Now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless.

November 27. 

Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow; but methinks the variety and compensation are in the stars now. How bright they are now by contrast with the dark earth!

The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, but the 21st of next month the day will be shorter still by about twenty-five minutes. In December there will be less light than in any month in the year.

It is too cold to-day to use a paddle; the water freezes on the handle and numbs my fingers.

I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of a fresh, shining green.

Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 27, 1853

Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless. .See  November 1, 1852 ("In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month. "); November 25, 1857 (“November Eatheart, — is that the name of it? Not only the fingers cease to do their office, but there is often a benumbing of the faculties generally. You can hardly screw up your courage to take a walk when all is thus tightly locked or frozen up and so little is to be seen in field or wood. ”)

It is too cold to-day to use a paddle . . . See November 24, 1860 (“Fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife.”)

I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of a fresh, shining green. See note to November 27, 1859 ("This wood-lot, especially at the northwest base of the hill, is extensively carpeted with the Lycopodium complanatum and also much dendroideum and Chimaphila umbellata ")

Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now. See November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen . . . the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”); November 16, 1850 (“The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries ?”) 

Note "Checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. What HDT calls “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa,.See July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”);  November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)

A clear, cold, windy day.

November 25.

 

November 25, 2013

A clear, cold, windy day. 

The water on the meadows, which are rapidly becoming bare, is skimmed over and reflects a whitish light, like silver plating, while the unfrozen river is a dark blue. 

In plowed fields I see the asbestos-like ice-crystals, more or less mixed with earth, frequently curled and curved like crisped locks, where the wet ground has frozen dry.

By the spring under Fair Haven Hill, I see the frost about the cistus now at 11 a. m. in the sun. 

The landscape, seen from the side of the hill looking westward to the horizon through this clear and sparkling air, though simple to barrenness, is very handsome. There is first the clean light-reflecting russet earth, the dark-blue water, the dark or dingy green evergreens, the dull reddish-brown of young oaks and shrub oaks, the gray of maples and other leafless trees, and the white of birch stems. 

The mountains are remarkably distinct and appear near and elevated, but there is no snow on them. The white houses of the village, also, are remarkably distinct and bare and brought very near.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1853

A clear, cold, windy day. See November 25, 1857 (“A clear, cold, windy afternoon. ”)

Clear and wintry

November 24.

At noon, after a drizzling forenoon, the weather suddenly changes to clear and wintry, freezing cold with strong wind from a northerly quarter. It seems like the beginning of winter. 

Ice forms in my boat at 5 p. m., and what was mud in the street is fast becoming a rigid roughness.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 24, 1853

“Ice forms in my boat. See November 24, 1855 ("Ice has frozen pretty thick in the bottom of my boat.”); December 2, 1854 ("Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it.”)

A humbler, gentler, nightly rain

November 21.

Is not the dew but a humbler, gentler rain, the nightly rain, above which we raise our heads and unobstructedly behold the stars? The mountains are giants which tower above the rain, as we above the dew in the grass; it only wets their feet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 21, 1853

See November 20th:

What enhances my interest in dew is the fact that it is so distinct from rain, formed most abundantly after bright, star lit nights, a product especially of the clear, serene air. The manna of fair weather; the upper side of rain, as the country above the clouds. That nightly rain called dew, which gathers and falls in so low a stratum that our heads tower above it like mountains in an ordinary shower. 

Cranberry economics

November 20.

Nov. 20. 7.30 A. M. To Hubbard's meadow , cran berrying .

 Still quite warm as yesterday . I wear no greatcoat . There has been no freezing in the night . I hear a single hylodes in the wood by the water , while I am raking the cranberries . This warmth has aroused him . While raking , I disturbed two bullfrogs , one quite small . These , too , the warm weather has perhaps aroused . They appear rather stupid . Also I see one painted tortoise , but with no bright markings . Do they fade ? 

I observe on some muskrat - cabins much of that bleached and withered long grass , strewn as if pre paratory to raising them , for almost all are covered with water now . It apparently is used as a binder . 

