Single red maples bright against the cold green pines, now seen a mile off.

September 26.

Took my last bath the 24th. Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.

It is a warm and very pleasant afternoon, and I walk along the riverside in Merrick’s pasture. I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows ––tree or else song sparrows. 

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. 

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. It is too fair to be believed, especially seen against the light. Some are a reddish or else greenish yellow, others with red or yellow cheeks. I suspect that the yellow maples had not scarlet blossoms.

The bunches of panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. 

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1854

Probably shall not bathe again this year. See September 26, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing") See also September 25, 1851 ("I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over."); September 25, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows.  See September 24, 1854 ("Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last year. "); September 29, 1854 ("I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season") Compare March 23, 1854 ("The birds in yard active now, — hyemalis, tree sparrow, and song sparrow. The hyemalis jingle easily distinguished.")

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. See September 30, 1859 ("Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees ") See also September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.")

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines. See September 19, 1852 ("And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.");  September 20, 1857   ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("It flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Red Maple

Panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. See September 24, 1854 ("The panicled cornel green with a tinge of reddish purple.")

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on. See August 13, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river."); August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

September 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 26

Single red maples

bright against the cold green pines –

now seen a mile off.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Single red maples now seen a mile off.

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

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