Now after sunset the river is full of light in the dark landscape

August 14

No rain, only the dusty road spotted with the few drops which fell last night, — but there is quite a high and cool wind this morning.

Since August came in, we have begun to have considerable wind, as not since May, at least.

The roads nowadays are covered with a light-colored, powdery dust (this yesterday), several inches deep, which also defiles the grass and weeds and bushes, and the traveller is deterred from stepping in it.

The dusty weeds and bushes leave their mark on your clothes.

Mountain-ash berries orange (?), and its leaves half yellowed in some places.


3 P.M. To climbing fern with E. Hoar. 

It takes a good deal of care and patience to unwind this ' fern without injuring it. Sometimes same frond is half leaf, half fruit.  E. talked of sending one such leaf to G. Bradford to remind him that the sun still shone in America.

The uva-ursi berries beginning to turn.

August 14, 2014

6 P.M. To Hubbard Bath and Fair Haven Hill.

I notice now that saw-like grass seed where the mowers have done.

The swamp blackberries are quite small and rather acid.

Though yesterday was quite a hot day, I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, as yet for a fortnight, though we have had no rain here.  Is it owing solely to the cooler air since August came in, both day and night, or have rains in the southwest cooled the stream within a week?

I now, standing on the shore, see that in sailing or floating down a smooth stream at evening it is an advantage to the fancy to be thus slightly separated from the land.

It is to be slightly removed from the common- place of earth.

To float thus on the silver-plated stream is like embarking on a train of thought itself.

You are surrounded by water, which is full of reflections; and you see the earth at a distance, which is very agreeable to the imagination.



I see the blue smoke of a burning meadow.

The clethra must be one of the most conspicuous flowers not yellow at present.

I sit three-quarters up the hill.

The crickets creak strong and loud now after sunset. No word will spell it.  It is a short, strong, regular ringing sound, as of a thousand exactly together, — though further off some alternate, repeated regularly and in rapid time, perhaps twice in a second.

Methinks their quire is much fuller and louder than a fortnight ago.

Ah ! I need solitude.

I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, to behold and commune with something grander than man.

Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement.

It is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain genial weakness that I seek society ever.

I hear the nighthawk squeak and a whip-poor-will sing.

I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods, sounding somewhat like the neighing of a horse, not like the snipe.


Now at 7.45, perhaps a half-hour after sunset, the river is quite distinct and full of light in the dark landscape,  -- 

a silver strip of sky

of the same color and 

brightness with the sky.

As I go home by Hayden's I smell the burning meadow.

I love the scent.

It is my pipe.

I smoke the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1854

Mountain-ash berries orange (?) See July 28, 1859 ("Young purple finches eating mountain-ash berries (ours). "); August 25, 1859 ("Mountain-ash berries partly turned. Again see, I think, purple finch eating them.")

The uva-ursi berries beginning to turn. See July 16, 1855 ("Uva-ursi berries begin to redden."); September 21, 1856 ("Uva-ursi berries quite ripe.")

I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler. See August 12, 1854 ("I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively."); September 6, 1854 ("Hubbard Bath . . . The water is again warmer than I should have believed; say an average summer warmth, yet not so warm as it has been. It makes me the more surprised that only that day and a half of rain should have made it so very cold when I last bathed here. "); September 12, 1854 ("bathing I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment. I fear that it will not again be warm."): September 24, 1854 (" It is now too cold to bathe with comfort."; September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man. See December 27, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.");  June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); July 24, 1853 ("On Fair Haven a quarter of an hour before sunset .. . .A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly, that it dazzles me as much as the sun . The now silver-plated river is burnished gold there,");  January 7, 1857 “This stillness, solitude, wildness of nature is . . . what I go out to seek. It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him”);  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, and I sit down to behold it at my leisure. I think that Concord affords no better view.")

August 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 14.

Now after sunset 

the river is full of light 

in the dark landscape

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a silver strip of sky

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540814

You will no sooner have got your pond dug than nature will begin to stock it.

October 10

In August, '55, I levelled for the artificial pond at Sleepy Hollow. They dug gradually for three or four years and completed the pond last year, '59.

It is now about a dozen rods long by five or six wide and two or three deep, and is supplied by copious springs in the meadow. There is a long ditch leading into it, in which no water now flows, nor has since winter at least, and a short ditch leading out of it into the brook. It is about sixty rods from the very source of the brook.

Well, in this pond thus dug in the midst of a meadow a year or two ago and supplied by springs in the meadow I find to-day several small patches of the large yellow and the kalmiana lily already established. Thus in the midst of death we are in life.

. . . The river, where these abound, is about half a mile distant down the little brook near which this pond lies, though there may be a few pads in the ditched part of it at half that distance.

How then, did the seed get here?

...

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.

