How to Inspire a Person – John Lubbock
5
06, 2024
3
06, 2024
June Weddings and Wedding Dresses
June is the most popular month for weddings.
But why?
According to Bridetide, there are several reasons:
Weather
Temperatures are moderate in June, not too warm and rarely too cold, making outdoor weddings a choice.
Flowers
June offers a wider (and cheaper) choice of colorful flowers to help lower the cost of a wedding.
Favor from Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage.
Romans planned weddings in June believing their marriage would be showered with luck and good wishes from the gods above. The tradition continued.
Historical reasons include:
Harvest
Wedding dates in the past were chosen based on peak harvest times. If you married in June, a summer pregnancy would still be early enough in the season that a wife could help with manual work during that year’s harvest period. A spring birth meant the recovered bride would be able to help in the next year’s harvest.
Bathing
At one time in our culture, regular bathing was a once-a-year event usually during the last part of May or the beginning of June. A June wedding meant the couple would have had their “annual bath” and were the most presentable (less stinky).
Back in 1938, my parents scheduled a June wedding most likely because of the weather. We live in Texas and it’s not yet unbearably hot. Her mother made her wedding dress of imported Alençon lace.
It’s a wedding dress with a unique story to tell.
Twenty-five years after my mother and father’s June wedding, I wore the same dress.
We chose our non-June wedding date for practical reasons. Back then, the Memorial Day holiday was celebrated on May 30 and that year it was a Thursday, the day we married. We honeymooned nearby over the weekend and returned on Monday to classes and jobs.
Twenty-four years later, our daughter aka Chicken Wrangler Sara wore the dress at her wedding. Sara chose the second most popular month for weddings – August.
Three times a firstborn daughter has worn the beautiful hand-stitched dress. Each time with only minor alterations.
My mother was only four feet eleven inches tall, so my grandmother let the hem out for me to wear, then I added lace to the hem for my daughter, who was a couple of inches taller than I am.
Between weddings, the dress stays tucked safely in a cedar chest which was originally my mother’s hope chest.
31
05, 2024
Volunteer Pumpkin Patch
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
There is a vine growing just outside the chicken yard. It has pretty yellow flowers that look like squash blossoms.
Bill was at the house this week and asked about the plant. When I couldn’t identify it, he looked it up. It turns out that it is a pumpkin plant.
I was very excited until he told me there must be a male and female plant to produce fruit.
Then I discovered another vine closer to the front gate
Maybe this one is the mate of the other one.
Perhaps we can have our own pumpkin patch by Fall!
29
05, 2024
27
05, 2024
Memorial Day Tribute – A Moment to Remember
Today we honor those who knew the risks, who accepted the odds, and who marched onward anyway.
Those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Let us pause for a moment of silence at some point in our celebration of school’s out, summer’s here today, and remember their sacrifice.
24
05, 2024
Memorial Day Weekend
Hearing “Happy Memorial Day” greetings is hard for me. I understand we equate the weekend as the beginning of summer and that is a happy thing.
BUT Memorial Day is not about going to the beach or having a cookout.
Those things aren’t wrong. Not at all. I enjoy a hot dog or a hamburger with family and friends and celebrating what signals the start of summer same as anyone else.
I’m just saying that we should also remember why Memorial Day was originally set up.
Memorial Day is for all those soldiers who are gone but never forgotten.
If you are a military family, it’s a day filled with hard memories, not a carefree day. Even if you have no military connection, most likely you’ve lost friends who served. Memorial Day is a day to remember them.
The whole month of May is designated Military Appreciation Month which makes confusion understandable.
Armed Forces Day (May 18) and Veterans Day (November 11) give Americans a way to thank current service members. Thank you for your service, greetings are welcome.
Memorial Day honors those who have paid the ultimate price in service to our nation. If you know a Gold Star family, perhaps a Sorry for your loss is more appropriate than Happy Memorial Day.
This chart explains.
Sometime during this Memorial Day weekend why not stop for a minute to remember our fallen heroes?
22
05, 2024
20
05, 2024
Rainstorms
It’s raining, it’s pouring.
That’s been the situation where I live for too many days lately. Yesterday, we had another wild storm.
As the rain and wind increased, a poem my grandmother quoted during rainstorms ran through my head.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man is snoring.
He went to bed, and he bumped his head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning.
With a quick Google check for the origin, I was gravely disappointed to learn that the nursery rhyme wasn’t talking about the weather at all, but a tale of a man who liked to drink.
I prefer thinking it’s about rain. That’s what my grandmother said, and she was smarter than Google.
The poem is also a catchy folk song.
The rains are gone today, but I’m not singing. The devastating storm with one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds knocked out power lines. Take a look at this screen capture from our local news station:
Plus there were lots of trees and limbs downed. Predictions range from hours to days to weeks to get everything up and running again.
I’ll still be singing my grandmother’s nursery rhyme during the next storm, but for now, I’m thankful we have a whole house generator.
17
05, 2024
Transplanting Flowers
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
My father-in-law had some beautiful amaryllis in his yard. Since there was an abundance, we decided to dig some up to transplant in our yard.
As I sat in the flower bed with a shovel, I looked up and saw the fire hydrant on the corner. 
I thought about the time Alex and I walked around the block counting fire hydrants.
The For Sale sign next to the fire hydrant reminded me it was the end of that era.
No more visits to see Opa.
I continued digging and accidentally cut the stem of one of the amaryllis. It looked like it was bleeding. 
For a moment, I felt a connection with this plant.
My heart was bleeding also.
I brought the plants home and planted them around our mailbox. They appear to be making the transition well. I know our family will also transition. It may just take a little longer.
15
05, 2024
