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.
The chickadee now
reminds me of the winter –
sounding all alone.
October 10, 1851
Some maples which a week ago
were a mass of yellow foliage
are now a fine gray smoke, as it were,
and their leaves cover the ground.
October 10, 1851
You make a great noise
walking in the woods now that
leaves cover the ground.
How agreeable
to the eye at this season
the new-fallen leaves.
October 10, 1851
Flocks of small sparrows
washing and pruning themselves
after a long flight.
October 10, 1853
The most brilliant days
in the year ushered in by
these frosty mornings.
So bright and serene
and such a sheen from the earth –
so ripe the season.
These glorious days
which I am tempted to call
finest in the year.
The humblest fungus
a life akin to my own –
poem in its kind.
October 10, 1858
White-throated sparrows
together with myrtle-birds
close up to the house.
 |
October 10, 2015
|
These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer. October 10, 1856
This afternoon it is 80°, between three and four, and at 6.30 this evening my chamber is oppressively sultry, and the thermometer on the north side of the house is at 64°. I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night. October 10, 1856
This morning it is very pleasant and warm. October 10, 1853
So bright and serene the air and such a sheen from the earth, so brilliant the foliage, so pleasantly warm (except, perhaps, this day, which is cooler), too warm for a thick coat, — yet not sultry nor oppressive, – so ripe the season and our thoughts. October 10, 1857
Certainly these are the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this. October 10, 1857
These days you may say the year is ripened like a fruit by frost, and puts on brilliant tints of maturity but not yet of decay. October 10, 1857
See the heaps of apples in the fields and at the cider mill, of pumpkins in the fields, and the stacks of cornstalks and the standing corn. October 10, 1857
Such is the season. The morning frosts have left a silvery hue on the fine pasture grasses. They have faded to a kindred color. October 10, 1857
The air this morning is full of bluebirds, and again it is spring. October 10, 1851
The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring. October 10, 1853
There are many things to indicate the renewing of spring at this season. October 10, 1851
Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers. October 10, 1856
The blossoming of spring flowers, — not to mention the witch-hazel, — the notes of spring birds, the springing of grain and grass and other plants. October 10, 1851
The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards. October 10, 1856
As I stood amid the witch-hazels near Flint's Pond, a flock of a dozen chickadees came flitting and singing about me with great ado, — a most cheering and enlivening sound, — with incessant day-day-day and a fine wiry strain between whiles, flitting ever nearer and nearer and nearer, inquisitively, till the boldest was within five feet of me; then suddenly, their curiosity satiated, they flit by degrees further away and disappear, and I hear with regret their retreating day-day-days. October 10, 1851
The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard. October 10, 1851
White-throated sparrows in yard and close up to house, together with myrtle-birds (which fly up against side of house and alight on window-sills) and, I think, tree sparrows? October 10, 1859.
