Tuesday, June 14, 2016

A Book of the Seasons: June 14.





When man is asleep 
and day fairly forgotten 
then is the beauty –

 moonlight seen over 
lonely pastures the cattle
 silently feeding. 
June 14, 1851

Life is too grand for supper.

New reflections now 
from the undersides of leaves 
turned up by the wind. 

This hour far from home
open to great impressions –
coolness in your mind.

Humming from the woods 
the hummingbird  now alights
a blue flag blossom.

The wood thrush launches
 forth his evening strains from 
the midst of the pines.

Sings long at a time
and I leave it singing there, 
regardless of me. 

The sweetness of the day crystallizes in this morning coolness. June 14, 1853

There are various new reflections now of the light, viz. from the under sides of leaves (fresh and white) turned up by the wind, and also from the bent blades (horizontal tops) of rank grass in the meadows, — a sort of bluish sheeny light, this last. June 14, 1852


The warmest afternoon as yet. June 14, 1853

Ground getting dry, it is so long since we had any rain to speak of. June 14, 1853

Went to the Harrington Bathing-Place. June 14, 1853

Drank at the Tarbell Spring first. June 14, 1853

Took another bath at the cove in White Pond. June 14, 1853

We had already bathed in the North River at Harrington's. June 14, 1853

It is about 5 p. m. The pond is perfectly smooth and very beautiful now. June 14, 1853

We took an old leaky boat and a forked stick which had made part of a fence, and pushed out to see the shores from the middle of the pond. June 14, 1853

See now the great stems of trees on the bottom and the stones curiously strewn about. June 14, 1853

Now we cross the bar to this cove ; now we are leaving the edge of the heart-leaves, whose long, clean, slender, thread like stems rise from the bottom still where six feet deep; and now the stones on the bottom grow dim, as if a mildew formed about them, and now the bottom is lost in the dim greenness of the water. June 14, 1853

The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years ago. June 14, 1853

Our boat leaked so, — faster and faster as it sank deeper and tipped with the water in it, — that we were obliged to turn to the shore. June 14, 1853

The pollen of the pine yellowed the driftwood on the shore and the stems of bushes which stood in the water, and in little flakes extended out some distance on the surface, until at four or five rods in this cove it was suddenly and distinctly bounded by an invisible fence on the surface; but in the middle, as deep down as you could [see], there appeared some fine white particles in the water, either this or something else and perhaps some ova of fishes. June 14, 1853

Beyond the rye-field on the Marlborough road, the oaks were extensively cut off by the frost some weeks ago. June 14, 1853

As we look over the water now, the opposite woods are seen dimly through what appears not so much the condensing dew and mist as the dry haziness of the afternoon, now settled and condensed. June 14, 1853

The woods on the opposite shore have not the distinctness they had an hour before, but perhaps a more agreeable dimness, a sort of gloaming or settling and thickening of the haze over the water, which melts tree into tree and masses them agreeably. June 14, 1853

The trees no longer bright and distinct, — a bluish mistiness. June 14, 1853

This appears to be an earlier gloaming before sunset, such as by and by is universal. June 14, 1853

It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry . . . . It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it. June 14, 1855

The swallows at once and numerously begin to fly low over the water in the rain, as they had not before, and the toads’ spray rings in it. June 14, 1855

As soon as the rain is over I crawl out, straighten my legs, and stumble at once upon a little patch of strawberries within a rod, -- the sward red with them. These we pluck while the last drops are thinly falling. June 14, 1855

Early strawberries begin to be common. The lower leaves of the plant are red, concealing the fruit. June 14, 1859

Saw a wild rose from the cars in Weston. The early red roses are out in gardens at home. June 14, 1852

See a rose-bug. June 14, 1859

Violets, especially of dry land, are scarce now. June 14, 1859

Eleocharis palustris abundant in Stow's meadow, by railroad. June 14, 1859

The common utricularia out. June 14, 1859

Cow-wheat, how long ? June 14, 1859

Sisymbrium amphibium (?) of Bigelow, some days, at foot of Loring ' s land. June 14, 1854