Minott said he heard geese going south at day break the 17th , before he came out of the house , and heard and saw another large flock at 10 a . M. Those I heard this afternoon were low and far in the western horizon . I did [ not ] distinctly see them , but heard them farther and farther in the southwest , the sound of one which did the honking guiding my eyes . I had seen that a storm was brewing before , and low mists already gathered in the northeast . It rained soon after I got home . The 18th was also a drizzling day . Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm , and , in the spring , to go north just after one , say at the end of a long April storm . 

1 66 I have not seen any tree sparrows of late , nor white in - tails . 

I once came near speculating in cranberries. Being put to it to raise the wind to pay for "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," and having occasion to go to New York to peddle some pencils which I had made, as I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries. The dealers took me down cellar, asked if I wanted wet or dry, and showed me them. I gave them to understand that I might want an indefinite quantity. It made a slight sensation among them and for aught I know raised the price of the berry for a time. I then visited various New York packets and was told what would be the freight, on deck and in the hold, and one skipper was very anxious for my freight. 

When I got to New York, I again visited the markets as a purchaser, and "the best of Eastern Cranberries" were offered me by the barrel at a cheaper rate than I could buy them in Boston. 

I was obliged to manufacture a thousand dollars' worth of pencils and slowly dispose of and finally sacrifice them, in order to pay an assumed debt of a hundred dollars.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 20, 1853

As I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries. See December 7 , 1853 ("I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them.")

An assumed debt of a hundred dollars . . .  See September 14, 1855 ("It costs so much to publish, would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”)

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer?

November 19.

Up river in boat to Hubbard's meadow, cranberrying. They redden all the lee shore, the water being still apparently at the same level with the 16th. 

This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October. 

November 19, 2023

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side. 

Got a bushel and a half of cranberries, mixed with chaff.

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer? From the 14th to the 21st October inclusive, this year, was perfect Indian summer; and this day the next?

Methinks that any particularly pleasant and warmer weather after the middle of October is thus called. Has it not fine, calm spring days answering to it?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1853

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. See ? November 1, 1851("Why should this day be so distinguished?"), November 3, 1857 ("I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear."); November 15, 1858 ("Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November"). See also November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer?  October 14, 1859 ("A fine Indian-summer day. The 6th and 10th were quite cool, and any particularly warm days since may be called Indian summer (?), I think");. October 31, 1858 (" It is a fine day, Indian-summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees. That warm weather of the 19th and 20th was, methinks, the same sort of weather with the most pleasant in November (which last alone some allow to be Indian summer)."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side. See October 20, 1856 ("I think that all spiders can walk on water, for when, last summer, I knocked one off my boat by chance, he ran swiftly back to the boat and climbed up, as if more to avoid the fishes than the water.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

Life in the roots

November 17.

I notice that many plants about this season of the year or earlier, after they have died down at top, put forth fresh and conspicuous radical leaves against another spring. 

So some human beings in the November of their days exhibit some fresh radical greenness, which, though the frosts may soon nip it, indicates and confirms their essential vitality. When their summer leaves have faded and fallen, they put forth fresh radical leaves which sustain the life in their root still, against a new spring.

The dry fields have for a long time been spotted with the small radical leaves of the fragrant life-everlasting, not to mention the large primrose, johnswort, etc., etc. And almost every plant, although it may show no greenness above ground, if you dig about it, will be found to have fresh shoots already pointing upward and ready to burst forth in the spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 17, 1853

Many plants about this season of the year . . . put forth fresh and conspicuous radical leaves against another spring. See November 3, 1853 ("Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them."); December 23, 1855 ("At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis strictae specially fresh and bright.")



The life in their root still . . . See May 12, 1851 (" You exist in your roots, like a tree in the winter.")

To Fair Haven Hill and by boat to witch-hazel bush

November 15.

