Let Us Give Thanks

Autumn at the Frog Holler pond

Dear Frog Holler friends,

We gratefully look back on this past season - and past years - for the support of our customers and community AND for the help we have been given from a bushel of willing and enthusiastic helpers. This veggie-centric Thanksgiving poem, by Unitarian minister Rev'd Max Coots, has made the rounds for a number of years. We offer it here, illuminated by photos from the farm and crew members. By no means have we been able to include everyone who has contributed to the farm, but these are representative photos from our CSA newsletters of years past and present. With gratitude, we offer...

 “Let Us Give Thanks” 

by Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

A passel of weeders!

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.
 

Edwin, Kenny, Billy King, 1988

Not blown away!

Let us give thanks:

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

Chrissy Martin, 2011

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

Natalie Davidson Wang, 2013 - not tart, a sweetheart!

Bretton Fobes, 2013 - not tart - feisty and fun!

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

Cale Stoker, Ashleh Worden, 2020

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

Rhubarb chard - no crotchety friends!

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants

Angie Martin, Julian, 2011

and as elegant as a row of corn,

and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

Chrissy Martin, Kirstin Pope, 2011 - plain good diggers!

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

2015

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages,

Edwin King, 2020

as subtle as summer squash,

Julien, 2010

as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill,

as endless as zucchini,

Mary Kate Mathy, 2017

and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;

April, 2021

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,

and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

Tacy, 2013

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, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;

Jupiter

Paul Burger

John Savanna

Bernie Coyne

Ken King

For all these we give thanks. Amen.

Max Coots (1927-2009), was a naturalist and Minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Canton, New York for thirty-five years. Every August, he found solitude along the Grasse River in the barn board retreat he’d built with materials he’d rescued from the dump. Max had a solar shower in 1973.