A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake.

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

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. See September 30, 1854 ("Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels."); October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns if not for others.")

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.  Compare October 3, 1857 ("Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now."); 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 A Book of the Seasons, byHenry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

October 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 3

A wild sound heard far

suited to the wildest lake –

laughing of a loon.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A wild sound, heard far 

and suited to the wildest lake.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-521003