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
Birds seem to delight
in the warm hazy light these
first fine days of fall.
October 4, 1859
in the warm hazy light these
first fine days of fall.
October 4, 1859
October 4, 2020
*****
In what book is this world and its beauty described? October 4, 1859
Now the year itself begins to be ripe, ripened by the frost, like a persimmon. October 4, 1859
This is a fine and warm afternoon, Indian-summer like. October 4, 1859
Wind from northeast. Some water milkweed flying. Its pods small, slender, straight, and pointed perfectly upright; seeds large with much wing. October 4, 1856
Paddled up the Assabet. Strong north wind, bringing down leaves. Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black willow leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs. The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow. October 4, 1858
The yellow leaves of the white willow thickly strew the bottom of my boat. October 4, 1857
The maples are reddening, and birches yellowing. October 4, 1853
It adds to the beauty of the maple swamp at this season that it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different trees being of different tints, — green, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and different shades of each, — the outline of each tree is distinct to where one laps on to another . October 4, 1857
The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. The outmost parts and edges of the foliage are orange, the recesses green, as if the outmost parts, being turned toward the sunny fire, were first baked by it. October 4, 1858
Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. October 4, 1858
The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost. October 4, 1853
Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus, and gnats are dancing in the air.October 4, 1853
Hornets are still at work in their nests. October 4, 1858
Grape leaves apparently as yellow as ever. October 4, 1858
Many of the grapes shrivelled and killed by frost now, and the leaves mostly fallen . . . The grape leaves are generally crisp and curled, having a very light-colored appearance, but where it is protected by other foliage it is still a dense canopy of greenish-yellow shields. October 4, 1857
Fever-bush has begun to yellow. October 4, 1857
Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. October 4, 1858
From the midst of these yellowing button-bushes, etc., I hear from time to time a half-warbled strain from some young sparrow who thinks it is spring. October 4, 1857
Birds are now seen more numerously than before, as if called out by the fine weather, probably many migrating birds from the north. October 4, 1859
The birds seem to delight in these first fine days of the fall, in the warm, hazy light, — robins, bluebirds (in families on the almost bare elms), phcebes, and probably purple finches. October 4, 1859
I hear half-strains from many of them, as the song sparrow, bluebird, etc., and the sweet phe-be of the chickadee. October 4, 1859
I hear half-strains from many of them, as the song sparrow, bluebird, etc., and the sweet phe-be of the chickadee. October 4, 1859
The maidenhair fern at Conantum is apparently unhurt by frost as yet. October 4, 1859
Their lingering greenness so much the more noticeable now that the leaves (generally) have changed. October 4, 1859
If you would make acquaintance with the ferns you must forget your botany. October 4, 1859
You must get rid of what is commonly called knowledge of them. October 4, 1859
You must approach the object totally unprejudiced. October 4, 1859
To conceive of it with a total apprehension I must for the thousandth time approach it as something totally strange. October 4, 1859
You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be. October 4, 1859
You have got to be in a different state from common. October 4, 1859
Your greatest success will be simply to perceive that such things are. October 4, 1859
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know. October 4, 1859
In the summer greenness is cheap; now it is something comparatively rare and is the emblem of life to us. October 4, 1859
 |
| October 4, 2018 |
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
May 3, 1853 ('The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects");
September 7, 1851 ("I do not remember any page which will tell me how to spend this afternoon. ").
September 24, 1853("Witch-hazel well out.")
September 27, 1857 ("Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed.")
September 29, 1853 ("The witch-hazel at Lee's Cliff, in a fair situation, has but begun to blossom . . . Its leaves are yellowed.")
September 27, 1857 ("Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. ");
September 29, 1853 ("The witch-hazel at Lee's Cliff, in a fair situation, has but begun to blossom . . . Its leaves are yellowed.")
September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”)
October 2, 1857 ("There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet.")
October 3, 1857 ("The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron.")
Yellow leaves of the
white willow thickly strew the
bottom of my boat.
October 5, 1858 (“The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries.”)
October 6, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path")
October 11, 1857 ("I see some fine clear yellows from the Rhus Toxicodendron on the bank by the hemlocks and beyond.")
October 19, 1856 ("Of the asters which I have noticed since [the 8th], the A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only one of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it.")
October 19, 1856 ("Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter?")
October 20, 1852("Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed")
October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window.")
November 21, 1850(" I begin to see . . . an object when I cease to understand it.")
November 30, 1858(""In my account of this bream I cannot go a hair's breadth beyond the mere statement that it exists.")
October 4, 2018
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 4
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 © 2009-2023
https://tinyurl.com/HDTOctober4
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