November 15, 2013

After yesterday's clear, windy weather we have to-day less wind and much haze. It is Indian-summer-like. The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease. Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms.

At sundown, on the water, I hear come booming up the river what I suppose is the sound of cannon fired in Lowell to celebrate the Whig victory, the voting down the new Constitution. Perchance no one else in Concord hears them, and it is remarkable that I hear them, who is only interested in the natural phenomenon of sound borne far over water. 

Just after sundown, the waters become suddenly smooth, and the clear yellow light of the western sky is handsomely reflected in the water, making it doubly light to me on the water, diffusing light from below as well as above.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 15, 1853

The clear yellow light of the western sky . . .reflected in the water . . . See November 15, 1859 ("The clouds were never more fairly reflected in the water than now,. . .")

The leafless twilight of November, awaiting the onset of the wind.

 November 14.

There is a clear air and a strong northwest wind drying up the washed earth after the heavy rain of yesterday. The road looks smooth and white as if washed and swept.

I climb Annursnack. Under this strong wind more dry oak leaves are rattling down. 

All winter is their fall. A distinction is to be made between those trees whose leaves fall as soon as the bright autumnal tints are gone and they are withered and those whose leaves are rustling and falling all winter even into spring.

October is the month of painted leaves, of ripe leaves, when all the earth, not merely flowers, but fruits and leaves, are ripe. With respect to its colors and its season, it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. This rich glow flashes round the world.

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.

In October the man is ripe even to his stalk and leaves; he is pervaded by his genius, when all the forest is a universal harvest, whether he possesses the enduring color of the pines, which it takes two years to ripen and wither, or the brilliant color of the deciduous trees, which fade the first fall.

From this hill I am struck with the smoothness and washed appearance of all the landscape. All these russet fields and swells look as if the withered grass had been combed by the flowing water. Not merely the sandy roads, but the fields are swept. All waters — the rivers and ponds and swollen brooks — and many new ones are now seen through the leafless trees — are blue reservoirs of dark indigo amid the general russet and reddish-brown and gray.

October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.

Now for the bare branches of the oak woods, where hawks have nested and owls perched, the sinews of the trees, and the brattling of the wind in their midst. For, now their leaves are off, they've bared their arms, thrown off their coats, and, in the attitude of fencers, await the onset of the wind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 14, 1853

October is the month of painted leaves, of ripe leaves, when all the earth, not merely flowers, but fruits and leaves, are ripe. With respect to its colors and its season, it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. This rich glow flashes round the world. This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, See October 24, 1858 (" Every fruit, on ripening, and just before its fall, acquires a bright tint. So do the leaves; so the sky before the end of the day, and the year near its setting. October is the red sunset sky, November the later twilight. . . . The very forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth as it were, must acquire a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness, as if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with ever one cheek toward the sun.")

What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit. See August 18, 1853 (The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent? The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life.)

Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight

Veronica srpyllifolia

November 11.

A fine, calm, frosty morning, a resonant and clear air except a slight white vapor which perchance is the steam of the melting frost.  Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields. Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket.   I wear mittens now.

I stop at Lee's Cliff, and there is a Veronica serpyllifolia out. 

I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1853

Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket. December 19, 1850 ("The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when I get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider.")


I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood. See January 12, 1855 ("I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side")

November sunrise.

November 7. 

A clear, cold, as well as frosty, morning. The sun now rises far southward. I have to walk with my hands in my pockets. I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves and the pines. 

The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 7, 1853

The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil. See March 13, 1853 (“Listening for early birds, I hear a faint tinkling sound in the leafless woods, as if a piece of glass rattled against a stone”); March 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides.”);  December 5, 1853 (“”See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? ); December 17, 1856 ("That feeble cheep of the tree sparrow, like the tinkling of an icicle. . ., is probably a call to their mates, by which they keep together.")

Noticing buds

November 6.

It is surprising how little most of us are contented to know about the sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows. These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late, have flitted before me so many falls and springs, yet they have been strangers to me. I have not inquired whence they came or whither they were going, or what their habits are. It is remarkable how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way.