Apparently Fringilla pusilla yet. October 10, 1858
There are many small birds in flocks on the elms in Cheney's field, faintly warbling, — robins and purple finches and especially large flocks of small sparrows, which make a business of washing and pruning themselves in the puddles in the road, as if cleaning up after a long flight and the wind of yesterday. October 10, 1853
Generally speaking, the autumnal tints affect the color of the landscape for only two or three miles, but I distinguish maples by their color half a mile north of Brooks Clark’s, or some three miles distant, from this hill, — one further east very bright. Also I see them in the northeast, or on or near, apparently, a road between Bedford and Billerica, at least four or five miles distant!! This is the furthest I can see them. October 10, 1857
The smokes from a dozen clearings far and wide, from a portion of the earth thirty miles or more in diameter, reveal the employment of many husbandmen at this season. October 10, 1857
As I go along the Groton road, I see afar, in the middle of E. Wood’s field, what looks like a stone jug or post, but my glass reveals it a woodchuck, a great, plump gray fellow, and when I am nearly half a mile off, I can still see him nibbling the grass there, and from time to time, when he hears, perchance, a wagon on the road, sitting erect and looking warily around for approaching foes. October 10, 1858
I am glad to see the woodchuck so fat in the orchard. It proves that is the same nature that was of yore. October 10, 1858
I find the undersides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas, apparently poduras, skipping about when it is turned up to the light. October 10, 1858
The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, be— cause it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute. It is the expression of an idea; growth according to a law; matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. October 10, 1858
The humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. October 10, 1858
There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter, in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles. October 10, 1858
Genius is inspired by its own works; it is hermaphroditic. October 10, 1858
While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph of the sphinx moth. October 10, 1856
I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence. October 10, 1858
Burdock, Ranunculus acris, rough hawk-weed. October 10, 1852
The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the flyaway grass. October 10, 1858
I find some of those little rooty tubers , now woody, in the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge. October 10, 1858
Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done, I find many bright-purple shoots, a half to three quarters of an inch long, freshly put forth underground and ready to turn upward and form new plants in the spring. October 10, 1858
You have only to dig a pond anywhere in the fields hereabouts, and you will soon have not only water-fowl, reptiles, and fishes in it, but also the usual water-plants, as lilies, etc. You will no sooner have got your pond dug than nature will begin to stock it. October 10, 1860
Colder weather, and the cat's fur grows. October 10, 1859
A drizzling rain to-day. October 10, 1852
Cooler and windy at sunset, and the elm leaves come down again. October 10, 1853
The streets are strewn with elm leaves. October 10, 1852
The butternut is perhaps the first on the street to lose its leaves. October 10, 1852
Some maples which a week ago were a mass of yellow foliage are now a fine gray smoke, as it were, and their leaves cover the ground. October 10, 1851
The autumnal brightness of the foliage generally is less, or faded, since the fading of the maples and hickories, which began about the 5th. October 10, 1858
Generally speaking, chestnuts, hickories, aspens, and some other trees attain a fair clear yellow only in small specimens in the woods or sprout-lands, or in their lower leaves. October 10, 1857
Oak leaves generally (perhaps except scarlet?) begin to wither soon after they begin to turn, and large trees (except the scarlet) do not generally attain to brilliancy. October 10, 1858
You see now in sprout-lands young scarlet oaks of every degree of brightness from green to dark scarlet. October 10, 1857
It is a beautifully formed leaf, with its broad, free, open sinuses, - worthy to be copied in sculpture. A very agreeable form, a bold, deep scallop, as if the material were cheap. Like tracery. The color is more mingled with light than in the less deeply scalloped oak leaves. It is a less simple form. October 10, 1857
It is not sere and withered as in November. October 10, 1857
The Salix humilis leaves are falling fast in Wood Turtle Path. . .looking curled and slaty-colored about the half-bare stems. October 10, 1858
The air is full of falling leaves. October 10, 1852
Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. October 10, 1858
The trees begin to look thin. October 10, 1852
Rain, more than wind, makes the leaves fall. October 10, 1852
How agreeable to the eye at this season the color of new-fallen leaves. October 10, 1851
When freshly fallen, with their forms and their veins still distinct, they have a certain life in them still. October 10, 1851
You make a great noise now walking in the woods, on account of the dry leaves, especially chestnut and oak and maple, that cover the ground. October 10, 1851
Now is the time to enjoy the dry leaves. October 10, 1851
Now all nature is a dried herb, full of medicinal odors. October 10, 1851
November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, and the fall and blackening of the pontederia. October 10, 1858
The leaves of the two former are the greater part fallen, letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment. October 10, 1858
Going to E. Hosmer's by boat, see quite a flock of wild ducks in front of his house, close by the bridge. October 10, 1856
A young man has just shown me a small duck which he shot in the river from my boat. October 10, 1855
Glow-worms in the evening. October 10, 1852
The elms in the village have lost many of their leaves, and their shadows by moonlight are not so heavy as last month. October 10, 1851
This is the end of the sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year. October 10, 1857
March 15, 1860 ("On the whole the finest day yet. . . . Here is the first fair, and at the same time calm and warm, day")May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today."); May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now”) May 21, 1854 (“the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.”)
