Willow catkins show red and yellowish pushed out half an inch or more.

February 22

I measured the thickness of the frozen ground at the deep cut on the new Bedford road, about half-way up the hill. They dig under the frozen surface and then crack it off with iron wedges, with much labor, in pieces from three to six feet square. It was eighteen inches thick and more there thicker higher up, not so thick lower down the hill. 

Saw in Sleepy Hollow a small hickory stump, about six inches in diameter and six inches high, so completely, regularly, and beautifully covered by that winkle-like fungus in concentric circles and successive layers that the core was concealed and you would have taken it for some cabbage-like plant. This was the way the wound was healed. The cut surface of the stump was completely and thickly covered. 

Our neighbor Wetherbee was J. Moore's companion when he took that great weight of pickerel this winter. He says it was fifty-six pounds in Flint's, in one day, and that four of them weighed eighteen pounds and seven ounces. 

February 22, 2020

My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two, and the willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 22, 1854

The frozen ground at the deep cut on the new Bedford road. See January 9, 1856 ("In passing through the deep cut on the new Bedford road, I saw that a little sand, which was pretty coarse, almost gravel, had fallen from the bank, and was blown over the snow, here and there.")

That winkle-like fungus in concentric circles and successive layers. See October 10, 1858 ("The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, because it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute . . . T]he humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind.")

Four of them weighed eighteen pounds and seven ounces. See December 29, 1858 ("Heavy Haynes was fishing a quarter of a mile this side of Hubbard’s Bridge. He had caught a pickerel, which the man who weighed it told me (he was apparently a brother of William Wheeler’s, and I saw the fish at the house where it was) weighed four pounds and three ounces. It was twenty-six inches long."); February 29, 1856 ("Minott told me this afternoon of his catching a pickerel in the Mill Brook once . . . which weighed four pounds . . . and I willingly listen to the stories he has told me half a dozen times already.”); May 4, 1858 (" A man told him that he saw a trout weighing about a pound and a half darting at a pickerel, and every time he darted he took a bit off a fin, and at last the man walked in and caught the pickerel, and it weighed five pounds"); April 3, 1859 ("I hear that Peter Hutchinson hooked a monstrous pickerel at the Holt last winter. It was so large that he could not get his head through the hole, and so they cut another hole close by, and then a narrow channel from that to the first to pass the line through, but then, when they came to pull on the line, the pickerel gave a violent jerk and escaped. Peter thinks that he must have weighed ten pounds.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Pickerel

My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two.  See March 6, 1853 ("Last Sunday I plucked some alder twigs, some aspen, and some swamp willow, and put them in water in a warm room, Immediately the alder catkins were relaxed and began to lengthen and open, and by the second day to drop their pollen"); March 10, 1853 ("The alder's catkins — the earliest of them — are very plainly expanding, or, rather, the scales are loose and separated, and the whole catkin relaxed."); March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

The willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish. See February 19, 1857 ("Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales and look very red, probably on account of the warm weather.");  March 21, 1855 ("Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now . . . It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Willow catkins show

red and yellowish pushed out

half an inch or more.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Willow catkins show

red and yellowish 

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540222

The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime.

August 31.

P. M. – To Moore's Swamp.

Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one.

The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime, I think. 

August 31, 2020

The rank growth of flowers (commonly called weeds) in this swamp now impresses me like a harvest of flowers. I am surprised at their luxuriance and profusion.

The Solidago altissima is now the prevailing one, i. e. goldenrod, in low grounds where the swamp has been cleared. It occupies acres, densely rising as high as your head, with the great white umbel-like tops of the Diplopappus umbellatus rising above it.

There are also intermixed Solidago stricta, erechthites (fire-weed), Aster puniceus and longifolius, Galium asprellum in great beds, thoroughwort, trumpet-weed, Polygonum Hydropiper, Epilobium molle, etc., etc.

There has been no such rank flowering up to this. One would think that all the poison that is in the earth and air must be extracted out of them by this rank vegetation.