P. M. -- Went to a fire or smoke at Mrs. Hoar's.

There is a slight blaze and more smoke. Two or three hundred men rush to the house, cut large holes in the roof, throw many hogsheads of water into it, — when a few pails full well directed would suffice, and then they run off again, leaving your attic three inches deep with water, which is rapidly descending through the ceiling to the basement and spoiling all that can be spoiled, while a torrent is running down the stairways.

They were very forward to put out the [fire], but they take no pains to put out the water, which does far more damage. The first was amusement; the last would be mere work and utility.

Why is there not a little machine invented to throw the water out of a house?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1860

It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct.

September 25


The season of flowers may be considered as past now that the frosts have come. Fires have become comfortable. The evenings are pretty long. 

2 P. M. To bathe in Hubbard's meadow, thence to ― Cliffs. 

It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct. The air is of crystal purity.

Both air and water are so transparent that the fisherman tries in vain to deceive the fish with his baits. Even our commonly muddy river looks clear to-day.

I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over. 

I see numerous butterflies still, yellow and small red, though not in fleets. 

Examined the hornets' nest near Hubbard's Grove, suspended from contiguous huckleberry bushes . . .

I watched the seeds of the milkweed rising higher and higher till lost in the sky . . . I brought home two of the pods which were already bursting open, and amused myself from day to day with releasing the seeds and watching [them] rise slowly into the heavens till they were lost to my eye. No doubt the greater or less rapidity with which they rose would serve as a natural barometer to test the condition of the air. 

The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance. 

In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native. Standing on the Cliffs, I see them flitting and screaming from pine to pine beneath, displaying their gaudy blue pinions. 

September 25, 2020

Hawks, too, I perceive, sailing about in the clear air, looking white against the green pines, like the seeds of the milkweed. There is almost always a pair of hawks. Their shrill scream, that of the owls, and wolves are all related.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1851

It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct. See September 22, 1851 ("It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings, through which all things are distinctly seen.")

I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over. See September 24, 1854 (" It is now too cold to bathe with comfort.");. September 26, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I watched the seeds of the milkweed rising higher and higher till lost in the sky. See September 24, 1851 ("I let one go, and it rises slowly and uncertainly at first, now driven this way, then that, by currents which I cannot perceive, and.  . . then, feeling the strong north wind, it is borne off rapidly in the opposite direction, ever rising higher and higher and tossing and heaved about with every fluctuation of the air, till, at a hundred feet above the earth and fifty rods off, steering south, I lose sight of it") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed.

I see numerous butterflies still, yellow and small red, though not in fleets. See . July 15, 1854 ("There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now"); July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed . . .also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wing"); July 16, 1854 ("Many yellow butterflies and red on clover and yarrow."); . September 6, 1858 ("Solidago nemoralis . . . is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

The hornets' nest. See September 28, 1851 ("Here was a large hornets' nest . . .out came the whole swarm upon me lively enough. I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day."); October 15, 1855 (“The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone.”); 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.")

In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native. See September 25, 1855 ("The scream of the jay is heard from the wood-side."); see also August 7, 1853 ("Do I not already hear the jays with more distinctness, as in the fall and winter?"); September 21, 1859 (" Jays are more frequently heard of late.");October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

Hawks, too, I perceive, sailing about in the clear air .  . . There is almost always a pair.  See September 25, 1851 ("See two marsh hawks skimming low over the meadows and another, or a hen-hawk, sailing on high."); See also September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs,") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk

Watching milkweed seeds

rising higher and higher 

till lost in the sky –

Hawks too sail about 

in the clear air looking white

against the green pines.

You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature.

December 22. Wednesday.

Surveying the Hunt Farm this and the 20th.

C. says that Flint's Pond was frozen over yesterday.

A rambling, rocky, wild, moorish pasture, this of Hunt's, with two or three great white oaks to shade the cattle, which the farmer would not take fifty dollars apiece for, though the ship-builder wanted them.

The snow balled so badly to-day while I was working in the swamp, that I was set up full four inches.

It is pleasant, cutting a path through the bushes in a swamp, to see the color of the different woods, – the yellowish dogwood, the green prinos (?), and, on the upland, the splendid yellow barberry.

The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow; and the squirrel nests, bunches of grass and leaves high in the trees, more conspicuous if not larger now, or the glimpse of a meadow (?) mouse, give occasion for a remark.

You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature.

Returning home just after the sun had sunk below the horizon, I saw from N. Barrett's a fire made by boys on the ice near the Red Bridge, which looked like a bright reflection of a setting sun from the water under the bridge, so clear, so little lurid, in this winter evening air.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 22, 1852

It is pleasant, cutting a path through the bushes in a swamp, to see the color of the different woods See December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.")

