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
How evenly the
freshly fallen pine-needles
are spread on the ground!
New musquash-houses
conspicuous on the now
nearly leafless shores.
 |
| October 16, 2015 |
The third pleasant day. October 16, 1853
It clears up entirely by noon, having been cloudy in the forenoon, and is as warm as before now. October 16, 1857
The mikania, goldenrods, and Andropogon scoparius have now their November aspect, the former showing their dirty-white pappus, the last its white plumose hairs. October 16, 1858
The year is thus acquiring a grizzly look before the snows of winter. October 16, 1858
When we emerged from the pleasant footpath through the birches into Witherell Glade, looking along it the westering sun, the glittering white tufts of the Andropogon scoparius, lit up by the sun, were affectingly fair and cheering to behold. It was already a cheerful Novemberish scene. October 16, 1859
The year is thus acquiring a grizzly look before the snows of winter. October 16, 1858
When we emerged from the pleasant footpath through the birches into Witherell Glade, looking along it the westering sun, the glittering white tufts of the Andropogon scoparius, lit up by the sun, were affectingly fair and cheering to behold. It was already a cheerful Novemberish scene. October 16, 1859
This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary light on it. October 16, 1859
Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs. October 16, 1859
From the shore you look back at the silver-plated river. October 16, 1859
A cold, clear, Novemberish day. October 16, 1859
It is rather too cool to sit still in the boat unless in a sunny and sheltered place. October 16, 1859
I have not been on the river for some time, and it is the more novel to me this cool day. October 16, 1859
The button-bushes are just bare, and the black willows partly so, and the mikania all fairly gray now. October 16, 1859
I now fairly begin to see the brown balls of the button-bush (which is about bare) reflected in smooth water, looking black against the sky, also the now withered straw-colored coarse grass (Phalaris) October 16, 1858
I see the button-bush balls reflected on each side, and each wool-grass head and recurved withered sedge or rush is also doubled by the reflection. October 16, 1859
I see the button-bush balls reflected on each side, and each wool-grass head and recurved withered sedge or rush is also doubled by the reflection. October 16, 1859
In the reflection the button-bushes and their balls appear against the sky, though the substance is seen against the meadow or distant woods and hills; i. e., they appear in the reflection as they would if viewed from that point on the surface from which they are reflected to my eye, so that it is as if I had another eye placed there to see for me. October 16, 1858
Each ball of the button-bush reflected in the silvery water by the riverside appears to me as distinct and important as a star in the heavens viewed through "optic glass." This, too, deserves its Kepler and Galileo. October 16, 1859
The musquash-houses rapidly rising of late are revealed by the fall of the button-bush, willows, pontederia, etc. October 16, 1858
When I get to Willow Bay I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores. October 16, 1859
To me this is an important and suggestive sight, as, perchance, in some countries new haystacks in the yards; as to the Esquimaux the erection of winter houses. October 16, 1859
I remember this phenomenon annually for thirty years. A more constant phenomenon here than the new haystacks in the yard, for they were erected here probably before man dwelt here and may still be erected here when man has departed.October 16, 1859
For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside, reminding us that, if we have no gypsies, we have a more indigenous race of furry, quadrupedal men maintaining their ground in our midst still. October 16, 1859
The musquash is steadily adding to his winter lodge. There is no need of supposing a peculiar instinct telling him how high to build his cabin. He has had a longer experience in this river-valley than we. October 16, 1859
To me this is an important and suggestive sight, as, perchance, in some countries new haystacks in the yards; as to the Esquimaux the erection of winter houses. October 16, 1859
I remember this phenomenon annually for thirty years. A more constant phenomenon here than the new haystacks in the yard, for they were erected here probably before man dwelt here and may still be erected here when man has departed.October 16, 1859
For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside, reminding us that, if we have no gypsies, we have a more indigenous race of furry, quadrupedal men maintaining their ground in our midst still. October 16, 1859