June 15, 1851 ("I see the tall crowfoot now in the meadows ( Ranunculus acris ) , with a smooth stem.") June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms.)July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.") August 19, 1853 (“A glorious and ever-memorable day.”)
September 1, 1856 ("The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground")
September 3, 1860 (" Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day . . .We see the smokes of burnings on various sides.") September 12, 1858 ("Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. ") September 16, 1852 (“Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall.”)
September 18, 1854 ("Fringed gentian near Peter’s out a short time, . . ., it may after all be earlier than the hazel.”);
September 18, 1856 ("The gentian is now far more generally out here than the hazel.") September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . . the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day.") September 18, 1859 ("From the observation of this year I should say that the fringed gentian opened before the witch-hazel")September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings.") September 25, 1854 ("I see several smokes in the distance, of burning brush. . . . I now smell strongly the smoke of this burning half a mile off, though it is scarcely perceptible in the air.") September 28, 1853 ("The elm leaves are falling.")
September 28, 1857 ("Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which . . . caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.") September 28, 1853 ("The fringed gentian was out before Sunday.")
September 29, 1854 ("The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen and strew the ground with thick rustling beds") October 1, 1853 ("Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about.")October 1, 1858 ("The elms are now great brownish-yellow masses hanging over the street. . . .The harvest of elm leaves is come, or at hand. ")
October 2, 1858 ("The cat comes in from an early walk amid the weeds. She is full of sparrows and wants no more breakfast this morning,") October 2, 1857 ("The chickadees of late have winter ways, flocking after you.") October 3, 1858 ("Hear a hylodes peeping on shore.")
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 7, 1857 (" When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape") October 8, 1855 ("See apparently white-throated sparrows hopping under covert of the button-bushes.”)October 8, 1856 (“The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows . . .They are all together and keep up a faint warbling, apparently the white-throats and tree sparrows, — if the last are there”) October 8, 1857 ("I see and hear white-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge, uttering a faint sharp cheep.") October 9, 1851 ("In the maple woods the ground is strewn with new fallen leaves.")
October 9, 1851 ("The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. . . .I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring. The autumn, then, is indeed a spring.")
The simplest fungus
a life akin to my own.
A poem in its kind.
October 10, 1858
October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance.") October 12, 1852 ("The elms in the village, losing their leaves, reveal the birds' nests.”) October 13, 1852 ("Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows. Crowded together at a distance they look like smoke.”) October 13, 1852 ("Far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke. There is no disturbing sound.") October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.") October 14, 1860 ("Consider how many leaves there are to fall each year and how much they must add to the soil. We have had a remarkably fertile year.") October 14, 1855 (“One flies up against the house and alights on the window-sill within a foot of me inside. Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt”) October 15, 1856 ("The chickadees are hopping near on the hemlock above. They resume their winter ways before the winter comes.") October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow”) October 16, 1857 ("How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! 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 19, 1852 ("It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.") October 20, 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! So they troop to their graves, light and frisky. They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay.")
October 20, 1855 ("Eighteen and more bluebirds, perhaps preparing to migrate."). October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings.") October 22, 1859 ("I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us."); October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena re mind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds.") October 24, 1855 ("The gentle touch of the rain brings down more leaves than the wind.") October. 28, 1860 ("We make a great noise going through the fallen leaves in the woods and wood-paths now, so that we cannot hear other sounds") October 29, 1855 ("When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me.") October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week.") November 1, 1855 ("It is a beautiful Indian-summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind.")November 4, 1855 (“The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter, as I go amid the wild apples on Nawshawtuct.”)
November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.") December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year”)
December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning.”)
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, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
https://tinyurl.com/HDT10Oct
