Summer commenced

June 24.

The dogdayish weather continues.

That hilly road through Baker's land to Bare Hill is a true up-country road with the scent of ferns along it.

Start a  woodcock from amid ferns.


All plants leafed, and summer commenced.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, June 24, 1860

Start a woodcock from amid ferns. See June 15, 1851 ("A solitary woodcock in the shade goes off with a startled, rattling, hurried note."); July 15, 1857 ("Scare up . . . two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow, which go off with a whistling flight."); July 18, 1856 ("Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.")

All plants leafed, and summer commenced. See May 17, 1852 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm? "); May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave."); June 4, 1860 (''The leafy season has fairly commenced . . . making already a grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow."); June 21, 1853 ("The farmers have commenced haying. With this the summer culminates.")