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
Dark cloud in the west.
Small and nearer clouds float past –
white against dark-blue.
In low Flint's Pond Path
goldenrod makes a thicket
higher than my head.
July 24, 1856
The first crop of grass,
the year passed culmination–
the aftermath springs.
July 24, 1852
Looking toward the sun
shows a fresh lit-up light green
where grass has been cut.
There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields. July 24, 1852
The effects of drought are never more apparent than at dawn. July 24, 1851
The nighthawk squeaks, and the chewink jingles his strain, and the wood thrush; but I think there is no loud and general serenade from the birds. July 24, 1853.
When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination. July 24, 1852
Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun. July 24, 1860
The corn now forms solid phalanxes, though the ears have not set, and, the sun going down, the shadows, even of corn-fields, fall long over the meadows, and a sweetness comes up from the shaven grass, and the crickets creak more loud in the new-springing grass. July 24, 1852
I heard this afternoon the cool water twitter of the goldfinch. and saw the bird. They come with the springing aftermath. It is refreshing as a cup of cold water to a thirsty man to hear them now only one at a time. July 24, 1852
The effects of drought are never more apparent than at dawn. July 24, 1851
The street and fields betray the drought and look more parched than at noon; they look as I feel, -- languid and thin and feeling my nerves. July 24, 1851
The ground is very dry, the berries are drying up. It is long since we have had any rain to speak of. July 24, 1852
Nature is like a hen panting with open mouth, in the grass, as the morning after a debauch. July 24, 1851
The ground is very dry, the berries are drying up. It is long since we have had any rain to speak of. July 24, 1852
Nature is like a hen panting with open mouth, in the grass, as the morning after a debauch. July 24, 1851
Where most I sought for flowers in April and May I do not think to go now. July 24, 1853
The hairy huckleberry still lingers in bloom, — a few of them. July 24, 1859.
The white orchis will hardly open for a week. July 24, 1859
The hairy huckleberry still lingers in bloom, — a few of them. July 24, 1859.
The white orchis will hardly open for a week. July 24, 1859
The small purple fringed orchis, apparently three or four days at least. July 24, 1856.
In the low Flint's Pond Path, beyond Britton's, the tall rough goldenrod makes a thicket higher than my head. July 24, 1856
At the Corner Spring the berries of the trillium are already pink. July 24, 1853
The dark indigo-blue (Sophia says), waxy, and like blue china blue berries of the clintonia are already well ripe . . .They are in clusters of half a dozen on brittle stems eight or ten inches high, oblong or squarish round, the size of large peas with a dimple atop . . .. This is the plant’s true flower, for which it has preserved its leaves fresh and unstained so long July 24, 1853
This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries. July 24, 1853
In the low Flint's Pond Path, beyond Britton's, the tall rough goldenrod makes a thicket higher than my head. July 24, 1856
At the Corner Spring the berries of the trillium are already pink. July 24, 1853
The dark indigo-blue (Sophia says), waxy, and like blue china blue berries of the clintonia are already well ripe . . .They are in clusters of half a dozen on brittle stems eight or ten inches high, oblong or squarish round, the size of large peas with a dimple atop . . .. This is the plant’s true flower, for which it has preserved its leaves fresh and unstained so long July 24, 1853
Sophia's Viola pedata, taken up in the spring, blossomed again a day or two ago. July 24, 1853.
The berries of the Vaccinium vacillans are very abundant and large this year on Fair Haven, where I am now. Indeed these and huckleberries and blackberries are very abundant in this part of the town. July 24, 1853.
This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries. July 24, 1853
The field sparrow sings with that varied strain. July 24, 1853.
I hear again the loud thunder and see the dark cloud in the west. July 24, 1854
Some small and nearer clouds are floating past, white against the dark-blue distant one. July 24, 1854
The clear, solemn western sky till far into night was framed by a dark line of clouds with a heavy edge, curving across the northwest sky, at a considerable height, separating the region of day from that of night. July 24, 1852
Lay on a lichen-covered hill which looked white in the moonlight. July 24, 1852
Getting up some time after midnight . . . I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see . . . It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before.") July 24, 1857 ( The Maine Woods)
How unexplored still are the realms of nature . . . what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one. July 24, 1857
How unexplored still are the realms of nature . . . what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one. July 24, 1857
A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly that it dazzles me as much as the sun. July 24, 1853
July 24, 2014
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau;
*****
March 29, 1853 (“A man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to...appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.”)