The squirrel nests, bunches of grass and leaves high in the trees, more conspicuous if not larger now. See November 13, 1857 (“ I see, on a white oak on Egg Rock, where the squirrels have lately made a nest for the winter of the dry oak leaves . . . I suspect it is a gray squirrel's nest.”); January 24, 1856 (“That Wheeler swamp is a great place for squirrels. I observe many of their tracks along the riverside there. The nests are of leaves, and apparently of the gray species.”) and note to June 1, 1860 ("This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees, and I hear of some more similar ones found in former years, so that I think this mode of nesting their young may be the rule with them here")

You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature. See December 12, 1859 ("The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice.");  December 31, 1853 ("This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer."); January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. . . that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen"); January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! "); see also February 16, 1854 ("Snow is a great revealer not only of tracks made in itself, but even in the earth before it fell") Compare  January 14, 1853 ("Snow freshly fallen is one thing, to-morrow it will be another. It is now pure and trackless. Walking three or four miles in the woods, I see but one track of any kind, yet by to-morrow morning there will he countless tracks of all sizes all over the country."); February 21, 1854 ("There is scarcely a track of any animal yet to be seen. You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness")

The cross-leaved polygala, has a very sweet but intermittent fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined

 




August 27. 

I see the volumes of smoke-not quite the blaze — from burning brush, as I suppose, far in the western horizon.  I believe it is at this season of the year chiefly that you see this sight.  It is always a question with some whether it is not a fire in the woods, or some building. It is an interesting feature in the scenery at this season.

The farmer's simple enterprises.

The vervain which I examined by the railroad the other day has still a quarter of an inch to the top of its spikes.

Hawkweed groundsel (Senecio hieracifolius) (fireweed).

Rubus sempervirens, evergreen raspberry, the small low blackberry, is now in fruit.

The Medeola Virginica, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green fruit.

Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, in the meadow between Trillium Woods and railroad. This is rare and new to me. It has a very sweet, but as it were intermittent, fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined. The handsome calyx-leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1851

The vervain which I examined by the railroad the other day has still a quarter of an inch to the top of its spikes. See August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes");  August 21, 1851 ("they are all within about half an inch of the top of the spikes");  August 23, 1851 ("The Verbena hastata at the pond has reached the top of its spike,. . . only one or two flowers are adhering."); August 22, 1859 ("T he circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Blue Vervain

Rubus sempervirens, evergreen raspberry, the small low blackberry, is now in fruit.  See August 24, 1859 ("  The small sempervirens blackberry in prime in one place.");  September 7, 1858 ("J. Farmer calls those Rubus sempervirens berries, now abundant, “snake blackberries.”")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, has  a very sweet but intermittent  fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined.  See  July 10, 1854 ("Polygala cruciata, Hubbard's Close, two or three days "); July 13, 1852 ("The Polygala sanguinea and P. cruciata in Blister's meadow, both numerous and well out. The last has a fugacious (?) spicy scent, in which, methinks, I detect the scent of nutmegs. Afterward I find that it is the lower part of the stem and root which is most highly scented, like checkerberry, and not fugacious"); September 13, 1851("The cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will. You are quite sure you smelled it and are ravished with its sweet fragrance, but now it has no smell. You must not hold it too near, but hold it on all sides and at all distances, and there will perchance be wafted to you sooner or later a very sweet and penetrating fragrance. What it is like you cannot surely tell, for you do not enjoy it long enough nor in volume enough to compare it. It is very likely that you will not discover any fragrance while you are rudely smelling at it; you can only remember that you once perceived it. Both this and the caducous polygala are now some what faded.") See also August 13, 1856 ("The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor.") and   A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

The pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond.

June 9.

Walden is still rising, though the rains have ceased and the river has fallen very much. 

I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond. Most of the pines at the north northwest end have none, and on some there is only one pollen-bearing flower. 

I saw a striped snake which the fire in the woods had killed, stiffened and partially blackened by the flames, with its body partly coiled up and raised from the ground, and its head still erect as if ready to dart out its tongue and strike its foe. No creature can exhibit more venom than a snake, even when it is not venomous, strictly speaking.

The fire ascended the oak trees very swiftly by the moss which fringed them.

