A sketch of autumn

October 18.

With Sophia boat to Fair Haven, where she makes a sketch. 

The red maples have been bare a good while. In the sun and this clear air, their bare ashy branches even sparkle like silver. The woods are losing their bright colors. The muskrat-houses are more sharpened now. I find my boat all covered — the bottom and seats — with the yellow leaves of the golden willow under which it is moored, and if I empty it, it is full again to-morrow. Some white oaks are salmon-red, some lighter and drier. The black oaks are a greenish yellow. Poplars, rich yellow.
 
Returning late, we see a double shadow of ourselves and boat, one, the true, quite black, the other directly above it and very faint, on the willows and high bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 18, 1853

The red maples have been bare a good while.  See October 18, 1855 ("The maple swamps, bare of leaves."); October 18, 1857 ("The red maples are now fairly bare,")

Double shadow of ourselves and boat ... See note to August 16, 1854 (" The distinct shadow of our shadows, — first on the water, then the double one on the bank bottom to bottom, one being upside down, — three in all, — one on water, two on land or bushes.")