May 15

In the eve went down to help Wallace.

EDK, May 15, 1860

Dry weather

May 15

Yesterday afternoon and today the east wind has been quite cool, if not cold, but the haze thicker than ever.

Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.

Looking from the Cliffs through the haze, the deciduous trees are a mist of leaflets, against which the pines are already darkened. At this season there is thus a mist in the air and a mist on the earth.

The springing sorrel, the expanding leafets, the already waving rye tell of June.

Sun goes down red, and did last night. A hot day does not succeed, but the very dry weather continues.

H.D. Thoreau,  Journal, May 15, 1860

Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps. See May 15, 1859 (“Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. They are scarce and silent in a cool and windy day, or found only in sheltered places.”) See also  April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come. They are of every hue. Nature made them to show her colors with. There are as many as there are colors and shades. "); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather. The first wave of summer from the south."); May 18, 1857("The swamp is all alive with warblers . . . They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes")

Looking from the Cliffs through the haze, the deciduous trees are a mist of leaflets, against which the pines are already darkened. . . . See May 15, 1854 ("Looking off from hilltop . . .  The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens.“); May 26, 1857 ("At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.”);  May 11, 1859 ("Young, or fresh-expanding, oak leaves are very handsome now, showing their colors. It is a leafy mist throughout the forest.”)

The springing sorrel, the expanding leafets, the already waving rye tell of June. See  May 22, 1853 ("This is the first truly lively summer Sunday, what with lilacs, warm weather, waving rye, . . . falling apple blossoms, . . .and the wood pewee."); May 26, 1854 ("At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory"); June 1, 1855 ("A very windy day, . . .scattering the remaining apple blossoms. Rye, to my surprise, three or four feet high and glaucous."); June 5, 1856 (" Everywhere now . . stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June. . . This while rye begins to wave richly in the fields "); June 9, 1852 ("The weather is very clear, and the sky bright. The river shines like silver. . . . The locust in bloom. The waving, undulating rye.")

Sun goes down red, and did last night. See June 5, 1854 ("The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather,"); June 17, 1854 ("The sun goes down red again, like a high-colored flower of summer. As the white and yellow flowers of spring are giving place to the rose, and will soon to the red lily, etc., so the yellow sun of spring has become a red sun of June drought, round and red like a midsummer flower, production of torrid heats."); May 5, 1859 ("The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day."); May 4, 1860 (“The sun sets red, shorn of its beams.”); May 5, 1860 (Sun goes down red")

The heat continues.

May 14.

It is remarkably hazy; wind still northeast. You can hardly see the horizon at all a mile off. The mornings for some time past have been misty rather than foggy, and now it lasts through the day and becomes a haze.

The sunlight is yellow through it.

C. sees the chestnut-sided warbler and the tanager to-day, and heard a whip-poor-will last night. 

The early sedges, even in the meadows, have blossomed before you are aware of it, while their tufts and bases are still mainly brown.

H. D. Thoreau , Journal, May 14, 1860

The early sedges, even in the meadows, have blossomed before you are aware of it. See May 10, 1858 ("That early glaucous, sharp-pointed, erect sedge, grass like, by the riverside is now apparently in prime. Is it the Carex aquatilis?’)

May 14

Paid for collars and other things.              .40

EDK, May 14, 1860

May 13

Went to Cambridge to see Merritt. In the eve went to the Mercantile Hall with Miss Hunt and Miss H.E. Robinson.

Gave the wash two pieces.

EDK, May 13, 1860

A Dewdrop World --Warmest day yet.

May 13.

I observe this morning the dew on the grass in our yard. Each dewdrop is a delicate crystalline sphere trembling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade. 

Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself. The surface of the globe is thus tremblingly alive.

2 P.M. – 82°; this and the last two days remarkably warm. 

At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. 

The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes.

It is a remarkable day for this season. You have the heat of summer before the leaves have expanded. The sky is full of glowing summer cumuli. There is no haze; the mountains are seen with perfect distinctness.

It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night. 

The third sultry evening in my chamber. A faint lightning is seen in the north horizon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1860

I observe this morning the dew on the grass in our yard. See May 13, 1852 ("A May storm, yesterday and to-day . . . The fields are green now, and all the expanding leaves and flower-buds are much more beautiful in the rain, - covered with clear drops.")  See also  May 11, 1852 ("I find on examining, a small, clear drop at the end of each blade, quite at the top on one side.“)

Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself. See January 6, 1858 ("I may say that the maker of the world exhausts his skill with each snowflake and dewdrop that he sends down."); Dogen ("The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.. . .. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.") and Issa:

This dewdrop world

Is but a dewdrop world

And yet, and yet 

At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. See note to May 13, 1856 (“At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.”)

