A Book of the Seasons: November 10 (pure November season, withered leaves, bare twigs and silvery light reflected from downy surfaces)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

November 10.

Nature prepared for 

an infinity of springs –

yellow lily buds.

November 10, 1854

Now a new season 

begins – withered leaf, bare twigs

and silvery light. 

November 10, 1858

.

the silvery light 

reflected from the fine down

 on tender bare twigs

 the russet earth and 

withered leaf and goldenrod.

This is November

 

November 10, 1858

pure November

and bare twigs and hoary 

Grand natural features

waving woods and huge boulders –

are not on the map.

November 10, 1860

November 10, 2020

A pleasant day, especially the forenoon. Thermometer 46° at noon. November 10, 1858

Withered leaves generally, though they remain on the trees, are drooping. November 10, 1858

There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. November 10, 1853

In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple. November 10, 1858

I look out westward across Fair Haven Pond. The warmer colors are now rare. November 10, 1858

The season of brilliant leaves may be considered over, — say about the 10th; and now a new season begins, the pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods, etc. November 10, 1858

As I go through the hazel bushes toward the sun, I notice the silvery light reflected from the fine down on their tender twigs, this year’s growth. November 10, 1858

This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. November 10, 1858

So many objects are white or light, preparing us for winter.   November 10, 1858

A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow. November 10, 1858

From Fair Haven Hill, using my glass, I think that I can see some of the snow of the 7th still left on the brow of Uncannunuc. . . .I can understand how much nearer they must feel to winter who live in plain sight of that than we do.  November 10, 1858

The sight of the masses of yellow hastate leaves and flower-buds of the yellow lily, already four or six inches long, at the bottom of the river, reminds me that nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet. November 10, 1854

How little there is on an ordinary map! How little, I mean, that concerns the walker and the lover of nature. November 10, 1860

I have lived so long in this neighborhood and but just heard of this noble forest, – probably as fine an oak wood as there is in New England, only eight miles west of me. November 10, 1860

The waving woods, the dells and glades and green banks and smiling fields, the huge boulders, etc., etc., are not on the map, nor to be inferred from the map. November 10, 1860

Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered – a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy. November 10, 1860

Hearing in the oak and nearby a sound as if someone had broken a twig, I looked up and saw a jay pecking at an acorn. There were several jays busily gathering acorns on a scarlet oak. I could hear them break them off. They then flew to a suitable limb and, placing the acorn under one foot, hammered away at it busily, looking round from time to time to see if any foe was approaching, and soon reached the meat and nibbled at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they held it very firmly with their claws. (Their hammering made a sound like the woodpecker’s.) Nevertheless it sometimes dropped to the ground before they had done with it. November 10, 1858

 November 10, 2019

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moods

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November days

aspen in sunlight

November 10, 2023

October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. ”);

October 27, 1858 (“The cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”);

November 2, 1853("We come home in the autumn twilight . . . — clear white light, which penetrates the woods”)

November 9, 1858 (“We had a true November sunset . . . a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.”)

November 9, 1860 ("Inches’ Woods in Boxboro. This wood is some one and three quarters miles from West Acton, .. . . in the east part of Boxboro, on both sides of the Harvard turnpike.")

November 14, 1853 ("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November”)

November 17, 1858 (“We are interested at this season by the manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us. . . . A myriad of surfaces are now prepared to reflect the light. This is one of the hundred silvery lights of November. The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me.”)

November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”)

November 29, 1853 ("Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.")

January 3, 1861 ("Far the handsomest thing I saw in Boxboro was its noble oak wood. I doubt if there is a finer one in Massachusetts. Let her keep it a century longer, and men will make pilgrimages to it from all parts of the country.")

January 10, 1859 ("The windows on the skirts of the village reflect the setting sun with intense brilliancy, a dazzling glitter, it is so cold.")

 

November 10, 2023

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

September 10 <<<<<<<<<  November 10 >>>>>>>> January 10

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 10

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 © 2009-2022