Saturday, June 6, 2020
Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica.
June 6.
Friday.
Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica.
Under the head of the Cicuta maculata, or American hemlock, — “It is a rule sanctioned by the observations of medical botanists , that umbelliferous plants, which grow in or about the water, are of a poisonous nature.” He [Bigelow] does not say that the angelica is poisonous, but I suppose that it is.
It has such a rank, offensive, and killing odor as makes me think of the ingredients of the witches' cauldron. It did not leave my hands, which had carried it, long after I had washed them. A strong, penetrating, lasting, and sickening odor.
Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated.
Bigelow says, “The leaves of the Solidago odora have a delightfully fragrant odor, partaking of that of anise and sassafras, but different from either.”
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1851
Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica. See July 16, 1851 ("The angelica,with its large umbels, is gone to seed.")
Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata. See August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio..")
Friday, June 5, 2020
The summer is begun sweet and spicy to the smell.
June 5.
To-night, June 5th, after a hot day, I hear the first peculiar summer breathing of the frogs.
Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill, it seemed to me that the atmosphere was never so full of fragrance and spicy odors. There is a great variety in the fragrance of the apple blossoms as well as their tints. Some are quite spicy. The air seemed filled with the odor of ripe strawberries, though it is quite too early for them. The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell, reminding us of Arabian gales and what mariners tell of the spice islands.
The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1850
Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill. See June 3, 1850 ("I visited this afternoon (June 3d) Goodman's Hill in Sudbury, going through Lincoln over Sherman's Bridge and Round Hill, and returning through the Corner. It probably affords the best view of Concord River meadows of any hill")
When the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons. See June 5, 1856 ("Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves."); April 25, 1859 ("This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata")
To-night, June 5th, after a hot day, I hear the first peculiar summer breathing of the frogs.
Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill, it seemed to me that the atmosphere was never so full of fragrance and spicy odors. There is a great variety in the fragrance of the apple blossoms as well as their tints. Some are quite spicy. The air seemed filled with the odor of ripe strawberries, though it is quite too early for them. The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell, reminding us of Arabian gales and what mariners tell of the spice islands.
 |
| Silene caroliniana, (wild pink) |
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1850
Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill. See June 3, 1850 ("I visited this afternoon (June 3d) Goodman's Hill in Sudbury, going through Lincoln over Sherman's Bridge and Round Hill, and returning through the Corner. It probably affords the best view of Concord River meadows of any hill")
The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell. See June 5, 1853 ("The world now full of verdure and fragrance and the air comparatively clear . . . through which the distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wet green.")
When the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons. See June 5, 1856 ("Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves."); April 25, 1859 ("This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata")
Thursday, June 4, 2020
A Book of the Seasons: JUNE
“The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.”\
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
This is June, the month of grass and leaves.
Already the aspens are trembling again,
and a new summer is offered me.
I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts,
as if I might be too late.
Each season is but an infinitesimal point.
It no sooner comes than it is gone.
Summer begins with
expanded leaves, shade and warmth.
The season of growth.
The birth of shadow.
These virgin shades of the year
how full of promise.
These clear breezy days
of early June when the
leaves are young and few.
Thin shade so open
that we see the shadow of
each fluttering leaf.
New fresh light-green shoots
of the hemlock contrast with
dark green of last year.
The trembling aspens
offer me a new summer,
fluttering my thoughts.
River summer width,
weeds begin to fill the stream.
Muggy evening: fireflies!
(The first I have seen.)
Clearer days less haze
and more sparkling water,
It is early June.
New life and motion,
the season of waving boughs,
the first half of June.
Crows with ragged wings
noiselessly circle their nest
high in a white pine.
Away from the town
and deeper into the night:
whip-poor-wills, fireflies.
Cool unexhausted
morning vigor answers the
note of the wood thrush.
Floating homeward, I
count devil's-needles at rest
on my idle sail.
Never nearer to
partridges drumming to-night,
such space-filling sound.
New reflections now
from the under sides of leaves
turned up by the wind.
I sit in the shade
at noon to hear a wood thrush.
and smell the dry leaves.
The distant river
reflects the light at this hour
like molten silver.
Yellow sun of spring
becomes midsummer flower,
red sun of June heat.
The singing of birds
wakes me these mornings at dawn.
The window open.
The rain comes at a
time and place that baffles all
our calculations.
