06/01/2026
A mere 69 days until the Czech Heritage Festival in Bechyn, Minnesota. (August 9th.)
The month of June is červen. It is an easy month to remember if you like red beer, červené pivo. The month is said as chehrvehn. It is most likely is named for fruit that ripens this month that turns the color red.
Lada always illustrated activities for the particular month. In this painting we see in the center is St. Anthony. This is a Lada original because in later published versions the communists removed the pictures of saints and replacing them with flowers. St. Anthony’s feast day is in June.
You see other June activities such as harvesting winter wheat. There is a harvest wreathe under St. Antony which would be part of the wheat harvest festivities. Plus, you see children picking berries from the ground and cherries from the trees. Racích in the bottom right corner means crayfish. The two boys are stumping for them.
The old man is going for a stroll with the improved weather and the young man puling the woman may very well be part of wedding tradition, June being a month of weddings.
Lada always included the zodiac sign for the month at the bottom of his monthly illustrations, and here we see the crab which is the symbol for cancer (the word derived from the Greek word for crab).
