The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. (All the year is a spring.)

 October 9

October 9, 2023

Heard two screech owls in the night.

Boiled a quart of acorns for breakfast, but found them not so palatable as raw, having acquired a bitterish taste, per chance from being boiled with the shells and skins; yet one would soon get accustomed to this.

The sound of foxhounds in the woods, heard now, at 9 A. M., in the village, reminds me of mild winter mornings.

2 P. M. - To Conantum.

In the maple woods the ground is strewn with new fallen leaves.

I hear the green locust again on the alders of the causeway, but he is turned a straw-color. The warm weather has revived them.

All the acorns on the same tree are not equally sweet. They appear to dry sweet.

From Conantum I see them getting hay from the meadow below the Cliffs. It must have been quite dry when cut.

The black ash has lost its leaves, and the white here is dry and brownish yellow, not having turned mulberry.

I see half a dozen snakes in this walk, green and striped (one very young striped one), who appear to be out enjoying the sun. They appear to make the most of the last warm days of the year.

The hills and plain on the opposite side of the river are covered with deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks.

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow.

***

October 9, 2023

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground.

It is an extremely interesting plant, — October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very earliest spring. Its 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, suggesting amid all these signs of autumn, falling leaves and frost, that the life of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched.

It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other.

I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. 

While its leaves fall, its 

blossoms spring. The autumn, then, 

is indeed a spring.

All the year is a spring.

I see two blackbirds high overhead, going south, but I am going north in my thought with these hazel blossoms.  It is a faery place.

This is a part of the immortality of the soul.

When I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects to extract honey from its flowers, – that perchance they yielded no honey, – I saw a bee upon it. How important, then, to the bees this late-blossoming plant!

October 9, 2023

***

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion.

The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground.

As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring.

I see a large sucker rise to the surface of the river.

I hear the crickets singing loudly in the walls as they have not done (so loudly) for some weeks, while the sun is going down shorn of his rays by the haze.

There is a thick bed of leaves in the road under Hubbard's elms.

This reminds me of Cato, as if the ancients made more use of nature.
He says, “ Stramenta si deerunt, frondem iligneam legito, eam substernito ovibus bubusque.” (If litter is wanting, gather the leaves of the holm oak and strew them under your sheep and oxen.) In another place he says, “Circum vias ulmos serito, et partim populos, uti frondem ovibus et bubus habeas.” 

I suppose they were getting that dry meadow grass for litter. There is little or no use made by us of the leaves of trees, not even for beds, unless it be sometimes to rake them up in the woods and cast into hog-pens or compost-heaps.

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed.

H. D, Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1851

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! "); October 13, 1859 ("I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom "); October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare"); October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects. See Bernd Heinrich, “Thermoregulation in Winter Moths.” Sci. Am 277: 73–83 (1987. ); Anderson & Hill (2002)("Given the morphology of H. virginiana flowers, the exposed glistening staminodes where a thin film of nectar is produced, the small exposed floral parts, the sugar ratio, and documented visits to some of the flowers open in late September or early October, small bees are also potential pollinators") and The Pollination Puzzle of American Witch Hazel (December 2020)

Heard two screech owls in the night. See September 9, 1859 ("Within a week I think I have heard screech owls at evening from over the river once or twice."); October 28, 1855 ("As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. . . . So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand. "); November 24, 1858 ("I hear a screech owl in Wheeler’s wood by the railroad, and I heard one a few evenings ago at home") and note to September 23, 1855 ("I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl

Deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); November 25, 1858 ("Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground. "); November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner."); December 1. 1856 ("The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields . . .The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch.")

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow. See October 19, 1856 ("The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff");  October 23, 1852 ("The white pines have shed their leaves, making a yellow carpet on the grass, but the pitch pines are yet parti-colored.")

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown"); October 13, 1859 (" I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

 The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. See October 9, 1852 ("Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.") See also June 23, 1851 ("P. argentea, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom.")

