Now at sundown

September 5.

P. M. — Up Assabet to Sam Barrett’s Pond. 

September 05, 2014

The river rising probably. The river weeds are now much decayed. Almost all pads but the white lily have disappeared, and they are thinned, and in midstream those dense beds of weeds are so much thinned (potamogeton, heart-leaf, sparganium, etc., etc.) as to give one the impression of the river having risen, though it is not more than six inches higher on account of the rain.

This is a fall phenomenon. The river weeds, becoming rotten, though many are still green, fall or are loosened, the water rises, the winds come, and they are drifted to the shore, and the water is cleared.

During the drought I used to see Sam Wheeler’s men carting hogsheads of water from the river to water his shrubbery. They drove into the river, and, naked all but a coat and hat, they dipped up the water with a pail. Though a shiftless, it looked like an agreeable, labor that hot weather. 

Barrett shows me some very handsome pear-shaped cranberries, not uncommon, which may be a permanent variety different from the common rounded ones.

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. I see much thistle-down without the seed floating on the river and a hummingbird about a cardinal-flower over the water’s edge.

Just this side the rock, the water near the shore and pads is quite white for twenty rods, as with a white sawdust, with the exuviae of small insects about an eighth of an inch long, mixed with scum and weeds.

I hear the tree-toad to-day. 

Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. 

Hear locusts after sundown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1854

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. See September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; "); September 12, 1854 ("Bathing I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment. I fear that it will not again be warm."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

This is a fall phenomenon . . . the water is cleared. See September 24, 1854 ("The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed.")

I hear the tree-toad to-day. See June 14, 1853 ("Suddenly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods begins, and another answers, and another, with loud, ringing notes such as I never heard before, and in three minutes they are all silent again."); October 18, 1859 ("Saw a tree-toad on the ground . . .It is marked on the back with black, somewhat in the form of the hylodes.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

A blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river. .See August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me"); August 24, 1854 (" See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs. "); September 9, 1858 ("This hot September afternoon all may be quiet amid the weeds, but the dipper, and the bittern, and the yellow legs, and the blue heron, and the rail are silently feeding there.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Hear locusts after sundown. See September 2, 1856 ("Frank Harding has caught a dog-day locust which lit on the bottom of my boat, in which he was sitting, and z-ed there"); September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny. . .and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard.")

September 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 5

Now at sundown

a blue heron flaps away 

from his perch on an oak 

over the river before me

just above the rock.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Now at sundown

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/hdt-540905

Walk to the view after sunset. we are treated to a light show of lightning. severe storms to northwest over Ottowa and Montreal, lighting the clouds, sometimes showing bolts, for perhaps an hour. A first quarter moon low in the south. we go down by the big house then bushwack to the fort. Windy. zphx September 5, 2014

Incessant flashes

lighting the edge of the cloud.

A rush of cool wind.

September 6, 1854