The ground is quite mildewy, it is so shaded by them, cellar-like.

Raspberries still fresh.

I see the first dogwood turned scarlet in the swamp.

Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes.

Saw a great black spider an inch long, with each of his legs an inch and three quarters long, on the outside of a balloon-shaped web, within which were young and a great bag.

Viola pedata out again.

Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water.

Cirsium muticum, in Moore's Swamp behind Indian field, going out of flower; perhaps out three weeks.

Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti? — now begun to be conspicuous.

A low aster by Brown's Ditch north of Sleepy Hollow like a Radula, but with narrower leaves and more numerous, and scales without herbaceous tips.

An orange-colored fungus.

Baird, in Patent Office Report, says, “In all deer, except, perhaps, the reindeer, if the male be castrated when the horns are in a state of perfection, these will never be shed; if the operation be performed when the head is bare, they will never be reproduced; and if done when the secretion is going on, a stunted, ill formed, permanent horn is the result.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1853


Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one. See August 20, 1852 ("Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field. "); August 30, 1856 ("Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long?"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now")

The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime, I think. See July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open. . . This the afternoon of the year."); July 28, 1852 ("Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out. "); August 30, 1853 ("Why so many asters and goldenrods now?") See also August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are . . .”); August 24, 1853(Goldenrods and asters);September 1, 1856 ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden-rods now.”); September 24, 1856 (“Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now”); October 8, 1856 ("The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods")

The great white umbel-like tops of the Diplopappus umbellatus [Tall flat-top white aster] See August 1, 1856 ("Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall."); August 24, 1853 ("D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds)"); August 24, 1859 ("Diplopappus umbellatus, how long?"); September 1, 1856 ("D. umbellatus, perhaps in prime or approaching it, but not much seen."); September 24, 1856 ("D. umbellatus, still abundant.")

Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes. See August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous.");  August 29, 1859 ("Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. Hence you see the green cymes perfectly erect, the half-ripe drooping, and the perfectly ripe hanging straight down on the same bush."); September 1, 1859 ("The elder-berry cyme, held erect, is of very regular form, four principal divisions drooping toward each quarter around an upright central one.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries

Viola pedata out again. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); September 4, 1856 ("Viola pedata again."); October 23, 1853 (" The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. "); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs 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"); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”).

Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water See August 27, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season"); October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson.")  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti?  See August 11, 1854 ("Aster Tradescanti, two or three days in low ground; flowers smaller than A. dumosus, densely racemed, with short peduncles or branchlets, calyx-scales narrower and more pointed."); August 14, 1856 ("Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two."); August 30, 1859 ("Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus"); September 1, 1854 (" The Aster Tradescanti is perhaps beginning to whiten the shores on moist banks."); September 1, 1856 ("A. Tradescanti, got to be pretty common, but not yet in prime.");
September 7, 1858 ("and now the moist banks and low hollows are beginning to be abundantly sugared with Aster Tradescantia"); September 10, 1853("The Aster Tradescanti, now in its prime, sugars the banks all along the riverside with a profusion of small white blossoms resounding with the hum of bees."): September 13, 1856 ("The Aster Tradescanti now sugars the banks densely, since I left, a week ago. Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers.");September 14, 1856 ("Now for the Aster Tradescanti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming with butterflies and bees. Some of them are pink.");  September 21, 1858 (" Saw no Aster Tradescanti in this walk, but an abundance of A. multiflorus in its prime, in Salem and Marblehead."); September 27, 1856 ("The Aster multiflorus may easily be confounded with the A. Tradescanti. Like it, it whitens the roadside in some places. It has purplish disks, but a less straggling top than the Tradescanti.");  October 8, 1856 ("A. corymbosus, looks fresh! . . . of asters, only corymbosus, undulatus,Tradescanti, and longifolius . . .are common."); October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . yarrow, some Aster Tradescanti, and some red clover."); October 25, 1853 ("In some places along the water's edge the Aster Tradescanti lingers still, some flowers purple, others white. The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight."); November 2, 1853 (Tthough [Aster undulatus ] is the latest aster that is abundant, I am not sure that it lasts absolutely longer than the A. puniceus, or even Tradescanti.")

