The dew reflects moonlight.

October. 28

Sunset from the Poplar Hill. A warm, moist afternoon. The clouds lift in the west, — indeed the horizon is now clear all around.

October 28, 2019

Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. The air is filled with a remarkably vaporous haze. The shadows of the trees on the river's edge stretch straight a quarter of a mile into the level russet Great Meadows. 

The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown. 

8 p.m.— To Cliffs.

After whatever revolutions in my moods and experiences, when I come forth at evening, as if from years of confinement to the house, I see the few stars which make the constellation of the Lesser Bear in the same relative position, - the everlasting geometry of the stars. 

The moon beginning to wane. It is a quite warm but moist night. The dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight like glow-worms.

That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow.

The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree resounds all night, though some have but a few leaves left to flutter and hum.

Four months of the green leaf make all our summer, if I reckon from June 1st to October 1st, the growing season, and methinks there are about four months when the ground is white with snow. That would leave two months for spring and two for autumn. October the month of ripe or painted leaves; November the month of withered leaves and bare twigs and limbs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1852

Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. See October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light;"); See also October 21 1857 ("I see, this cool and grayish evening, that peculiar yellow light in the east, from the sun at little before its setting. It has just come out beneath a great cold slate-colored cloud that occupies most of the western sky, as smaller ones the eastern, and now its rays, slanting over the hill in whose shadow I float, fall on the eastern trees and hills with a thin, yellow light"); October 22, 1852 ("We have to-night a bright warm sunset after a cool gray afternoon, lighting up the green pines at the northeast end of the pond"); October 22, 1854 ("t was a beautiful evening, and a clear amber sunset lit up all the eastern shores"); October 27, 1858 ("We have a cool, white sunset, Novemberish, and no redness to warm our thoughts."); October 31, 1858 ("Looking off just before sunset, when all other trees visible for miles around are reddish or green, I distinguish my new acquaintance by its yellow color"); and also August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset."); November 14, 1853 ("October is the month of painted leaves, . . .it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. . . .This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”)

The sun setting red

in haze at the same time as

the full moon rises.

October 8, 1851

The mountains distinct –

the sunset sky white and cold

now as I come home.

October 17, 1857

A bright warm sunset

after a gray afternoon

lights up every leaf.

October 22, 1852

October is the

red sunset sky, November

the later twilight. 

October 24, 1858

That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow. See January 24, 1852 ("And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night.”)

October the month of ripe or painted leaves. See August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.”); November 14, 1853 (“October . . . is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky.”)

The boys are gathering walnuts. See October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts."); October 24, 1857 ("I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. ")

The dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight. See Dogen ("The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.. . .. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.") and May 13, 1860 ("Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself."); June 11, 1851 ("The woodland paths are never seen to such advantage as in a moonlight night . . . Hardly two nights are alike. I now descend round the corner of the grain-field . . .and find myself in a colder, damp and misty atmosphere, with much dew on the grass. There is something creative and primal in the cool mist. . . .I seem to be nearer to the origin of things.")

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Sunny lees and sheltered nooks

October 26. 

It is cool today and windier. The water is rippled considerably. At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides, as that under the pitch pines by Walden shore, where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat. 

The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter, -push up and blossom anew. 

And a few oak leaves in sheltered nooks do not wither.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1852

Another Indian-summer day.

October 24.

Rode to Stow via powder-mills with W.E.C., returning via the fir tree house, Vose's Hill, and Corner.  

I saw in Stow some trees fuller of apples still than I remember to have ever seen. Small yellow apples hanging over the road. The branches were gracefully drooping with the weight of the fruit. 

The road through the woods this side the powder-mills was very gorgeous with the sun shining endwise through it, and the red tints of the deciduous trees, now somewhat imbrowned, mingled with the liquid green of the pines.  

At the fall on the river at Parker's paper-mill, there is a bright sparkle on the water long before we get to it. 

The larches in the swamps are now conspicuously yellow and ready for their fall. They can now be distinguished at a distance. 

I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts. 

There is an agreeable prospect from near the post-office in the northwest of Sudbury. The southeast ( ) horizon is very distant, — but what perhaps makes it more agreeable, it is a low distance, — extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. 

