How important the dark evergreens now; how interesting the huckleberries.

May 27

P. M. —To Fair Haven Pond, taking boat opposite Puffer’s. 

Still a very strong wind from northerly, and hazy and rather cool for season. 

The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave; the light-colored withered grass seen between the blades, foliage thickening and casting darker shadows over the meadows, elm-tree-tops thick in distance, deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens, haze with the strong wind. How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance  and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees! They are like solid protuberances of earth. 

A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. The nest is as open and exposed as it well can be, lined with roots, on a slight ridge where a rail fence has been, some rods from any bush. 

Saw the yellow-legs on one side flying over the meadow against the strong wind and at first mistook it for a hawk. It appeared now quite brown, with its white rump; and, excepting for its bill and head, I should have taken it for a hawk; between the size of male harrier and the male pigeon hawk, or say the size of a dove. It alighted on the shore. And now again I think it must be the large one. 

The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest. 

See a painted turtle on a hill forty or fifty feet above river, probably laying eggs. 

Some mountain sumach has grown one inch, some not started; some button-bush three inches, some not started. The first must be put after the last. 

Myosotis stricta under Cliffs, how long? 

The meadow fragrance to-day. 

How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom on the knoll below the Cliff — countless wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow green foliage! The berry-bearing vaccinium! It is a rich sight. 

Geranium at Bittern Cliff, apparently several days, -and Arabis rhomboidea there in meadow, apparently still longer — say seven or eight days; but I am doubtful about the “slender style tipped with a conspicuous stigma.” 

Carrion-flower a foot high. Crimson gall on a shrub oak. 

A loose-spiked sedge at Bittern Cliff Meadow, — forgot to bring, — a foot high.

May 27, 2015

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1855

The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave. . . foliage thickening and casting darker shadows over the meadows, elm-tree-tops thick in distance, deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens. See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June. The elms begin to droop and are heavy with shade."); May 22, 1855 ("The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens.");  May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees.").  See also May 19, 1860 ("The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them."); May 26, 1854 (At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant.”); May 28, 1858 (“These various shades of grass remind me of June.”); May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come. . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave."); June 30, 1860 ("The foliage of deciduous trees is now so nearly as dark as evergreens that I am not struck by the contrast. The shadows under the edge of woods are less noticed now because the woods themselves are darker.")  See also note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June").

A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. See May 23, 1858 ("Brown thrasher's nest on ground, under a small tree, with four eggs"); May 28, 1855 ("I find the feathers apparently of a brown thrasher in the path, plucked since we passed here last night."); June 5, 1856 (" A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine on the old north edge of the desert, lined with root-fibres.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

My Kalmia Swamp nest.  See May 26, 1855 ("What that neat song-sparrow-like nest of grass merely, in the wet sphagnum under the andromeda there, with three eggs, -- in that very secluded place, surrounded by the watery swamp and andromeda?")

How interesting the huckleberries now generally in blossom.  See May 26, 1859 ("Tall swamp huckleberry just budded to bloom."); May 28, 1854 ('' huckleberries . . . now generally in blossom, their rich clear red contrasting with the light-green leaves; frequented by honey-bees, full of promise for the summer."). See also December 30, 1860 ("the whortleberry family")

May 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 27

The fields now begin

to wear the aspect of June –

their grass just waving.

Now seen through the haze

dark evergreens contrast with 

deciduous trees.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  How important the dark evergreens now

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550527