March 19 is the Feast of St. Joseph, the patron saint of my mother’s side of the family, the Basgalls and the Kuhns. The traditional family prayer:

“O God, whose attribute it is to be always merciful and to spare, protect us through the intercession of St. Joseph from crop failures. In order to make ourselves, at least to a certain extent, worthy of this grace, we solemnly vow to keep the feast of St. Joseph as a holyday of obligation for all time and to spend some hours of that day in public prayer.” 

Later, they prayed “the powers that be to preserve the growing crop, destroy grasshoppers, worms and bugs and finally to mature the grain, allow a bountiful harvest and furnish a high-priced market.”