Brown's Ditch north of Sleepy Hollow. According to Ray Angelo. Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts   Brown’s Ditch  was located in part of the Deacon Reuben Brown farm in a wetland north of Sleepy Hollow asssociated with Moore’s Swamp.

In my latter years, let me have some shad-bush thoughts.

October 13. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Many of the small hypericums, mutilum and Canadense, have survived the frosts as yet, after all.

Hypericum mutilum, dwart St. John’s-wort,
August 2, 2019

The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river. The cones, being thus expanded, are more conspicuous on the trees. 

Many feverwort berries are fresh yet, though the leaves are quite withered. They are remarkable for their peculiar color. 

The thorn fruit on the hill is considerably past prime, though abundant and reddening the bushes still. 

The common alder up the Assabet is nerved like the hornbeam. 

I see no acorns on the trees. They appear to have all fallen before this. 

The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual. What a pleasing phenomenon, perhaps an Indian- summer growth, an anticipation of the spring, like the notes of birds and frogs, etc., an evidence of warmth and genialness. Its buds are annually awakened by the October sun as if it were spring. 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. The chickadee seems to lisp a sweeter note at the sight of it. I would not fear the winter more than the shad-bush which puts forth fresh and tender leaves on its approach. In the fall I will take this for my coat-of-arms. It seems to detain the sun that expands it. These twigs are so full of life that they can hardly contain themselves. They ignore winter. They anticipate spring. What faith! Away in some warm and sheltered recess in the swamp you find where these leaves have expanded. It is a foretaste of spring. In my latter years, let me have some shad-bush thoughts. 

I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around, which at first I refer to the decaying leaves. 

I see where dodder was killed, with the button-bush, perhaps a week. 

British naturalists very generally apologize to the reader for having devoted their attention to natural history to the neglect of some important duty. 

Among plants which spring in cellars (vide September 22d) might be mentioned funguses. I remember seeing in an old work a plate of a fungus which grew in a wine-cellar and got its name from that circumstance. It is related in Chambers's Journal that Sir Joseph Banks, having caused a cask of wine to be placed in a cellar in order to improve it, "at the end of three years he directed his butler to ascertain the state of the wine, when, on attempting to open the cellar door, he could not affect it, in consequence of some powerful obstacle; the door was consequently cut down, when the cellar was found to be completely filled with a fungous production, so firm that it was necessary to use an axe for its removal. This appeared to have grown from, or to have been nourished by, the decomposing particles of the wine, the cask being empty, and carried up to the ceiling, where it was supported by the fungus." Perhaps it was well that the fungus instead of Sir Joseph Banks drank up the wine. The life of a wine-bibber is like that of a fungus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 13, 1859

Many of the small hypericums, mutilum and Canadense, have survived the frosts as yet, after all. See July 15, 1856 ("Both small hypericums, Canadense and mutilum, apparently some days at least by Stow's ditch."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening"); August 12, 1856 ("11 a. m. — To Hill. The Hypericum mutilum is well out at this hour."); August 15, 1859 ("Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules."); August 17, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m.");  August 19, 1856 ("I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 p. m"); August 27, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season"); September 15, 1856 ("The hypericums generally appear to be now about done. I see none."); October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson."); October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river. The cones, being thus expanded, are more conspicuous on the trees. Compare  October 28, 1858 (The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. They are inconspicuous on the tree.")/  See also  October 8, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. ”); October 15, 1856 ("A great part of the hemlock seeds fallen."); 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 31, 1853 ("The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones.”); November 1. 1853 ("As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there.");   November 11, 1855 (“At the Hemlocks I see a narrow reddish line of hemlock leaves . .. mathematically level. This chronicles the hemlock fall, which I had not noticed, we have so few trees, and also the river’s rise”)

The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual. See October 22, 1855 ("The swamp pyrus (Amelanchier) is leafing again. One opening leafet is an inch long, while the reddish yellow leaves still hold on at the end of the twig above. Its green swollen buds are generally conspicuous, curving round the stems. It is a new spring there. "); 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 4, 1854 (“The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”).

