Notes from late October

November 11. 

I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet, and a flock of goldfinches on the top of a hemlock, — as if after its seeds? 

Also, October 24th, riding home from Acton, I saw the withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds sporting with one another that, for a minute at least, I could not be sure they were not birds; and it suggested how far the motions of birds, like those of these leaves, might be determined by currents of air, i. e., how far the bird learns to conform to such currents. 

The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October. That 's a lycopodium path on north side of Colburn Hill.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1859

I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet.  See September 15, 1855 ("An Emys insculpta which I mistook for dead, under water near shore; head and legs and tail hanging down straight. Turned it over, and to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle"); October 21, 1857 (" I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted. ") See also September 16, 1854 ("I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now?"); November 9, 1855 ("See a painted tortoise and a wood tortoise in different places out on the bank still!”); November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

A flock of goldfinches on the top of a hemlock, — as if after its seeds?  See November 15, 1859 (“About the 23d of October I saw a large flock of goldfinches (judging from their motions and notes) on the tops of the hemlocks up the Assabet, apparently feeding on their seeds, then falling. They were collected in great numbers on the very tops of these trees and flitting from one to another. Rice has since described to me the same phenomenon ”); See alao January 5, 1860 ("I see where a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top, by the snow strewn with scales, literally blackened or darkened with them for a rod.")

The withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds. See October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds.")

Rain; warm.

November 10. 

Rain; warm.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1859

 November 10, 2019

A fine Indian-summer day.

November 9. 

November 9, 2019

A fine Indian-summer day. 

Have had pleasant weather about a week.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1859


Have had pleasant weather about a week. See November 1, 1855 (“It is a beautiful Indian-summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind. . . .It is akin to sin to spend such a day in the house.”); November 7, 1857 (“This has been another Indian-summer day. Thermometer 58° at noon.”)

Reflecting the November sun without its heats.

November 8. 

A pleasant day. 

P. M. — To Nut Meadow and Fair Haven Hill. 

I hear a small z-ing cricket. 

Coombs says that quite a little flock of pigeons bred here last summer. He found one nest in a small white pine near his pigeon-stand (where he baited them in the summer), so low he could put his hand in it(!?). 

I saw, while talking with him, a trout playing about in the open roadside watering-place, on the Jimmy Miles road (i. e. in Nut Meadow Brook), which was apparently fifteen inches long; not lurking under the bank but openly swimming up and down in midstream.

How richly and exuberantly downy are many golden- rod and aster heads now, their seed just on the point of falling or being blown away, before they are in the least weather-beaten  They are now puffed up to their utmost, clean and light.

The tufts of purplish withered andropogon in Witherell Glade are still as fair as ever, soft and trembling and bending from the wind; of a very light mouse-color seen from the side of the sun, and as delicate as the most fragile ornaments of a lady's bonnet; but looking toward the sun they are a brilliant white, each polished hair (of the pappus?) reflecting the November sun without its heats, not in the least yellowish or brown like the goldenrods and asters.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, November 8, 1859

Coombs says that quite a little flock of pigeons bred here last summer. See September 14, 1859 (“They are catching pigeons nowadays. Coombs has a stand west of Nut Meadow, ”)

I saw a trout playing in Nut Meadow Brook which was apparently fifteen inches long. See November 14, 1857 (“I hear that Gardiner Heywood caught a trout in Walden Pond the other day and that it weighed five pounds.”)

How richly and exuberantly downy are many golden- rod and aster heads now. See November 5, 1855 (“The downy, fuzzy globular tops of the Aster puniceus . . .  are slightly tinged with yellow, compared with the hoary gray of the goldenrod. ”)

Looking toward the sun they are a brilliant white, reflecting the November sun. See November 10, 1858 (“This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. A true November seat is amid the pretty white-plumed Andropogon scoparius, the withered culms of the purple wood grass which covers so many dry knolls. . . .Looking toward the sun, as I sit in the midst of it rising as high as my head, its countless silvery plumes are a very cheerful sight. At a distance they look like frost on the plant.”)

The river is quite low,

November 6. 

The river is quite low, about four inches lower than the hub [?] I used in the summer, or lower than before, this year. 

Yet there is more water in the mill-streams; the mill-wheels are supplied now which were stationary in the summer. 

