remaining. Brought to you by Bead Gypsy Studio’s 20% off leather bracelets Happy Valentine’s Day Sale , where you can register to WIN A GIFT BASKET: 101 Main Avenue North, downtown Roseau. Wannaska Phenology Update for February 11, 2026 The American marten, Martes americana , waabizheshi in Anishinaabe, is also known as the American pine marten. They're a species of North American mammal, and a member of the family Mustelidae , but in Wannaska is sometimes referred to as simply the pine marten. The name "pine marten" is derived from the common name of the distinct Eurasian species, Martes martes . Martes americana favor's conifer forests in Wannaska and is otherwise  found throughout Canada, Alaska, and parts of the nor...