{
  "turnings": [
    {
      "id": "candlemas",
      "name": "Candlemas",
      "emoji": "🕯️",
      "start": "02-02",
      "end": "03-19",
      "explainer": "The midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. Traditionally a day of candle-blessings and weather divination: \"if Candlemas be fair and bright, winter will have another flight.\" The older Welsh and Gaelic tradition called this same turning Imbolc, the feast of St. Brigid, marking the first stirrings of spring beneath still-frozen ground.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "02-01", "name": "St. Brigid's Day / Imbolc", "desc": "Welsh and Gaelic patron of hearth, healing, and early spring; the older name for the Candlemas turning.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbolc"},
        {"date": "02-02", "name": "Candlemas", "desc": "Midpoint of winter; candles blessed, weather divined.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlemas"},
        {"date": "02-14", "name": "Valentine's Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:tax-holiday-weather", "name": "Severe weather sales tax holiday", "desc": "Alabama takes its sales tax off batteries, tarps, flashlights, weather radios, and generators for one weekend, and most of Jefferson County takes the local share off too. It runs the last full weekend of February.", "url": "https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/sales-tax-holidays/"},
        {"date": "movable:mardi-gras", "name": "Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday", "desc": "The last day before Lent; Mobile hosts the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the United States.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras"},
        {"date": "movable:ash-wednesday", "name": "Ash Wednesday", "desc": "The start of Lent in the Western Christian tradition.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday"},
        {"date": "month:02", "name": "First peepers calling", "desc": "Spring peeper frogs begin their evening chorus; Alabama's earliest nighttime sign of spring.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "month:02", "name": "Turn the garden when the soil crumbles", "desc": "Squeeze a handful. If it packs into a ball and holds that shape it is still too wet to work, and turning it now leaves clods that stay all season. If it falls apart in your hand, the beds are ready.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "03-01", "name": "St. David's Day / Dydd Gŵyl Dewi", "desc": "The patron saint of Wales. Leeks and daffodils are worn for him.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "month:03", "name": "Welsh daffodils in bloom", "desc": "The flower of Wales, and one of the first things to show color in these yards.", "url": ""}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "quickening",
      "name": "Quickening",
      "emoji": "🌱",
      "start": "03-20",
      "end": "04-30",
      "explainer": "An old English word for the first undeniable signs of life returning, when seeds swell past dormancy, sap rises, and the earth \"quickens.\" The same root as \"the quick and the dead.\" Lady Day on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was the legal New Year in Britain until 1752.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "03-19", "name": "St. Joseph's Day / San Giuseppe", "desc": "Major Sicilian-American feast; St. Joseph's altars and zeppole.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "03-20", "name": "Spring Equinox", "desc": "Day and night of equal length; the astronomical start of spring.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "03-25", "name": "Lady Day / Feast of the Annunciation", "desc": "The historic British New Year until 1752, and one of the four quarter days of the old legal calendar.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:easter", "name": "Easter", "desc": "Christian feast of the Resurrection; includes Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter"},
        {"date": "movable:good-friday", "name": "Good Friday planting", "desc": "Families here have put the garden in on Good Friday for generations, potatoes and beans first. The date moves with Easter, so some years it lands ahead of the last frost around March 20 and the tender things are better held back a week or two.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "month:04", "name": "Dogwoods bloom", "desc": "The old signal that the ground has warmed enough to put the garden in.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "04-22", "name": "Earth Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day"},
        {"date": "04-23", "name": "St. George's Day", "desc": "Patron saint of England and Catalonia; dragons and spring flowers.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:arbor-day", "name": "Arbor Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_Day"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "beltane",
      "name": "Beltane",
      "emoji": "🔥",
      "start": "05-01",
      "end": "06-20",
      "explainer": "The Welsh name for this turning is Calan Mai, the beginning of summer in the old Celtic reckoning. Bonfires were historically lit at dusk on May Eve. The modern May Day falls on the same date with different resonance: spring flowers, labor, and May baskets.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "05-01", "name": "Beltane / Calan Mai", "desc": "The Celtic and Welsh beginning of summer; bonfires historically lit at dusk on May Eve.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane"},
        {"date": "05-01", "name": "May Day", "desc": "Spring flowers, May baskets, and the international labor holiday.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:mothers-day", "name": "Mother's Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:memorial-day", "name": "Memorial Day", "desc": "The federal holiday for the war dead. The older observance here is Decoration Day, the day before.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day"},
