It is only a reflecting mind that sees reflections.

November 2

P. M. — To Bateman’s Pond. 


Row up Assabet as far as the Pokelogan, thence on foot. 

It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when the brown and withered leaves strew the ground and almost every plant is fallen or withered, to come upon a patch of polypody on some rocky hillside in the woods, —as in abundance on hillside between Calla Swamp and Bateman’s Pond, and still more same hillside east of the callas, —where, in the midst of the dry and rustling leaves, defying frost, it stands so freshly green and full of life.  

The mere greenness, which was not remarkable in the summer, is positively interesting now. 

polypody

November 2, 2023

My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed. 

The brakes, the sarsaparilla, the osmundas, the Solomon’s-seals, the lady's slippers have long since withered and fallen. The huckleberries and blueberries, too, have lost their leaves. The forest floor is covered with a thick coat of moist brown leaves. But what is that perennial and spring like verdure that clothes the rocks, of small green plumes pointing various ways?

It is the cheerful community of the polypody. It survives at least as the type of vegetation, to remind us of the spring which shall not fail. These are the green pastures where I browse now. 

Why is not this form copied by our sculptors instead of the foreign acanthus leaves and bays? The sight of this unwithering green leaf excites me like red at some seasons.  I don’t care for acanthus leaves; they are far-fetched. I do love this form, however, and would like to see it painted or sculptured, whether on your marble or my butter. How fit for a tuft about the base of a column! 

November 2, 2015

Are not the wood frogs the philosophers who walk (?) in these groves? Methinks I imbibe a cool, composed, frog-like philosophy when I behold them. 

I come to a black snake in the wood-path, with its crushed head resting on a stone and its uninjured body trailing thence. How often I see where thus some heel has bruised the serpent's head! I think it an unnatural antipathy. 

Crossed over that high, flat-backed rocky hill, where the rocks, as usual thereabouts, stand on their edges, and the grain, though usually running northeasterly and southwesterly, — by compass east-northeast, west southwest, — is frequently kinked up in a curious manner, reminding me of a curly head. Call the hill Curly-pate. 

November 2, 2017

Bateman's Pond is agitated by the strong wind, – a slate-colored surface under the cloudy sky. 

I find some good blue pearmains under their tree in a swamp, amid the huckleberry bushes, etc., all fallen. They lie with a rich bloom on them still, though half of them are gnawed by squirrels or rabbits; low in the sedge, with decayed leaves adhering to them. 

How contagious are boys' games! A short time ago they were spinning tops, as I saw and heard, all the country over. Now every boy has a stick curved at the end, a hawkie (?), in his hand, whether in yards or in distant lanes I meet them. 

The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods, more yellow and brown specked in the open places. 

The form of the polypody is strangely interesting; it is even outlandish. Some forms, though common in our midst, are thus perennially foreign as the growths of other latitudes; there being a greater interval between us and their kind than usual. We all feel the ferns to be further from us, essentially and sympathetically, than the phaenogamous plants, the roses and weeds, for instance. It needs no geology nor botany to assure us of that. We feel it, and told them of it first. The bare outline of the polypody thrills me strangely. It is a strange type which I cannot read. It only piques me. Simple as it is, it is as strange as an Oriental character. It is quite independent of my race, and of the Indian, and all mankind. It is a fabulous, mythological form, such as prevailed when the earth and air and water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creatures that we find. It is contemporary with them, and affects as the sight of them. 

As I stood on Curly-pate, the air had become gradually thick with mist in the southwest. The sky was overcast, and a cool, strong wind blew from the same quarter, and in the mist I perceived the strong scent of smoke from some burning. Standing on one of those curly-headed rocks, whose strata are vertical, gives me a sense of elevation like a mountain-top. In fact, they are on the axis of elevation. 

There are no fresh — or blue — fringed gentians by the swamp-side by Bateman’s now. 

Wild apples have lost some of their brilliancy now and are chiefly fallen. 

Returning, I see the red oak on R. W. E.'s shore reflected in the bright sky water. In the reflection the tree is black against the clear whitish sky, though as I see it against the opposite woods it is a warm greenish yellow. But the river sees it against the bright sky, and hence the reflection is like ink. The water tells me how it looks to it seen from below. 

I think that most men, as farmers, hunters, fishers, etc., walk along a river's bank, or paddle along its stream, without seeing the reflections. Their minds are not abstracted from the surface, from surfaces generally. It is only a reflecting mind that sees reflections. I am aware often that I have been occupied with shallow and commonplace thoughts, looking for something superficial, when I did not see the most glorious reflections, though exactly in the line of my vision. 