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground. See October 5, 1857 ("Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter"); March 3, 1859 ("Channing tells me he has met with a sassafras tree in New Bedford woods, which, according to a string which he put round it, is eleven and three quarters feet in circumference at about three feet from the ground.") See also 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.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. See October 8, 1856 ("A song sparrow utters a full strain"); October 26, 1855 ("The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe. . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. . . .I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems"); August 26, 1856 ("I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed."); October 5, 1857 ("There is a great abundance of poke [on Eb Hubbard's hill]. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.")

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion. See September 17, 1839 ("The wise man. . . each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step")

The witch-hazel here

is in full blossom on this

magical hillside.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Witch hazel in bloom

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/HDT511009

The white pine fall on Fair Haven Hill.

October 2. 

P. M.

October 2, 2014

Some of the white pines on Fair Haven Hill have just reached the acme of their fall; others have almost entirely shed their leaves, and they are scattered over the ground and the walls. The same is the state of the pitch pines.

At the Cliffs, I find the wasps prolonging their short lives on the sunny rocks, just as they endeavored to do at my house in the woods.

It is a little hazy as I look into the west to-day.

The shrub oaks on the terraced plain are now almost uniformly of a deep red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 2, 1851

Some of the white pines on Fair Haven Hill have just reached the acme of their fall. See October 2, 1853 ("The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here.") See also October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast"); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish"); October 3, 1856 (" The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall ."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.") A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

I find the wasps prolonging their short lives on the sunny rocks. See note to September 10, 1859 ("See wasps, collected in the sun on a wall, at 9 A. M.")

It is a little hazy as I look into the west to-day. See October 4, 1859 ("The birds seem to delight in these first fine days of the fall, in the warm, hazy light")

The shrub oaks on the terraced plain are now almost uniformly of a deep red. See October 2, 1852 ("From Cliffs the shrub oak plain has now a bright-red ground, perhaps of maples."); see also October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red,"); October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree")

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season.

January 30.  

Buda  January 30 2021

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season, as at present, is that of the buttercup. 

Sorrel is also very common, and johnswort, and the purplish gnaphaliums. There is also the early crowfoot in some places, strawberry, mullein, and thistle leaves, and hawkweeds, etc., etc.

On Cliffs.

The westering sun is yet high above the horizon, but, concealed by clouds, shoots down to earth on every side vast misty rays like the frame of a tent, to which clouds perchance are the canvas, under which a whole country rests. 

BTV February 1, 2023

The northern and southern rays appear very much slanted and long; those between us and the west, steeper and shorter.

What I have called the Shrub Oak Plain contains comparatively few shrub oaks, — rather, young red and white and, it may be, some scarlet (?).

The shrub oak leaf is the firmest and best preserved. The white oak is the most sere and curled and brittle, frequently with discolored, mould-like spots.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1853

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season, as at present, is that of the buttercup. See November 8, 1858 ("The now more noticeable green radical leaves of the buttercup in the russet pastures remind me of the early spring to come, of which they will offer the first evidence."); January 9, 1853 ("On the face of the Cliff the crowfoot buds lie unexpanded just beneath the surface"); January 25, 1853 ("The buttercup leaves appear everywhere when the ground is bare.);  February 18, 1857 ("The snow is nearly all gone, and . . . I step excited over the moist mossy ground, dotted with the green stars of thistles, crowfoot, etc., the outsides of which are withered."); February 23, 1860 ("I walk over the moist Nawshawtuct hillside and see the green radical leaves of the buttercup"); February 28, 1857 ("At the Cliff, the tower-mustard, early crowfoot, and perhaps buttercup appear to have started of late.")

The westering sun, concealed by clouds, shoots down to earth on every side vast misty rays. See August 9, 1851 ("It was a splendid sunset that day, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people went to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky. . . We were in the westernmost edge of the shower at the moment the sun was setting, and its rays shone through the cloud and the falling rain. We were, in fact, in a rainbow.")