The musquash is steadily adding to his winter lodge. There is no need of supposing a peculiar instinct telling him how high to build his cabin. He has had a longer experience in this river-valley than we. October 16, 1859
So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia and flags. October 16, 1859
This may not be an annual phenomenon to you. . . .but it has an important place in my Kalendar. October 16, 1859
This may not be an annual phenomenon to you. . . .but it has an important place in my Kalendar. October 16, 1859
For October, for instance, instead of making the sun enter the sign of the scorpion, I would much sooner make him enter a musquash-house. October 16, 1859
The phenomena of our year are one thing, those of the almanac another. October 16, 1859
The few blackish leaves of pontederia rising above the water now resemble ducks at a distance, and so help to conceal them now that they are returning. October 16, 1859
Then, nearer home, I hear two or three song sparrows on the button-bushes sing as in spring, — that memorable tinkle, — as if it would be last as it was first. October 16, 1859
Also a robin sings once or twice, just as in spring! October 16, 1857
I stop a while at Cheney's shore to hear an incessant musical twittering from a large flock of young goldfinches which have dull-yellow and drab and black plumage, on maples, etc., while the leaves are falling. October 16, 1857
Young birds can hardly restrain themselves, and if they did not leave us, might perchance burst forth into song in the later Indian summer days. October 16, 1857
I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book. October 16, 1855
I stop a while at Cheney's shore to hear an incessant musical twittering from a large flock of young goldfinches which have dull-yellow and drab and black plumage, on maples, etc., while the leaves are falling. October 16, 1857
Young birds can hardly restrain themselves, and if they did not leave us, might perchance burst forth into song in the later Indian summer days. October 16, 1857
I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book. October 16, 1855
What are the sparrow-like birds with striped breasts and two triangular chestnut-colored spots on the breasts which I have seen some time, picking the seeds of the weeds in the garden? October 16, 1852
I saw some blackbirds, apparently grackles, singing, after their fashion, on a tree by the river. October 16, 1857
Most had those grayish-brown heads and necks; some, at least, much ferruginous or reddish brown reflected. They were pruning themselves and splitting their throats in vain, trying to sing as the other day. All the melody flew off in splinters.” October 16, 1857
See a large flock of grackles steering for a bare elm top near the meadows. October 16, 1858
As they fly athwart my view, they appear successively rising half a foot or a foot above one another, though the flock is moving straight forward. October 16, 1858
I have not seen red-wings [for] a long while, but these birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about. October 16, 1858
See a hairy woodpecker on a burnt pitch pine. He distinctly rests on his tail constantly. With what vigor he taps and bores the bark, making it fly far and wide, and then darts off with a sharp whistle! October 16, 1859
I saw some blackbirds, apparently grackles, singing, after their fashion, on a tree by the river. October 16, 1857
Most had those grayish-brown heads and necks; some, at least, much ferruginous or reddish brown reflected. They were pruning themselves and splitting their throats in vain, trying to sing as the other day. All the melody flew off in splinters.” October 16, 1857
See a large flock of grackles steering for a bare elm top near the meadows. October 16, 1858
As they fly athwart my view, they appear successively rising half a foot or a foot above one another, though the flock is moving straight forward. October 16, 1858
I have not seen red-wings [for] a long while, but these birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about. October 16, 1858
Natural objects and phenomena are the original symbols or types which express our thoughts and feelings. October 16, 1859
When I really know that our river pursues a serpentine course to the Merrimack, shall I continue to describe it by referring to some other river no older than itself which is like it, and call it a meander? It is no more meandering than the Meander is musketaquidding. As well sing of the nightingale here as the Meander. October 16, 1859
What if there were a tariff on words, on language, for the encouragement of home manufactures? Have we not the genius to coin our own? Let the schoolmaster distinguish the true from the counterfeit. October 16, 1859
In all respects a
most disgusting object, yet
very suggestive.