July 10, 1854 ("Rush sparrow, common and loud. ")
July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Sylvan: Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday. Catbird full strain, whip-poor-will, crows.")
July 13, 1851 ("The chewink jingles on the tops of the bushes, and the rush sparrow, the vireo, and oven-bird at a distance.")
July 15, 1859 ("The white orchis not yet, apparently, for a week or more. Hairy huckleberry still in bloom, but chiefly done.")
July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them.")
July
16, 1851 (“The rush sparrow jingles her small change, pure silver, on the
counter of the pasture”)
July 17, 1854 ("In Conant's meadow just behind Wheeler's, the smaller fringed orchis not quite reached by the mowers. . . . It is a darker purple for being so exposed. None yet opening in the shade.")
July 18, 1854 ("Where I looked for early spring flowers I do not look for midsummer ones.")
July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.")July 19, 1851("Already the goldenrod is budded, but I can make no haste for that")
July 19, 1851("The wind rises more and more. The river and the pond are blacker than the threatening cloud in the south. The thunder mutters in the distance. The surface of the water is slightly rippled . . . The woods roar. Small white clouds [hurry] across the dark-blue ground of the storm.")
July 19, 1854 ("Clintonia berries in a day or two.")
July 20, 1852 ("And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.")
July 22, 1852 ("The green berries of the arum are seen, and the now reddish fruit of the trillium, and the round green-pea-sized green berries of the axil-flowering Solomon's-seal.")
July 22, 1852 ("The green berries of the arum are seen, and the now reddish fruit of the trillium, and the round green-pea-sized green berries of the axil-flowering Solomon's-seal.")
July 23, 1852 ("Now is the haying season . . . How active must these men be, all the country over, that they may get through their work in season! ")
July 23, 1856 ("See apparently young goldfinches about, very freshly bright golden and black.")
July 23, 1854 ("The white orchis at same place, four or five days at least; spike one and three quarters by three inches.")
July 23, 1854 ("There is a peculiar light reflected from the shorn fields.")
July 23, 1859 ("Low blackberries have begun.")
July 25, 1852 ("The wood thrush and the jay and the robin sing around me here, and birds are heard singing from the midst of the fog")
July 25, 1854 ("Hear a wood thrush.")
July 25, 1857 ("Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking.")
July 25, 1854 ("High blackberries, a day or two. . . . The rain has saved the berries. They are plump and large.")
July 25, 1857 ("The great purple orchis (Platanthera fimbriata), very splendid and perfect ones close to the rails. I was surprised to see it in bloom so late.")
July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year.")
July 26, 1854 ("Almost every bush now offers a wholesome and palatable diet to the wayfarer, — large and dense clusters of Vaccinium vacillans, largest in most moist ground, sprinkled with the red ones not ripe; great high blueberries, some nearly as big as cranberries, of an agreeable acid; huckleberries of various kinds, some shining black, some dull-black, some blue; and low blackberries of two or more varieties. The broods of birds just matured find thus plenty to eat")
July 26, 1858 ("Saw bay-wings and huckleberry-birds.")
July 27, 1852 ("The huckleberry-bird as usual, and the nighthawk squeaks and booms, and the bullfrog trumps, just before the earliest star. The evening red is much more remarkable than the morning red. The solemnity of the evening sky! ")July 28, 1852 ("There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown.")
July 28, 1854 (Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — . . . having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year.")
July 30, 1853 ("If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow ' s edge.")
July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”)
August 8, 1854 ("I find at Ledum Swamp, near the pool, the white fringed orchis, quite abundant but past prime, only a few, yet quite fresh. It seems to belong to this sphagnous swamp and is some fifteen to twenty inches high, quite conspicuous, its white spike, amid the prevailing green")
August 19, 1851("Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”);
August 27, 1856 ("The peculiar large dark blue indigo clintonia berries of irregular form and dark-spotted, in umbels of four or five on very brittle stems which break with a snap and on erectish stemlets or pedicels.")
October 19 1855 ("If there were eyes enough to occupy all the east shore, the whole pond would be seen as one dazzling shimmering lake of melted gold.")August 27, 1856 ("The peculiar large dark blue indigo clintonia berries of irregular form and dark-spotted, in umbels of four or five on very brittle stems which break with a snap and on erectish stemlets or pedicels.")
December 11, 1855; ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance.”)
July 24, 2022
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 24A 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 © 2009-2023
https://tinyurl.com/HDT24JULY
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