The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
 |
| June 25, 2015 |
I am too late for
the white pine flowers. -- The cones
are half an inch long.
The ground under the
white pines is now strewn with the
effete male flowers.
There is a flower
for every mood of the mind –
wild roses in bloom.
June 25, 1852
June 25, 2017
The earth is a vast
saucer sloping upward to
its sharp mountain rim.
Sunshine now seen far
away looks like the yellow
grass in the meadows.
The sun comes out bright
and shines on Fair Haven Pond,
rippled by the wind.
Why the firefly's light,
if it were not for darkness?
One implies the other –
And now you see one
here and then another there as
if one in motion.
Just as the sun rises this morning, under clouds, I see a rainbow in the west horizon, the lower parts quite bright. June 25, 1852
The sunshine, now seen far away on fields and hills in the northwest, looks cool and wholesome, like the yellow grass in the meadows. June 25, 1852
The sun now comes out bright, though westering, and shines on Fair Haven, rippled by the wind .June 25, 1852
The sun now comes out bright, though westering, and shines on Fair Haven, rippled by the wind .June 25, 1852
 |
| June 25, 2018 |
Agreeable is this cool cloudy weather, favorable to thought, after the sultry days. June 25, 1852
We bathe at Bittern Cliff. The water is exceedingly warm near the surface, but refreshingly cold four or five feet beneath. June 25, 1858
A few moments after, it rains heavily for a half-hour; and it continues cloudy as well as cool most of the day. June 25, 1852
The air is clear, as if a cool, dewy brush had swept the vales and meadows of all haze. June 25, 1852
The mountain outline is remarkably distinct, and the intermediate earth appears more than usually scooped out, like a vast saucer sloping upward to its sharp mountain rim. June 25, 1852
The mountains are washed in air. June 25, 1852
The Convolvulus sepium, bindweed; morning-glory is the best name. . . . I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over my morning walks and thoughts. June 25, 1852
There is a flower for every mood of the mind. June 25, 1852.
The season when wild roses are in bloom June 25, 1852
Methinks roses oftenest display their high colors, colors which invariably attract all eyes and betray them, against a dark ground, as the dark green or the shady recesses of the bushes and copses, where they show to best advantage. June 25, 1852
Great orange lily beyond stone bridge. June 25, 1853
Garlic open, eighteen inches high or more. June 25, 1854
Sometimes the lambkill flowers form a very even rounded, close cylinder, six inches long and two and a half in diameter, of rich red saucer-like flowers, June 25, 1852.
I am too late for the white pine flowers. The cones are half an inch long and greenish, and the male flowers effete. June 25, 1852
White pine effete. June 25, 1857
The ground under the white pines is now strewn with the effete flowers, like an excrement. June 25, 1858
The calla fruit is curving down. June 25, 1854.
The Rubus frondosus is hardly past prime. June 25, 1858
A raspberry on sand by railroad, ripe. June 25, 1854
Shad-berry ripe. June 25, 1854
An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries . . .These are the first berries after strawberries, or the first, and I think the sweetest, bush berries. . . . I never saw nearly so many before. It is a very agreeable surprise. June 25, 1853.
I hear the cherry-birds and others about me, no doubt attracted by this fruit. June 25, 1853
Hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds. Probably young birds, some of them, lately taken flight. June 25, 1860.
I see a female marsh hawk, beating along a wall, suddenly give chase to a small bird, dashing to right and left twenty feet high about a pine. June 25, 1860
I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. June 25, 1860 .
A phoebe’s nest, with two birds ready to fly. June 25, 1855.
Also barn swallow’s nest lined with feathers, hemisphere or cone against side of sleeper; five eggs, delicate, as well as white-bellied swallow’s. June 25, 1855
I think it must be the purple finch, — with the crimson head and shoulders, — which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens, — one or two to-day. It sits on a bean-pole or fence-picket. June 25, 1853
A green bittern, apparently, awkwardly alighting on the trees and uttering its hoarse, zarry note, zskeow-xskeow-xskeow. June 25, 1854
I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet. June 25, 1854
Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter. June 25, 1854
I observe that young birds are usually of a duller color and more speckled than old ones, as if for their protection in their tender state.-- by their colors are merged in the variety of colors of the season. June 25, 1852 See
It is cool and cloudy weather in which the crickets, still heard, remind you of the fall, -- a clearer ring to their creak. June 25, 1852
There are no turtle-tracks now on the desert, but I see many crow-tracks there, and where they have pecked or scratched in the sand in many places, possibly smelling the eggs!? June 25, 1860. .
Also the track of a fox over the sand, and find his excrement buried in the sand, and the crows have dabbled in the sand over it. It is full of fur as usual. What an unfailing supply of small game it secures that its excrement should be so generally of fur! June 25, 1860
Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour. June 25, 1852
Moon half full. Fields dusky; the evening star and one other bright one near the moon. It is a cool but pretty still night. June 25, 1852
I see a female marsh hawk, beating along a wall, suddenly give chase to a small bird, dashing to right and left twenty feet high about a pine. June 25, 1860
I see and hear the parti-colored warbler at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. June 25, 1860 .
A phoebe’s nest, with two birds ready to fly. June 25, 1855.