You are more impressed with the extent of earth overlooked than if the view were bounded by mountains.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, October 24, 1852

The red tints of the deciduous trees mingled with the liquid green of the pines. See October 9, 1857 ("From Lupine Hill, not only the maples, etc., have acquired brighter tints at this season, but the pines, by contrast, appear to have acquired a new and more liquid green,”)

The larches in the swamps are now conspicuously yellow and ready for their fall. They can now be distinguished at a distance. See November 1, 1858 ("Now you easily detect where larches grow, viz. in the swamp north of Sleepy Hollow. They are far more distinct than at any other season. They are very regular soft yellow pyramids, as I see them from the Poplar Hill. . . .These trees now cannot easily be mistaken for any other, because they are the only conspicuously yellow trees now left in the woods, except a very few aspens of both kinds, not one in a square mile, and these are of a very different hue as well as form, the birches, etc.,; having fallen. . . .  But in the summer it is not easy to distinguish them either by their color or form at a distance.”);  November 9, 1858 ("The trees on the hill just north of Alcott’s land, which I saw yesterday so distinctly from Ponkawtasset, and thought were either larches or aspens, prove to be larches. On a hill like this it seems they are later to change and brighter now than those in the Abel Heywood swamp, which are brownish-yellow. The first-named larches were quite as distinct amid the pines seen a mile off as near at hand.”)

There is an agreeable prospect . . . extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. See November 7, 1851 ("Thence across lots by the Weston elm, to the bounds of Lincoln at the railroad.")

Oct. 24. Another Indian-summer day. P. M. — Rode to Stow via powder-mills with W. E. C, returning via the fir tree house, Vose's Hill, and Corner. The road through the woods this side the powder- mills was very gorgeous with the sun shining endwise through it, and the red tints of the deciduous trees, now somewhat imbrowned, mingled with the liquid green of the pines. The andromeda is already browned, has a grayish-brown speckled look. I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts. At the fall on the river at Parker's paper-mill, there is a bright sparkle on the water long before we get to it. I saw in Stow some trees fuller of apples still than I remember to have ever seen. Small yellow apples hanging over the road. The branches were gracefully drooping with the weight of the fruit like a barberry bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. The topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions. The larches in the swamps are now conspicuously yellow and ready for their fall. They can now be distinguished at a distance. There is an agreeable pros pect from near the post-office in the northwest of Sudbury. The southeast ( ?) horizon is very distant, — but what perhaps makes it more agreeable, it is a low distance, — extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. You are more impressed with the extent of earth overlooked than if the view were bounded by mountains.
 

We have to-night a bright warm sunset after a cool gray afternoon.

October 22.

October 22, 2020

When I approach the pond over Heywood's Peak, I disturb a hawk on a white pine by the water watching for his prey, with long, narrow, sharp wings and a white belly. He flies slowly across the pond somewhat like a gull. He is the more picturesque object against the woods or water for being white beneath.

October 22, 2018

We have to-night a bright warm sunset after a cool gray afternoon, lighting up the green pines at the northeast end of the pond; every yellow leaf of birch or aspen or hickory is doubly bright, and, looking over the forest on Pine Hill, I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sunshine and which are the yellow chestnut-tops.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1852

A hawk on a white pine by the water watching for his prey, with long, narrow, sharp wings. See October 22, 1859 (“A marsh hawk sails over Fair Haven Hill”); October 22, 1857 (“A small hawk — pigeon or sparrow - glides along and alights on an elm. ”); October 22, 1855 (“Suddenly a pigeon hawk dashes over the bank very low and within a rod of me .”)

We have to-night a bright warm sunset after a cool gray afternoon, lighting up the green pines at the northeast end of the pond; See October 22, 1854 ("t was a beautiful evening, and a clear amber sunset lit up all the eastern shores") See also October 28, 1852 ("The clouds lift in the west . . . Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape.");  October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light;"); October 31, 1858 ("Looking off just before sunset, when all other trees visible for miles around are reddish or green, I distinguish my new acquaintance by its yellow color"); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset."); November 14, 1853 ("October is the month of painted leaves, . . .it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. . . .This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”)

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The journey to the mountaintop

October 20. 