Common mallows well out; how long? June 14, 1854

What is that sisymbrium or mustard-like plant at foot of Loring 's ? June 14, 1854

Erigeron strigosus (??) out earliest, say yesterday. June 14, 1854

Erigeron annuus{?), some white, some purplish, common now and daisylike. I put it rather early on the 9th. June 14, 1853

Observed a ribwort near Simon Brown's barn by road, with elongated spikes and only pistillate flowers. June 14, 1854

Hedge-mustard, how long? Pepper grass, how long? Some time. June 14, 1854

Scirpus lacustris, maybe some days. June 14, 1854

[Mr. Bacon] has found the Lygodium palmatum there. June 14, 1854

Says that only female mosquitoes sting (not his observation alone); that there are one or two arbor-vitæs native in Natick. June 14, 1854

He thought those the exuviæ of mosquitoes on the river weeds under water. June 14, 1854

He called the huckleberry-apple a parasitic plant, — pterospora, – which grown on and changed the nature of the huckleberry. June 14, 1854

Observed a diseased Andromeda paniculata twig prematurely in blossom. June 14, 1854

Caught a locust, — properly harvest-fly (cicada), — drumming on a birch, which Bacon and Hill (of Waltham) think like the septendecim, except that ours has not red eyes but black ones. June 14, 1854

Harris's other kind, the dog-day cicada (canicularis), or harvest-fly. He says it begins to be heard invariably at the beginning of dog-days; he (Harris) heard it for many years in succession with few exceptions on the 25th of July. June 14, 1854


Heard the first locust from amid the shrubs by the roadside. He comes with heat. June 14, 1853

Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off; is pretty sure. June 14, 1854

Miss Pratt brings me the fertile barberry from northeast the great yellow birch. The staminate is apparently effete. June 14, 1858

I notice interrupted ferns, which were killed, fruit and all, by the frosts of the 28th and 29th of May, now coming up afresh from the root. The barren fronds seem to have stood it better. June 14, 1858

Common garden columbine, broad and purple, by roadside, fifty rods below James Wright's. June 14, 1858

Uvularia perfoliata very common there; now out of bloom. June 14, 1856

Rhamnus cathartica, common buckthorn, naturalized in those woods, now going out of bloom. It is dioecious, twelve feet high, north side. June 14, 1856

Mallows abundantly out in street. June 14, 1856

Kalmiana lily, several days. The little galium in meadow, say one day. June 14, 1855

Maple-leaved viburnum out a day or more there apparently. June 14, 1856

Viburnum dentatum, apparently not long, say two days, and carrion-flower the same. June 14, 1855

Silene antirrhina out on Clamshell, how long? June 14, 1855

Wild meadow garlic, with its head of bulbs and a few flower- buds, not yet; apparently with cultivated onion. June 14, 1853

Herd's-grass heads. June 14, 1853

Full moon last night. June 14, 1851


An evening for poets to describe. June 14, 1851


All nature is in an expectant attitude. June 14, 1851


How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! How gradually the shades of night gather and deepen, giving man ample leisure to bid farewell to-day, conclude his day's affairs, and prepare for slumber! June 14, 1851


As I proceed along the back road I hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the bobolink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering about the barns. June 14, 1851

A small bird chasing a crow high in the air, who is going home at night. June 14, 1851


I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance. June 14, 1851






Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver. June 14, 1851


Instead of the white lily, which requires mud, or the sweet flag, here grows the blue flag in the water, thinly about the shore. . June 14, 1853

The blue flag (Iris versi color) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, — not too high-colored, — especially its reflections in the water. June 14, 1853

The color of the flower harmonizes singularly with the water. June 14, 1853

There was something [in] its bluish blade which harmonized with the greenish water. June 14, 1853

Large devil's-needles are buzzing back and forth. They skim along the edge of the blue flags, apparently quite round this cove or further, like hen-harriers beating the bush for game. June 14, 1853

And now comes a hummingbird humming from the woods and alights on the blossom of a blue flag. June 14, 1853



Now is the clover month, but haying is not yet begun. June 14, 185



I see that the whiteweed is in blossom, which, as I had not walked by day for some time, I had not seen before. June 14, 1851