Also barn swallow’s nest lined with feathers, hemisphere or cone against side of sleeper; five eggs, delicate, as well as white-bellied swallow’s. June 25, 1855
I think it must be the purple finch, — with the crimson head and shoulders, — which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens, — one or two to-day. It sits on a bean-pole or fence-picket. June 25, 1853
A green bittern, apparently, awkwardly alighting on the trees and uttering its hoarse, zarry note, zskeow-xskeow-xskeow. June 25, 1854
I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet. June 25, 1854
Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter. June 25, 1854
I observe that young birds are usually of a duller color and more speckled than old ones, as if for their protection in their tender state.-- by their colors are merged in the variety of colors of the season. June 25, 1852 See
It is cool and cloudy weather in which the crickets, still heard, remind you of the fall, -- a clearer ring to their creak. June 25, 1852
There are no turtle-tracks now on the desert, but I see many crow-tracks there, and where they have pecked or scratched in the sand in many places, possibly smelling the eggs!? June 25, 1860. .
Also the track of a fox over the sand, and find his excrement buried in the sand, and the crows have dabbled in the sand over it. It is full of fur as usual. What an unfailing supply of small game it secures that its excrement should be so generally of fur! June 25, 1860
Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour. June 25, 1852
Moon half full. Fields dusky; the evening star and one other bright one near the moon. It is a cool but pretty still night. June 25, 1852
The light, dry cladonia lichens on the brows of hills reflect the moonlight well, looking like rocks. June 25, 1852
At my perch pool I hear the pebbly sound of frogs, and some, perhaps below the middle size, hop in before I see them. June 25, 1858
I notice an apparent female bullfrog, with a lustrous greenish (not yellow) throat. June 25, 1858
I hear the bullfrog's trump from afar. June 25, 1852
The bullfrogs are of various tones.. June 25, 1852
As candles are lit on earth, stars are lit in the heavens. June 25, 1852
At this quiet hour the evening wind is heard to moan in the hollows of your face, mysterious, spirit-like, conversing with you. It can be heard now only. June 25, 1852
The night wind comes cold and whispering, murmuring weirdly from distant mountain-tops. June 25, 1852
There are light, vaporous clouds overhead; dark, fuscous ones in the north. June 25, 1852
June 25, 2020
The great story of the night is the moon's adventures with the clouds. June 25, 1852
The whip-poor-will sings.
The whip-poor-will sings.
The fireflies appear to be flying, though they may be stationary on the grass stems, for their perch and the nearness of the ground are obscured by the darkness, and now you see one here and then another there, as if it were one in motion. June 25, 1852
What were the firefly's light, if it were not for darkness? The one implies the other. June 25, 1852.
How distant is day and its associations! June 25, 1852
Methinks I am less thoughtful than I was last year at this time. June 25, 1852
*****
\June 25, 2017
See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)
The water is exceedingly warm near the surface, but refreshingly cold four or five feet beneath. See July 9, 1852 ("The pond water being so warm made the water of the brook feel very cold;. . .and when I thrust my arm down where it was only two feet deep, my arm was in the warm water of the pond, but my hand in the cold water of the brook.”); July 23, 1856 ("Bathing in Walden, I find the water considerably colder at the bottom while I stand up to my chin, but the sandy bottom much warmer to my feet than the water.")
An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries. See June 25, 1854 ("Shad-berry ripe."); see also May 9, 1852 ("The first shad-bush, Juneberry, or service-berry (Amclanchier canadensis), in blossom."). May 17, 1853 (“The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming.”); May 30, 1852 ("The fruit of the amelanchier is as big as small peas. I have not noticed any other berry so large yet. "); June 15, 1854 ("The Amelanchier Botryapium berries are already red dened two thirds over, and are somewhat palatable and soft, — some of them, — not fairly ripe."); July 13, 1852 ("The dark-purple amelanchier are the sweetest berries I have tasted yet.")
An apparent female bullfrog, with a lustrous greenish (not yellow) throat. See June 7, 1858 ("'Are not the females oftenest white-throated?")
I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet. See May 10, 1854 ("Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.”); June 9, 1854 ("Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise. I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. "); June 12, 1854 ("Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree."); July 28, 1858 ("Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. ")
An apparent female bullfrog, with a lustrous greenish (not yellow) throat. See June 7, 1858 ("'Are not the females oftenest white-throated?")
I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet. See May 10, 1854 ("Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.”); June 9, 1854 ("Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise. I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. "); June 12, 1854 ("Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree."); July 28, 1858 ("Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. ")
Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour. See June 16, 1852 ("A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!"); June 18, 1852 ("I hear a man playing a clarionet far off . . . What a contrast this evening melody with the occupations of the day! "); August 3, 1852 ("I hear the sound of a distant piano. . . . By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe.")
The fireflies appear to be flying . . . now you see one here and then another there, as if it were one in motion. See August 2, 1854 (“A few fireflies in the meadows. I am uncertain whether that so large and bright and high was a firefly or a shooting star.”)
There is a flower for every mood of the mind. See May 23, 1853 ("Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.”); August 7, 1853 ("The objects I behold correspond to my mood.”); May 6, 1854 ("I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.”); June 6, 1857 (“Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind.”)
Methinks I am less thoughtful than I was last year at this time. See July 7, 1852 ("I am older than last year; the mornings are further between; the days are fewer.")
June 25, 2020
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau June 25
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
tinyurl.com/HDT25June