October 16, 1856
The Scirpus lacustris is generally brown, the Juncus militaris greener. October 16, 1859
At Clamshell the large black oaks are brownish and greenish yellow; the swamp white, at a distance, a yellowish green; though many of the last (which are small) are already withered pale-brown with light under sides. October 16, 1858
Willows generally turn yellow, even to the little sage willow, the smallest of all our species, but a foot or two high, though the Salix alba hardly attains to more than a sheeny polish. October 16, 1858
But one willow, at least, the S. cordata, varies from yellow to a light scarlet in wet places, which would be deeper yet were it not for its lighter under sides. October 16, 1858
This is seen afar in considerable low patches in the meadow. It is remarkable among our willows for turning scarlet, and I can distinguish this species now by this, i. e. part of it, in perhaps the wettest places; the rest is yellow. It is as distinctly scarlet as the gooseberry, though it may be lighter. October 16, 1858
The oak sprout-land on the hillside north of Puffer’s is now quite brilliant red. October 16, 1858
There is a pretty dense row of white birches along the base of the hill near the meadow, and their light-yellow spires are seen against the red and set it off remarkably, the red being also seen a little below them, between their bare stems. October 16, 1858
The weeds are dressed in their frost jackets, naked down to their close-fitting downy or flannel shirts. Like athletes they challenge the winter, these bare twigs. October 16, 1859
Every rain exposes new arrowheads. We stop at Clamshell and dabble for a moment in the relics of a departed race. October 16, 1859
Where we landed in front of Puffer's, found a jug which the haymakers had left in the bushes. Hid our boat there in a clump of willows, and though the ends stuck out, being a pale green and whitish, they were not visible or distinguishable at a little distance. October 16, 1859
Passed through the sandy potato-field at Witherell's cellar-hole. Potatoes not dug; looking late and neglected now; the very vines almost vanished on some sandier hills. October 16, 1859
A narrow glade stretching east and west between a dense birch wood, now half bare, and a ruddy oak wood on the upper side, a ground covered with tawny stubble and fine withered grass and cistuses. Looking westward along it, your eye on these lit tufts of andropogon, their glowing half raised a foot or more above the ground, a lighter and more brilliant white ness than the downiest cloud presents (though seen on one side they are grayish).October 16, 1859
Even the lespedezas stand like frost-covered wands, and now hoary goldenrods and some bright-red blackberry vines amid the tawny grass are in harmony with the rest; and if you sharpen and rightly intend your eye you see the gleaming lines of gossamer (stretching from stubble to stubble over the whole surface) which you are breaking. How cheerful these cold but bright white waving tufts! October 16, 1859
They reflect all the sun's light without a particle of his heat, or yellow rays. A thousand such tufts now catch up the sun and send to us its light but not heat. His heat is being steadily withdrawn from us. Light without heat is getting to be the prevailing phenomenon of the day now. October 16, 1859
We economize all the warmth we get now. The frost of the 11th, which stiffened the ground, made new havoc with vegetation, as I perceive. Many plants have ceased to bloom, no doubt. October 16, 1859
Many Diplopappus linariifolius are gone to seed, and yellowish globes. October 16, 1859
Such are the stages in the year's decline. October 16, 1859
Ground all white with frost. October 16, 1856
The flowers are at the mercy of the frosts. Places where erechthites grows, more or less bare, in sprout- lands, look quite black and white (black withered leaves and white down) and wintry.October 16, 1859
At Ledum Swamp, feeling to find the Vaccinium Oxycoccus berries, I am struck with the coldness of the wet sphagnum, as if I put my hands into a moss in Labrador, — a sort of winter lingering the summer through there. October 16, 1859
To my surprise, now at 3.30 p. m., some of the sphagnum in the shade is still stiff with frost, and when I break it I see the glistening spiculae. This is the most startling evidence of winter as yet. October 16, 1859
For only on the morning of the 11th was there any stiffening of the ground elsewhere. Also in the high sedgy sprout-land south of this swamp, I see hoary or frost-like patches of sedge amid the rest, where all is dry; as if in such places (the lowest) the frost had completely bleached the grass so that it now looks like frost. I think that that is the case. October 16, 1859
It is remarkable how, when a wood has been cut (perhaps where the soil was light) and frosts for a long while prevent a new wood from springing up there, that fine sedge (Carex Pennsylvanica?) will densely cover the ground amid the stumps and dead sprouts. It is the most hardy and native of grasses there. This is the grass of the sprout-lands and woods. It wants only the sun and a reasonably dry soil. October 16, 1859
Then there are the grasses and sedges of the meadows, but the cultivated fields and the pastures are commonly clothed with introduced grasses. The nesaea is all withered, also the woodwardia. October 16, 1859
The ledum smells like a bee, — that peculiar scent they have. October 16, 1859
The ledum and Andromeda Polijolia leaves have fallen. October 16, 1859
The Kalmia glauca is still falling. October 16, 1859
The spruce, also, has fallen. October 16, 1859
Evergreens, I should say, fall early, both the coniferous and the broad-leaved. October 16, 1859