The witch-hazel spray is peculiar and interesting, with little knubs at short intervals, zig zag, crinkle-crankle. How happens it? Did the leaves grow so close? The bud is long against the stem, with a neck to it. 

The fever bush has small roundish buds, two or three commonly together, probably the blossom-buds. 

The alternate cornel, small, very dark reddish buds, on forking, smooth, slender twigs at long intervals. 

The panicled andromeda, minute pointed red buds, hugging the curving stems.

The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together. 

The red maple buds, showing three or more sets of scales. 

The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry. 

The four-sided, long spear-head-shaped buds of the Viburnum Lentago, at the end of forked twigs, probably blossom-buds, with minute leaf-buds lower on sides of twigs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 6, 1853

The sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows. These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late. See November 1, 1851 ("At this season there are stranger sparrows or finches about."); November 2, 1853 ("What are those sparrows in loose flocks which I have seen two or three weeks, . . .whitish over and beneath the eye, and some white observed in tail when they fly ?. . .Can they be the grass-bird ? They resemble it in marking. They are much larger than the tree sparrows. Methinks it is a very common fall bird."); November 4, 1860 (" Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."); November 4, 1855(" See some large flocks of F. hyemalis, . . . rise in a body from the ground and fly to the trees as you approach. There are a few tree sparrows with them."); November 5, 1854 ("I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides."): November 7, 1855 (" I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain...”)

It is remarkable how little we attend to what is passing before us...;See November 8, 1857 ("How silently and unobserved by most do these changes take place!")November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it . . .”); November 3, 1861 ("All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye, and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most."); See also January 5, 1860 ("A man receives only what he is ready to receive. . . . He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.”)

. . .unless our genius directs our attention that way. See June 23, 1851 ("My genius makes distinctions which my understanding cannot, and which my senses do not report.”); March 21, 1853 ("We become, as it were, pliant and ductile again to strange but memorable influences; - we are led a little way by our genius.”); March 22, 1853 ("I am waked by my genius, surprised to find myself expecting the dawn in so serene and joyful and expectant a mood.”); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood,. . .”).

Buds. See November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”);  October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring,") December 6, 1856 ("Our eyes go searching along the stems for what is most vivacious and characteristic, the concentrated summer gone into winter quarters.");; January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.,"

The four-sided, long spear-head-shaped buds of the Viburnum Lentago. See April 11, 1852 ("Is that the Viburnum Lentago with the spear-shaped buds?"). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago  (nannyberry)

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch

November 4.

November 4, 2013

To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late. 

Hear a nuthatch. 

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch appear to be in the same state with those of the white, and their scales are also shaped like birds, but much larger.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1853

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch appear to be in the same state with those of the white . . . See November 1, 1853 ("The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare.”)

The season of sky and earth.

November 3, 2014

November 3. 

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference. 

Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them.

Since the change and fall of the leaf a remarkable prominence is given to the evergreens; their limits are more distinctly defined as you look at distant woods, since the leaves of deciduous trees ceased to be green and fell. 

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. 

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them.

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me, though at the risk of endless iteration. I milk the sky and the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1853

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year . . .  See April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.")

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. See November 3, 1852 ("In the Heywood Brooks, many young pollywogs two inches long and more")

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them. Compare November 4, 1855  ("I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September.")

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me . . . See September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature. ")

I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon. See November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom")

Nov. 3. 6.30 a. m. — To Swamp Bridge Brook by river. Considerable thin mist, high as two houses. Just as the sun is rising, many undoubtedly of the same white-in-tail sparrows described four pages back are flying high over my head west and northwest, above the thin mist, perchance to where they see the sun on the wood-side; with that peculiar shelly note. I think it was the 27th October I saw a goldfinch. There are two or three tree sparrows flitting and hop ping along amid the alders and willows, with their fine silvery tchip, unlike the dry loud chip of the song sparrow. The Aster puniceus by brook is still common, though the worse for the wear, — low and more recent ones, — so that this, though a week ago it was less prevalent, must be set down as later than the A. undulatus. It bears the frosts much better, though it has been ex posed to more severe ones from its position. And with this must be included that smooth and narrower- leaved kind, in other respects the same, one of which, at least, I think I have called A. longifolius. They seem to run into each other. I am inclined to think it a smoother A. longifolius.

Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them. What is that large circular green and red dish one, flat in the grass of upland which I have seen for a fortnight ? [It is the great primrose. There are none (but by chance) about the base of this year's stalks, i. e. perhaps unless there is an offshoot.] I love to see a man occasionally from whom the usnea will hang as naturally as from a spruce. Cultivation exterminates the pine, but preserves the elm. Our front- yard evergreens are puny and trimmed up. Heard a bluebird about a week ago. 

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.

P. M. — To Ministerial Swamp. 

A warm westerly wind, the sky concealed and a storm gathering. A sober, cloudy afternoon. To-day I see yarrow, very bright ; red clover; autumnal dandelion; the silvery potentilla, and one Canadensis and the Norvegica ; and a dandelion ; Veronica arvensis ; and gnawel ; one Aster lcevis (!) by the Hosmer Ditch ; and, to my surprise, that solidago of September 11th, still showing some fresh yellow petals and a very fresh stem and leaves. It must be later than the speciosa, and this makes me doubt if it can be the stricta. It has a very angled stem and erect narrow pyramidal corymb. 

Also S. nemoralis by roadside. This, though it was not so prevalent as the S. ccesia three weeks ago, is still to be seen, while I have not seen the other for some days. It may outlast it, as the A. puniceus does the A. undulatus, though, by the way, I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon. I hear a few crickets and locusts (?) and see a very small brown beetle. The thistle radical leaves and fragrant everlasting not to be forgotten. Perhaps I have made the everlastings too late! 

A small gyrinus in Nut Meadow Brook.

Since the change and fall of the leaf a remarkable prominence is given to the evergreens; their limits are more distinctly defined as you look at distant woods, since the leaves of deciduous trees ceased to be green and fell. 

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. 

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them. 

The cones of the spruce are nearly empty, hanging down ward; those of the larch are also open, but, being upright, appear to have a few more seeds in them. 

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me, though at the risk of endless iteration. I milk the sky and the earth. 

The potamogeton seeds in Nut Meadow Brook have partly left the stem. 

I hear the sound of the woodchopper's axe.

Signs of Winter

November 1. 

As I go up the back road, I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned. There is now no loud, cheerful effervescing with song as in the spring. Most are gone. I only hear some crows toward the woods. 

The road and ruts are all frosted and stiff, and the grass and clover leaves. At Swamp Bridge, I see crystals of ice six feet long, like very narrow and sharp spears, or like great window-sashes without glass between them, floating on the water. 

Now that the sun is fairly risen, I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler's meadow on left of the Corner road, singing exactly as in spring and twittering also, but rather faintly or suppressedly, as if their throats had grown up or their courage were less. 

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. 

I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. 

As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there. 

While getting the azaleas, I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. 

As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.

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

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. See  November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.") 

A song sparrow chips faintly. See October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”)

Showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down. . . See October 31, 1853 ("The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones.”); October 15, 1856 ("A great part of the hemlock seeds fallen."); October 13, 1859 ("The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river.")

I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. See October 13, 1859 ("The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual."); November 4, 1854 (“The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”).

Crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.  November 1, 1851("Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward."); see also October 20, 1859 ("I see a large and very straggling flock of crows fly southwest from over the hill behind Bull's and contending with the strong and cold northwest wind. This is the annual phenomenon. They are on their migrations."); October 29, 1855 ("I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing."); October 29, 1857 ("A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing.") Compare March 5, 1854 ("And crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") Also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The American Crow