The morning came in and awakened me early...

May 24. 

May 24. 2014

The morning came in and awakened me early, — for I slept with a window open. 

There are dewy cobwebs on the grass.

4.30 A. M. — To Cliffs. A considerable fog, but already rising and retreating to the river. As I go along the causeway the sun rises red, with a great red halo, through the fog. 

When I reach the hill, the fog over the river already has its erectile feathers up. The level expanse of it far in the east, now lit by the sun, with countless tree-tops like oases seen through it, reminds of vast tracts of sand and of the seashore. It is like a greater dewy cobweb spread over the earth. It gives a wholly new aspect to the world, especially in that direction. 

The sun is eating up the fog. As I return down the hill, my eyes are cast toward the very dark mountains in the northwest horizon.

P.M.  Wade into Beck Stow's. The water is so cold at first that I think it not prudent to stand long in it, but when I get further from the bank it is comparatively warm.  

Andromeda polifolia

Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more. It is in water a foot and a half deep, and rises but little above it. The water must have been several inches higher when it began to bloom.

A timid botanist would never pluck it. Its flowers are more interesting than any of its family, almost globular, crystalline white, even the calyx, except its tips, tinged with red or rose. 

Properly called water andromeda: you must wade into water a foot or two deep to get it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1854

Dewy cobwebs on the grass . . . A considerable fog. See May 21, 1854 ("A slight fog in morning.Cobwebs on grass, the first I have noticed. This is one of the late phenomena of spring . . . When these begin to be seen, then is not summer come?")

Dark mountains in the northwest horizon.  See May 24, 1860 ("Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze. This is one of the values of mountains in the horizon, that they indicate the state of the atmosphere. I should not have noticed this haze if I had not looked toward the mountains.")

Beck Stow's. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime . . . Its shoots or new leaves, unfolding, say when it flowered or directly after, now one inch long") See also July 14, 1853 ("In Beck Stow’s Swamp to-day approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

The morning came in

and awakened me early –

a window open.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The morning came in and awakened me early

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/hdy-540524

***

Instead of down the ravine we bushwalk in the now quiet deep woods to the main Kendall trail heading more east,  as the sun is getting low then one of her instinctive bush-walks turn right down very faint loogging roads straight to Clifford corner.

The moist woods are deep full of oven birds and thrushes.

At Moose trail she thinks she may see a moose track then hears the Swainsons thrush we cut corners to the ridge trail. she calls in a black throated blue. A stunning sky from lower view (curved rain in sunset). we are 200 yds from home 8 PM when the rain begins.

Past Clifford corner

the deep moist woods are full of 

ovenbirds and thrushes. 

May 24, 2014