If the fisherman was looking at the reflection, he would not know when he had a nibble! I know from my own experience that he may cast his line right over the most elysian landscape and sky, and not catch the slightest notion of them. 

You must be in an abstract mood to see reflections however distinct. I was even startled by the sight of that reflected red oak as if it were a black water-spirit. 

When we are enough abstracted, the opaque earth itself reflects images to us; i. e., we are imaginative, see visions, etc. Such a reflection, this inky, leafy tree, against the white sky, can only be seen at this season. 

November 2, 2017

The water is falling fast, and I push direct over the meadow this evening, probably for the last time this fall, scraping the cranberry vines and hummocks from time to time with my flat-bottomed boat.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1857

A black snake in the wood-path, with its crushed head resting on a stone. See May 4, 1857 ("Wyman told Minott that he used to see black snakes crossing Walden and would wait till they came ashore and then kill them."); October 11, 1856 ("In the path, as I go up the hill beyond the springs, on the edge of Stow's sprout-land, I find a little snake which somebody has killed with his heel."); and note to 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.")

My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed. See November 5, 1857 ("Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it, — as those polypodies. The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Sheild Fern

The form of the polypody is strangely interesting . . .  It is a strange type which I cannot read . . .such as prevailed when the earth and air and water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creatures that we find. See June 5, 1857 ([Wild] as those strange fossil plants whose impressions I see on my coal. . . [W]hat ages between me and the tree whose shade I enjoy! It is as if it stood substantially in a remote geological period.")

It is only a reflecting mind that sees reflections. See November 2, 1854 ("At length I discovered that it was the reflected sun which cast a higher shadow like the true one. "); October 7, 1857 ("Unless you look for reflections, you commonly will not find them.")

November 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 2

My thoughts are with the

polypody long after

my body has passed.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, My thoughts are with the

polypody

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-571102

A cheering silvery light from the needles of the pine.

December 8.

Saturday. Still no snow, nor ice noticeable. 

December 8, 2015

I might have left my boat out till now. I have not worn gloves yet. 

This afternoon I go to the woods down the railroad, seeking the society of some flock of little birds, or some squirrel, but in vain. I only hear the faint lisp of (probably) a tree sparrow. I go through empty halls, apparently unoccupied by bird or beast. 

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine. The contrast of light or sunshine and shade, though the latter is now so thin, is food enough for me. 

Some scarlet oak leaves on the forest floor, when I stoop low, appear to have a little blood in them still. The shrivelled Solomon’s-seal berries are conspicuously red amid the dry leaves. 

I visit the door of many a squirrel’s burrow, and see his nutshells and cone-scales and tracks in the sand, but a snow would reveal much more. Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected, and the very snow covering up the withered leaves will supply the place of the green ones which are gone. 

In a little busy flock of lisping birds, — chickadees or lesser redpolls, — even in a nuthatch or downy woodpecker, there would have been a sweet society for me, but I did not find it. Yet I had the sun penetrating into the deep hollows through the aisles of the wood, and the silvery sheen of its reflection from masses of white pine needles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1855

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.. See November 11, 1851("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan's. . . . The lately dark woods are open and light; the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring."); December 3, 1856 (". . . the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.”); February 4, 1852 ("Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually. . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them."); February 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree."); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.")

Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected. See December 8, 1855 ("Already foxes have left their tracks."); December 14, 1855 ("Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.")

The sun reflected 

with a silvery light from the 

needles of the pine.

It is a dark, almost rainy day; the winter is approaching.

November 4

November 4, 2015

To Hill by Assabet. 

This forenoon the boys found a little black kitten about a third grown on the Island or Rock, but could not catch it. We supposed that some one had cast it in to drown it. 

This afternoon, as I was paddle by the Island, I see what I think a duck swimming down the river diagonally, to the south shore just below the grassy island, opposite the rock; then I think it two ducks, then a muskrat. It passes out of sight round a bend. 

I land and walk alongshore, and find that it is a kitten, which had just got ashore. It is quite wet excepting its back. It swam quite rapidly, the whole length of its back out, but was carried down about as fast by the stream. 

It had probably first crossed from the rock to the grassy island, and then from the lower end of this to the town side of the stream, on which side it may have been attracted by the noise of the town. 

It is rather weak and staggers as it runs, from starvation or cold, being wet, or both. A very pretty little black kitten. 

It is a dark, almost rainy day. Though the river appears to have risen considerably, it is not more than nine or ten inches above the lowest summer level, as I see by the bridge. Yet it brings along a little drift wood. 

Whatever rails or boards have been left by the water’s edge the river silently takes up and carries away. Much small stuff from the pail-factory. 