The shrub oak leaf is the firmest and best preserved. The white oak is the most sere and curled and brittle. See October 2, 1852 ("From Cliffs the shrub oak plain has now a bright-red ground, perhaps of maples.");  October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red, with grayish, withered, apparently white oak leaves intermixed."); November 3, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is all withered."); May 14, 1855 ("All the oak leaves off the shrub oak plain, except apparently a few white oaks.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

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

A Book of the Seasons: The Shrub Oak

I love the shrub oak,

its scanty garment of leaves

whispering to me.

December 1, 1856

The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch.  December 1. 1856

August 28, 1853 ("The acorns show now on the shrub oaks.")

September 13, 1859 ("I see some shrub oak acorns turned dark on the bushes and showing their meridian lines, but generally acorns of all kinds are green yet. ")

September 21, 1859 ("Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever.")

September 25, 1854 ("On the shrub oak plain, as seen from Cliffs, the red at least balances the green. It looks like a rich, shaggy rug now, before the woods are changed.")

September 28, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . . with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately.");

September 30, 1859 ("Most shrub oak acorns browned.")

October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. The . . .pretty fruit, varying in size, pointedness, and downiness, being now generally turned brown, with light, converging meridional lines. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns.")
October 2, 1851 ("The shrub oaks on the terraced plain are now almost uniformly of a deep red")
October 7, 1857 ("Some shrub oaks are yellow, others reddish.")
October 9, 1851 ("The hills and plain on the opposite side of the river are covered with deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks.")
October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red,")
October 14, 1859 ("The shrub oak acorns are now all fallen, — only one or two left on,")
October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree")

November 2, 1853 ("The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.")

November 16, 1850 ("It is singular that the shrub oaks retain their leaves through the winter. Why do they? ")

November 21, 1850 ("Seeing the sun falling . . .in an angle where this forest meets a hill covered with shrub oaks, affects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth. It is a place far away, yet actual and where I have been. It is like looking into dreamland. It is one of the avenues to my future.”)

November 25, 1858 ("Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground. ")

November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. So strong and cheerful, as if it rejoiced at the advent of winter, and exclaimed, “Winter, come on!”")

December 4, 1850 ("The shrub oak fire burns briskly as seen from the Cliffs")

December 7, 1857 ("It is a fair, sunny, and warm day in the woods for the season. We eat our dinners . . .amid the young oaks in a sheltered and very unfrequented place. I cut some leafy shrub oaks and cast them down for a dry and springy seat. ")

January 7, 1857 ("I should not be ashamed to have a shrub oak for my coat-of-arms.")
January 30, 1853 (''The shrub oak leaf is the firmest and best preserved")

January 30, 1853 (" What I have called the Shrub Oak Plain contains comparatively few shrub oaks, — rather, young red and white and, it may be, some scarlet (?).")

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Shrub Oak.

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

A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it.

October 11. 

October 11, 2014

P. M. — To Cliffs. 

The Indian summer continues. Solidagos now generally show woolly heads along the fences and brooks. 

E. Hosmer said yesterday that his father remembered when there was but one store in Concord, and that the little office attached to Dr. Heywood's house, kept by Beatton. I remember the old shutters with names of groceries on them. Perhaps, then, Jones was the only shopkeeper in his day. I was speaking of it to Farrar, the blacksmith, to-day, and he said, yes, he had heard his father speak of Beatton as "the most honestest man that ever was." When a child was sent to his store and he could not make change within half a penny he would stick a row of pins in the child's sleeve, enough to make all square. He said he had only a keg of molasses and a bladder of snuff when he began. 

Farrar thought that the spirit manufactured a century ago was not so adulterated and poisonous as that now made. He could remember when delirium tremens was very rare. There was Luke Dodge; he could remember him a drunkard for more than forty years, yet he was now between eighty and ninety. 

