The pines now half turned yellow.

October 1. 

October 1, 2017

P. M. — To second stone bridge and down Assabet home. 

The ash trees are a dull red, and some quite mulberry color. Methinks it has to do with the smart frost of yesterday morning; i. e., that after the maples have fairly begun, the young red oaks, ash trees, etc., begin with the first smart frost. 

The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast. 

The arbor-vitae changes with them so completely that it looks as if the lower parts were dead. 

All very much exposed button-bushes are brown and sere; so their yellowish season does not amount to much away from the river. . . . 

[It seemed to me that it was no compliment to their god to suppose that he would not let them go to Ktaadn without so much ado. They’d better have put their shoulders to the wheel and stumped it along at a good round pace. . . . 

I boiled some rice at the carry, for our dinner, in cooking which I consider myself adept, having had a good deal of experience in it. P. said that he some times used it, but boiled it till it all fell apart, and, finding this mess unexpectedly soft though quickly prepared, he asked if it had not been cooked before. 

Washing the dishes, especially the greasy ones, is the most irksome duty of the camp, and it reminded me of that sacred band in Fourier’s scheme, who took upon themselves the most disagreeable services. The consequence is that they do not often get washed.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 1, 1857

The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast. See November 9, 1850 ("Just a month ago, I observed that the white pines were parti-colored, green and yellow, the needles of the previous year now falling. Now I do not observe any yellow ones, and I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen.");  See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, the pine fall.