The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter, as I go amid the wild apples on Nawshawtuct. 

The autumnal dandelion sheltered by this apple-tree trunk is drooping and half closed and shows but half its yellow, this dark, late wet day in the fall.

Gather a bag of wild apples. A great part are decayed now on the ground. The snail slug is still eating them. Some have very fiery crimson spots or eyes on a very white ground. 

From my experience with wild apples I can understand that there may be a reason for a savage preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple.

I remember two old maids to whose house I enjoyed carrying a purchaser to talk about buying their farm in the winter, because they offered us wild apples, though with an unnecessary apology for their wildness.

Return, and go up the main stream.

Larches are now quite yellow, — in the midst of their fall. The river-brink — at a little distance at least — is now all sere and rustling, except a few yellowed sallow leaves, - though beyond in the meadows there is some fresh greenness. 

Cattle seem to stray wider for food than they did. They are turned into the meadows now, where is all the greenness. New fences are erected to take advantage of all the fall feed. 

But the rank herbage of the river’s brink is more tender and has fallen before the frosts. Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather, and much gnawed root is floating. 

When I look away to the woods, the oaks have a dull, dark red now, without brightness. The willow-tops on causeways have a pale, bleached, silvery, or wool-grass-like look.   

See some large flocks of F. hyemalis, which fly with a clear but faint chinking chirp, and from time to time you hear quite a strain, half warbled, from them. They rise in a body from the ground and fly to the trees as you approach. There are a few tree sparrows with them. These and one small soaring hawk are all the birds I see. 

I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1855

The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter . See   November 4, 1851(“[These little cheerful hemlocks] remind me of winter, the snows which are to come . . .and the chickadees that are to flit and lisp amid them.”) See also  October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen. “);October 11, 1851( The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard.”); October 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 winterish.”); October 15, 1856  (“The chickadees . . .resume their winter ways before the winter comes.”);; November 26, 1859 (“The chickadee is the bird of the wood the most unfailing. When, in a windy, or in any, day, you have penetrated some thick wood like this, you are pretty sure to hear its cheery note therein. At this season it is almost their sole inhabitant.”); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day.”)

It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple. See October 27, 1855 ("It is remarkable that the wild apples which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields and woods, when brought into the house have a harsh and crabbed taste. To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air ")

Larches are now quite yellow, — in the midst of their fall. See November 1, 1858 (" These trees now cannot easily be mistaken for any other, because they are the only conspicuously yellow trees now left in the woods"); . November 9, 1850 ("The leaves of the larch are now yellow and falling off") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Larch

Cattle . . . are turned into the meadows now, where is all the greenness. See November 3, 1858 ("I notice that the cows lately admitted to the meadows and orchards have browsed the grass, etc., closely, on that strip between the dry hillside and the wet meadow, where it is undoubtedly sweetest and freshest yet, and where it chances that this late flower the gentian grows. There, too, grows the herbage which is now the most grateful to the cattle.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Cows in their Pasture

Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather, and much gnawed root is floating.  See October 16, 1859 ("I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores. To me this is an important and suggestive sight  . . . For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside ");  November 11, 1855 ("The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

See some large flocks of F. hyemalis . . . They rise in a body from the ground and fly to the trees as you approach.  See  October 25, 1858 ("The F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound."); October 26, 1857 ("You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed. "); November 6, 1853 ("These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late, have flitted before me so many falls and springs, yet they have been strangers to me. I have not inquired whence they came or whither they were going, ") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

I have failed to find white pine seed this year. . . Look the first of September. See October 15, 1855 ("Go to look for white pine cones, but see none."); October 19, 1855 ("I see at last a few white pine cones open on the trees, but almost all appear to have fallen."); See also October 8, 1856 ("At length I discover some white pine cones, a few . . . are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them.")

Amid wild apples

the note of the dee de de

sounds now more distinct.

I see the blue heron arise from the November shore and disappear on undulating wing around a bend.

November 1

After a rain-threatening morning it is a beautiful Indian-summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind. Yet we kept fires in the fore noon, the warmth not having got into the house.

It is akin to sin to spend such a day in the house. 

The air is still and warm. The river is perfectly smooth. Whole schools of little minnows leap from the surface at once with a silvery gleam. The wool-grass, with its drooping head and the slender withered leaves dangling about its stem, stands in little sheaves upon its tussocks, clean dry straw, and is thus reflected in the water. 

This is the November shore. 

This, too, is the recovery of the year, — as if the year, having nearly or quite accomplished its work, and abandoned all design, were in a more favorable and poetic mood, and thought rushed in to fill the vacuum. 

