What produces this flashing air of autumn?

September 17. 

What produces this flashing air of autumn? — a brightness as if there were not green enough to absorb the light, now that the first frosts wither the herbs. 

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. 

The pontederia leaves are sere and brown along the river. 

The fall is further advanced in the water, as the spring was earlier there. I should say that the vegetation of the river was a month further advanced in its decay than of the land generally. 

The yellow lily pads are apparently decayed generally; as I wade, I tread on their great roots only; and the white lily pads are thinned. 

Now, before any effects of the frost are obvious on the leaves, I observe two black rows of dead pontederia in the river. 

Is it the alder locust that rings so loud in low land now? 

The umbel-shaped smilax berry clusters are now ripe. 

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. 

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? 

Abundance of wild grapes. I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs, three united to a two-thirds-inch stock, many feet from the root, under an alder marked with two or three small sticks atop, and, ten feet north, two more of different stocks, one-half inch diameter, directly on the edge of the brook, their tops over the water, the shell of a five-inch log across them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1852

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. See September 14,1851("The corn-stalks standing in stacks, in long rows along the edges of the corn-fields, remind me of stacks of muskets.")

The corn-stalks standing

in stacks in long rows along

edges of corn-fields.

September 14,1851

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. See August 15, 1851 ("Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields. "); September 13, 1858 ("Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.”) and note to October 20, 1858 ("I see yellow butterflies chasing one another, taking no thought for the morrow, but confiding in the sunny day as if it were to be perpetual.")

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? See December 2, 1850 ("The woodpeckers' holes in the apple trees are about a fifth of an inch deep or just through the bark and half an inch apart. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?");  December 14, 1855 ("I heard the sound of a downy woodpecker tapping . . . Frequently, when I pause to listen, I hear this sound in the orchards or streets.");December 21, 1855 ( "Going to the post-office at 9 A. M. this very pleasant morning, . . . scare a downy woodpecker and a brown creeper in company"); December 30, 1855 ("See one downy woodpecker and one or two chickadees."); January 5, 1860 ("I see where the downy woodpecker has worked lately by the chips of bark and rotten wood scattered over the snow, though I rarely see him in the winter. Once to-day, however, I hear his sharp voice."); January 20, 1856 ("A downy woodpecker without red on head the only bird seen in this walk.")

I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs. Compare September 18, 1858 ("Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. ")

The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets.

December 19. 

December 19, 2021

Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new- fallen snow, till I came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. 

I see where the snowbirds have picked the seeds of the Roman wormwood and other weeds and have covered the snow with the shells and husks. 

The smilax berries are as plump as ever. 

The catkins of the alders are as tender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries. 

The dried choke-cherries so abundant in the swamp are now quite sweet. 

The witch-hazel is covered with fruit and drops over gracefully like a willow, the yellow foundation of its flowers still remaining. 

I find the sweet-gale (Myrica) by the river also. 

The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when I get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider. I am astonished that the animals make no more use of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 19, 1850

I find the sweet-gale (Myrica) by the river also. See December 14, 1850 ("I find a low, branching shrub frozen into the edge of the ice, with a fine spicy scent . . .. When I rub the dry-looking fruit in my hands, it feels greasy and stains them a permanent yellow, which I cannot wash out. It lasts several days, and my fingers smell medicinal. I conclude that it is sweetgale, and we name the island Myrica Island.")

The dried choke-cherries so abundant in the swamp are now quite sweet. Compare August 5, 1856 ("Choke-cherries near House-leek Rock begin to be ripe, though still red. They are scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See those handsome racemes of ten or twelve cherries each, dark glossy red, semi- transparent. You love them not the less because they are not quite palatable.")

The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets. See November 11, 1853 ("Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket."); December 18, 1859 ("Apples are thawed now and are very good. Their juice is the best kind of bottled cider that I know. They are all good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press.")

The very sharp and regular dark tops of the fir trees

July 26. 

Sunday. 

I distinguish more plainly than formerly the very sharp and regular dark tops of the fir trees, shaped like the points of bodkins. These give a peculiarly dark and sombre look to the forest. The spruce-top has a more ragged outline. . . . 

Here are many raspberries on the site of an old logging-camp, but not yet ripe. . . . 

In the meanwhile I observe the plants on the shore: white and black spruce, Hypericum ellipticum, Smilax herbacea, sium, and a strange-looking polygonum. . . . 

As we sit on the bank, two canoes, containing men, women, and children, probably from Chesuncook, return down the stream. We suppose that they had been a-berrying this Sunday morning. . . . 

The canoe implies a long antiquity in which its manufacture has been gradually perfected. It will ere long, perhaps, be ranked among the lost arts. . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 26, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Sunday, July 26. The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost wiry sound, was the first heard in the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine. . . . We soon passed the island where I had camped four years before, and I recognized the very spot. . . .As we were pushing away again, a white-headed eagle sailed over our heads. . . . We carried a part of the baggage about Pine Stream Falls, while the Indian went down in the canoe.. . .There were magnificent great purple fringed orchises on this carry and the neighboring shores. I measured the largest canoe birch which I saw in this journey near the end of the carry. It was 14| feet in circumference. . . About noon we turned northward, up a broad kind of estuary, and at its northeast corner found the Caucomgomoc River, and after going about a mile from the lake, reached the Umbazookskus,. . .Rambling about the woods at this camp, I noticed that they consisted chiefly of firs, black spruce, and some white, red maple, canoe birch, and, along the river, the hoary alder (Alnus incana). I name them in the order of their abundance.. . .The Clintonia borealis, with ripe berries, was very abundant, and perfectly at home there.")

Canoe manufacture will ere long, perhaps, be ranked among the lost arts.See September 22, 1853 ("It took him a fortnight or three weeks to complete a canoe after he had got the materials ready. I was much struck by the method of this work, and the process deserves to be minutely described"); July 25, 1857 ("Here was a canoe on the stocks, in an earlier stage of its manufacture than I had seen before")

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

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