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| August 24, 2018 |
P. M. —Sail to Ball’s (?) Hill.
They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut, I think.
I am flattered because my stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple while his masters are loading. His nostrils dilate; he snorts and tries to break loose. He eyes with terror this white wind steed. No wonder he is alarmed at my introducing such a competitor into the river meadows. Yet, large as my sail is, it being low I can scud down for miles through the very meadows in which dozens of haymakers are at work, and they may not detect me.
The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away.
The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water.
No hibiscus yet.
The white maples in a winding row along the river and the meadow’s edge are rounded hoary-white masses, as if they showed only the under sides of their leaves. Those which have been changed by water are less bright than a week ago. They now from this point (Abner Buttrick’s shore) are a pale lake, mingling very agreeably with the taller hoary-white ones. This little color in the hoary meadow edging is very exhilarating to behold and the most memorable phenomenon of the day. It is as when quarters of peach of this color are boiled with white apple-quarters. Is this anything like murrey color? In some other lights it is more red or scarlet.
Climbing the hill at the bend, I find Gerardia Pedicularia, apparently several days, or how long?
Looking up and down the river this sunny, breezy afternoon, I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work.
What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year from these miles on miles of river meadow! You see some carrying out the hay on poles, where it is too soft for cattle, and loaded carts are leaving the meadows for distant barns in the various towns that border on them.
I look down a straight reach of water to the hill by Carlisle Bridge, —and this I can do at any season, — the longest reach we have. It is worth the while to come here for this prospect, — to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real.
Desmodium Marylandicum apparently in prime along this Ball’s (?) Hill low shore, and apparently another kind, Dillenii (??) or rigidum (??), the same. These and lespedezas now abound in dry places.
Carrion flower fruit is blue; how long?
Squirrels have eaten hazelnuts and pitch pine cones for some days. Now and of late we remember hazel bushes, —we become aware of such a fruit-bearing bush. They have their turn, and every clump and hedge seems composed of them. The burs begin to look red on their edges.
I notice, in the river, opposite the end of the meadow path, great masses of ranunculus stems, etc., two or three feet through by a rod or more long, which look as if they had been washed or rolled aside by the wind and waves, amid the potamogeton.
I have just read of a woodchuck that came to a boat on Long Island Sound to be taken in!
Pipes (Equisetum limosum) are brown and half-withered along the river, where they have been injured by water.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1858
The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water. See August 1, 1859 ("The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low."); August 2, 1856("Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts."); August 9, 1856 ("All the Bidens Beckii is drowned too, and will be delayed, if not exterminated for this year."); August 11, 1853 ("The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii."); August 12, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally."); September 12, 1859 (" much of the Beckii was drowned by the rise of the river"); September 14, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii is drowned or dried up, and has given place to the great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory, "); September 18, 1856 ("On account of freshet I have seen no Bidens Beckii"); September 25, 1852 ("Found the Bidens Beckii (?) September 1st"); October 20, 1856 ("Owing to the great height of the river, there has been no Bidens Beckii . . . this year,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii
Bidens cernua Large-flowered bidens,
or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold,
now abundant by riverside.
September 19, 1851
a straight reach of water to the hill by Carlisle Bridge, —— the longest reach we have. See April 10, 1852("This meadow is about two miles long at one view from Carlisle Bridge southward, appearing to wash the base of Pine hill, and it is about as much longer northward and from a third to a half a mile wide."); April 24, 1852 ("The water is still over the causeway on both sides of Carlisle Bridge for a long distance. It is a straight flood now for about four miles")
I look down a straight reach of water to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real. See August 23, 1851 ("Our little river reaches are not to be forgotten. I noticed that seen northward on the Assabet from the Causeway Bridge near the second stone bridge. There was [a] man in a boat in the sun, just disappearing in the distance round a bend, lifting high his arms and dipping his paddle as if he were a vision bound to land of the blessed, — far off, as in picture. When I see Concord to purpose, I see it as if it were not real but painted,")
I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts. See August 18, 1854 ("Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand."); See also July 30, 1856 ("I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes."); August 3, 1859 ("The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. "); August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")
I look down a straight reach of water to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real. See August 23, 1851 ("Our little river reaches are not to be forgotten. I noticed that seen northward on the Assabet from the Causeway Bridge near the second stone bridge. There was [a] man in a boat in the sun, just disappearing in the distance round a bend, lifting high his arms and dipping his paddle as if he were a vision bound to land of the blessed, — far off, as in picture. When I see Concord to purpose, I see it as if it were not real but painted,")
I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts. See August 18, 1854 ("Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand."); See also July 30, 1856 ("I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes."); August 3, 1859 ("The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. "); August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")
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