The maples and swamp oaks and willows are for the most part bare, but some of the oaks are partly clothed yet with withered leaves. I see one white maple quite thick and green, and some black willows are thinly clad with green leaves, and many yellowish leaves are seen on the sallows rising above the bare button-bushes. 

Yet I see no painted tortoises out, and I think it is about a fortnight since I saw any. 

As I push up the river past Hildreth’s, I see the blue heron arise from the shore and disappear with heavily-flapping wings around a bend in front; the greatest of the bitterns, with heavily-undulating wings, low over the water, seen against the woods, just disappearing round a bend in front; with a great slate-colored expanse of wing, suited to the shadows of the stream, a tempered blue as of the sky and dark water commingled. 

This is the aspect under which the Musketaquid might be represented at this season: a long, smooth lake, reflecting the bare willows and button-bushes, the stubble, and the wool-grass on its tussock, a muskrat-cabin or two conspicuous on its margin amid the unsightly tops of pontederia, and a bittern disappearing on undulating wing around a bend. 

Returning in the twilight, I see a bat over the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1855

I see the blue heron arise from the shore and disappear with heavily-flapping wings around a bend, See October 29, 1855 ("I scare up a blue heron from the bathing rock this side the Island."); August 14,1859 (" If you would know the depth of the water on these few shoalest places of Musketaquid, ask the blue heron that wades and fishes there"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

November 1. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 1

Slate-colored heron

blue as of the sky and dark

water commingled.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Slate-colored heron

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

A hundred crows in a great rambling flock.

Fresh election-cake with peppered surface

October 29.

Carried my owl to the hill again. Had to shake him out of the box, for he did not go of his own accord. There he stood on the grass, at first bewildered, with his horns pricked up and looking toward me. In this strong light the pupils of his eyes suddenly. contracted and the iris expanded till they were two great brazen orbs with a centre spot merely. His attitude expressed astonishment more than anything. I was obliged to toss him up a little that he might feel his wings, and then he flapped away low and heavily to a hickory on the hillside twenty rods off. ...

I see many aphides very thick and long-tailed on the alders. 

Soapwort gentian and pasture thistle still. 

There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pines there, and also very regular higher hemispherical ones with a regularly warted or peppered surface.

As I pass Merrick’s pasture, I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing.

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me. 

I buy no lot in the cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated with a poem and an auction, paying so much for a choice. Here is room enough for me.

The swamp white oak has a fine, firm, leathery leaf with a silver under side, half of them now turned up. Oaks are now fairly brown; very few still red. 

Returning, I scare up a blue heron from the bathing rock this side the Island. It is whitened by its droppings, in great splotches a foot or more wide. He has evidently frequented it to watch for fish there.

Also a flock of blackbirds fly eastward over my head from the top of an oak, either red-wings or grackles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 29, 1855

My owl. See October 28, 1855 ("Sealing squietly up behind the hemlock, though from the windward, I look carefully around it, and, to my surprise, see the owl still sitting there. So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand."). See also A Book of the Seasons, , by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl


Soapwort gentian and pasture thistle still. See October 11, 1856 ("A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it. ")' See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles

I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing.  See October 29, 1857 ("A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing."); November 1, 1853 ("As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.")

The cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated. See note to October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery,")

Election cake toadstools. See October 20, 1856 ("Amid the young pitch pines . . . a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi . . .”); July 29, 1853 (“ . . .small, umbrella-shaped (with sharp cones), shining and glossy yellow fungi, like an election cake  . .”). See also Concord: A Sense of Place, October 20, 2015, Election-cake Fungus Mystery.

Election Cake dates back to Colonial America and the young Republic.  Bakers made this “muster" cake to feed militia members in the Colonial era during military training days. After the American Revolution, it evolved into an Election Cake, one prepared for town hall meetings and community celebrations to encourage eligible voter attendance.  ~ owl bakery

I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. See  October 16, 1857 ("How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! They fall to rise again; as if they knew that it was not one annual deposit alone that made this rich mould in which pine trees grow. They live in the soil whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. "); October 20, 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! So they troop to their graves, light and frisky. They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay.").

I love to wander

over the leaves in their graves

returning to dust.

When the leaves fall

I love to wander and muse 

here is room for me.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A hundred crows in a great rambling flock.

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/hdt551029

Wild apples

October 27 

P. M.  A-chestnutting down the Turnpike. 

There are many fringed gentians, now considerably frost-bitten, in what was E. Hosmer’s meadow between his dam and the road. 