The life in us is like the water in the river; it may rise this year higher than ever it was known to before and flood the uplands — even this may be the eventful year and drown out all our muskrats.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1850

I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond.  See June 1, 1853 (" A little of the pollen now along the shore of the still coves. The pitch pines near by have shed theirs."); June 14, 1854 ("Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off;"); June 18, 1860 ("I see in the southerly bays of Walden the pine pollen now washed up thickly . . . It has come quite across the pond from where the pines stand, full half a mile, probably washed across most of the way."); June 21, 1856 ("Much pine pollen is washed up on the northwest side of the pond. Must it not have come from pines at a distance? ); June 21, 1860 (" Having noticed the pine pollen washed up on the shore of three or four ponds in the woods lately. . . .The air must be full of this fine dust at this season, that it must be carried to great distances, and its presence might be detected remote from pines by examining the edges of bodies of water ... the lakes detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen in the atmosphere. They are our pollinometers. ")

No creature can exhibit more venom than a snake, even when it is not venomous. See April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Snake


June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

Walden still rises

 though the rains have ceased and the 

river has fallen

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walden still rises

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 © 2009-2024

Few men do not love better to give advice than to give assistance.

June 4. 


To-day, June 4th, I have been tending a burning in the woods. 

Ray was there. It is a pleasant fact that you will know no man long, however low in the social scale, however poor, miserable, intemperate, and worthless he may appear to be, a mere burden to society, but you will find at last that there is something which he understands and can do better than any other. I was pleased to hear that one man had sent Ray as the one who had had the most experience in setting fires of any man in Lincoln.

***

There are few men who do not love better to give advice than to give assistance.

***

The fire stopped within a few inches of a partridge's nest to-day, June 4th, whom we took off in our hands and found thirteen creamy-colored eggs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1850

Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden.

April 30. 

2 P. M. Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. 

The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney's elm still also.

The last has leaf - buds which show the white.

Now, before any leaves have appeared, their blossoms clothe the trees with a rich, warm brown color, which serves partially for foliage to the street walker, and makes the tree more obvious. Held in the hand, the blossoms of some of the elms are quite rich and variegated, now purple and yellowish specked with the dark anthers and two light styles.

I know not why some should be so much earlier than others.

It is a beautiful day, - a mild air, — and all farmers and gardeners out and at work.

Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden.

Yesterday I observed many fields newly plowed, the yellow soil looking very warm and dry in the sun; and one boy had fixed his handkerchief on a stick and elevated it on the yoke, where it flapped or streamed and rippled gayly in the wind, as he drove his oxen dragging a harrow over the plowed field.

I see now what I should call a small-sized bullfrog in the brook in front of Alcott's house that was.

The sweet gale is in blossom.  Its rich reddish-brown buds have expanded into yellowish and brown blossoms, all male blossoms that I see.  Those handsome buds that I have observed are the male blossom buds then. This has undoubtedly been in bloom a day or two in some places.

I saw yesterday a large-sized water-bug; to-day many in the brook; yesterday a trout; to-day shiners, I think.

The huckleberry-bird sings.

When I look, the inhabitants are beginning to plant in their gardens, the air is so fine and peculiar that I seem to see the hills and woods through a mirage. I am doubtful about their distance and exact form and elevation. The sound of a spade, too, sounds musical on the spring air.

(To-night for the first time I sit without a fire.)

One plower in a red flannel shirt, who looks picturesquely under the hill, suggests that our dress is not commonly of such colors as to adorn the landscape.

(To-night and last night the spearer's light is seen on the meadows; he has been delayed by the height of the water.)

I like very well to walk here on the low ground on the meadow; to see the churches and houses in the horizon against the sky and the now very blue Mt. Wachusett seeming to rise from amid them. When you get still further off on the lowest ground, you see distant barns and houses against the horizon, and the mountain appears to preside over this vale alone, which the adjacent hills on right and left fence in.

The season advances by fits and starts; you would not believe that there could be so many degrees to it. If you have had foul and cold weather, still some advance has been made, as you find when the fair weather comes, new lieferungs of warmth and summeriness, which make yesterday seem far off and the dog-days or midsummer incredibly nearer.

Yesterday I would not have believed that there could have been such an improvement on that day as this is, short of midsummer or June.

My pocket being full of the flowers of the maple, elm, etc., my handkerchief by its fragrance reminded me of some fruitful or flowery bank, I know not where.

A pleasant little

green knoll north of the Turnpike

near the Lincoln line.

I thought that the greenness of the sward there on the highest ground was occasioned by the decay of the roots of two oaks, whose old stumps still remained.

The greenness covered a circle about two rods in diameter.

It was too late to feel the influence of the drip of the trees.

We have had no such summer heat this year (unless when I was burned in the Deep Cut), yet there is an agreeable balmy wind.

I see here, while looking for the first violet, those little heaps made by the mole cricket (?), or by worms (?)

I observe to-day the bright-crimson (?) perfect flowers of the maple, —  crimson styles, sepals, and petals (crimson or scarlet ?), — whose leaves are not yet very handsome in the rain as you look to the sky; and the hum of small bees from them. So much color have they.


Crossing the Turnpike, we entered Smith's high lands.

Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, — seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun.

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.

The far river-reach from this hill.

It is not so placid a blue as if with a film of azure over it to-day, however. The more remote the water, the lighter the blue, perchance.