The angelica is budded, a handsome luxuriant plant. June 14, 1851


As yet no moon, but downy piles of cloud scattered here and there in the expectant sky. June 14, 1851

And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as I enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from a particular plant or all together. June 14, 1851

The song sparrows sing quite briskly among the willows, as if it were spring again, and the blackbird's harsher note resounds over the meadows, and the veery's comes up from the wood. June 14, 1851

Fishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which alight. June 14, 1851

Now the dorbug comes humming by, the first I have heard this year. June 14, 1851


The moon was now seen rising over Fair Haven and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud, barred with a cloud, not promising how it will shine anon. June 14, 1851


In Conant's orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a sparrow saying its vespers, as if it were a link between the cricket and the bird. June 14, 1851

The robin sings now, though the moon shines silverly, and the veery jingles its trill. June 14, 1851

A sparrow or a cricket makes more noise. June 14, 1851

From Conant's summit I hear as many as fifteen whip poor-wills at once. June 14, 1851

The moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds, but still the west is suffused here and there with a slight red tinge, marking the path of the day. June 14, 1851



In three months it will be the Harvest Moon. Perhaps this is the Whip-poor-will's Moon. June 14, 1851

Dark, heavy clouds lie along the western horizon, June 14, 1851

The whip poor-will begins now at 7.30.


Now the sun is fairly gone, I hear the dreaming frog, [toad?] and the whip-poor-will from some darker wood, — it is not far from eight,— and the cuckoo. June 14, 1851


I hear the nighthawk after 9 o'clock. June 14, 1851


The bullfrog now, which I have not heard before, this evening. 
June 14, 1851

The bullfrogs begin with one or two notes and with each peal add another trill to their trump, — er-roonk, er-er-roonk, er-er-er-roonk, etc. June 14, 1853

I am amused to hear one after another, and then an unexpectedly deep and confident bass . . . And now, as if by a general agreement, they all trump together, making a deafening noise. June 14, 1853

Sometimes one jumps up a foot out of water in the midst of these concerts. June 14, 1853


Not much before 10 o'clock does the moonlight night begin. June 14, 1851

When man is asleep and day fairly forgotten, then is the beauty of moonlight seen over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding. June 14, 1851

Returning, a mist is on the river. June 14, 1851


The river is raised surprisingly by the rain of the 12th. The Mill Brook has been over the Turnpike. June 14, 1858

How beautifully the northeast shore curves ! The pines and other trees so perfect on their water side. June 14, 1853

There is no rawness nor imperfection to the edge of the wood in this case, as where an axe has cleared, or a cultivated field abuts on it; but the eye rises by natural gradations from the low shrubs, the alders, of the shore to the higher trees. It is a natural selvage. June 14, 1853

I observed the cotton of aphides on the alders yesterday and to-day. June 14, 1853

How regularly these phenomena appear ! — even the stains or spots or galls on leaves, as that bright yellow on blackberry leaves, now common, and those crimson ring-spots on maple leaves I see to-day, exactly the same pattern with last year's, and the crimson frosting on the black birch leaves I saw the other day. June 14, 1853

Then there are the huckleberry-apples, and the large green puffs on the panicled andromeda, and also I see now the very light or whitish solid and juicy apples on the swamp-pink, with a fungus-like smell when broken. June 14, 1853

The swamp-pink by to-morrow. June 14, 1853

Catbird's nest with four eggs in a swamp-pink, three and a half feet up. June 14, 1859

See in a meadow a song sparrow's nest with three eggs, and another egg just buried level with the bottom of the nest. Probably it is one of a previous laying, which the bird considered addled. I find it to be not at all developed, nor yet spoiled. June 14, 1858

See young red-wings; like grizzly-black vultures, they are still so bald. See many empty red-wing nests now amid the Camus sericea. June 14, 1855


I tell C. to look into an old mortise-hole in Wood’s Bridge for a white-bellied swallow’s nest, as we paddle under; but he laughs, incredulous. I insist, and when he climbs up he scares out the bird. Five eggs. “You see the feathers about, do you not?” “Yes,” said he. June 14, 1855

