Wannaskan Almanac

  Any fool can appreciate the mountains.  It takes a subtle eye to love the flatlands.  Self-improvement project: 1. Clear away debris 2. Look for building material 3. Realize the debris  is  the building material  One good thing about old age: when someone talks about something two, four, or six decades ago, I know just what they're talking about. Procrastination is not bad when applied to suicide Mushy love to some is A delectable treat  Gulp it down quick Or it turns to concrete man  is in woman he  is in she yes yes we can make splendiferous we The advantage to being an animal And not plants stuck in a bed We can be tumbleweeds Before we are dead For those born clumsy there’s no escape. If I put my coffee cup on the floor to avoid knocking it off the table, I’ll soon be kicking it across the room.  Why is it that after the immigrant struggles across the border, his or her grandchildren become dogs in the manger? The story of Philosop...

Hello and welcome to a (finally) sunny Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is April 20th. While the hubs and WAKWIR* have been adventuring at the FIRST Robotics Championship in Houston, Texas, the littles and I have been "bach-ing" it at home, per the definition provided in the American Heritage Dictionary : "To live in the manner of a bachelor, as when one's spouse or partner is away. To bach. [Short for BACHELOR.]" The first order of business was to put the kibosh on cooking. Cereal was the week's menu for breakfast, snacks, and dinner. I bought three kinds. (Bread and butter, apples, carrots, and whatever the school served for lunch, stayed the same.) The second order of business was to minimize messes so there would be no need for cleaning. And the third order of business was to have fun together. With basic physical needs met, I wanted to really "be" with the kids. In "ordinary time" - when everyone's home and we'r...

    Travel is uncomfortable. Why do we subject ourselves to it? We get restless sitting at home. We want to see distant relatives. Our people will listen to us and we'll listen to them and together we'll make medicine.   We took four days driving to Mesa, Arizona from home on a combination of interstate and two lane secondary roads. The interstates are helpful to shrink the distance but they're monotonous. On the back roads you view the countryside and the towns up close. You see humans and their effects. Sometimes you meet one.   We spent three days with Uncle Vern (age 101) and Cousin Kelly (youthful), the fourth of his five daughters who helps him stay in his condo duplex on the east side of Mesa. Mesa is flat with lots of tall palm trees and all kinds of cactus. I especially like the giant saguaro, standing with their arms up like desert yeti.   We were in Mesa during the solar eclipse. I had ignored the hubbub because we were too far west to see the show. O...

" I am of the mind that concerning our 160-acre situation it is better to do something than do nothing to prevent, or at the very least stall, a wildfire on our tree farm ..."   All too reliably, forecast rain systems had avoided drought-stricken Palmville Township in 2023, and just taunted our crops. I had little reason to think these scattered showers that day would act any different.   Disking my over-grown firebreaks on Thursday, April 11th, to help prevent the spectre of wildfire did the same thing as washing a car did long ago, for toward evening it progressively rained, sleeted, and hailed on me a quarter mile from home forcing me to take shelter in a dense windbreak of white spruce trees north of the one-room Palmville schoolhouse; I loved the irony of it: disking against the threat of wildfire and 'producing' rain.      It was a partly cloudy evening. I was disking a 16-foot wide north/south firebreak between the county road ditch and a...

 And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for April 17, 2024, the sixteenth Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of spring, the third Wednesday of April, and the one-hundred-eighth day of the year, with two-hundred fifty-eight days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for April 17, 2024 Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains through Wannaska across Canada to Alaska. It is the most widely distributed game bird in North America, and it is a non-migratory, not-so-clever bird. The ruffed grouse differs from other grouse species in its courtship display, where it relies entirely on a non-vocal acoustic display, known as drumming, unlike other grouse species. The drumming itself is a rapid, wing-beating display that creates a low-frequency sound now heard throughout Wannaska, starting slow and speeding up: thump ... thump ... thump..thump-thump-thumpthump). Even in thick woods, this can be hea...

It has been a while, so I thought I would mock...I mean highlight...I mean, well, you will just have to see...all those observances that fall on April 16.   2024 Daily Holidays that fall on April 16, include: Day of the Mushroom.  As long time historian and mushroom expert Chairman Joe will tell you, there are many varieties of mushrooms that can give you all kinds of interesting experiences found in the Wannaskan wilderness.  Whether you are looking for violent diarrhea or a trip through a magical colored fantasy world, Wannaska mushrooms are there for your enjoyment.  Celebrate by making a mushrooms and Guinness brew on April 16 this year! Welcome to the Jungle...Wannaska Style! Foursquare Day.  Who knew that they had a holiday to celebrate one of our greatest presidents?  As Abraham Lincoln said...Foursquare and seven beers ago, our forefathers...and a bunch of other stuff.  By the time he got to that part everyone was engaged in foursquare and...

Posted January 18, 2018 The dead of winter. That’s where we find ourselves on this 8 January 2018 in far northwestern Minnesota, where the latitude is much higher than Toronto. We of the northern climes know that January is the coldest month. We don’t need no gull-dang meteorologists to tell us that. But after interminable weeks, yesterday we had a reprieve going from -24 (or thereabouts) in the early morning hours to 12 above in mid-afternoon. “Wow”! People exclaimed with amazed joy. “It’s almost balmy.” and “Time to take off the mukluks.”  For those of you non-Minnesotans, you see we have just weathered (pardon the homonym or homograph – take your choice) the second coldest period in our recorded history for late December/early January – as reported by National Public Radio. Thirty below, without wind chill popped up (really down) on our thermometers more than once during that interval. Immigrants from warmer climes ask us natives (or long-time residents – 18 years for this write...