It is like a lake in Tartary; there our camels will find water.

Here is a rock made to sit on, — large and inviting, which you do not fear to crush.

I hear the flicker and the huckleberry bird.

Yet no leaves apparent.

This in some measure corresponds to the fine afternoon weather after the leaves have fallen, though there is a different kind of promise now than then.  We are now going out into the field to work; then we were going into the house to think.

I love to see alders and dogwood instead of peach trees.

May we not see the melted snow lapsing over the rocks on the mountains in the sun, as well as snow? The white surfaces appear declivitous.

While we sit here, I hear for the first time the flies buzz so dronishly in the air.

I see travellers like mere dark objects in the yellow road afar, — the Turnpike.

Hosmer's house and cottage under its elms and on the summit of green smooth slopes looks like a terrestrial paradise, the abode of peace and domestic happiness.

Far over the woods westward, a shining vane, glimmering in the sun.

At Saw Mill Run the swamp (?) gooseberry (is it?) is partly leaved out.

This, being in the shade of the woods, and not, like the thimble-berry, in a warm and sunny place, methinks is the earliest shrub or tree that shows leaves. [The Missouri currant in gardens is equally forward; the cultivated gooseberry nearly so; the lilac not so.]

The neatly and closely folded, plaited, leaves of the hellebore are rather handsome objects now.

As you pull them apart, they emit a slight marshy scent, somewhat like the skunk-cabbage.

They are tender and dewy within, folded fan-like.

I hear a wood thrush here, with a fine metallic ring to his note. This sound most adequately expresses the immortal beauty and wildness of the woods.

I go in search of him. He sounds no nearer.

On a low bough of a small maple near the brook in the swamp, he sits with ruffled feathers, singing more low or with less power, as it were ventriloquizing; for though I am scarcely more than a rod off, he seems further off than ever.

Caught three little peeping frogs.

When I approached, and my shadow fell on the water, I heard a peculiarly trilled and more rapidly vibrated note, somewhat, in kind, like that which a hen makes to warn her chickens when a hawk goes over, and most stopped peeping; another trill, and all stopped.

It seemed to be a note of alarm.

I caught one. It proved to be two coupled. They remained together in my hand.

This sound has connection with their loves probably.

(I hear a trilled sound from a frog this evening. It is my dreaming midsummer frog, and he seems to be toward the depot.) 

I find them generally sitting on the dead leaves near the water's edge, from which they leap into the water.
 

On the hill behind Hosmer's, half an hour before sunset --  

The hill on the Boston road is very handsome with its regular promontories, and the smokes seen against it rising from the chimneys, what time the laborer takes his tea.

The robins sing power fully on the elms; the little frogs peep; the woodpecker's harsh and long-continued cry is heard from the woods; the huckleberry-bird's simple, sonorous trill.

The plowed land shines where a drag has passed over it.

It is a pleasant place for a house, because you overlook the road, and the near land seems to run into the meadow.

Saw male willow catkins in Tuttle's lane, now just out of bloom, about two inches long.

The flower of some of the earliest elms is by no means to be despised at this season.

It is conspicuous and rich in any nosegay that can now be made.

The female plants of the sweet-gale are rare (?) here. The scales of the male catkins are "set with amber-colored resinous dots” (Emerson).


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1852

The sweet gale is in blossom. Its rich reddish-brown buds have expanded into yellowish and brown blossoms, all male blossoms that I see. See April 13, 1860 ("– I go up the Assabet to look at the sweet-gale, which is . . . abundantly out at Pinxter Swamp."); April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars.") December 31, 1859 ("The oblong-conical sterile flower-buds or catkins of the sweet-gale, half a dozen at the end of each black twig, dark-red, oblong-conical, spotted with black, and about half an inch long, are among the most interesting buds of the winter. . . . The sterile and fertile flowers are not only on distinct plants, but they commonly grow in distinct patches. . . . It grows along the wet edge of banks and the river and in open swamps.")

The huckleberry-bird sings. See April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals, apparently answered from a distance. It is clear and sonorous heard afar; but I found it quite impossible to tell from which side it came; sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

The season advances by fits and starts. . . lieferungs of warmth and summeriness, which make yesterday seem far off and the dog-days or midsummer incredibly nearer. See April 25, 1854 ("The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile.")

So much color have they. See April 29, 1856 ("How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, . . . they are of so cheerful and lively a color."); April 29, 1859 ("Those red maples are reddest in which the fertile flowers prevail.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

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. See June 30, 1852 (" Moon nearly full; rose a little before sunset. . . . At first a mere white cloud."); See also April 12, 1851 (" I realize that I may not see her again in her glory this night, that. . . the sun will have risen, and she will appear but as a cloud herself, and sink unnoticed into the west.")

