May 2026 It’s May! The deciduous trees are putting out their tiny leaves! (hooray) The pine trees are coating the world in yellow pollen! (NOT hooray) And it is time to clean out the planting beds ready to start putting in the vegetables and herbs. If you’d like to support our local farm-to-table donation effort, Community Harvest Project’s Plantapalooza is taking orders until Monday, May 4th for pick-up of plants on May 8th. The plant sale helps fund CHP’s donations of

April 2026 April--my favorite month. And only partly because my birthday is in April. April is also (often) the month that contains Easter and always the month that contains Earth Day, which are two of my most loved holidays. Both where I grew up (in the lower peninsula of Michigan) and here in New England, April is a month of great transformation ! Although we begin the month in the cold rains (and occasional snow) that marks our late winters here, by the end of the mont

March 2026 Are we done with winter yet? The month of March marks the Vernal Equinox, which is also known as the first day of spring, but rarely do we actually get sustained spring-like weather this early in the year. If we’re really lucky, we’ll have some crocuses and maybe even daffodils. Personally I am hoping that we get an early spring after all this snow, especially since the sooner the outdoor temperatures stay over 50 the less work our boiler at UUSGU will have to d

January 2026 Another calendar year has come and gone--and so far this program year we’ve had five Spirited services; Backpack Blessing, Water Communion, Samhain, Thanks-giving, and Winter Solstice, each of them different, unique, and a whole lot of fun (and work). By the way, we still have about a dozen backpack blessing tags, if anyone has lost one and wants another or if you missed that service and would like one. And if any parents happened to take photos of the Winter S

December 2025 This year, Mother Nature decided to welcome us to December with proper wintry weather for once. It always amazes me how the weather works in Massachusetts. I grew up in Michigan, where a winter storm came in with weather that was the same for miles around. We’d get the same amount of snow at 9 Mile road that they did at 16 Mile or in downtown Detroit at 5 Mile. It feels strange to me that the northwest edge of Worcester has such different weather conditions

November 2025 And just like that, it is November already. November is a month for gratitude and for honoring our ancestors. The month contains the biggest “feast” day of the American calendar--Thanksgiving. Our typical imagery and mythology around Thanksgiving has photo-perfect black-clad Pilgrims and Native Americans in buckskins sitting peacefully around long tables together, enjoying the fruits of the Pilgrims’ harvest and the Natives’ hunting. This is the story we le

As we start to settle into our autumn routines, suddenly it becomes October. October is one of my favorite months. The leaves are...

Okay, that summer went far too quickly for me! Even with two weeks of vacation--one in July visiting local beaches and museums with my...

Summer Edition v. 1 Hello! And welcome to the summer edition of the REnews! There will be three issues of the REnews this summer, which...

June 2025 With June come endings and beginnings. Graduations. Last days of school. Weddings. Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. Garden plants springing...

May 2025 And we blink again and it is May! Time to be on the lookout for baby bunnies and squirrels as you go about your yardwork. ...

April 2025 April has always been my favorite month. Forsythias bloom in April, so do azaleas and rhododendrons (sometimes) and redbuds. ...

March 2025 March. Time to start counting the days until snowdrops, then crocuses, then daffodils poke their blooms up through the earth...

February 2025 “As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens” I think I first read that in one of the books in the Little House on the...

January 2025 Happy New Year! Who knows what 2025 is going to bring us? We’ve already had one year full of unprecedented challenges in...

June 2024 Happy Pride Month! As we wrap up the program year with teacher appreciation, Flower Communion, Bridging, and Father’s Day, I...

I’m not sure if March is going to come in like a lion or a lamb, but I am sure as heck tired of February trying to pack every possible...

February 2024 It can be hard to be enthusiastic about the normally gray days of February. Most years we’ve either had enough snow to be...

Welcome to 2024! It seems like the older I get, the faster the years go. Wasn’t it August just last week? We’ve had a great fall with...

It was wonderful to get to see everyone who came to the first three weeks of the program year. Those who came last Sunday had a good time...