A song sparrow’s nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them. Have one or more and the nest. The bird evidently deserted the nest when two eggs had been taken. Could not see her return to it, nor find her on it again after we had flushed her. June 14, 1855

The bluebird’s nest high in the black willow at Sassafras Shore has five eggs. The gold robin’s nest, which I could pull down within reach, just beyond, has three eggs. I have one. June 14, 1855

I see a black caterpillar on the black willows nowadays with red spots. June 14, 1854

A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds. June 14, 1855

Looked at the peetweet’s nest which C. found yesterday. It was very difficult to find again in the broad open meadow; no nest but a mere hollow in the dead cranberry leaves, the grass and stubble ruins, under a little alder. The old bird went off at last from under us; low in the grass at first and with wings up, making a worried sound which attracted other birds. I frequently noticed others afterward flying low over the meadow and alighting and uttering this same note of alarm. June 14, 1855

There were only four eggs in this nest yesterday, and to-day, to C.’s surprise, there are the two eggs which he left and a young peetweet beside; a gray pinch of down with a black centre to its back, but already so old and precocious that it runs with its long legs swiftly off from squatting beside the two eggs, and hides in the grass. We have some trouble to catch it. June 14, 1855

How came it here with these eggs, which will not be hatched for some days? C. saw nothing of it yesterday. These eggs were not addled (I had opened one, C. another). Did this bird come from another nest, or did it belong to an earlier brood? Eggs white, with black spots here and there all over, dim at great end. (J. Farmer says that young peetweets run at once like partridges and quails, and that they are the only birds he knows that do.) June 14, 1855

A cherry-bird’s nest and two eggs in an apple tree fourteen feet from ground. One egg, round black spots and a few oblong, about equally but thinly dispersed over the whole, and a dim, internal, purplish tinge about the large end. It is difficult to see anything of the bird, for she steals away early, and you may neither see nor hear anything of her while examining the nest, and so think it deserted. Approach very warily and look out for them a dozen or more rods off. June 14, 1855

Mr. Bacon thinks that cherry-birds are abundant where cankerworms are. June 14, 1854

A red eye sings on a tree-top, and a cuckoo is heard far in the wood. June 14, 1853

Is that the indigo-bird that sings, between here and White Pond, a-chit chit- chit awee? Perhaps the andromeda swamp on this path is as handsome as any, appearing so far down from the hills and still so level. June 14, 1853

A rose-breasted grosbeak betrays itself by that peculiar squeak, on the Britton path. It is evident that many breed in the low woods by Flint's Pond. June 14, 1859

The rose-breasted grosbeak is common now in the Flint's Pond woods. It is not at all shy, and our richest singer, perhaps, after the wood thrush. The rhythm is very like that of the tanager, but the strain is perfectly clear and sweet. June 14, 1859

One sits on the bare dead twig of a chestnut, high over the road, at Gourgas Wood, and over my head, and sings clear and loud at regular intervals, — the strain about ten or fifteen seconds long, rising and swelling to the end, with various modulations. June 14, 1859

Another, singing in emulation, regularly answers it, alternating with it, from a distance, at least a quarter of a mile off. It sings thus long at a time, and I leave it singing there, regardless of me. June 14, 1859

Young partridges, when? June 14, 1858

Hear the phebe note of a chickadee. June 14, 1859

Snake-sloughs are found nowadays ; whitish and bleached they are. June 14, 1853

Probably the tortoise leaves her eggs thus near the surface and in sand that they may receive the greatest heat from the sand, being just deep enough for the sand to receive and retain it and not part with it at night, — not so deep as to be cool. June 14, 1853

The desert at Dugan's is all scored over with tortoise-tracks, — two parallel dotted lines four or five inches apart, the impressions being nearly a half-inch deep, with the distinct mark of the tail making a waving line between. June 14, 1853

It looks as if twenty tortoises had spent a night travelling over it; and here and there there were marks of a slight digging, but I found no eggs. June 14, 1853

They came out of the brook near by. June 14, 1853

Perhaps they select such a bare sandy tract for their encounters, where there is no grass to impede them. June 14, 1853

