A Book of the Seasons: October 31.

October 31.

Saunterer's apple

not even the saunterer

can eat in the house.

October 31, 1851

Frosts in the mornings,

open window for a week.

Indian summer.

October 31, 1854

It is a fine day,

Indian-summer-like, more

to be expected.

October 31, 1858

October 31, 2016

October trees show

the colors they sail under.

Each runs up its flag.

October 31, 1858

I hear flailing and

draw near to it from the woods,

thinking many things.

October 31, 1860

*****

 

Ever since October 27th we have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week. October 31, 1854

After walking for a couple of hours the other day through the woods, I came to the base of a tall aspen, which I do not remember to have seen before, standing in the midst of the woods in the next town, still thickly leaved and turned to greenish yellow. October 31, 1858

I made a minute of its locality, glad to know where so large an aspen grew. Then it seemed peculiar in its solitude and obscurity. October 31, 1858

It is a beautiful , warm and calm Indian - summer afternoon. October 31, 1853   

When we ripple the surface, the undulating light is reflected from the waves upon the bank and bushes and withered grass. October 31, 1853

I slowly discover that this is a gossamer day . I first see the fine lines stretching from one weed or grass stem or rush to another , sometimes seven or eight feet distant , horizontally and only four or five inches above the water . When I look further , I find that they are everywhere and on everything , sometimes forming conspicuous fine white gossamer webs on the heads of grasses.  October 31, 1853   

Rain; still warm. October 31, 1854

It is a fine day, Indian—summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees.  October 31, 1858

Methinks it is only on these very finest days late in autumn that this phenomenon is seen.   October 31, 1853

The wild apples are now getting palatable. October 31, 1851

The saunterer's apple not even the saunterer can eat in the house. The noblest of fruits is the apple. Let the most beautiful or swiftest have it. October 31, 1851

The robins now fly in flocks. October 31, 1851

On the hill, I see flocks of robins, flitting from tree to tree and peeping. October 31, 1853

The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones . The cones are mostly open. October 31, 1853

Now appears to be the very time for walnuts. I knock down showers with a stick, but all do not come out of the shells. October 31, 1853  

I believe I have not bathed since Cattle-Show. It has been rather too cold, and I have had a cold withal.  October 31, 1853

I hear the sound of the flailing in M. Miles's barn, and gradually draw near to it from the woods, thinking many things. October 31, 1860

Is not this already November , when the yellow and scarlet tints are gone from the forest ?  October 31, 1853

Now, walking in a different direction, to the same hilltop from which I saw the scarlet oaks, and looking off just before sunset, when all other trees visible for miles around are reddish or green, I distinguish my new acquaintance by its yellow color . . . It is as if it recognized me too, and gladly, coming half-way to meet me.  October 31, 1858

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

*****

September 14, 1859 ("Now all things suggest fruit and the harvest, . . .for some time the sound of the flail has been heard in the barns.")
October 15, 1856 ("A great part of the hemlock seeds fallen.")

October 20, 1857 ("The barberry bushes are now alive with, I should say, thousands of robins feeding on them.")
October 20, 1858 ("Flocks of this gossamer, like tangled skeins, float gently through the quiet air as high as my head, like white parachutes to unseen balloons.")

October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”)
October 26, 1854 ("I see considerable gossamer on the causeway and elsewhere. ")

October 27, 1855 (“I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.")

October 27, 1855 (“To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. They must be eaten in the fields. . . Some of those apples might be labelled, “To be eaten in the wind") 
October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts")
October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts.")

November 1, 1851 (" It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs. Here in the causeway, as I walk toward the sun, I perceive that the air is full of them streaming from off the willows")
November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M . . . Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air. ")
November 3, 1857 (" I see on many rocks, etc., the seeds of the barberry, which have been voided by birds, – robins, no doubt, chiefly. How many they must thus scatter over the fields, spreading the barberry far and wide! That has been their business for a month.")
November 4, 1855 ("It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple.“)
November 7, 1858 ("My apple harvest! It is to glean after the husbandman and the cows . . . I fill my pockets on each side, and as I retrace my steps, I eat one first from this side, and then from that, in order to preserve my balance.");
November 11, 1850 ("Now is the time for wild apples. . . Food for walkers.")

October 31, 2020

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 © 2009-2019