Many feverwort berries are fresh yet, though the leaves are quite withered. They are remarkable for their peculiar color. See August 23, 1853 ("The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed."); Septmeber 6, 1859 ("The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime, of a clear "corn yellow " and as large as a small cranberry, in whorls at the axils of the leaves of the half- prostrate plants.")

I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around, which at first I refer to the decaying leaves. See October 9, 1851 (I"ts blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong to the saffron dawn of the year. . . Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other."); October 11, 1858 ("It is a cool seat under the witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! The leaves are greenish and brownish yellow")

October 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 13

In my latter years

let me have some shad-bush thoughts –

the shad-bush leafing!

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, In my latter years

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

Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away

September 12. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Cliffs.

The handsome crimson-tipped hazelnut burs now and for some time have reminded us that it was time to gather these nuts. They are worth gathering, if only to see the rich color of the fruit brought together in a quantity.

Lycopodium complanatum, how long? 

Have seen the pigeon’s-egg fungus in pastures some time. 

Yew berries still hold on. 

The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. How rich in its decay! Sic transit gloria mundi! Die like the leaves, which are most beautiful in their decay. 

Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. Amid the October woods we hear no funereal bell, but the scream of the jay. Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression. 

See petty morel berries ripe. 

Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. 

Very heavy rain all yesterday afternoon, and to-day it is somewhat cooler and clearer and the wind more northwesterly, and I see the unusual sight of ripples  or waves curving up-stream off Cardinal Shore, so that the river might seem to be flowing that way. 

The mountains are of a darker blue. 

The spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill is nearly dry; there is no stream flowing from it. What a disappointment to a herd of cows to find their accustomed spring dry! 

Even in that little hollow on the hill side, commonly moistened by the spring, grow the soft rush, rhyncospora, etc. What an effect a little moisture on a hillside produces, though only a rod square! The Juncaceoe and Cyperaceoa soon find it out and establish themselves there. 

The Panicum filiforme is very abundant in that old mullein-field of Potter’s, by the Corner road. Its slender culms are purple, and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. More purple far than the P. sanguinale. 

Some small red maples by water begun to redden. 

In Hubbard’s ditched meadow, this side his grove, I see a great many large spider’s webs stretched across the ditches, about two feet from bank to bank, though the thick woven part is ten or twelve inches. They are parallel, a few inches or a foot or more apart, and more or less vertical, and attached to a main cable stretched from bank to bank. They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward. This is enough, methinks, to establish the rule. They are not afraid of turning their brains then. Many insects must be winging their way over this small river. It reminds me of the Indians catching ducks at Green Bay with nets in old times.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1858

Lycopodium complanatum, how long? See August 31, 1857  ("Lycopodium complanatum out, how long?")

Yew berries still hold on. See August 10, 1858 ("Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),. . . It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have")

The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. See September 27, 1857 ("The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever."); September 6, 1854("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered.")

Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. See September 4, 1857 ("The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. ")

Beck Stow’s Swamp in Winter

January 29. 

P. M. – To Great Meadows at Copan. 

It is considerably colder. 

I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow's, north of the new road. For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes, and the shortest way is to bend down bushes eight feet high and tread on them. The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-vessels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions.

The cranberry rising red above the ice is seen to be allied to the water andromeda, but is yet redder. 

In the ditches on Holbrook's meadow near Copan, I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. Even this green is exhilarating, like a spring in winter. I am affected by the sight even of a mass of conferva in a ditch. I find some radical potamogeton leaves six inches long under water, which look as if growing. 