To see the churches and houses in the horizon against the sky and the now very blue Mt. Wachusett seeming to rise from amid them. See December 27, 1853 ("The outline of the mountains is wonderfully distinct and hard, and they are a dark blue and very near. Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down.")

On the hill behind Hosmer's, half an hour before sunset --See May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night")

The artic three-toed woodpecker.

October 8.

P. M. – To Damon's wood-lot, part of the burnt district of the spring.

Am surprised to see how green the forest floor and the sprout-land north of Damon's lot are already again, though it was a very severe burn.

In the wood-lot the trees are apparently killed for twenty feet up, especially the smaller, then six or ten feet of green top, while very vigorous sprouts have shot up from the base below the influence of the fire. This shows that they will die, I think.

The top has merely lived for the season while the growth has been in their sprouts around the base. This is the case with oaks, maples, cherry, etc.

Also the blueberry (Vaccinium vacillans) has sent up very abundant and vigorous shoots all over the wood from the now more open and cleaned ground. These are evidently from stocks which were comparatively puny before.

The adjacent oak sprout-land has already sprung up so high that it makes on me about the same impression that it did before, though it  was  from six to ten feet high and was generally killed to the ground.

The fresh shoots from the roots are very abundant and three to five feet high, or half as high as before. So vivacious are the roots and so rapidly does Nature recover herself.

You see myriads of little shrub oaks and others in the woods which look as if they had just sprung from the seed, but on pulling one up you find it to spring from a long horizontal root which has survived perhaps several burnings or cuttings. Thus the stumps and roots of young oak, chestnut, hickory, maple, and many other trees retain their vitality a very long time and after many accidents, and produce thrifty trees at last.

In the midst of the wood, I noticed in some places, where the brush had been more completely burned and the ground laid bare, some fire-weed (Senecio), golden rods, and ferns.

Standing by a pigeon-place on the north edge of Damon's lot, I saw on the dead top of a white pine four or five rods off — which had been stripped for fifteen feet downward that it might die and afford with its branches a perch for the pigeons about the place, like the more artificial ones that were set up — two woodpeckers that were new to me.

They uttered a peculiar sharp kek kek on alighting (not so sharp as that of the hairy or downy woodpecker) and appeared to be about the size of the hairy woodpecker, or between that and the golden-winged. I had a good view of them with my glass as long as I desired.

With the back to me, they were clear black all above, as well as their feet and bills, and each had a yellow or orange (or possibly orange - scarlet?) front (the anterior part of the head at the base of the upper mandible). A long white line along the side of the head to the neck, with a black one below it.

The breast, as near as I could see, was gray specked with white, and the underside of the wing expanded was also gray, with small white spots. The throat white and vent also white or whitish.

Is this the arctic three-toed?

Probably many trees dying on this large burnt tract will attract many woodpeckers to it. 

I find a great many white oak acorns already sprouted, although they are but half fallen, and can easily believe that they sometimes sprout before they fall. It is a good year for them. 

It is remarkable how soon and unaccountably they decay. Many which I cut open , though though they look sound without, are discolored and decaying on one side or throughout within, though there is no worm in them. Perhaps they are very sensitive to moisture. 

Those which I see to-day are merely hazel and not nearly so black as what I saw yesterday. 

Trees that stand by themselves without the wood bear the most. 

The sugar maple seeds are now browned — the seed end as well as wing — and are ripe. 

The severe frosts about the first of the month ripened them. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1860

October 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The artic three-toed woodpecker.enry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

A cold storm still, — the most serious storm since spring.

August 30. 

A cold storm still, — this the third day, — and a fire to keep warm by. This, methinks, is the most serious storm since spring. 

Polygonum amphibium var. aquaticum, which is rather rare. I have not seen it in flower. It is floating. 

Its broad heart-shaped leaves are purplish beneath, like white lily pads, heart-leaves, and water-targets. What is there in the water that colors them? 

The other variety, which [is] rough and upright, is more common, and its flowers very beautiful.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1852

A cold storm still, — this the third day, — the most serious storm since spring. See August 25, 1852 ("The cricket sounds louder, preparatory to a cheerful storm! How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn! We have had no serious storm since spring."); August 29, 1852 ("A warm rain-storm in the night, with wind, and to-day it continues."); August 31, 1852 ("It is worth the while to have had a cloudy, even a stormy, day for an excursion, if only that you are out at the clearing up.")