Perhaps it makes the most remarkable track of any creature. June 14, 1853

Sometimes the sand appeared as if dabbled and patted for a foot or more in diameter. June 14, 1853

At Dugan Desert many fresh turtle-tracks. They generally steer for some more elevated and perhaps bushy place. The tail makes ' a serpentine track, the tracks of the flippers and claws quite distinct, and you see where the turtle rested on its shell, flatting the sand, from time to time. June 14, 1860

You can easily trace one to where the sand has been disturbed, and dig up its eggs, as I did, - six eggs, about two and a half to three inches deep. June 14, 1860

On the Strawberry Hill on the further side of White Pond, about fifty feet above the pond and a dozen rods from it, found a painted tortoise laying her eggs. June 14, 1853

Her posterior was inserted into a slight cavity she had dug in the sandy hillside. June 14, 1853

There were three eggs already laid, the top of them hardly two inches below the surface. June 14, 1853

She had dug down about one and a half or two inches, somewhat in the form of the hind part of her shell, and then under the turf up the hill about two and a half inches, enlarging the cavity slightly within, leaving a neck of an oval form about seven eighths of an inch by one and a quarter inches, apparently packing the eggs with her tail. June 14, 1853

She lay still where I put her, while I examined her eggs, and I replaced her in the hole. June 14, 1853

A little further on, I saw where such a deposit had been broken up, apparently by a skunk, and the egg-shells strewn about. June 14, 1853

The whole hole about three inches deep. June 14, 1853

The three eggs already laid, about one inch long, cream-colored or slightly flesh-color, easily indented with the finger, but a little elastic, not exactly elliptical, but slightly larger at one end. June 14, 1853

The bullfrogs in this cove, it is so late in the day, are beginning to trump They utter a short, laughable, belching sound from time to time and then break into a powerful trump as the whim takes them. . . . There sit the great paddocks in their yellow vests, imperturbable by the sides of the boat. June 14, 1853

With our boat's prow to the shore, we sat half an hour this evening listening to the bullfrogs. Their belching is my dumping sound more hoarsely heard near at hand. June 14, 1853

What imperturbable fellows! One sits perfectly still behind some blades of grass while the dog is chasing others within two feet. Some are quite handsome, large, spotted fellows. June 14, 1853

C. says his dog chased a woodchuck yesterday, and it climbed up into an oak and sat on a limb ten or twelve feet high. He killed a young rabbit. June 14, 1853

The dog lies flat on his belly the while to cool him. June 14, 1853

Now I meet an acquaintance coming from a remote field in his hay-rigging, with a jag of wood; who reins up to show me how large a woodchuck he has killed, which he found eating his clover. June 14, 1851

We see here and there light-colored greenish-white spots on the bottom where a fish, a bream perhaps, has picked away all the dead wood and leaves for her nest over a space of eighteen inches or more. June 14, 1853

A pout's nest (at Pout's Nest) with a straight entrance some twenty inches long and a simple round nest at end. The young just hatched, all head, light-colored, under a mass of weedy hummock which is all under water. June 14, 1859

Young breams from one to three inches long, light-colored and transparent, are swimming about, and here and there a leech in the shallow water, moving s**~>*~^s as serpents are represented to do. 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. June 14, 1853

The wood thrush launches forth his evening strains from the midst of the pines. I admire the moderation of this master. There is nothing tumultuous in his song. June 14, 1853

He launches forth one strain with all his heart and life and soul, of pure and unmatchable melody, and then he pauses and gives the hearer and himself time to digest this, and then another and another at suitable intervals. June 14, 1853

These are the evening sounds. June 14, 1853

This seems the true hour to be abroad sauntering far from home. June 14, 1853

Your thoughts being already turned toward home, your walk in one sense ended, you are in that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before. June 14, 1853

Then the dews begin to descend in your mind, and its atmosphere is strained of all impurities; and home is farther away than ever. June 14, 1853

Here is home; the beauty of the world impresses you. June 14, 1853

Life is too grand for supper. June 14, 1853

There is a coolness in your mind as in a well. June 14, 1853



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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