{"id":9258,"date":"2019-07-08T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.qvu.ycq.mybluehost.me\/?p=9258"},"modified":"2021-06-29T11:03:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T15:03:34","slug":"july-4th-fireworks-founding-fathers-dog-days-of-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/july-4th-fireworks-founding-fathers-dog-days-of-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"July 4th Fireworks & Founding Fathers, Dog Days of Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Hello Folks,<\/span><\/p>

Aunt Eunice here. I hope you had a chance to celebrate the Fourth of July in a special way. Cookouts and fireworks are typical occurrences, along with parades. My family enjoyed all three activities. The cookout food was delicious and included a fresh corn salad that is easy to make and can be tailored to your family\u2019s taste. <\/span>Barley Corn Salad<\/span><\/a><\/span> If you don\u2019t want to use the barley just add more fresh corn kernels.\u00a0 The parade had bagpipe groups, marching bands, fire trucks and lots of floats, though I must say my favorite float is a root beer one! The fireworks were beautiful and something both young and old look forward to seeing.<\/span><\/p>

Fireworks & American History<\/h3>

USnews.com shared \u2013 Thought to be invented by the Chinese 2,000 years ago, fireworks have been a tradition of America\u2019s Fourth of July celebrations since the country\u2019s inception, with the founding fathers themselves seeing fireworks fit to mark the birth of their nation. In a July 3, 1776 letter to his wife, John Adams declared that the signing of the Declaration of Independence should be a \u201cgreat anniversary Festival\u201d and \u201csolemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.\u201d A year later, Congress itself ordained the tradition, enjoying in Philadelphia \u201ca grand exhibition of fireworks, which began and concluded with thirteen rockets on the commons,\u201d according to the Evening Post. Boston also saw a fireworks display in 1777. In the following years, the tradition spread through the Boston area to New York and other cities.<\/span><\/p>

Dog Days of Summer?<\/h3>

Now that July has arrived, it has been a bit humid and hot. My mother was from the south and she said days like that were \u201cclose\u201d. She and my aunts would also say the dog days of summer were here.\u00a0<\/span>According to almanac.com \u2013 The Dog Days aren\u2019t just when your dog starts panting on a sweltering summer day. These days once coincided with the year\u2019s sunrise rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. Ancient folks thought that the \u201ccombined heat\u201d of Sirius and the Sun caused midsummer\u2019s swelter. The rising of Sirius does not actually affect the weather, but for the ancient Egyptians, Sirius appeared just before the Nile River\u2019s flood season. They used Sirius as a \u201cwatchdog\u201d for that event. Because it also coincided with a time of extreme heat, the connection with hot, sultry weather was made for all of time! According to <\/span>The Old Farmer\u2019s Almanac<\/span><\/i>, the Dog Days of summer are traditionally the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11, which coincide with the dawn rising of Sirius, the Dog Star. This is soon after the <\/span>Summer Solstice<\/span><\/a><\/span>, which of course also indicates that the worst summer heat will soon set in. <\/span>The Old Farmer\u2019s Almanac for Kids<\/span><\/i> tells us all about the Dog Star, Sirius! Here are some of the most important facts: Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, if you don\u2019t count the Sun. Under the right conditions, it can even be seen with the naked eye during the day. Sirius is one star in a group of stars that form the constellation Canis Major, meaning \u201cGreater Dog.\u201d It\u2019s no surprise, then, that the nickname of this big, bold star is Dog Star.<\/span><\/p>

Upcoming Highlights & Events<\/h3>

Well, hot or not the farm is a nice place to visit in the summer. There is always a good breeze wafting through the valley and the buildings are fairly cool. If you get a chance, come out for a tour of the historic farm this week. As a bonus on Tuesday enjoy a Pottery Highlight, on Wednesday it is Quilting, Thursday is the Paper Craft Highlight and Saturday is Bake Oven Day. These activities are no additional charge to your admission and are worth seeing.<\/span><\/p>

That\u2019s all for now and I hope to see you soon. Aunt Eunice<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Folks, Aunt Eunice here. I hope you had a chance to celebrate the Fourth of July in a special way. Cookouts and fireworks are typical occurrences, along with parades. My family enjoyed all three activities. The cookout food was delicious and included a fresh corn salad that is easy to make and can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","category-summertime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietvalley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}