Polygonum amphibium.  [Water Smartweed] See  August 5, 1856 ("Polygonum amphibium in water, slightly hairy, well out."); August 19, 1858 ("Large, handsome red spikes of the Polygonum amphibium are now generally conspicuous along the shore."); September 18, 1856 ("I have seen no . . . Polygonum amphibium var. aquaticum . . .this year.");  September 22, 1852 ("The Polygonum amphibium var. terrestre is a late flower, and now more common and the spikes larger, quite handsome and conspicuous, and more like a prince's-feather than any.") See also September 1, 1857 ("I have finally settled for myself the question of the two varieties of Polygonum amphibium. I think there are not even two varieties. "); September 18, 1858 ("The perfectly fresh spike of the Polygonum amphibium attracts every eye now. It is not past its prime. C. thinks it is exactly the color of some candy."); September 27, 1858 ("The P. amphibium spikes still in prime. "); October 16, 1858 ("I see some Polygonum amphibium, front-rank,"); November 7, 1855 ("How completely crisp and shrivelled the leaves and stems of the Polygonum amphibium var. terrestre, still standing above the water and grass!")

Great numbers of pollywogs have apparently just changed into frogs.

July 20.

2 P. M. – To Walden.

Warm weather, — 86 at 2 P. M. (not so warm for a good while).

Emerson’s lot that was burnt, between the railroad and the pond, has been cut off within the last three months, and I notice that the oak sprouts have commonly met with a check after growing one or two feet, and small reddish leafets have again put forth at the extremity within a week or so, as in the spring.

Some of the oak sprouts are five to six feet high already. On his hill near by, where the wood was cut about two years ago, this second growth of the oaks, especially white oaks, is much more obvious, and commenced longer ago.

The shoots of this year are generally about two feet long, but the first foot consists of large dark green leaves which expanded early, before the shoot met with a check.

This is surmounted by another foot of smaller yellowish-green leaves. This is very generally the case, and produces a marked contrast. Dark green bushes surmounted by a light or yellowish-green growth.

Sometimes, in the first-mentioned sprout-land, you see where the first shoot withered, as if frost-bitten at the end, and often only some large buds have formed there as yet.

Many of these sprouts, the rankest of them, are fated to fall, being but slightly joined to the stump, riddled by ants there; and others are already prostrated.

Bathing on the side of the deep cove, I noticed just below the high-water line (of rubbish) quite a number of little pines which have just sprung up amid the stones and sand and wreck, some with the seed atop.

This, then, is the state of their coming up naturally. They have evidently been either washed up, or have blown across the ice or snow to this shore. If pitch pine, they were probably blown across the pond, for I have often seen them on their way across.

Both Scirpus subterminalis and debilis are now in bloom at the Pout’s Nest, the former the longest time, the water being very low and separated from the pond. The former out for some time, the latter not long.

Great numbers of pollywogs have apparently just changed into frogs.

At the pondlet on Hubbard’s land, now separated from the main pond by a stony bar, hundreds of small frogs are out on the shore, enjoying their new state of existence, masses of them, which, with constant plashing, go hopping into the water a rod or more before me, where they are very swift to conceal themselves in the mud at the bottom. Their bodies may be one and a half inches long or more.

I have rarely seen so many frogs together. Yet I hardly see one pollywog left in this pool.

Yet at the shore against Pout’s Nest I see many pollywogs, and some, with hind legs well grown beside tails tails, lie up close to the shore on the sand with their heads out like frogs, apparently already breathing air before losing their tails. They squat and cower there as I come by, just like frogs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1860

Both Scirpus subterminalis [water bulrush]and debilis [weakstalk bulrush]are now in bloom at the Pout’s Nest. See July 19, 1859 ("Scirpus subterminalis, river off Hoar's and Cheney's, not long."); August 31,,1858 ("At the Pout’s Nest, Walden, I find the Scirpus debilis, apparently in prime, generally aslant");  September 15, 1858 ("I find, just rising above the target-weed at Pout’s Nest, Scirpus subterminalis, apparently recently out of bloom. The culms two to three feet along, appearing to rise half an inch above the spikes. The long, linear immersed leaves coming off and left below. ")

 "Pout’s Nest": HDT's name for Wyman's Meadow near Walden. See June 7, 1858 and note to July 26, 1860 (I see a bream swimming about in that smaller pool by Walden in Hubbard's Wood. . . So they may be well off in the Wyman meadow or Pout's Nest.") The pout referred to is the Brown Bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus), also known as Horned Pout, Mud Pout or Mud Cat. See Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord,

The black-polls are very numerous all over the town this spring.

May 27.

Fire in house again. 

The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by. The white bars on the wings of both sexes are almost horizontal. 

I see them thus early and late on the trees about our houses and other houses the 27th and 28th and 29th also, - peach trees, etc., but especially on the firs.

They are quite tame. I stand within seven or eight feet while they are busily pecking at the freshly bursting or extending glaucous fir twigs, deliberately examining them on all sides, and from time to time one utters a very fine and sharp, but faint tse tse, tse tse, tse tse, with more or less of these notes. I hear the same in the woods.