Suddenly the gust,
big drops slanting from the north.
Birds fly rudderless.
Puddles in the streets,
the first rain of consequence
for at least three weeks.
It is a warm rain.
I sit all day and evening,
my window open.
The deep scarlet of
the wild moss rose, half open,
glowing in the grass.
All wilderness is
transmitted to us in the
strain of the wood thrush.
Beautiful clear air,
the glossy light-reflecting
greenness of the woods.
A sky without clouds:
a meadow without flowers
a sea without sails.
The sun comes out bright
shining on Fair Haven Pond
rippled by the wind.
Bright silvery light
reflected from fresh green leaves;
the dark shade of June.
To see lightning with
serenity, all nature
with wonder and awe.
Evening. 7 p.m.
A record of the sunset.
The moon more than half.
The sun not yet set.
Clouds in west edged with fiery red.
Robins faintly sing.
Now the sun is down.
A low mist close to the shore,
I hear the pea-wai
and the wood thrush and
the whip-poor-will -- before
I have seen a star.
Now it is starlight.
Did that dark cloud conceal the
evening star before?
Starlight! Mark the hour.
When last daylight disappears
and night (nyx) sets in.
The red undersides
of the white lily pads
exposed by the wind.
June 30 .
Fields woods and meadows
brilliant and fair seen through clear
sparkling breezy air.
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 © 2009-2020
These evergreen wilderness names.
Saturday.
The date of the introduction of
the Rhododendron maximum into Concord is worth preserving, May 16th, ’53. They
were small plants, one to four feet high, some with large flower-buds, twenty-five
cents apiece; and I noticed next day one or more in every front yard on each
side of the street, and the inhabitants out watering them. Said to be the most
splendid native flower in Massachusetts; in a swamp in Medfield. I hear to-day
that one in town has blossomed.
George Minott says he saw many
lightning-bugs a warm evening the forepart of this week, after the rains.
Probably it was the 29th.
P. M. – To Hubbard’s Close Swamp.
The vetch just out by Turnpike, —
dark violet purple.
Horse-radish fully out (some time).
The great ferns are already two
or three feet high in Hubbard’s shady swamp.
The clintonia is abundant there
along by the foot of the hill, and in its prime. Look there for its berries.
Commonly four leaves there, with an obtuse point, — the lady’s-slipper leaf not
so rich, dark green and smooth, having several channels.
 |
| June 4, 2020 |
The bullfrog now begins to be
heard at night regularly; has taken the place of the hylodes.
Looked over the oldest town
records at the clerk’s office this evening, the old book containing grants of
land. Am surprised to find such names as “Walden Pond” and “Fair Haven” as
early as 1653, and apparently 1652; also, under the first date at least, “Second
Division,” the rivers as North and South Rivers (no Assabet at that date), “Swamp
bridge,” apparently on back road, “Goose Pond,” “Mr. Flints Pond,” “Nutt Meadow,”
“Willow Swamp,” “Spruce Swamp,” etc., etc. “Dongy,” “Dung Hole,” or what-not,
appears to be between Walden and Fair Haven.
Is Rocky Hill Mr. Emerson’s or
the Cliffs? Where are South Brook, Frog Ponds, etc., etc., etc.?
It is pleasing
to read these evergreen wilderness names, i. e. of particular swamps and woods,
then applied to now perchance cleared fields and meadows said to be redeemed.
The Second Division appears to have been a very large tract between the two
rivers.
H.
D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1853
The clintonia is abundant there along by the foot of the hill, and in its prime. See June 2, 1853 ("Clintonia borealis, a day or two. This is perhaps the most interesting and neatest of what I may call the liliaceous (?) plants we have. Its beauty at present consists chiefly in its commonly three very handsome, rich, clear dark-green leaves . . . arching over from a centre at the ground, sometimes very symmetrically disposed in a triangular fashion; and from their midst rises the scape [ a ] foot high, with one or more umbels of“green bell - shaped flowers,” yellowish-green, nodding or bent downward"); June 10, 1855 ("Clintonia, apparently four or five days (not out at Hubbard’s Close the 4th).")
The bullfrog now begins to be heard at night regularly; has taken the place of the hylodes. See May 10, 1858 ("At length, near Ball's Hill, I hear the first regular bullfrog's trump. . . . This sound, heard low and far off over meadows when the warmer hours have come, grandly inaugurates the summer. "); June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog."); June 15, 1860 ("The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done. . . . A new season begun");See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th . . .")