C. thinks that he saw bats last evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  November 6, 1859

The river is quite low . . . lower than before this year. See November 26, 1858 ("I begin to suspect . . . that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers, though in their case it may be more difficult to detect."). Compare October 19, 1857 ("The river is very high for the season and all over the meadow in front of the house, and still rising."); October 27, 1853 ("The river still rises, — more than ever last night, owing to the rain")

The mill-wheels are supplied now which were stationary in the summer. See August 26, 1859 ("Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again.")

C. thinks that he saw bats last evening. See November 1, 1855 (''Returning in the twilight, I see a bat over the river.")

A canoe birch growing out of the middle of a white pine stump/

November 2

Sunday. 

November 2, 2019

The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either. 

Old wells as well as walls must be among the oldest monuments of civilized man here. How old may be the most ancient well which men use to-day. 

Saw a canoe birch beyond Nawshawtuct, growing out of the middle of a white pine stump, which still showed the mark of the axe, sixteen inches in diameter at its bottom, or two feet from the ground, or where it had first taken root on the stump.

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

The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river. See October 29, 1857  ("The river is very high for the season and all over the meadow in front of the house, and still rising. Many are out (as yesterday) shooting musquash.");  October 30, 1853 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered with water now.") ; November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either. ") November 11, 1855 ("The bricks of which the muskrat builds his house are little masses or wads of the dead weedy rubbish on the muddy bottom, which it probably takes up with its mouth. It consists of various kinds of weeds, now agglutinated together by the slime and dried confervae threads, utricularia, hornwort, etc., — a streaming, tuft-like wad. 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 

In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month

November 1. 

November 1, 2019

A warm, mizzling kind of rain for two days past and still. 

Stellaria media in Cheney's garden, as last spring, butter-and-eggs, that small white aster (A. dumosus?), the small white fleabane, hedge-mustard. 

Day before yesterday to the Cliffs in the rain, misty rain. 

As I approached their edge, I saw the woods beneath, Fair Haven Pond, and the hills across the river, — which, owing to the mist, was as far as I could see, and seemed much further in consequence. I saw these between the converging boughs of two white pines a rod or two from me on the edge of the rock; and I thought that there was no frame to a landscape equal to this, — to see, between two near pine boughs, whose lichens are distinct, a distant forest and lake, the one frame, the other picture. 

November 1, 2019

In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month. 

The birches have almost all lost their leaves. 

On the river this afternoon, the leaves, now crisp and curled, when the wind blows them on to the water become rude boats which float and sail about awhile conspicuously before they go to the bottom, — oaks, walnuts, etc. 

It is remarkable how native man proves himself to the earth, after all, and the completeness of his life in all its appurtenances. His alliances, how wide! He has domesticated not only beasts but fowl, not only hens and geese and ducks and turkeys, but his doves, winging their way to their dovecots over street and village and field, enhance the picturesqueness of his sky, to say nothing of his trained falcons, his beautiful scouts in the upper air. He is lord of the fowl and the brute. His allies are not only on the land, but in the air and water. The dove, the martin, the bluebird, the swallow, and, in some countries, the hawk have attached themselves to his fortunes. The doves that wing their way so near the clouds, they too are man's retainers.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1852

Stellaria media in Cheney's garden, as last spring, butter-and-eggs, that small white aster (A. dumosus?), the small white fleabane, hedge-mustard. See August 6,1852 ("Stellaria media at R. W. E.'s. Is it the same, then, which I saw in Cheney's garden so early ?"); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. ”)

To see, between two near pine boughs, whose lichens are distinct, a distant forest and lake, the one frame, the other picture. See November 3, 1857 ("To see a remote landscape between two near rocks!") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month. See November 13, 1851 ("Such a day as will almost oblige a man to eat his own heart. A day in which you must hold on to life by your teeth."); November 14, 1858 ("I walk on frozen ground two thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow, and this strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge."); November 25, 1857 ("November Eatheart, — is that the name of it?"); November 27, 1853 ("Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow; but methinks the variety and compensation are in the stars now."); Compare November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights .")

The birches have almost all lost their leaves. November 1, 1853 ("The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare."

On the river this afternoon, the leaves, now crisp and curled, ... become rude boats which float and sail about. See note to October 17, 1856  ("Countless leafy skiffs are floating on pools and lakes and rivers and in the swamps and meadows.")

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

Two white pines on the

rock edge frame a picture of

the forest and lake.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A  man will eat his heart,

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