Think not your journey

to the mountantop is lost

that you have no glass.

Many a man, when I tell him that I have been on to a mountain, asks if I took a glass with me. No doubt, I could have seen further with a glass, and particular objects more distinctly, - could have counted more meeting-houses; but this has nothing to do with the peculiar beauty and grandeur of the view which an elevated position affords. 

It was not to see a few particular objects, as if they were near at hand, as I had been accustomed to see them, that I ascended the mountain, but to see an infinite variety far and near in their relation to each other, thus reduced to a single picture.

The facts of science, in comparison with poetry, are wont to be as vulgar as looking from the mountain with a telescope. It is a counting of meeting-houses.

At the public house, the mountain-house, they keep a glass to let, and think the journey to the mountaintop is lost, that you have got but half the view, if you have not taken a glass with you.

 H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 20, 1852

As vulgar as looking from the mountain with a telescope.  See March 13, 1854 ("Bought a telescope to-day");  January 31, 1855 ("As I passed the mouth of Larned Brook, off Wayland meeting-house, I pulled out my glass and saw that it was 12.30 o’clock."); March 18, 1858 ("I sit on the Cliff, and look toward Sudbury. I see its meeting-houses and its common, and its fields lie but little beyond my ordinary walk, but I never played on its common nor read the epitaphs in its graveyard, and many strangers to me dwell there. How distant in all important senses may be the town which yet is within sight! We see beyond our ordinary walks and thoughts. With a glass I might perchance read the time on its clock.")

I see the mountains in sunshine

October 20. 

Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. 

Picking chestnuts on Pine Hill. A rather cold and wind, somewhat wintry afternoon, the heavens overcast. Tlre clouds have lifted in the northwest.  I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them. A cold but memorable and glorious outline. This is an advantage of mountains in the horizon: they show you fair weather from the midst of foul.

The small red Solomon's-seal berries spot the ground here and there amid the dry leaves. 

The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 20, 1852

Aster undulatus .  See September 19, 1856 ("Observed an Aster undulatus behind oak at foot of hill on Assabet . . ."); October 2, 1859 ("The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce."); October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus"); October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. "); October 19, 1856 ("The A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only [aster]of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")

Autumnal dandelion, . . . yarrow, mayweed. See October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow, ...”); November 23, 1852 (" Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc"); December 6, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since.")

This is an advantage of mountains in the horizon... see May 24, 1860 (“ This is one of the values of mountains in the horizon, that they indicate the state of the atmosphere.”)

The fringed gentian

October 19.

At 5 P.M. I found the fringed gentian now somewhat stale and touched with frost, being in the meadow toward Peter's. Probably on high, moist ground it is fresher.

It may have been in bloom a month. It has been cut off by the mower, and apparently has put out in consequence a mass of short branches full of flowers. This may make it later. 

I doubt if I can find one naturally grown. At this hour the blossoms are tightly rolled and twisted, and I see that the bees have gnawed round holes in their sides to come at the nectar. They have found them, though I had not.

It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it  is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.  

It is remarkable how tightly the gentians roll and twist up at night, as if that were their constant state.  Probably those bees were working late that found it necessary to perforate the flower.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 19, 1852

Ths conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories. See. October 5, 1858 ("8 A. M. — I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. They begin to open in the sun about 8.30 A. M., or say 9"); October 10, 1858 ("To Annursnack  . . . I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence."); October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack . . . The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime, and also along the north edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows"); October 18, 1857 ("The fringed gentian closes every night and opens every morning in my pitcher.")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

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Our thoughts begin to prepare for winter.

October 15.

The first snow is falling in large flakes, filling the air and obscuring the distant woods and houses, as if the inhabitants above were emptying their pillow-cases. The ground begins to whiten, and our thoughts begin to prepare for winter. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 15, 1852

See October 27, 1851 ("This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow, quite unexpectedly, . . . The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. The cold numbs my fingers. Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.")

Signs of the season.

October 14.

That coarse yellowish fungus is very common in the paths in woods of late, for a month, often picked by birds, often decayed, often mashed by the foot like a piece of pumpkin, defiling and yellowing the grass, as if a liquor (or dust) distilled from them. 

