Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to a pretty brown Saturday before Christmas Eve here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is December 23rd. I came into this holiday season with an exceptional abundance of joy that outweighed the usual sack of dread I carry with me during this time of year. I started the month with the premise that, because I was feeling  so good  coming down the pike of 2023, I could offer  you  all a heaping plate of Christmas-themed positive energy cookies with steaming mugs of sweet space holding (with marshmallows) for all who may not be feeling as joyful as I have.  This month on the Wannaskan Almanac, I took some time to pause and sit with the lesser-embraced emotions the season brings. We kicked off December with the messy tangles of the  Yarn of Disappointment , poked a little fun at strapping in for the holidays while feeling Frazzled Like a Frazzled Thing , and, last week, pulled out the 'ole cast iron pan for Cooking a la Anger.   I've always ...

       As I sit quietly in my country estate, not a ripple appears on the surface of my coffee. Only the sound of the occasional truck hauling pulp on the county road disturbs the quiet. That and the ice maker dropping another cube into the bin. I have to remind myself we're all sitting on a globe spinning west to east at 1,038 miles per hour. That figure sounds right because the earth is almost 25,000 miles around and it takes 24 hours to get back where it started.   Meanwhile the earth is orbiting the sun at 67,100 mph. It's a journey of 584 million miles. It takes 8,765 hours to complete the circuit, or roughly 365 days. Our solar system is also orbiting the center of the Milky Way at 447,000 mph. Finally everything in the universe is getting further apart from everything else, but we don't notice that either. What we do notice is the movement of the sun across the sky and the weather. The spinning of the earth brings sunrises and sunsets. We won't see them t...

  1953 Wannaska Boys Hockey Champions   Top , left: Jerome Gunderson, Dennis Breiland, Glen Espe, Allan Dallum, Gerald Rygh, Johnnie Carlson, Marvin Sherman.  Bottom , left: Marv Espe, Duane Espe, Gordon Carlson, Roger Sellen, Gary Wickland, David Culp, John Orvis.   "A generation still remembers when the nearby river was the only stretch of ice available. and a crooked tree branch or piece of board the only hockey stick."  --Bill Adams, February 1951   Wannaska's Adult Team. Back row, left: Buddy Swanson, Robert Oslund, Marshall Rygh, Duane Larsen, Adolph Erickson. Front row, left: Robert Benson, Kenneth Eggen, James Oslund.     Lying on its elbow like a truant boy with a “straw-in-the-mouth” attitude of summer days on drowsy river banks… fingers laced behind comfortably dirty neck… staring at fleecy cloud countries piling up in the mysterious heavens… is WANNASKA .     It surrounds a leafy Roseau River bank… cuddles a sudden ...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for December 20, 2023, the fifty-first Wednesday of the year, the thirteenth Wednesday of fall, and the three-hundred fifty-fourth day of the year, with eleven days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for December 20, 2023 The pileated woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus , is one of the few active birds visible (and audible) apart from bird-feeder congregations in Wannaska this time of year. An insectivore, it inhabiting deciduous forests in northern and eastern North America, these red, black, and white beauties excavate their large nests in the cavities of dead trees, and their roosts usually have multiple entrance holes. A pileated woodpecker pair stays together on its territory all year round. The pair defends their territory in all seasons, but often tolerate interlopers during the winter. When clashing with conspecifics [/ˌkɑn-spə-ˈsɪ-fɪks/, n., an organism belonging to the same species as another], they engage in much chas...

Although I don't look it...I just passed the 30 years of marriage threshold!  Yesterday was 30 years since my wife and I got hitched...hitched being a Dodge City yokel way of saying we's married!   The longest marriage recorded (although not officially recognized) is a granite wedding anniversary (90 years) between Karam and Kartari Chand, who both lived in the United Kingdom, but were married in India. Karam and Kartari Chand married in 1925 and died in 2016 and 2019 respectively. The most people married at one time was when some 35,000 couples was hitched (more Dodge City talk) by Sun Myung Moon in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea on 25th of August, 1995. A great way to save on wedding photography costs The most expensive wedding ever was Sheikha Hind Bint bin Maktoum to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, which cost 137 million dollars.  Most of the money was spent on the oversized invitations required for their long names. I reckon we's gonna try...

       It's December 18th, and winter will soon be here. Can you believe it's still autumn? If you are an astrological or weather buff, you know that the upcoming Winter Solstice marks the exact moment when half of the Earth is tilted the farthest away from the sun. I'm just learning this, but if you stand outside at noon on December 22nd this year and look at your shadow, it will extend longer than any other shape you cast the entire year. (If you are a victim of age-related shrinkage, you don't want to miss out on this unique opportunity.)      The darkness that comes with this season can undoubtedly stir up gloom, uncertainties, and various causes of alarm. Everyone worries. Keats' poetic image of December as drear nighted captures my experience of the dark this year. I'm four months into recovery from the ankle I broke in early August, and I'm still trying to determine when I'll have the muscle strength to take a beloved, long walk. ...

  About to knock on the door, I hear a cough within.     I can back away for fear of catching some disease, or   I can knock and walk in through life's door.   The person who says he's fine with going to hell when he dies is blowing smoke. My mattress has a sleep number. My coffee pot, a wake number. Jacob wrestled all night with an angel of the Lord. He won some falls but left with a limp. So do we wrestle with life, and like Jacob must one day retire from the mat.  English has Germanic roots With Latin mashed in willy-nilly For stolid stuff we use Teutonic Romantic when we're feeling silly  I intended to get off the Road to Perdition, but the way was so smooth I fell into a trance and missed the exit.  If only I knew back then what I know now, those meetings between my parents and my teachers would have been more pleasant for everyone. When you break down barriers, I'm delighted, unless  your  rubble falls across  my  boundar...