Examining the freshly starting fir twigs, I find that there are a great many lice or aphides amid the still appressed leafets or leaves of the buds, and no doubt they are after these. Occasionally a summer yellowbird is in company with them, about the same business.

They, the black-polls, are very numerous all over the town this spring. The female has not a black, but rather, methinks, a slate - colored crown, and is a very different bird, — more of a yellowish brown.

Eleocharis acicularis, not long, on the low exposed bank of the river; if it is that that greens the very low muddy banks.

J. Farmer found a marsh hawk's nest on the 16th, — near the Cooper ' s hawk nest, — with three fresh eggs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1860

Fire in house again. See May 21, 1860 (“Cold, at 11 A.M. 50°; and sit by a fire”); and note to May 22, 1860 ("Another cold and wet day, requiring fire")

They, the black-polls, are very numerous all over the town this spring. See May 20, 1856 ("The Sylvia striata, or black-poll warbler, busily picking about the locust buds and twigs. Black head and above, with olive (green) wings and two white bars; white all beneath, with a very distinct black line from throat to shoulders; flesh-colored legs; bill, dark above, light beneath."); and note to June 4, 1860 ("The black-poll warblers (Sylvia striata) appear to have left, and some other warblers, if not generally, with this first clear and bright and warm, peculiarly June weather, immediately after the May rain.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black-poll Warbler

J. Farmer found a marsh hawk's nest on the 16th with three fresh eggs. See May 29, 1860 ("We next proceeded to the marsh hawk’s nest from which the eggs were taken a fortnight ago and the female shot")

A kind of mining bee.

May 10.

River six and one eighth inches below summer level.

Thermometer at 2 P. M., 71°. The winds died away with April. 

In the midst of a remarkable drought. Hear of great fires in the woods up country the past week, it is so dry. Some farmers plowed around their houses to save them. 

P. M. – To Bateman’s Pond.

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees on it. The sweet fragrance fills the air for a long distance. How much the planting of this willow adds to the greenness and cheerfulness of our landscape at this season! 

As I stand on Hunt’s Bridge, I notice the now comparatively dark green of the canary grass (Phalaris), the coarse grass vigorously springing up on the muddy islands and edges, the glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. 

Going over the hill behind S. Brown’s, when we crossed the triangular space between the roads beyond the pump-maker’s, I saw countless little heaps of sand like the small ant-hills, but, looking more closely, the size of the holes (a little less than a quarter of an inch) and the comparative irregularity of the heaps — as if the sand had been brought forth and dropped in greater quantity at once — attracted my attention and I found they were the work of bees.

The bees were hovering low over the surface, and were continually entering and issuing from the holes. They were about the size of a honey-bee, black bodied, with, I thought, yellow thighs, -- if it was not pollen. Many of the holes appeared to have been freshly stopped up with granules of moist sand. These holes were made close together in the dry and sandy soil there, with very little grass on it, sloping toward the west, between the roads, and covered a triangular space some seven rods by three. I counted twenty-four in a square foot. There must have been some twenty-five thousand of these nests in all. The surface was yellowed with them. Evidently a kind of mining bee. 

I see in roadside hard sward, by the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. Is it the C. vulgaris? Its leading spikes are effete. 

Evergreen-forest note.

Some very young oaks — white oak, etc. — in woods begin to leaf. 

Hear the first cricket. 

The red maples, fruiting now, are in the brick-red state. 

I heard yesterday one or two warblers. One’s note was, in rhythm, like a very feeble field sparrow. Was it the redstart? Probably one or two strange warblers now. Was it not the parti-colored warbler, — with bluish head and yellow beneath, but not the screeper note, but note ending with a jingle slightly like the field sparrow? 

Meadow fox-tail grass out several days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1860

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees. See May 10, 1853 ("At this season the traveller passes through a golden gate on causeways where these willows are planted, as if he were approaching the entrance to Fairyland."); May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."). See also May 3, 1853  ('The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects"); May 9, 1852 ("I smell the blossoms of the willows, . . . a quarter of a mile to windward. "); May 11, 1854 ("The willows on the Turnpike now resound with the hum of bees,"); May 12, 1855 ("I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the causeways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees,"); May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,")

The glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. By the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. See May 10, 1858 ("That early glaucous, sharp-pointed, erect sedge, grass like, by the riverside is now apparently in prime.") See also June 19, 1859 ("The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta.")

One or two strange warblers now. See April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come."); April 30, 1859 ("This first off-coat warmth just preceding the advent of the swamp warblers (parti-colored, red start, etc.) brings them out."); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather."); May 11, 1853 ("How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds, while I sit by the spring! They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice. "); May 15, 1859 (“Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. ”);May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”);May 18, 1856 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce."); May 23, 1857("This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding,")

May 10. SeeA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

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 ©  2009-2021