Broad-winged Hawk

Buteo platypterus

(Falco Pennsylvanicus)

Farrar gave me a wing and foot of a hawk which he shot about three weeks ago as he was sitting on a wood pile by the railroad, against R. W. E.'s lot. He called it a partridge hawk; said he was about as big as a partridge and his back of a similar color, and had not a white rump. This foot has a sharp shin and stout claws, but the wing is much larger than that of the Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk), being, with the shoulder attached, sixteen inches long, which would make the alar extent some thirty-three inches, which is the size of the F. Pennsylvanicus. This wing corresponds in its markings very exactly with the description of that, and I must so consider it. Peabody does not describe any such bird, and Nuttall describes it as very rare, — apparently he has not seen one, — and says that Wilson had seen only two. 

Bay-wing sparrows numerous. 

In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him. 

The scent of decaying leaves after the wet fall is a very agreeable fragrance on all sides in the woods now, like a garret full of herbs. 

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. It is apparently Coluber amamus, the red snake. Brown above, light-red beneath, about eight inches long, but the end of its tail is gone (only three quarters of an inch of it left). I count some one hundred and twenty-seven plates. It is a conspicuous light red beneath, then a bluish-gray line along the sides, and above this brown with a line of lighter or yellowish brown down the middle of the back. 

The sprout-land and stubble behind the Cliffs are all alive with restless flocks of sparrows of various species. I distinguish F. hyemalis, song sparrow, apparently F. juncorum or maybe tree sparrows,1 and chip-birds (?). They are continually flitting past and surging upward, two or more in pursuit of each other, in the air, where they break like waves, and pass along with a faint cheep. On the least alarm many will rise from a juniper bush on to a shrub oak above it, and, when all is quiet, return into the juniper, perhaps for its berries. It is often hard to detect them as they sit on the young trees, now beginning to be bare, for they are very nearly the color of the bark and are very cunning to hide behind the leaves. There are apparently two other kinds, one like purple finches, another more like large Savannah sparrows. 

The shrub oak plain is now in the perfection of its coloring, the red of young oaks with the green of spiring birches intermixed. A rich rug. 

It is perfect Indian summer, a thick haze forming wreaths in the near horizon. The sun is almost shorn of its rays now at mid-afternoon, and there is only a sheeny reflection from the river. 

The patches of huckleberries on Conantum are now red. 

Here on the Cliffs are fresh poke flowers and small snapdragon and corydalis. 

The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees.

Hieracium venosum still. 

I see pretty dense spreading radical leaves about the pinweeds, apparently recent.

A cuckoo is heard.

I find that the rough, white, crystalled-surfaced pigeon-egg fungus (one was noticed in report of October 5th) are puffballs. The outer thick white coat peels off first. I see it so now, but not in segments like the stellata. 

A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 11, 1856

Bay-wing sparrows numerous. See April 15, 1859 (“The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear ”); October 9, 1858 (“Bay-wings flit along road.”); ;October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences.") October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book.") A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Luke Dodge [was] a drunkard for more than forty years, yet he was now between eighty and ninety. See May 4, 1856 ("Was surprised to hear him say, “I am in my eighty-third year.”  . . It is encouraging to know that a man may fish and paddle in this river in his eighty-third year.")

Hieracium venosum still. See October 2, 1852 ("The veiny-leaved hawkweed in blossom (again?)")

A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it. See  September 4, 1859 ("Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — and on them all you are pretty sure to see one or two humblebees. They become more prominent and interesting in the scarcity of purple flowers"); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Thistle and Thistle-down

In the woods I hear

a metallic clanging sound –

the note of the jay.

***

Posting the east line this year (2016) in the dark we again lose the connection somewhere between Kendall pond and Clifford Corner but without the emotion. this was two years ago:

 We separate and i go to the saddle trail, again losing the connection.  Jane goes to clifford corner then west to the Moose trail. The dogs roam back and forth between us. Evening comes and i have Loki, and jane has Buda. I get to the view just after sunset. The pond is reflecting saffron light brighter than the sky. I sit with the view and sky for perhaps half an hour until Jane comes with her extra headlamp for me. 20141011

Just after sunset
the pond reflects saffron light
brighter than the sky.

zphx