Found some splendid fungi on old aspens used for a fence; quite firm; reddish-white above and bright vermilion beneath, or perhaps more scarlet, reflecting various shades as it is turned. It is remarkable that the upper side of this fungus, which must, as here, commonly be low on decaying wood, so that we look down on it, is not bright-colored nor handsome, and it was only when I had broken it off and turned it over that I was surprised by its brilliant color. This intense vermilion (?) face, which would be known to every boy in the town if it were turned upward, faces the earth and is discovered only by the curious naturalist. Its ear is turned down, listening to the honest praises of the earth. It is like a light-red velvet or damask. These silent and motionless fungi, with their ears turned ever downward toward the earth, revealing their bright colors perchance only to the prying naturalist who turns them upward, remind me of the “Hear-all” of the story.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 29, 1858

I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow’s. See January 10, 1856 (“I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now,”); January 10, 1855 (“To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again.”)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 29

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

Reflections from an owl's feather

January 17

Sunday. P. M. — To Conantum. 

The common birch fungus, which is horizontal and turned downward, splits the bark as it pushes out very simply, thus:

I see a large downy owl's feather adhering to a sweet-fern twig, looking like the down of a plant blowing in the wind. This is near where I have found them before, on Conantum, above first Cliff. They would be very ornamental to a bonnet, so soft and fine with their reflections that the eye hardly rests on the down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 17, 1858

The common birch fungus, which is horizontal and turned downward, splits the bark as it pushes out very simply. See  January 26, 1858 ("On the side-hill at the swamp, I see how the common horizontal birch fungus is formed . . .")

Reflections from an owl's feather. See November 2, 1857 ("You must be in an abstract mood to see reflections however distinct"); August 23, 1852 ("The perception of surfaces will always have the effect of miracle.")

What kind of gift is life unless we have spirits to enjoy it and taste its true flavor?

August 10

Monday. 

P. M. —In Clintonia Swamp I see a remarkable yellow fungus about the base of some grass growing in a tuft. It is a jelly, shaped like a bodkin or a pumpkin’s stigma, two inches long, in vesting the base of the grass blades, a quarter to a half inch thick, tapering to the grass each way and covered _ with a sort of moist meal. It was strong-scented and disagreeable. 

Cat-tail commonly grows in the hollows and boggy places where peat has' been dug. 

How meanly and miserably we live for the most part!

We escape fate continually by the skin of our teeth, as the saying is. We are practically desperate. But as every man, in respect to material wealth, aims to be come independent or wealthy, so, in respect to our spirits and imagination, we should have some spare capital and superfluous vigor, have some margin and leeway in which to move. 

August 10, 2019, 8:41 PM

What kind of gift is life unless we have spirits to enjoy it and taste its true flavor? 

if, in respect to spirits, we are to be forever cramped and in debt? In our ordinary estate we have not, so to speak, quite enough air to breathe, and this poverty qualifies our piety; but we should have more than enough and breathe it carelessly. Poverty is the rule. 

We should first of all be full of vigor like a strong horse, and beside have the free and adventurous spirit of his driver; i. e., we should have such a reserve of elasticity and strength that we may at any time be able to put ourselves at the top of our speed and go beyond our ordinary limits, just as the invalid hires a horse. 

Have the gods sent us into this world, — to this muster, — to do chores, hold horses, and the like, and not given us any spending money? 

The poor and sick man keeps a horse, often a hostler; but the well man is a horse to himself, is horsed on himself; he feels his own oats. Look at the other’s shanks. How spindling! like the timber 'of his gig! 

First a sound and healthy life, and then spirits to live it with. 

I hear the neighbors complain sometimes about the peddlers selling their help false jewelry, as if they themselves wore true jewelry; but if their help pay as much for it as they did for theirs, then it is just as true jewelry as theirs, just as becoming to them and no more; for unfortunately it is the cost of the article and not the merits of the wearer that is considered. The money is just as well spent, and perhaps better earned. I don’t care how much false jewelry the peddlers sell, nor how many of the eggs which you steal are rotten. What, pray, is true jewelry? The hardened tear of a diseased clam, murdered in its old age. Is that fair play? If not, it is no jewel. The mistress wears this in her ear, while her help has one made of paste which you cannot tell from it. False jewelry! Do you know of any shop where true jewelry can be bought? I always look askance at a jeweller and wonder what church he can belong to. 