The pines are now two-colored, green and yellow, — the latter just below the ends of the boughs. 

The woods have lost so many leaves they begin to look bare, — maples, poplars, etc., chestnuts. Flowers are fast disappearing. Winter may be anticipated. 

But few crickets are heard. Jays and chickadees are oftener heard in the fall than in summer. 

It is apparently the Eriophorum Virginicum, Virginian cotton-grass, now nodding or waving with its white woolly heads over the greenish andromeda and amid the red isolated blueberry bushes in Beck Stow's Swamp. A thousand white woolly heads, one to two inches in diameter, suggesting winter. 

The lower or older leaves of the andromeda begin to redden. This plant forms extensive solid beds with a definite surface, level or undulating, like a moss bed. Not, like the huckleberry, irregular and independent each of the other, but regular and in community, as if covered by a film.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 14, 1852

The pines are now two-colored, green and yellow. See October 14, 1857 ("They are regularly parti-colored. The last year's leaves, about a foot beneath the extremities of the twigs on all sides, now changed and ready to fall, have their period of brightness as well as broader leaves. They are a clear yellow, contrasting with the fresh and liquid green of the terminal plumes, or this year's leaves. These two quite distinct colors are thus regularly and equally distributed over the whole tree. You have the warmth of the yellow and the coolness of the green.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pine Fall

The lower or older leaves of the andromeda begin to redden. See October 7, 1857 ("I see some panicled andromeda dark red or crimson."); October 24, 1852 ("The andromeda is already browned, has a grayish-brown speckled look."); October 23, 1858 ("Panicled andromeda reddish-brown and half fallen. ); October 23, 1858 ("I detect but few Andromeda Polifolia and Kalmia glauca leaves turned a light red or scarlet."); November 3, 1858 ("The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this."); November 17, 1859 (“How fair and memorable this prospect when you stand opposite to the sun, these November afternoons, and look over the red andromeda swamp”) See also February 17, 1854 (" In these swamps, then, you have three kinds of andromeda. The main swamp is crowded with high blueberry, panicled andromeda, prinos, swamp-pink, etc.. . . and then in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. These are pleasing gardens.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

A peaceful landscape

October 13. 

It is a clear, warm, rather Indian-summer day, and they are gathering the apples in the orchard. The warmth is more required, and we welcome and appreciate it all. The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks.

Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows. Crowded together at a distance they look like smoke. 

This is a sudden and important change. The autumnal tints have already lost their brightness. It lasts but a day or two.

Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season, framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills. The water or lake, from however distant a point seen, is always the center of the landscape. Birches, hickories, aspens, in the distance, are like small flames on the hillsides about the pond.

Fair Haven lies more open and can be seen from more distant points than any of our ponds. The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple. Far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke. There is no disturbing sound.

How peaceful great nature!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 13, 1852


Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season, framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills. See October 3, 1858 ("Looking all around Fair Haven Pond yesterday, where the maples were glowing amid the evergreens, my eyes invariably rested on a particular small maple of the purest and intensest scarlet. ") October 22, 1857 (" Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?")

The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple. See October 20,1852 (“I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them.”); September 22, 1854 (“[A]s the sun is preparing to dip below the horizon, the thin haze in the atmosphere north and south along the west horizon reflects a purple tinge and bathes the mountains with the same, like a bloom on fruits. ”)

P. M.— To Cliffs.

Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows, where, crowded together, at a distance they look like smoke.

This is a sudden and important change, produced mainly, I suppose, by the rain of Sunday, 10th.

The autumnal tints have commonly already lost their brightness.

It lasts but a day or two.

Corn-spurry and spotted polygonum and polygala.

Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season.

It is a sufficiently clear and warm, rather Indian-summer day, and they are gathering the apples in the orchard.

The warmth is more required, and we welcome and appreciate it all.

The shrub oak plain is now a deep red, with grayish, withered, apparently white oak leaves intermixed.

The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks.

Birches, hickories, aspens, etc., in the distance, are like innumerable small flames on the hillsides about the pond.

The pond is now most beautifully framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills.

