Coming out of winter can sometimes feel like coming out of hibernation. As spring grows, it doesn’t take quite as much effort, or at least bundling up, to get out of the house and connect with others. Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, reminds us of the importance of these connections:

Garden Meditations

by Rev. Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends…with hearts…and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

Source: “Garden Meditations” by Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, as quoted on Patchwork Reflections.

There’s a chill in the air in the mornings now, as we go deeper into September. And though I have not been able to have a garden in years, this time in early fall always brings to mind, for me, that last session of weeding, before pulling up the last of the harvest, the last few weeks of a farmer’s market, filled with squash and gourds, and soon, pumpkins. There’s something about growing food for your own table, or meeting the person who grew it for you.

From Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York:

Gratitude for the Garden

by Rev. Max Coots

I am finished with my garden for the year—almost. Oh, I’m still playing that game of hide-and-seek with the inevitable frost. Every night, when the temperature counts down to begin the game, I do run out to help the last tomatoes hide.

It was a good year, more or less—more for the snow peas than for the corn, less for the spinach, more for the rest. The turnips were immense, like spheres of opulence, though the radishes went more to maggots than to me. My potatoes remind me of that old country quip: “How’d your padadas do?” “So-so. I got some the size a beans, I got some the size a peas, and then I got a lotta little ones.”

But it was a good year, more or less. Most everything that missed the drought, overcame the weeds, and survived the bugs got home safe enough. From time to time I can go to the freezer and the shelf of jars in my cellar and count my canned contentment. The harvest will be an attitude, not a time of year. And maybe I’ll be wise enough to feel a sort of litany of gratitude:

(Read on … )