That election-cake fungus which is still growing (as for some months) appears to be a Boletus. October 16, 1859
I love to get out of cultivated fields where I walk on an imported sod, on English grass, and walk in the fine sedge of woodland hollows, on an American sward. In the former case my thoughts are heavy and lumpish, as if I fed on turnips. In the other I nibble ground nuts. October 16, 1859
I remark how still it is to-day, really Sabbath-like. This day, at least, we do not hear the rattle of cars nor the whistle. I cannot realize that the country was often as still as this twenty years ago. October 16, 1859
Returning, the river is perfectly still and smooth. The broad, shallow water on each side, bathing the withered grass, looks as if it were ready to put on its veil of ice at any moment. It seems positively to invite the access of frost. I seem to hear already the creaking, shivering sound of ice there, broken by the undulations my boat makes. So near are we to winter. October 16, 1859
This cold refines and condenses us. Our spirits are strong, like that pint of cider in the middle of a frozen barrel. October 16, 1859
The cool, placid, silver-plated waters at even coolly await the frost. October 16, 1859
Your hands begin to be cool, rowing, now. October 16, 1859
At many a place in sprout-lands, where the sedge is peculiarly flat and white or hoary, I put down my hand to feel if there is frost on it. It must be the trace of frost. Since the frost of the 11th, the grass and stubble has received another coat of tawny.
As nature generally, on the advent of frost, puts on a russet and tawny dress, so is not man clad more in harmony with nature in the fall in a tawny suit or the different hues of Vermont gray? October 16, 1859
All the Lycopodium complanatum I see to-day has shed its pollen. October 16, 1859
Our wood-lots have a history, and we may often recover it for a hundred years back. October 16, 1860
Looking from a hilltop, I distinguish exclusive and regular communities of pine, a dozen or more rods wide, within a distant old woods of mixed pine and oak. October 16, 1860
I observe that pines, white birches, red maples, alders, etc., often grow in more or less regular rounded or oval or conical patches, while oaks, chestnuts, hickories, etc., simply form woods of greater or less extent, whether by themselves or mixed, and do not naturally spring up in an oval form. October 16, 1860
This is a consequence of the different manner in which trees which have winged seeds and those which have not are planted, - the former being blown together in one direction by the wind, the latter being dispersed irregularly by animals.October 16, 1860
Looking round, I observe at a distance an oak wood-lot some twenty years old, with a dense narrow edging of pitch pines about a rod and a half wide and twenty-five or thirty years old along its whole southern side, which is straight and thirty or forty rods long, and, next to it, an open field or pasture. October 16, 1860
It presents a very singular appearance, because the oak wood is broad and has no pines within it, while the narrow edging is perfectly straight and dense, and pure pine. October 16, 1860
Our wood-lots have a history, and we may often recover it for a hundred years back. October 16, 1860
Looking from a hilltop, I distinguish exclusive and regular communities of pine, a dozen or more rods wide, within a distant old woods of mixed pine and oak. October 16, 1860
I observe that pines, white birches, red maples, alders, etc., often grow in more or less regular rounded or oval or conical patches, while oaks, chestnuts, hickories, etc., simply form woods of greater or less extent, whether by themselves or mixed, and do not naturally spring up in an oval form. October 16, 1860
This is a consequence of the different manner in which trees which have winged seeds and those which have not are planted, - the former being blown together in one direction by the wind, the latter being dispersed irregularly by animals.October 16, 1860
Looking round, I observe at a distance an oak wood-lot some twenty years old, with a dense narrow edging of pitch pines about a rod and a half wide and twenty-five or thirty years old along its whole southern side, which is straight and thirty or forty rods long, and, next to it, an open field or pasture. October 16, 1860
It presents a very singular appearance, because the oak wood is broad and has no pines within it, while the narrow edging is perfectly straight and dense, and pure pine. October 16, 1860
It is the more remarkable at this season because the oak is all red and yellow and the pine all green. October 16, 1860
I understand it and read its history easily before I get to it. October 16, 1860
When I get to Willow Bay I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores. To me this is an important and suggestive sight, as, perchance, in some countries new haystacks in the yards; as to the Esquimaux the erection of winter houses. October 16, 1859
I remember this phenomenon annually for thirty years. A more constant phenomenon here than the new haystacks in the yard, for they were erected here probably before man dwelt here and may still be erected here when man has departed. For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside, reminding us that, if we have no gypsies, we have a more indigenous race of furry, quadrupedal men maintaining their ground in our midst still. October 16, 1859
Surveying for Loring to-day. Saw the Indian Ditch, so called. October 16, 1851
A plant newly leaving out, a shrub; looks somewhat like shad blossom. October 16, 1851
The new moon, seen by day, reminds me of a poet's cheese. October 16, 1851