I heard some ladies the other day laughing about some one of their help who had helped herself to a real hoop from off a hogshead for her gown. I laughed too, but which party do you think I laughed at? Isn’t hogshead as good a word as crinoline?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 10, 1857

August 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , August 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

It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors.

June 4. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill. 

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. 

Salix tristis is going to seed, showing some cotton; also some S. rostrate. 

I am surprised to see some kind of fish dart away in Collier's veronica ditch, for it about dries up and has no outlet. 

I observed yesterday, the first time this year, the lint on the smooth surface of the Assabet at the Hemlocks, giving the water a stagnant look. It is an agreeable phenomenon to me, as connected with the season and suggesting warm weather. I suppose it to be the down from the new leaves which so rapidly become smooth. There may be a little pitch pine pollen with it now. The current is hardly enough to make a clear streak in it here and there. The stagnant-looking surface, where the water slowly circles round in that great eddy, has the appearance of having been dusted over. This lint now covers my clothes as I go through the sprout- lands, but it gets off remarkably before long. Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. 

One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors. Our thoughts pillow themselves unconsciously in the troughs of this serene, rippling sea of sound. Now first we begin to be peripatetics. No longer our ears come in contact with the bold echoing earth, but everywhere recline on the spring cushion of a cricket's chirp. These rills that ripple from every hillside become at length a universal sea of sound, nourishing our ears when we are most unconscious. 

In that first apple tree at Wyman's an apparent hairy woodpecker's nest (from the size of the bird), about ten feet from ground. The bird darts away with a shrill, loud chirping of alarm, incessantly repeated, long before I get there, and keeps it up as long as I stay in the neighborhood. The young keep up an in cessant fine, breathing peep which can be heard across the road and is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. 

I perceive no offensive odor. I saw the bird fly out of this hole, May 1st, and probably the eggs were laid about that time. Vide it next year. 

In the high pasture behind Jacob Baker's, soon after coming out of the wood, I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair. 

Carya glabra [Carya glabra – pignut hickory], apparently a day at least. 

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill, along above wall opposite the oak, a rod or more off and westerly. Apparently several days at least, but it appears not to do well. It has a dry, tufted look, somewhat like young savory- leaved aster, on the bare rocky hill and in the clear spaces between the huckleberry bushes. Reminds me of a heath. Does not blossom so full as once I saw it. 

Arethusa. 

Crimson fungus (?) on black birch leaves, as if bespattered with blood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1857

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. See June 4, 1855 (“There are now many potentillas ascendant.”)

Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. See June 4, 1855 (“Lint comes off on to clothes from the tender leaves, but it is clean dirt and all gone when you get home. . .”); June 4, 1854 (“ The surface of the still water nowadays looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off? . . .”)

That fine serene undertone or earth-song . . . imparting its own serenity. See June 4, 1854 (“These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool . . ..”) ;May 12, 1857 (“The spirit of its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a glass, as it lies eternally”);; May 22, 1854 (“The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. . . . . Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. . . .A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.”); June 1, 1856 (“Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets”); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”)  June 17, 1852 (“The earth-song of the cricket! Before Christianity was, it is. Health! health! health! is the burden of its song. ”); July 14, 1851 (“It is a sound from within, not without.You cannot dispose of it by listening to it. In proportion as I am stilled I hear it. It reminds me that I am a denizen of the earth.”);

The [peep of the young] is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. I perceive no offensive odor. See June 10, 1856 ("They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole.?”)  

A bay-wing . . .  The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots. . . .See May 18, 1855 ("At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not.”); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches"); May 31, 1856 (“A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. . . .The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing.”)

