Wannaskan Almanac

   When I drive by the county fairgrounds the week after the Fair, I'm amazed at how such a small area was so full of life. The noisy, colorful rides on the Midway, the carnival games and food stands have all packed up and are now churning away at another county fair down the line. The permanent buildings at the fair, the animal barns, the 4-H building, the local food stands are cleaned and shuttered for winter. Did it really happen? Where are the crowds of people, old folks reestablishing ties, the families giving their kids a fun time, the teenagers strutting their stuff?     The Fair is a shaking up and mixing together of normal life. For me, the Fair is a place of obligation. When our kids were small we stood by while they rode kiddie rides, checked out the animals, and ate unhealthy foods. We chatted with acquaintances we only saw at the Fair (what's his name again?). I worked a couple of shifts at the church stand, as waiter, then cook and eventually the s...

    I had the windshield in my 1998 Subaru Legacy-Outback, replaced by D&L Auto Glass in Roseau on Friday July 24th. What a great place to do business! Absolutely everyone with whom I had the pleasure to talk was small-town friendly -- including an octogenarian from Warroad whom one of the women there called "Grampa." They made that hail and lightning-filled Friday afternoon truly a port in the storm.      I was amazed when her grandpa said he recognized my last name from reading THE RAVEN years ago. (He had been a loyal subscriber). So for the whole two hours it took them to install my windshield , 'Leroy,' and I talked about a whole lot of things including who we both knew from Wannaska, as he had grown up southeast of there when he was a kid. We had a good time even as the hail came down, the winds blew, and thunder-rolled; I didn't want to leave at the end.    The grocery store was packed. The county fair and rain storm (It always rains a...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 29, 2026, the thirtieth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of summer, the fifth Wednesday of July, and the two-hundred tenth day of the year, with one-hundred fifty-five days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for July 29, 2026 Mullein Blooming Verbascum thapsus , the great mullein, greater mullein or common mullein — nookaadiziiganzh, in Anishinaabe — is a species of mullein native to Europe, northern Africa, and Asia, and introduced in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Mullein derives from the French word for soft, moelleux . A hairy biennial plant, nookaadiziiganzh that can grow more than six feet tall. Its small, yellow flowers are densely grouped on a tall stem, which grows from a large rosette of leaves. Nookaadiziiganzh grows in a wide variety of habitats, but prefers well-lit, disturbed soils, where it can appear soon after the ground receives light, from long-lived seeds that persist in the soil s...

I was driving around early this morning, enjoying the rare peace of a Saturday before the rest of the world woke up and started looking at their screens. That is when I saw it, hanging from a massive oak tree in a front yard down the road: a tire swing. My 58-year-old heart did a little backflip. A real, honest-to-goodness tire swing! I immediately flashed back to my childhood, remembering the smell of hot, sun-baked rubber, the inevitable black smudge left on your jeans, and that slight element of danger when you realized the rope was frayed. For a brief second, I felt a surge of hope. Maybe the kids these days were alright. Maybe we were reclaiming our heritage. Naturally, I pulled my truck over to get a closer look and savor the nostalgia. I rolled down the window, squinted through my progressives, and that’s when the crushing disappointment set in. It wasn’t a tire. It was a molded, hollow piece of black plastic *shaped* like a tire. A replica. A sanitized, safety-tested, UV-resist...

One of the things I notice lately is that when I wake up full-tank-ready for the day, by three or so, I need to refuel. Yesterday, I stretched out on the couch, put on a podcast, and zonked out immediately. I never used to take naps. ​I was just about to take one the other day when it started to rain. At first it seemed I could let the windows stay open, but it was a deluge. After I scurried through the house to shut them all, I followed up with rags to wipe the wet sills dry. By then I wasn’t sleepy anymore. Throughout the night, rain came and went. Pound. Quiet. Pound some more. Quiet. In between downpours, the wind took over and I listened. This morning, as I waited for my tea, I opened the door, stood on the stoop and looked straight up through the trees. Then, with a start, walked to check the garden.  ​When our small vegetable patch started to wake up early this spring, we found 13 or so volunteer tomato plants. I transplanted them by sinking them deeply into the ground. Afte...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 26 Man Finds Missing Chair Joe McDonnell, 79 and a resident of Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently found a chair he thought he had left in a parking lot. "My wife and I recently volunteered to sit at a booth at our county fair to provide information about an organization we support. The booth had a table with information and we sat behind the table. The chairs at the booth were those slouchy beach chairs and were too low so we loaned the booth two folding chair from home. Someone else brought a folding chair so I took one of our chairs home. When I got home the chair was gone from the back seat. I thought I must have left the chair in the parking lot and pictured it being run over. I was about to drive 16 miles back to the fair when I thought to check the trunk and was relieved to see the chair lying there." In a later communication, McDonnell says a friend brought their other chair to them after the last shift at the booth. "The chai...

Hello and welcome to a post-county-fair Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is July 25th. Next Saturday is already August, but let's not talk about that. This morning, folks are either sleeping in after a week of adventures at the Roseau County Fair, OR are up and at 'em cleaning up. From Tuesday to Friday, I worked both a booth and a few 4-H shifts, so got to see the fair from all the angles. From the 4-H side, it looked like project submissions were up, all of which received appreciative oohs and aahs by the onlookers strolling through the rows. A dad lamented that his girl's best-selling chocolate chip cookies only got a first-place ribbon instead of a grand champion. "She sells out every week!" I, myself, a self-proclaimed chocolate chip cookie-baking expert, offered to do my own assessment. I noted the browned edges, recalled my own second-place ribbon experience (because, really, even though the blue ribbon is called first place, we all know grand ...