To-night the spearers are out again. October 16, 1851
Walk to White Pond. October 16, 1853
The Marchantia polymorpha is still erect there. October 16, 1853
Viola ovata out. October 16, 1853
The Lysimachia stricta, with its long bulb-lets in the axils, how green and fresh by the shore of the pond! October 16, 1853
To-night the spearers are out again. October 16, 1851
Walk to White Pond. October 16, 1853
The Marchantia polymorpha is still erect there. October 16, 1853
Viola ovata out. October 16, 1853
The Lysimachia stricta, with its long bulb-lets in the axils, how green and fresh by the shore of the pond! October 16, 1853
I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, i. e. a few of them: hedge-mustard, mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow, some Aster Tradescanti, and some red clover. October 16, 1856
Hunter's Moon. October 16, 1853
The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor. October 16, 1860
I have come up here this afternoon to see the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, that was cut off last winter, to know how the little oaks look in it. October 16, 1860
To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here. October 16, 1860
So he trifles with nature. I am chagrined for him. That he should call himself an agriculturalist! October 16, 1860
He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen. October 16, 1860
Sail up river. October 16, 1858
Hence, too, we are struck by the prevalence of sky or light in the reflection, and at twilight dream that the light has gone down into the bosom of the waters; for in the reflection the sky comes up to the very shore or edge and appears to extend under it, while, the substance being seen from a more elevated point, the actual horizon is perhaps many miles distant over the fields and hills.October 16, 1858
In the reflection you have an infinite number of eyes to see for you and report the aspect of things each from its point of view. The statue in the meadow which actually is seen obscurely against the meadow, in the reflection appears dark and distinct against the sky. October 16, 1858
I see some Polygonum amphibium, front-rank, and hydropiperoides still. October 16, 1858
The Polygonum dumetorum in Tarbell's Swamp lies thick and twisted, rolled together, over the loose raised twigs on the ground, as if woven over basketwork, though it is now all sere. October 16, 1853
The farmer begins to calculate how much longer he can safely leave his potatoes out. October 16, 1859
Hunter's Moon. October 16, 1853
The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor. October 16, 1860
I have come up here this afternoon to see the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, that was cut off last winter, to know how the little oaks look in it. October 16, 1860
To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here. October 16, 1860
So he trifles with nature. I am chagrined for him. That he should call himself an agriculturalist! October 16, 1860
He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen. October 16, 1860
Sail up river. October 16, 1858
Hence, too, we are struck by the prevalence of sky or light in the reflection, and at twilight dream that the light has gone down into the bosom of the waters; for in the reflection the sky comes up to the very shore or edge and appears to extend under it, while, the substance being seen from a more elevated point, the actual horizon is perhaps many miles distant over the fields and hills.October 16, 1858
In the reflection you have an infinite number of eyes to see for you and report the aspect of things each from its point of view. The statue in the meadow which actually is seen obscurely against the meadow, in the reflection appears dark and distinct against the sky. October 16, 1858
I see some Polygonum amphibium, front-rank, and hydropiperoides still. October 16, 1858
The Polygonum dumetorum in Tarbell's Swamp lies thick and twisted, rolled together, over the loose raised twigs on the ground, as if woven over basketwork, though it is now all sere. October 16, 1853
The farmer begins to calculate how much longer he can safely leave his potatoes out. October 16, 1859
The ground was so stiff on the 15th, in the morning, that some could not dig potatoes. October 16, 1856
The green white pines seen here and there amid the red are equally important. October 16, 1858
The tupelo by Staples’s meadow is completely bare. October 16, 1858
Some high blueberry is a deep dark crimson. October 16, 1858
In sprout lands you see great mellow yellowish leaves of aspen sprouts here and there. October 16, 1858
I see dwarf cornel leaves on the hemlock bank, some green, some bright crimson. October 16, 1857
The onoclea has faded whiter still. October 16, 1857
Hemlock leaves are falling now faster than ever, and the trees are more parti-colored. The falling leaves look pale-yellow on the trees, but become reddish on the ground. October 16, 1857
The large poplar (P. grandidentata) is now at the height of its change, – clear yellow, but many leaves have fallen. October 16, 1857
The ostrya still holds its leaves. It is about the color of the elm at its height. October 16, 1857
I see red oaks now turned various colors, – red-brown or yellow-brown or scarlet-brown, – not commonly bright. October 16, 1857
The swamp white are greener yet. October 16, 1857
In the streets the ash and most of the elm trees are bare of leaves; the red maples also for the most part, apparently, at a distance. October 16, 1854
The leaves that were floating before the rain have now sunk to the bottom, being wetted above as well as below. October 16, 1857
Sidewalks are covered
with the impressions of leaves
which fell yesterday.