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill . . . See July 8, 1857 ("Edith Emerson shows me Oldenlandia purpurea var. longifolia, which she saw very abundantly in bloom on the Blue Hills . . .”)

A blaze of light from now crisped yellow leaves..

October 17

Notice some of the fungus called spunk, very large, on the large white oak in Love Lane, eight or nine feet from the ground on the east side, on a protuberance where a limb was formerly cut off. It is now green and moist, of a yellowish color, composed of several flakes one above the other; the length of the shelf, or chord of the arc, twenty-one inches; depth from the tree, or width of shelf, about one foot. 

Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect. Fuzzy, woolly heads now reign along all hedge rows and over many broad fields. 

Some trees, as small hickories, appear to have dropped their leaves instantaneously, as at a signal, as a soldier grounds arms. The ground under such reflects a blaze of light from now crisped yellow leaves. Down they have come on all sides, as if touched by fairy fingers. 

October 17, 2016

Boys are raking leaves in the street, if only for the pleasure of dealing with such clean, crisp substances.

Countless leafy skiffs are floating on pools and lakes and rivers and in the swamps and meadows, often concealing the water quite from foot and eye. Each leaf, still crisply curled up on its edges, makes as yet a tight boat like the Indian's hide one, but ere long it will be come relaxed and flatted out and sink to the bottom, i. e. if it is driven out to sea, but most are drifted toward the shore, which is converted into one long, crowded haven where the water is concealed, and they settle close to land.

Many fringed gentians quite fresh yet, though most are faded and withered. I suspect that their very early and sudden fading and withering has nothing, or little, to do with frost after all, for why should so many fresh ones succeed still? My pressed ones have all faded in like manner! ! 

It would be too late to look for bees now at Wyman's; the flowers are too far gone. 

I go down the path through Charles Bartlett's land. The young white oak leaves are now generally withered in and on the sides of the hollows there, also the black scrub, while the red and black oaks are still commonly red and so far alive. 

As I stand looking at Emerson's bound under the railroad embankment, I heard a smart tche-day-day-day close to my ear, and, looking up, see four of these birds, which had come to scrape acquaintance with me, hopping amid the alders within three and four feet of me. I had heard them further off at first, and they had followed me along the hedge. They day-day 'd and lisp their faint notes alternately, and then, as if to make me think they had some other errand than to peer at me, they peck the dead twigs with their bills — the little top-heavy, black-crowned, volatile fellows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 17, 1856

Notice some of the fungus called spunk, very large, on the large white oak in Love Lane . . . It is now green and moist, of a yellowish color.  See November 25, 1857 ("Further in Ebby Hubbard’s wood, I see a great two-storied mass of black spunk which has fallen. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season for Fungi

Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect. See October 17, 1851 ("A severe frost this morning."); October 17, 1857 ("The cinnamon ferns . . .have acquired their November aspect") See also  October 11, 1856 ("Solidagos now generally show woolly heads along the fences and brooks");  October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . . Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen. . . Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet, leaves which apparently came down in a shower with yesterday morning's frost . . . Mikania is all whitish woolly now "); October 16, 1856 (“Ground all white with frost.”); October 16, 1858 ("The mikania, goldenrods, and Andropogon scoparius have now their November aspect, the former showing their dirty-white pappus, the last its white plumose hairs. The year is thus acquiring a grizzly look before the snows of winter."); and note to  September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night")

Some trees, . . have dropped their leaves instantaneously, as at a signal, . . .The ground under such reflects a blaze of light from now crisped yellow leaves. See  October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow."); October 15, 1853 ("They suddenly form thick beds . . . just the size and form of the tree above.");  October 22, 1857 ("The hickory leaves, now after they have fallen, are often if not oftenest a dark rich yellow, very conspicuous upon the brown leaves of the forest floor, seeming to have more life in them than those leaves which are brown.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

Boys are raking leaves in the street, if only for the pleasure of dealing with such clean, crisp substances. See October 20, 1853 ("How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves, — clean, crisp, and wholesome!")