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon.
June 3.
I visited this afternoon (June 3d) Goodman's Hill in Sudbury, going through Lincoln over Sherman's Bridge and Round Hill, and returning through the Corner. It probably affords the best view of Concord River meadows of any hill. The horizon is very extensive as it is, and if the top were cleared so that you could get the western view, it would be one of the most extensive seen from any hill in the county.
The most imposing horizons are those which are seen from tops of hills rising out of a river valley. The prospect even from a low hill has something majestic in it in such a case. The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon.
There is a good view of Lincoln lying high up in among the hills. You see that it is the highest town hereabouts, and hence its fruit.
The river at this time looks as large as the Hudson. I think that a river-valley town is much the handsomest and largest-featured, — like Concord and Lancaster, for instance, natural centres.
Upon the hills of Bolton, again, the height of land between the Concord and Nashua, I have seen how the peach flourishes.
Nobscot, too, is quite imposing as seen from the west side of Goodman's Hill. On the western side of a continuation of this hill is Wadsworth’s battle field.
Returning, I saw in Sudbury twenty-five nests of the new (cliff?) swallow under the eaves of a barn.
Returning, I saw in Sudbury twenty-five nests of the new (cliff?) swallow under the eaves of a barn.
 |
| The republican or cliff swallow. Their nests, built side by side, looked somewhat like large hornets' nests. |
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1850
The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon. See September 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day"); June 25, 1852 ("The earth appears like a vast saucer sloping upward to its sharp mountain rim."); July 27, 1852 ("How beautiful hills and vales, the whole surface of the earth a succession of these great cups, falling away from dry or rocky edges to gelid green meadows and water in the midst, where night already is setting in!"); August 2, 1852 ("In many moods it is cheering to look across hence to that blue rim of the earth, and be reminded of the invisible towns and communities, for the most part also unremembered, which lie in the further and deeper hollows between me and those hills."); August 5, 1852 (" From Smith's Hill beyond, there is as good a view of the mountains as from any place in our neighbor hood, because you look across the broad valley in which Concord lies first of all."); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.");March 28, 1858 ("From this hilltop I overlook,. . . this seemingly concave circle of earth, in the midst of which I was born and dwell, which in the northwest and southeast has a more distant blue rim to it,.") See also note to September 27, 1852 ("From Smith's Hill I looked toward the mountain line.")
Twenty-five nests of the new (cliff?) swallow under the eaves of a barn. See April 30, 1856 ("I was surprised by the great number of
swallows—white-bellied and barn swallows and perhaps republican — flying round
and round, or skimming very low over the meadow. . .There were a thousand or
more of swallows, and I think that they had recently arrived together on their
migration."); May 4, 1856 (“Among others, I see republican swallows flying
over river at Island”); May 11, 1856 ("There are many swallows circling low
over the river behind Monroe’s, — bank swallows, barn, republican, chimney, and
white-bellied. These are all circling together a foot or two over the water,
passing within ten or twelve feet of me in my boat."); May 20, 1858 (“Hundreds of swallows are now skimming close
over the river. . .. There are bank, barn, cliff, and chimney swallows, all
mingled together.”); May 20, 1858 (“The cliff swallow, then, is here.”); May 21, 1855 (“Is that plump blue-backed, rufous rumped
swallow the cliff swallow, flying with barn swallows, etc., over the river?"); May 29, 1859 “The republican swallow at Hosmer's barn just
begun to lay.”
Caraway in garden
June 3.
A rainy day at last.
Caraway in garden apparently three days out.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1855
See June 2, 1856 ("Carum, i. e. caraway, in garden.”)
 |
| June 3, 2015 |
Monday, June 1, 2020
The year has many seasons more than are recognized in the almanac. (The season of buttercups.)
June 1.
 |
| June 1,, 2017 |
There is that time about the first of June, the beginning of summer, when the buttercups blossom in the now luxuriant grass and I am first reminded of mowing and of the dairy.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, 1850
The year has many seasons more than are recognized in the almanac See May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); June 11, 1851 ("No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons."); December 5, 1856 ("I love best to have each thing in its season only") June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting"); October 26, 1857 ("My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike.") April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.")
June 1. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 1
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