        {"date": "movable:decoration-day", "name": "Decoration Day", "desc": "The older Southern tradition of cleaning family graves, predating and originally distinct from federal Memorial Day; observed by many Alabama families on the Sunday nearest Memorial Day.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoration_Day_(Southern)"},
        {"date": "month:06", "name": "Fireflies emerge", "desc": "The bottoms along the creek hold them longest, and a still warm evening down there is the place to stand for it.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "month:06", "name": "Mulberries ripen", "desc": "They come in along fence rows and back yards, and the birds reach the top of the tree before anybody else does.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "06-19", "name": "Juneteenth", "desc": "Commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas in 1865.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "midsummer",
      "name": "Midsummer",
      "emoji": "☀️",
      "start": "06-21",
      "end": "07-31",
      "explainer": "The summer solstice and the days around it. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night is June 23, the eve of St. John's Day, a date when bonfires were lit across both Wales and Sicily. The longest days of the year, when the sun seems to pause before turning back.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "06-21", "name": "Summer Solstice", "desc": "The longest day of the year.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "06-24", "name": "St. John's Day / Midsummer proper", "desc": "Bonfires observed across Wales and Sicily; Shakespeare's Midsummer Night is the eve before.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer"},
        {"date": "07-03", "name": "Dog Days begin", "desc": "The traditional Dog Days run July 3 through August 11, when Sirius the Dog Star rises with the sun.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days"},
        {"date": "07-04", "name": "Independence Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(United_States)"},
        {"date": "07-04", "name": "Pumpkins go in for Halloween", "desc": "A pumpkin wants somewhere near a hundred days from seed to porch, which puts planting here at the Fourth of July. Sow much later than that and they are still green when the trick or treaters come.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "07-15", "name": "Feast of St. Rosalia", "desc": "Patron of Palermo; major festa with processions and lights, observed wherever Sicilian-Americans settled.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia"},
        {"date": "movable:tax-holiday-school", "name": "Back to school sales tax holiday", "desc": "No state sales tax on clothes, school supplies, and computers from Friday morning through Sunday night, and most cities and counties around here waive their share as well. It is the third weekend in July.", "url": "https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/sales-tax-holidays/"},
        {"date": "month:07", "name": "Figs ripen", "desc": "Southern and Sicilian staple; sacred to Mediterranean tradition.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "07-20", "name": "Perseid meteor shower begins building", "desc": "Peaks in mid-August around the Feast of St. Lawrence.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "lammas",
      "name": "Lammas",
      "emoji": "🌾",
      "start": "08-01",
      "end": "09-21",
      "explainer": "From the Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, \"loaf-mass,\" the day when the first wheat of the harvest was baked into bread and brought to church to be blessed. The older Gaelic name is Lughnasadh. This is the turning of the year when summer's long labor starts paying out.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "08-01", "name": "Lammas / Loaf-Mass", "desc": "The first wheat of the harvest blessed into bread; one of the four cross-quarter days of the old calendar.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas"},
        {"date": "08-10", "name": "Feast of St. Lawrence / San Lorenzo", "desc": "The Perseids peak on his feast; the shooting stars are traditionally called \"the tears of St. Lawrence.\"", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Rome"},
        {"date": "08-15", "name": "Ferragosto / Feast of the Assumption", "desc": "The great Italian summer holiday, rooted in both Roman and Catholic observance.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferragosto"},
        {"date": "month:08", "name": "Katydids begin", "desc": "Southern folk tradition holds that first frost comes six weeks after the first katydid call.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "movable:labor-day", "name": "Labor Day", "desc": "The Brookside council meeting moves off this Monday to the one after it.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day"},
        {"date": "month:09", "name": "Muscadines ripen", "desc": "The native Southern grape. It grows wild along the creek edges and it is worth the walk.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "month:09", "name": "The fall garden goes in", "desc": "Collards, turnips, mustard, and cabbage set out now come in through the cool weather, and the first frost sweetens the greens instead of ending them.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "movable:harvest-moon", "name": "Harvest Moon", "desc": "The full moon nearest the autumn equinox; the brightest and earliest-rising full moon of the year.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_moon"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "michaelmas",
      "name": "Michaelmas",
      "emoji": "🍂",
      "start": "09-22",
      "end": "10-31",
      "explainer": "The Feast of St. Michael, September 29. One of the four historic quarter days of the British legal calendar, the day when rents came due, servants were hired, and the year turned toward its darker half. Michaelmas daisies bloom in Alabama right around now.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "09-22", "name": "Autumn Equinox", "desc": "Day and night of equal length; the astronomical start of fall.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "09-29", "name": "Michaelmas / Feast of St. Michael", "desc": "One of the four quarter days of the old British legal calendar, when rents came due and the year turned toward its darker half.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas"},