Countless leafy skiffs . . . concealing the water quite from foot and eye. See October 17, 1857 ("The swamp floor is covered with red maple leaves, many yellow with bright-scarlet spots or streaks. Small brooks are almost concealed by them. "); October 17, 1858 ("They remind me of ditches in swamps, whose surfaces are often quite concealed by leaves now. The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle.") See also October 11, 1857 ("Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and other leaves strew the water, and it is almost a leaf harvest."); October 12, 1855 ("The leaves fallen last night now lie thick on the water next the shore, concealing it, —fleets of dry boats . . ."); October 12, 1858 ("There are many maple, birch, etc., leaves on the Assabet, in stiller places along the shore, but not yet a leaf harvest"); 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 15, 1856 ("Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet.");   October 19, 1853 ("The leaves have fallen so plentifully that they quite conceal the water along the shore, and rustle pleasantly when the wave which the boat creates strikes them."); October 22, 1853 ("this great fleet of scattered leaf boats, still tight and dry, each one curled up on every side by the sun's skill,"); November 1, 1852("On the river this afternoon, the leaves, now crisp and curled, when the wind blows them on to the water become rude boats which float and sail about awhile conspicuously before they go to the bottom.").  See also Jennifer Thomas ("Ochibabune. It’s a Japanese term that means “fallen leaf boat.” In Japan, an autumn leaf drifting on water is a poignant metaphor for vulnerability and impermanence.") (https://bsky.app/profile/jthomasabc.bsky.social/post/3mxu55f2jv22l)

Many fringed gentians quite fresh yet. See September 14, 1856 ("Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th.");  October 19, 1852 ("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.”);November 30, 1856 ("Minot Pratt tells me that he watched the fringed gentian this year, and it lasted till the first week in November.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

It would be too late to look for bees now at Wyman's; the flowers are too far gone. See September 30, 1852 ("If there are any sweet flowers still lingering on the hillside, it is known to the bees both of the forest and the village"); October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects . . . in the garden, I see half a dozen honey bees, many more flies, some wasps, a grasshopper, and a large handsome butterfly. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

The young white oak leaves are now generally withered . . . while the red and black oaks are still commonly red and so far alive. See December 9, 1856 (""The sunlight reveals no redness in the white oak leaves  The bright colors of autumn are transient; these browns are permanent . These are not so much withered leaves, for they have a wintry life in them still, and the tanned or bronzed color of assured health." ); December 21, 1856 ("The white oak leaves are the palest and most shrivelled, the lightest, perhaps a shade of buff . . .  The black oak leaves are the darkest brown, with clear or deep yellowish-brown undersides . . .The red oak leaves are a little lighter brown than the black oak, less yellowish beneath."); December 31, 1854 ("The white oak leaves are a cinnamon-color, the black and red oak leaves a reddish brown or leather-color.’)

They day-day'd and lisp their faint notes alternately, and then, as if to make me think they had some other errand than to peer at me, they peck the dead twigs with their bills. See  October 15, 1856 ("The chickadees are hopping near on the hemlock above. They resume their winter ways before the winter comes."); December 3, 1856. ("Six weeks ago I noticed the advent of chickadees and their winter habits . . . they will flit after and close to you, and naively peck at the nearest twig to you, as if they were minding their own business all the while without any reference to you.") See also October 23, 1852 ("The chickadees flit along, following me inquisitively a few rods with lisping, tinkling note, — flit within a few feet of me from curiosity."); November 9, 1850 ("The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note."); December 1, 1853 ("I hear their faint, silvery, lisping notes, like tinkling glass, and occasionally a sprightly day-day-day, as they inquisitively hop nearer and nearer to me. They are our most honest and innocent little bird, drawing yet nearer to us as the winter advances.) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

October 17. See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 17

Within days frost turns

flowers to woolly heads – their

November aspect.

Under hickories

a blaze of light reflects from

now crisped yellow leaves.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A blaze of light from yellow leaves

 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 ©  2009-2026

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