The pines, too, have fallen. October 16, 1854
Throughout this grove no square foot is left bare.
I dig down with a stick and find that the layers of three or four years can be distinguished with considerable ease, and much deeper the old needles are raised in flakes or layers still. October 16, 1855
The topmost, or this year’s, are fawn-colored; last year’s, dark dull reddish; and so they go on, growing darker and more decayed, til, at the depth of three inches, where, perhaps, the needles were fifteen or twenty years old, they begin to have the aspect of a dark loose-lying virgin mould, mixed with roots (pine cones and sticks a little higher). October 16, 1855
The freshly fallen needles lie as evenly strewn as if sifted over the whole surface, giving it a uniform neat fawn-color, tempting one to stretch himself on it. They rest alike on the few green leaves of weeds and the fallen cones and the cobwebs between them, in every direction across one another like joggle-sticks. October 16, 1855
In course of years they are beaten by rain and snow into a coarse, thick matting or felt to cover the roots of the trees with. October 16, 1855
How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground! quite like a carpet, as evenly strewn as if sifted over the whole surface, giving it a uniform neat fawn-color, tempting one to stretch himself on it. They rest alike on the few green leaves of weeds and the fallen cones and the cobwebs between them, in every direction across one another like joggle-sticks. October 16, 1855
A great part of the pine-needles have just fallen. October 16, 1857
See the carpet of pale-brown needles under this pine. How light it lies up on the grass, and that great rock, and the wall, resting thick on its top and its shelves, and on the bushes and underwood, hanging lightly! They are not yet flat and reddish, but a more delicate pale brown, and lie up light as joggle-sticks just dropped. The ground is nearly concealed by them. October 16, 1857
How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! October 16, 1857
How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! October 16, 1857
They fall to rise again; as if they knew that it was not one annual deposit alone that made this rich mould in which pine trees grow. They live in the soil whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. October 16, 1857
Am surprised to find an abundance of witch-hazel, now at the height of its change, where S. Wheeler cut off, at the bend of the Assabet. The tallest bushes are bare, though in bloom, but the lowest are full of leaves, many of them green, but chiefly clear and handsome yellow of various shades, from a pale lemon in the shade or within the bush to a darker and warmer yellow with out. Some are even a hue of crimson; some green, with bright yellow along the veins. October 16, 1857
This reminds me that, generally, plants exposed turn early, or not at all, while the same species in the shade of the woods at a much later date assume very pure and delicate tints, as more withdrawn from the light. October 16, 1857
You notice now many faded, almost white dicksonia ferns, and some brakes about as white. October 16, 1857
I think that the principal stages in the autumnal changes of trees are these, thus far, as I remember, this year: —
- First, there were in September the few prematurely blushing white maples, or blazing red ones in water, that reminded us of October. October 16, 1857
- Next, the red maple swamps blazed out in all their glory, attracting the eyes of all travellers and contrasting with other trees. October 16, 1857
- And hard upon these came the ash trees and yellowing birches, and walnuts, and elms, and the sprout-land oaks, the last streaking the hillsides far off, often occupying more commanding positions than the maples. All these add their fires to those of the maples. October 16, 1857
I see a delicate pale brown-bronze wood frog. I think I can always take them up in my hand. They, too, vary in color, like the leaves of many species of plants at present, having now more yellow, now more red; and perhaps for the same reason. October 16, 1857
What is acorn-color! Is it not as good as chestnut? October 16, 1857
Melvin is fishing for pickerel. Thinks this the best day for fishing we have had this long time; just wind enough. Says there are some summer ducks up the stream, the same I saw here the other day. Thinks they are here after acorns. He once caught seven summer ducks by baiting his steel traps with acorns under water. They dove for them, and he caught them by the neck. He saw yesterday a green chestnut bur on the Great Meadows (now bare), fifty rods from the Holt. Could not tell how it came there. October 16, 1857
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Seen from a Hillside
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pine Fall
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October Moonlight
October 16, 2016
April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit.")
