Grape vines, curled, crisped, and browned by the frosts

October 1.

A-barberrying by boat to Conantum, carrying Ellen, Edith, and Eddie.

Grapevines, curled, crisped, and browned by the frosts, are now more conspicuous than ever. Some grapes still hang on the vines. 

Got three pecks of barberries. 

Huckleberries begin to redden. 

Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about. 

Flowers are scarce.

October 1, 2013

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 1, 1853

A-barberrying by boat to Conantum, carrying Ellen, Edith, and Eddie. See September 18, 1856 ("By boat to Conantum, barberrying ."); September 25, 1855 ("Carry Aunt and Sophia a-barberrying to Conantum.")  See also  April 1, 1857 ("I see children picking spring cranberries in the meadows. "); June 29, 1852 ("Children bring you the early blueberry to sell now."); July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them."); July 24, 1853 ("This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries"); July 31, 1856 ("How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries. . . The children should grow rich if they can get eight cents a quart for black berries, as they do."); August 5, 1852 ("The men, women, and children who perchance come hither blueberrying in their season get more than the value of the berries in the influences of the scene"); August 12, 1856 (" The Emerson children say that Aralia nudicaulis berries are good to eat."); August 27, 1859 ("The children have done bringing huckleberries to sell for nearly a week.") See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Common Barberry

Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about.  See September 18, 1852 ("The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener."); September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping."); October 10, 1853 ("The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring.") October 16, 1857 ("A robin sings once or twice, just as in spring! "); October 18, 1857 ("I see many robins on barberry bushes, probably after berries"); October 20, 1857 ("The barberry bushes are now alive with, I should say, thousands of robins feeding on them."); October 31, 1851 ("The robins now fly in flocks.")