The water or lake, from however distant a point seen, is always the centre of the landscape.

Fair Haven lies more open and can be seen from more distant points than any of our ponds.

The air is singularly fine-grained; the sward looks short and firm.

The mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly impurpled.

Seeming to lie up more.

How peaceful great nature! There is no disturbing sound, but far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke in constant volumes.

That handsome kind of sedge ( ?) which lasts through the winter must be the Scirpus Eriophorum, red cotton- grass of Bigelow, and wool-grass (under bulrush and club-rush) of Gray.

A new carpet of pine leaves.

October 12.

A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. The forest is laying down her carpet for the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1852

See October 13, 1855 ("A thick carpet of white pine needles lies now lightly, half an inch or more in thickness, above the dark-reddish ones of last year."); October 16, 1855 ("How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground! quite like a carpet.") See also A Book of the Seasons:  The pine fall ("There is a season when pine leaves are yellow, and when they are fallen.")


Oct. 12. I am struck by the superfluity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints. Can it be because there is less vapor? The delicacy of the stratification in the white sand by the railroad, where they have been getting out sand for the brick-yards, the delicate stratification of this great globe like the leaves of the choicest volume just shut on a lady's table. The piled-up history! I am struck by the slow and delicate process by which the globe was formed.

Paddled on Walden. A rippled surface. Scared up ducks. Saw them first far over the surface, just risen, — two smaller, white-bellied, one larger, black. They circled round as usual, and the first went off, but the black one went round and round and over the pond five or six times at a considerable height and distance, when I thought several times he had gone to the river, and at length settled down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile into a distant part of the pond which I had left free; but what beside safety these ducks get by sailing in the middle of Walden I don't know.2 That black rolling-pin with wings, circling round you half a mile off for a quarter of an hour, at that height, from which he sees the river and Fair Haven all the while, from which he sees so many things, while I see almost him alone. Their wings set so far back. They are not handsome, but wild.

What an ample share of the light of heaven each pond and lake on the surface of the globe enjoys ! No woods are so dark and deep but it is light above the pond. Its window or skylight is as broad as its surface. It lies out patent to the sky. From the mountain-top you may not be able to see out because of the woods, but on the lake you are bathed in light.

 I can discern no skaters nor water-bugs on the sur face of the pond, which is now rippled. Do they, then, glide forth to the middle in calm days only, by short impulses, till they have completely covered it ?

A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. The forest is laying down her carpet for the winter. The elms in the village, losing their leaves, reveal the birds' nests.

 I dug some ground-nuts in the railroad bank with my hands this afternoon, the vine being now dead. They were nearly as large as hen's eggs, six inches or a foot beneath the surface, on the end of a root or strung along on it. I had them roasted and boiled at supper time. The skin came readily off like a potato. Roasted, they have an agreeable taste very much like a potato, though somewhat fibrous in texture. With my eyes shut, I should not know but I was eating a rather soggy potato. Boiled, they were unexpectedly quite dry, and though in this instance a little strong, had a more nutty flavor. With a little salt, a hungry man would make a very palatable meal on them. It would not be easy to find them, especially now that the vines are dead, unless you knew beforehand where they grew.1

Perfect autumn. Walden

October 8. 


The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect.

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1852

Today HDT records in his Journal the story of the loon diving and dodging him on Walden that is to be incorporated into "Walden."

As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came up, and again he laughed long and loud. He managed very cunningly, and I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. 

Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, as if he had passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he, so unweariable, that he would immediately plunge again, and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, perchance passing under the boat. He had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. 

A newspaper authority says a fisherman — giving his name — has caught loon in Seneca Lake, N. Y., eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout. Miss Cooper has said the same. 

Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there than he sailed on the surface. It was surprising how serenely he sailed off with unruffled bosom when he came to the surface. It was as well for me to rest on my oars and await his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would come up. 

When I was straining my eyes over the surface, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh be hind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he betray himself the moment he came to the surface with that loud laugh? His white breast enough betrayed him. He was indeed a silly loon, I thought.

Though he took all this pains to avoid me, he never failed to give notice of his whereabouts the moment he came to the surface. After an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam yet farther than at first. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again. 