August 12, 1853 ("You now see and hear no red-wings along the river as in spring.")
August 16, 1859 ("A large flock of red-wings goes tchucking over")
September 4, 1859 ("Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late?");
September 6, 1857 ("We go along under the hill and woods north of railroad, west of Lords land, about to the west of the swamp and to the Indian ditch.")
September 6, 1857 ("We go along under the hill and woods north of railroad, west of Lords land, about to the west of the swamp and to the Indian ditch.")
September 18, 1858 ("I see one pontederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks, and so help conceal them. For the ducks are now back again in numbers,")
September 20, 1859 ("Where are the red-wings now?") September 20, 1859("Is this a grackle come from its northern breeding-place? ")
September 20, 1859 ("Where are the red-wings now?") September 20, 1859("Is this a grackle come from its northern breeding-place? ")
September 20, 1855 ("Open a new and pretty sizable muskrat-house with no hollow yet made in it. ")
September 24, 1857 ("that very dense and handsome white pine grove east of Beck Stow’s Swamp. It is about fifteen rods square, the trees large, ten to twenty inches in diameter. It is separated by a wall from another pine wood with a few oaks in it on the south east, and about thirty rods north and west are other pine and oak woods.”)
September 26, 1857 ("The pickerel-weed is brown, and I see musquash-houses");
September 28, 1857 ("They have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors!").
September 30, 1858 ("A large flock of grackles amid the willows by the riverside, or chiefly concealed low in the button bushes . . .These are the first I have seen, and now for some time, I think, the red wings have been gone. These are the first arrivers from the north where they breed.")
October 5, 1856 ("Long pointed reddish bulbs in the axils of the Lysimachia stricta are one of the signs of the season.")
October 6, 1858 (“The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves”)
October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish.")
October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment. ")October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish.")
October 10, 1853 ("The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring.")
October 12, 1852 ("A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. The forest is laying down her carpet for the winter.")October 12, 1859 ("So gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November.")
October 13, 1852 ("Birches, hickories, aspens, in the distance, are like small flames on the hillsides about the pond.")
October 13, 1855 ("A thick carpet of white pine needles lies now lightly, half an inch or more in thickness, above the dark-reddish ones of last year")
October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools")
October 14, 1856 ("Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet")
October 13, 1858 ("The elms are at least half bare. ")
October 13, 1859 ("The shad-bush is leafing again by the sunny swamp-side. It is like a youthful or poetic thought in old age. Several times I have been cheered by this sight when surveying in former years. . . . It is a foretaste of spring. In my latter years, let me have some shad-bush thoughts. ")October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools")
October 14, 1856 ("Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet")
October 14, 1857 ("Near by [Hubbard;'s Grove] is a tupelo which is all a distinct yellow with a little green.")
October 14, 1857 (“ The reflection exhibits such an aspect of the hill, apparently, as you would get if your eye were placed at that part of the surface of the pond where the reflection seems to be . . .[T]he reflection is never a true copy or repetition of its substance, but a new composition”)
October 14, 1856 ("I see perfectly fresh succory, not to speak of yarrow, a Viola ovata, some Polygala sanguinea, autumnal dandelion, tansy, etc., etc.")
October 14, 1860 ("The willows have the bleached look of November")
October 14, 1856 ("I see perfectly fresh succory, not to speak of yarrow, a Viola ovata, some Polygala sanguinea, autumnal dandelion, tansy, etc., etc.")
October 14, 1860 ("The willows have the bleached look of November")
October 15, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses appear now for the most part to be finished. Some, it is true, are still rising. They line the river all the way. Some are as big as small hay cocks")
October 15, 1853 ("Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise.")
