Harvest

Today I am thankful for the turning of the seasons. Autumn is giving way to winter. I always joke that winter is my fourth favorite season, and that's a fact. Still, it is right that the seasons should succeed one another. As the Lord said, while savoring Noah's offering:

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.

Elizabeth von Arnim remarks:

It is delightful and instructive to potter among one's plants, but it is imperative for body and soul that the pottering should cease for a few months, and that we should be made to realise that grim other side of life. A long hard winter lived through from beginning to end without shirking is one of the most salutary experiences in the world.

The Solitary Summer

And in the encouraging words of Percy Bysshe Shelley:

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Ode to the West Wind