Category Archives: Book of Days Calendar

Late Summer, or Your August Book of Days

And now it is August. And with its first day comes Lammas, an old agrarian holiday meant to mark the subtle transition as summer begins its inevitable shift toward autumn. It is a cross-quarter day, meaning it marks a halfway point (roughly) betwixt a solstice and an equinox, and there are four of them each year. Lammas is the third. We are well past the halfway point of the year now, and the long days surrounding the Midsummer solstice in June are rapidly heading toward the balance of day and night we’ll achieve in seven weeks’ time, at the next equinox.

The Celtic name for the day is Lughnasadh. But the English name, Lammas, is essentially derived from “Loaf Mass,” for this was the time of the first grain harvest of the year, and it was and is customary to bake a fresh loaf of bread today (preferably with that newly harvested grain).

Here in Lake Worth, it is the height of our summer stormy season, though this year things have been a bit dry for us. Still, we have had several dramatic days where the afternoon sky turns dark and stormy, and this is the theme for your August Book of Days calendar. It is, as usual, a printable PDF and a fine companion to this blog.

Summer lasts long here, so we’ve begun conjuring ideas of cooler days by scheduling our next open shop event: an Autumn Preview on the weekend of August 9 & 10, where we’ll be showing off all the great new items arriving for fall and for the spooky season. (We’ve got new arrivals daily right now, in the shop and at the online shop!)

Two weeks later, towards the end of the month, comes St. Bartholomew’s Day and our Second Annual Bartlemas Wayzgoose! We’ll have a commemorative print on our 1950s Nolan Tabletop Press and you’ll be the printer, and we’ll be serving homemade pizzelle (naturally, as they are made in a press). The Bartlemas Wayzgoose is a big deal for hand papermakers and letterpress printers and bookbinders, too… and I’ll gladly tell you the story of why while you’re enjoying your pizzelle and admiring your handmade Wayzgoose print.

Our two newest workshops at the shop are now posted to the website, too, and they are perhaps a natural extension of this blog: We’ll be teaching you how to make two wonderful traditional pastas. One of them has its origins in my maternal grandparents’ region of Italy. We’re so excited to offer these classes for you. You’ll make your pasta in-house with us and then take the fruits of your labor home to serve for supper that night.

Happy August. Happy Lammas.

Image: “Houses, Clouds, Late Summer” by József Rippl-Rónai. Pastel on paper, circa late nineteenth century to early twentieth century [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Summer Fruits, or Your July Book of Days

Watermelon has been on my mind! We’ve gone through two watermelons in two weeks, and I can’t even begin to tell you how many peaches (most of them sliced up into small pitchers of Chianti to accompany dinner), plus mangoes and lychees and cherries, and the apricots have been wonderful this year, too. I tend to think there is nothing like summer fruit, but then of course autumn comes and so do the apples and the pomegranates, and then winter brings all the citrus and stuffed dates… and maybe I’m just a little in love with fruit, in general. I am my father’s son, after all. When I was a boy, I’d accompany Dad to the market, where he would buy summer fruits by the wooden crateful. This, I assumed, was how fruit was sold, and I thought everyone did this.

And so it’s July and we find ourselves firmly in the midst of all those summer fruits… and in the second half of the year. North of the 49th Parallel, it’s Canada Day today (la Fête du Canada), which, I imagine, will be celebrated with greater gusto and enthusiasm this year, for reasons I shan’t mention. The Dog Days of Summer will soon begin, too, once Sirius, the Dog Star, begins rising with the sun as it does each early July. They’ll be with us for about five weeks before the two stars go their separate ways again. And the Fourth, of course, brings our own national holiday here in the States, and there will be fireworks at the Lake Worth Lagoon.

Your Convivio Book of Day Calendar for July lists all the celebrations of the month. It’s a free printable PDF, as usual. CLICK HERE for yours. It’s the month, too, of Tanabata, the Japanese Star Festival, and of St. Swithin’s Day and several other saints’ days, too, and when we reach month’s end, already we will have a first inkling of fall, for the month ends with Lammas Eve. It is the night when Shakespeare’s Juliet was born, and it is heralds the day when, in our agricultural past, the first grain harvest would be brought in. Hence, a good day to bake a crusty loaf and to enjoy the first fruits of our labor.

This is summer. Enjoy its warmth and sweetness.

COME SEE US AT THE SHOP!
We’ve got Kim Spivey teaching a new session of Collagraph Printmaking on Sunday July 27. Kim’s a great teacher and this is a wonderful class… it’s the second time she’s teaching it for us this year. Come learn something new!

Image: Still Life with Watermelon by Rubens Peale. Oil on canvas, 1865 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The Spiced Indian Air by Night, or Your June Book of Days

Summer arrived here in Lake Worth about three weeks ago: where it had been warm but dry all through April and early May, suddenly one morning it was warm and humid and not dry and while I was hopeful for about a week that the dry air might return, by now I’ve stopped checking the weather forecast. There’s no longer any point to that. It’s Florida and this is our burden for the next four or five months: heat and humidity, of the constant sort. If you like predictability, you will love a Florida summer.

Summer sets in here and it takes a bit of getting accustomed to but then not long after comes St. John’s Eve and Old Midsummer, and these are days and nights I look forward to. We can count on a Midsummer bonfire at the Finnish-American Village west of town, and sometimes we will pick up a Midsummer feast to go from Johan’s Jöe, the Swedish coffee shop in West Palm Beach. I might read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and we will sit down and watch some version of it, too, and the music from Felix Mendelssohn’s ballet will be on heavy rotation in our house. I’ll watch for nighttime blooms from the Guiana Chestnut tree in the backyard, blooms that pop open with a small explosion at about 9 in the evening and fill the thick humid air with fragrance: spiced, the same spice I imagine the Fairy Queen Titania described as she spoke about “the spiced Indian air, by night” in that same Midsummer Night’s Dream. If there’s magic to be found at Midsummer, it is found here in this strange green land, as easily as it is found in the Nordic lands where twilight runs its course through what little night there is in June.

Once Midsummer passes, I am pretty much done with a Florida summer… but alas, I make do, for what else can I do? There is beauty about it, to be sure. It’s just not always easy to remember to look for it.

For now, we are on the approach to Midsummer’s arrival: June has arrived, and the Midsummer Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere comes in three weeks’ time, followed quickly by its accompanying holidays of St. John’s Eve on the 23rd and St. John’s Day on the 24th. All of these days are part of your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for June. It is, as usual, a printable PDF, a fine companion to this blog, and our gift to you. Cover star this month: an 1886 oil painting by Christian Skredsvig, called “Skt. Hans Aften i Norge” (or, in English, “St. John’s Eve in Norway”). In it, four folks are out on a boat on the still, reflective waters. It may very well be midnight, but there is no darkness, only light. How magical is that?

 

COME SEE US AT THE SHOP!
We’re open for Father’s Day Shopping (not to mention gifts for grads, too) TODAY: Sunday June 1, from 11 AM to 4 PM. Locals, please come visit: the shop is at 1110 North G Street, Lake Worth Beach 33460. We won’t be open very much in June, so this will be one of your few opportunities to come by this month. In the Creative Workshops department, we’ve got Kim Spivey teaching a new session of Collagraph Printmaking on Sunday July 27… this also happens to make a great gift. We love a gift that is an experience!

 

Top Image: “Skt. Hans Aften i Norge” by Christian Skredsvig. Oil on canvas, 1886 [Public domain via Wikimedia Commons].