October 15, 1856 (“Banks begin to wear almost a Novemberish aspect. The black willow almost completely bare”)
October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . . . Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen.”);
October 15, 1858 ("White pines are in the midst of their fall.")
October 15, 1859 ("The ash trees I see to-day are quite bare,")
October 17, 1856 ("Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect")
October 17, 1857 ("The cinnamon ferns . . .have acquired their November aspect")
October 17, 1857 (“A great many more ash trees, elms, etc., are bare now.”)
October 18, 1852 ("A few muskrat houses are going up abrupt and precipitous on one side sloped on the other I distinguish the dark moist layer of weeds deposited last night on what had dried in the sun.")
October 18, 1853 ("[The Populus grandidentata is] clear, rich yellow.”)
October 19, 1856 (“Both the white and black ash are quite bare, and some of the elms there.”)
October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost"
October 21, 1857 (“First ice that I’ve seen or heard of, a tenth of an inch thick in yard, and the ground is slightly frozen.”)
October 21, 1852 ("Apparently some flowers yield to the frosts, others linger here and there till the snow buries them.")
October 21, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet.") October 22, 1857 (“The black willows along the river are about as bare as in November.”);
October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape")
October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape")
October 25, 1853 ("The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight")
October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry. The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore. The meadows look sere and straw-colored.”)
October 25, 1858 ("Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”)
October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry. The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore. The meadows look sere and straw-colored.”)
October 25, 1858 (“The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. .. . I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.”);
October 26, 1854 ("Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.")
October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”)
October 28, 1858 (“Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there”);
October 29, 1859 (''Also a flock of blackbirds fly eastward over my head from the top of an oak, either red-wings or grackles")
October 30, 1853 (" A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still. . . .What with the rains and frosts and winds, the leaves have fairly fallen now. You may say the fall has ended.")
November 1, 1853 ("I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. I noticed some thing similar when surveying the Hunt wood-lot last winter")
November 2, 1857 ("The water tells me how it looks to it seen from below.”)
November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either")
November 4, 1855 ("Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather.")
November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.");
November 7, 1855 ("Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. Apparently they do not form that part yet.")
November 8, 1859 (“The tufts of purplish withered andropogon in Witherell Glade are still as fair as ever, soft and trembling and bending from the wind; of a very light mouse-color seen from the side of the sun, and as delicate as the most fragile ornaments of a lady's bonnet; but looking toward the sun they are a brilliant white, each polished hair (of the pappus?) reflecting the November sun without its heats, not in the least yellowish or brown like the goldenrods and asters.”)
November 10, 1858 (“This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. A true November seat is amid the pretty white-plumed Andropogon scoparius, the withered culms of the purple wood grass which covers so many dry knolls.. . .Looking toward the sun, as I sit in the midst of it rising as high as my head, its countless silvery plumes are a very cheerful sight. At a distance they look like frost on the plant.”)
November 11, 1855 ("The bricks of which the muskrat builds his house are little masses or wads of the dead weedy rubbish on the muddy bottom, which it probably takes up with its mouth. It consists of various kinds of weeds, now agglutinated together by the slime and dried confervae threads, utricularia, hornwort, etc., — a streaming, tuft-like wad. The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off.”)
November 14, 1855 ("Two red-wing blackbirds alight on a black willow.")
November 15, 1855 ("I see a spearer’s light to-night")
November 15, 1858 ("The silver-haired andropogon grass [belongs] to the first half of November.”);
November 15, 1859 (“I turn down Witherell Glade, only that I may bring its tufts of andropogon between me and the sun for a moment. They are pretty as ever.”).
November 16, 1852 ("Muskrat-houses completed. Interesting objects looking down a river-reach at this season, and our river should not be represented without one or two of these cones. They are quite conspicuous half a mile distant, and are of too much importance to be omitted in the river landscape.")
November 22, 1853 ("I remember especially the beautiful yellow of the Populus grandidentata.”)
November 27, 1857 ("Ruskin is wrong about reflections.")
December 3, 1853 ("I see that muskrats have not only erected cabins, but, since the river rose, have in some places dug galleries a rod into the bank,")
December 8, 1853 (“I saw from the peak the entire reflection of large white pines very distinctly against a clear white sky, though the actual tree was completely lost in night against the dark distant hillside.”)
October 16, 2017
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 16
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 © 2009-2022
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