May 13. I observe this morning the dew on the grass in our yard. — literally sparkling drops. which thickly stud it. Each dewdrop is a beautiful crystalline sphere just below (within an eighth of an inch more or less) the tip of the blade. Sometimes there are two or three. one beneath the other. the lowest the largest. Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself. What an advance is this from the sere. withered. and flattened grass. at most whitened with frost. which we have lately known. to this delicate crystalline drop trembling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade. The surface of the globe is thus tremblingly alive.

A great many apple trees out. and probably some for two days.

2 P. M. — 82° ; warmest day yet. This and the last two days remarkably warm. Need a half-thick coat ; sit and sleep with open window. the 13th.

Row to Bittern Cliff. The celtis is not yet in bloom. The river is now six and fifteen sixteenths inches below summer level.

At Clamshell. one cerastium flower quite done and dry.

Ranunculus bulbosus abundant. spotting the bank ; maybe a week. Tall buttercup.

Horsemint seen springing up for a week. and refreshing scent.

Hear several bobolinks distinctly to-day.

 Hear the pebbly notes of the frog.

See the coarse green rank canary grass' springing up amid the bare brown button-bushes and willows.

Red wings are evidently busy building their nests. They are sly and anxious, the females. about the button-bushes.

See two crows pursuing and diving at a hen-hawk very high in the air over the river. He is steadily circling and rising. While they, getting above, dive down toward him. passing within a foot or two. making a feint. he merely winks, as it were, bends or jerks his wings slightly as if a little startled. but never ceases soaring. nor once turns to pursue or shake them off. It seemed as if he was getting uncomfortably high for them. 

At Holden Swamp. hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. 

Uvularia sessili folia abundant. how long? 

The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes. and the Kalmia glauca is apparently quite backward accordingly. — can scarcely detect any buds of it. — while the rhodora on shore will apparently bloom to-morrow.

Hear the yorrick.

The intetmediate ferns and cinnamon, a foot and a half high, have just leafeted out. The sensitive fern is only six inches high. — apparently the latest of all.

Sorrel.

It is a remarkable day for this season. You have the heat of summer before the leaves have expanded. The sky is full of glowing summer cumuli. There is no haze; the mountains are seen with perfect distinctness. It is so warm that you can  lie on the still brownish grass in a thin coat. and will seek the shade for this purpose.

 What is that fern so common at Lee's Cliff, now sprung up a foot high with a very chaffy stem? Marginal shield? Is that Polypodium Dryopteris in the bank behind the slippery elm? Now six or seven inches high. There is no mouse-ear down even there. Those heads which have looked most expanded and downy are invariably cut off by some creature (probably insect) and withered. 

The crickets creak steadily among the rocks.

The Carex varia (?) at Lee's all gone to seed. Barberry in bloom. Myosotis stricta. Arum triphyllum. how long? Cardamine rhomboidea. apparently to-morrow. just above Bittern Cliff.

It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night. The third sultry evening in my chamber. A faint lightning is seen in the north horizon.

The tender yellow green of birches is now the most noticeable of any foliages in our landscape. as looking across the pond from Lee's Cliff. The poplars are not common enough. The white birches are now distinguished simply by being clothed with a tender and yellow green. while the trees generally are bare and brown. — upright columns of green dashing the brown hillsides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1860

Red wings are evidently busy building their nests. See  May 11, 1860 ("Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in  Early Spring

See two crows pursuing and diving at a hen-hawk very high in the air over the river. See May 4, 1858 ("As I sit there by the swamp-side this warm summery afternoon, I hear the crows cawing hoarsely, and from time to time see one flying toward the top of a tall white pine. At length I distinguish a hen-hawk perched on the top. The crow repeatedly stoops toward him, now from this side, now from that, passing near his head each time, but he pays not the least attention to it.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The tender yellow green of birches is now the most noticeable of any foliages in our landscape. May 17, 1852 ("After a storm at this season, the sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

First bathe in the river.

May 12

Celandine. Very hot. 2.30 P. M. — 81°.

We seek the shade to sit in for a day or two. The neck-cloth and single coat is too thick; wear a half-thick coat at last. 

The sugar maple blossoms on the Common resound with bees. 

Ostrya flower commonly out on Island, how long? Maybe a day or two. 

First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough. River five and one half plus inches below summer level. 

Very heavy dew and mist this morning; plowed ground black and moist with it. The earth is so dry it drinks like a sponge.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1860

First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough. See May 8, 1857 (“Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together. Some boys have bathed in the river. ”); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”)

The sugar maple

 blossoms on the Common 

resound with bees.