        {"date": "10-04", "name": "Feast of St. Francis", "desc": "Traditional day for the blessing of animals.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Saint_Francis_of_Assisi"},
        {"date": "month:10", "name": "Michaelmas daisies bloom", "desc": "The purple asters take their name from this turning, and they open right on time for it.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "movable:hunters-moon", "name": "Hunter's Moon", "desc": "The first full moon after the Harvest Moon.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter%27s_moon"},
        {"date": "month:10", "name": "First frost window opens", "desc": "The first frost here has historically landed in early November.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "month:10", "name": "Persimmons ripen after first frost", "desc": "Southern folk holds that the frost is what sweetens them, and a persimmon picked early will teach you why.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "10-31", "name": "Halloween / All Hallows' Eve", "desc": "The eve of Hallowtide and its popular face.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "hallowtide",
      "name": "Hallowtide",
      "emoji": "🕸️",
      "start": "11-01",
      "end": "12-20",
      "explainer": "The old English name for the three-day arc of All Hallows' Eve, All Saints, and All Souls. The Welsh called this same turning Calan Gaeaf, winter's beginning. The Sicilian tradition of Il Giorno dei Morti, gifts left for children from deceased relatives, lives in this stretch of days.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "11-01", "name": "All Saints' Day / Calan Gaeaf", "desc": "The Welsh beginning of winter and the first day of Hallowtide.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calan_Gaeaf"},
        {"date": "movable:brookside-food-festival", "name": "Russian and Slavic Food Festival, Brookside", "desc": "St. Nicholas puts this on the first Saturday and Sunday of November, at the parish hall on Pastor Street. Holupki, klobasa and kraut, potato dumplings, piroshki, and borscht, from recipes the families who came to mine here brought with them. The parish was founded in 1894 and is the oldest Orthodox church in Alabama.", "url": "https://www.stnicholasbrookside.org/"},
        {"date": "11-02", "name": "All Souls' Day / Il Giorno dei Morti", "desc": "In the Sicilian tradition, the day the dead return bearing gifts for children.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls%27_Day"},
        {"date": "11-11", "name": "Veterans' Day / Armistice Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Day"},
        {"date": "month:11", "name": "Turn the spent beds under", "desc": "Once the first frost around November 15 has finished the summer garden, the vines and leaves turned under now have all winter to break down, and the beds come out ahead in March.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "11-17", "name": "Leonid meteor shower peaks", "desc": "One of the year's reliable meteor showers.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonids"},
        {"date": "movable:thanksgiving", "name": "Thanksgiving", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)"},
        {"date": "12-06", "name": "St. Nicholas Day", "desc": "European Christian tradition of shoes left out for small gifts.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas_Day"},
        {"date": "12-07", "name": "Earliest sunsets of the year", "desc": "The sun sets earliest a week before the solstice itself.", "url": ""},
        {"date": "12-13", "name": "Santa Lucia", "desc": "Observed especially in eastern Sicily; traditionally no wheat or bread is eaten, and cuccìa (a wheat berry pudding) is made.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy%27s_Day"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "yuletide",
      "name": "Yuletide",
      "emoji": "❄️",
      "start": "12-21",
      "end": "02-01",
      "explainer": "The old Germanic name for the turning around the winter solstice, kept in English long after Christmas absorbed most of its practices. Traditionally a full season rather than a single day, running from solstice through Twelfth Night on January 5. The longest nights of the year, and the slow turn back toward light.",
      "entries": [
        {"date": "12-21", "name": "Winter Solstice / Yule", "desc": "The longest night of the year and the start of Yuletide.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule"},
        {"date": "12-24", "name": "Christmas Eve / La Vigilia", "desc": "In Sicilian tradition, the Feast of the Seven Fishes.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Seven_Fishes"},
        {"date": "12-25", "name": "Christmas Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas"},
        {"date": "12-31", "name": "New Year's Eve", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve"},
        {"date": "01-01", "name": "New Year's Day", "desc": "", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Day"},
        {"date": "01-05", "name": "Twelfth Night", "desc": "The end of the twelve days of Christmas; traditionally the night to take down the greenery.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(holiday)"},
        {"date": "01-06", "name": "Epiphany / La Befana", "desc": "In Italian tradition, an old witch flies from house to house leaving gifts for children, older than Santa Claus in the Italian imagination.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana"},
        {"date": "movable:mlk-day", "name": "Martin Luther King Jr. Day", "desc": "Third Monday in January.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr._Day"},
        {"date": "01-25", "name": "Dydd Santes Dwynwen", "desc": "The Welsh Valentine's Day; patron saint of lovers.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwynwen"},
        {"date": "02-02", "name": "Groundhog Day", "desc": "Descended directly from the Candlemas tradition of weather divination.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day"}
      ]
    }
  ]
}