These are the finest days in the year

October 10

These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.

 

This afternoon it is 80°, between three and four, and at 6.30 this evening my chamber is oppressively sultry, and the thermometer on the north side of the house is at 64°. 

October 10, 2016

 

I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night. But I anticipate. 

The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards, and the very Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers. 

Going to E. Hosmer's by boat, see quite a flock of wild ducks in front of his house, close by the bridge. 

While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph of the sphinx moth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1856

These are the finest days in the year,  See October 10, 1857 ("The sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year"). See also July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today."); May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now”);  May 21, 1854 (“The finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.”); August 19, 1853 (“A glorious and ever-memorable day.”); September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year”); December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards. See October 10, 1851 ("The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard.") See also October 5, 1858 ("Phebe note of Chickadee often these days"); October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen. ") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers. See October 10, 1851 ("There are many things to indicate the renewing of spring at this season");  October 10, 1853 ("The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring."); See also September 10, 1857 ("I see lambkill ready to bloom a second time.”); September 16, 1852 (“Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall.”); September 26, 1859 ("So it is with flowers, birds, and frogs a renewal of spring."); October 3, 1858 ("Hear a hylodes peeping on shore."); October 22, 1859 (" I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.");   October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds.")

I lie with window wide open. See  October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week."); November 8, 1855 ("I can sit with my window open and no fire.”)

Going to E. Hosmer's by boat, see quite a flock of wild ducks in front of his house, close by the bridge. See October 10, 1855 ("A young man has just shown me a small duck which he shot in the river from my boat."); October 10, 1858 ("Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, especially in chestnut woods, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds."); October 10, 1858 ("The leaves . . . are the greater part fallen, letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment.") See also September 18, 1858 ("For the ducks are now back again in numbers,"); October 6, 1858 ("Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, especially in chestnut woods, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds"); October 9, 1860 ("Wood ducks are about now, amid the painted leaves."); October 14, 1857 ("Approaching White Pond by the path, I see on its perfectly smooth surface what I at first mistake for a large raft of dead and black logs and limbs, but it soon elevates itself in the form of a large flock of black ducks, which go off with a loud quacking."); October 17, 1858 ("And painted ducks, too, often come and sail or float amid the painted leaves."); October 20, 1853 ("I hear a rush of wings, look up, and see three dusky ducks swiftly circling over the small water."); October 21, 1852 ("Some birds are leaving us, others, like ducks, are just arriving from the north.");  October 22, 1857 (“As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing. However, Nature in this may have intended some kindness to the ducks, which are now loitering hereabouts on their migration southward, mostly young and inexperienced birds, for, as they are feeding [in] Goose Pond, for instance, the rustling of the leaves betrays the approach of the sports man and his dog, or other foe.");  October 22, 1858 ("You get very near wood ducks with a boat nowadays.");  October 30, 1857 ("Near the island, in my boat, I scare up . . . half a dozen ducks, probably summer ducks.")

Dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph of the sphinx moth. See May 5, 1857 ("Have dug up in the garden this season half a dozen of those great leather-colored pupae (with the tongue-case bent round to breast like a long urn-handle) of the sphinx moth. First potato-worm."); September 14, 1858 ("Picked eleven of those great potato worms, caterpillars of the sphinx moth, off our privet")

October 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 10

The phebe note of 

the chickadee is often 

heard now in the yards.

Faint warbling of birds, 

flowers' second blossoming – 

renewal of the year.

Dug up a reddish 

mummy-like chrysalid or 

nymph of the sphinx moth.

Window wide open, 

I lie under a single 

sheet most of the night.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

 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 ©  2009-2026

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