I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. 

It was commonly a demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like a water-bird, but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like a wolf than any other bird. This was his looning. As when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls; perhaps the wildest sound I ever heard, making the woods ring; and I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. 

Though the sky was overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface if I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, the smoothness of the water, were all against [him]. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged unearthly howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain. 

I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon and his god was angry with me. How surprised must be the fishes to see this ungainly visitant from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! I have never seen more than one at a time in our pond, and I believe that that is always a male

It is perfect autumn.

October 7.

Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, as it were;  and then, in the village, the warm brownish-yellow elms.

The green pines springing out of huckleberries on the hillsides look as if surrounded by red or vermilion paint. 

I notice the Viola ovata, houstonia, Ranunculus repens, caducous polygala, small scratch-grass polygonum, autumnal dandelion (very abundant, yellowing the low turfy grounds and hills), small bushy white aster, a few goldenrods, Polygonum hydropiperoides and the unknown flowerless bidens, soapwort gentian (now turned dark purple), yarrow, the white erigeron, red clover, hedge-mustard. 

The muskrats have begun to erect their cabins. Thev begin soon after the pontederias are (dead (??) . Saw one done. Do they build them in the night? 

Heat and see larks, bluebirds, robins, song sparrows. Also see painted tortoises and shad frogs. 

There must be in abundance of mast this year. I could gather tip nearly a bushel of acorns under one white oak, out of their cups, and, I think, quite good to eat. They are earlier to fall than the walnuts. It is encouraging to see a large crop of acorns, though we do not use them. 

The white maples turn yellowish, though some boughs are red. 

I sit on Poplar Hill. It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. The sun comes out of clouds, and lights up and warms the whole scene. It is perfect autumn. 

I see a hundred smokes arising through the yellow elm-tops in the village, where the villagers are preparing for tea. It is the mellowing year. 

The sunshine harmonizes with the imbrowned and fiery foliage.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 7, 1852

We set out intending to go over the far ridge.

We are delayed on our own ridge cutting a log that has been in the way a long time. It is still solid in the core, and once i get it cut in one place, it cant be moved because it is binding on some trees. We cut nearly through one part, but it still binds. Finally Jane cuts through another spot and we can both drag it out of the way. I end up moving the other end off the trail side. We smooth the trail with wood chips.

We bushwack east over the stream and finally reach the main logging road, but keep east to the next road then edge up along the cliff. Here is a big beech blowdown and we have to clear a way up along the cliff edge to the saddle where the red trail starts.

But it is late, and will be dark soon.

We decide to go back down and take the main road up to the north and bushwack over to the double chair.

Jane stops at the wintergreen patch and samples some.

At the top on that sparse ridge we find our separate ways over the rocks down to the west. it is now getting dark. There are lots of blowdowns separating us.

Jane stops and calls me over. She is on a log, her headlamp is not working unless she takes it off and squeezes. Meanwhile her glasses are missing. I have a flashlight; she gets out hers. It takes a while, but finally i spot her glasses. It is now dark.

I remember the time we were lost in the dark over here. It’s something different now. A feeling of confidence that we know where we are. We have lights yes, but we know where we are.

We head generally toward the double chair, meandering around the blowdowns. We come to the ridge before the ridge and then we are there. Right at the bottom of the trail up to the double chair.

Up we go and it is reassuring to have the reflectors marking the trail. We rest in the chairs. Then down the ridge trail. We pass through our now log-free spot. and end up at the view. Lights twinkling in the Champlain valley.

Now down round-ridge trail to the wet junction upper road and home.

Four or four and a half hours.

Deep woods night hike.

October 7, 2012

At Flint's Pond

October 3.

Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. 

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. 

The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray. 

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 3, 1852

A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27[,1857]. . . . (we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances”); October 8, 1852 ("after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself.”); October 5, 1853 ("The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds like a loon on the pond. How fit”);

The Aster undulates is common and fresh. See October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path.")

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.  See  October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.") See also )October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 2, 1853 ("The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here, though a week ago last Wednesday they were fully changed at Bangor ") See also November 9, 1850 (" I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen."); See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, the pine fall.