It is high time we came a-nutting, for the nuts have nearly all fallen, and you must depend on what you can find on the ground, left by the squirrels, and cannot shake down any more to speak of. 

The trees are nearly all bare of leaves as well as burs. The wind comes cold from the northwest, as if there were snow on the earth in that direction.

Larches are yellowing. 

I try one of the wild apples in my desk, It is remarkable that the wild apples which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields and woods, when brought into the house have a harsh and crabbed taste. As shells and pebbles must be beheld on the sea-shore, so these October fruits must be tasted in a bracing walk amid the somewhat bracing airs of late October. To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air.  

They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, the frosty weather nips your fingers (in November), the wind rattles the bare boughs and rustles the leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around.

Some of those apples might be labelled, “To be eaten in the wind.”

So there is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1855

It is high time we came a-nutting, for the nuts have nearly all fallen, and you must depend on what you can find on the ground, left by the squirrels, and cannot shake down any more to speak of. See note to October 27, 1853 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year?")

I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house. See November 11, 1860 (“Now is the time for wild apples. . . Food for walkers.”)

The oaks and hickories have lost their brilliancy.

October 26

P. M. —To Conantum. 

Another clear cold day, though not so cold as yesterday. The light and sun come to us directly and freely, as if some obstruction had been removed,—the windows of heaven had been washed.

I see some farmers now cutting up their corn. 

The sweet Viburnum leaves hang thinly on the bushes and are a dull crimsonish red. 

What apples are left out now, I presume that the farmers do not mean to gather. 

October 24, 2025

The witch-hazel is still freshly in flower, and near it I see a houstonia in bloom. 

The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. 

The leaves of the oaks and hickories have begun to be browned, — lost their brilliancy.

I return by way of the mocker-nut trees. The squirrels have already begun on them, though the trees are still covered with yellow and brown leaves, and the nuts do not fall.

A little this side I see a red squirrel dash out from the wall, snatch an apple from amid many on the ground, and, running swiftly up the tree with it, proceed to eat it, sitting on a smooth dead limb, with its back to the wind and its tail curled close over its back.

The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1855

Another clear cold day, though not so cold as yesterday. See October 25, 1855 ("After these pleasant and warm days it is suddenly cold and windy.")

The sweet Viburnum leaves hang thinly on the bushes and are a dull crimsonish red.  See October 11, 1858 ("The Viburnum Lentago is generally a dull red on a green ground, but its leaves are yet quite fresh."); October 23, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves."); October 31, 1858 ("The Viburnum Lentago is about bare") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

What apples are left out now, I presume that the farmers do not mean to gather. See October 25, 1855 (“Now gather all your apples, if you have not before, or the frost will have them.”)

The witch-hazel is still freshly in flower.  See October 23, 1852 ("The sprays of the witch-hazel are sprinkled on the air, and recurved.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. See October 25, 1853 ("The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The trees are still covered with yellow and brown leaves, and the nuts do not fall. See October 13, 1857 ("I look down into a mocker-nut, whose recesses and greater part are pure yellow, and from this you pass through a ruddy orange in the more exposed leaves to a rich crispy brown in the leaves of the extreme twigs about the clusters of round green nuts."); November 18, 1858  ("Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts.")

I see a red squirrel dash out from the wall, snatch an apple from amid many. See  December 16, 1855 ("See two red squirrels on the fence . . . One sits twirling apparently a dried apple in his paws, with his tail curled close over his back as if to keep it warm, fitting its curve. How much smothered sunlight in their wholesome brown red this misty day!  ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.  See October 16, 1855 ("Then, nearer home, I hear two or three song sparrows on the button-bushes sing as in spring, — that memorable tinkle, — as if it would be last as it was first."); October 27, 1853 ("Song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast.")

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26

Oaks and hickories

have lost their brilliancy –

begun to be browned.

Sweet Viburnum leaves 

hang thinly on the bushes 

dull crimsonish red. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Oaks and hickories have lost their brilliancy

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/hdt551026

Peculiarly fresh scarlet

October 29.

October 29

Detected a large English cherry in Smith’s woods beyond Saw Mill Brook by the peculiar fresh orange-scarlet color of its leaves, now that almost all leaves are quite dull or withered. The same in gardens. The gooseberry leaves in our garden and in fields are equally and peculiarly fresh scarlet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 29, 1854

Detected a large English cherry by the peculiar fresh orange-scarlet color of its leaves. See October 13, 1857 ("Our cherry trees have now turned to mostly a red orange color."); October 29, 1858 ("the cultivated cherry is quite handsome orange, often yellowish").See also September 30, 1854 (“I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant. ”); September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.")