Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze.

August 13.

First marked dog-day; sultry and with misty clouds. For ten days or so we have had comparatively cool, fall-like weather. I remember only with a pang the past spring and summer thus far. 

I have not been an early riser. Society seems to have invaded and overrun me. I have drank tea and coffee and made myself cheap and vulgar. My days have been all noontides, without sacred mornings and evenings. I desire to rise early henceforth, to associate with those whose influence is elevating, to have such dreams and waking thoughts that my diet may not be indifferent to me. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill, Lincoln, via railroad. 

This is a quite hot day again, after cooler weather. 

I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?), and the seedless down strews the ground. 

Huckleberries begin to be wormy, but are still sound on Bare Hill. 

Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze, and the view is of dark ridges of forest, one behind the other, separated by misty valleys. 

Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown. 

The change, decay, and fall of the brakes in woods, etc., is perhaps more autumnal than any sight. Some are quite brown and shrivelled, others yellow, others yellow and brown, others yellow, brown, and green, making a very rich and parti-colored or checkered work, as of plaited straw, — bead or straw work or ivory; others are still green with brown spots. 

At Thrush Alley, I am surprised to behold how many birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground with a pretty thick bed under each tree. So far as the birches go it is a perfect autumnal scene here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1854

Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze... See August 14, 1852 (There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.); August 12, 1856 (“It is thick, smoky, dog-day weather again.”)

I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?)    See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 13.

 

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 © 2009-202