The fertile catkins of the yellow birch

November 4.

November 4, 2013

To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late. 

Hear a nuthatch. 

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch appear to be in the same state with those of the white, and their scales are also shaped like birds, but much larger.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1853

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch appear to be in the same state with those of the white . . . See November 1, 1853 ("The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare.”)

The season of sky and earth.

November 3, 2014

November 3. 

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference. 

Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them.

Since the change and fall of the leaf a remarkable prominence is given to the evergreens; their limits are more distinctly defined as you look at distant woods, since the leaves of deciduous trees ceased to be green and fell. 

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. 

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them.

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me, though at the risk of endless iteration. I milk the sky and the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1853

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year . . .  See 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.")

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. See November 3, 1852 ("In the Heywood Brooks, many young pollywogs two inches long and more")

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them. Compare November 4, 1855  ("I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September.")

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me . . . See September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature. ")

I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon. See November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom")

Nov. 3. 6.30 a. m. — To Swamp Bridge Brook by river. Considerable thin mist, high as two houses. Just as the sun is rising, many undoubtedly of the same white-in-tail sparrows described four pages back are flying high over my head west and northwest, above the thin mist, perchance to where they see the sun on the wood-side; with that peculiar shelly note. I think it was the 27th October I saw a goldfinch. There are two or three tree sparrows flitting and hop ping along amid the alders and willows, with their fine silvery tchip, unlike the dry loud chip of the song sparrow. The Aster puniceus by brook is still common, though the worse for the wear, — low and more recent ones, — so that this, though a week ago it was less prevalent, must be set down as later than the A. undulatus. It bears the frosts much better, though it has been ex posed to more severe ones from its position. And with this must be included that smooth and narrower- leaved kind, in other respects the same, one of which, at least, I think I have called A. longifolius. They seem to run into each other. I am inclined to think it a smoother A. longifolius.

Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them. What is that large circular green and red dish one, flat in the grass of upland which I have seen for a fortnight ? [It is the great primrose. There are none (but by chance) about the base of this year's stalks, i. e. perhaps unless there is an offshoot.] I love to see a man occasionally from whom the usnea will hang as naturally as from a spruce. Cultivation exterminates the pine, but preserves the elm. Our front- yard evergreens are puny and trimmed up. Heard a bluebird about a week ago. 

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.

P. M. — To Ministerial Swamp. 

A warm westerly wind, the sky concealed and a storm gathering. A sober, cloudy afternoon. To-day I see yarrow, very bright ; red clover; autumnal dandelion; the silvery potentilla, and one Canadensis and the Norvegica ; and a dandelion ; Veronica arvensis ; and gnawel ; one Aster lcevis (!) by the Hosmer Ditch ; and, to my surprise, that solidago of September 11th, still showing some fresh yellow petals and a very fresh stem and leaves. It must be later than the speciosa, and this makes me doubt if it can be the stricta. It has a very angled stem and erect narrow pyramidal corymb. 

Also S. nemoralis by roadside. This, though it was not so prevalent as the S. ccesia three weeks ago, is still to be seen, while I have not seen the other for some days. It may outlast it, as the A. puniceus does the A. undulatus, though, by the way, I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon. I hear a few crickets and locusts (?) and see a very small brown beetle. The thistle radical leaves and fragrant everlasting not to be forgotten. Perhaps I have made the everlastings too late! 

A small gyrinus in Nut Meadow Brook.

Since the change and fall of the leaf a remarkable prominence is given to the evergreens; their limits are more distinctly defined as you look at distant woods, since the leaves of deciduous trees ceased to be green and fell. 

Very small pollywogs in pools, one and a half or two inches long. 

I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them. 

The cones of the spruce are nearly empty, hanging down ward; those of the larch are also open, but, being upright, appear to have a few more seeds in them. 

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me, though at the risk of endless iteration. I milk the sky and the earth. 

The potamogeton seeds in Nut Meadow Brook have partly left the stem. 

I hear the sound of the woodchopper's axe.

Signs of Winter

November 1. 

As I go up the back road, I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned. There is now no loud, cheerful effervescing with song as in the spring. Most are gone. I only hear some crows toward the woods. 

The road and ruts are all frosted and stiff, and the grass and clover leaves. At Swamp Bridge, I see crystals of ice six feet long, like very narrow and sharp spears, or like great window-sashes without glass between them, floating on the water. 

Now that the sun is fairly risen, I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler's meadow on left of the Corner road, singing exactly as in spring and twittering also, but rather faintly or suppressedly, as if their throats had grown up or their courage were less. 

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. 

I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. 

As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there. 

While getting the azaleas, I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. 

As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1853

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. See  November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.") 

A song sparrow chips faintly. See October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”)

Showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down. . . See October 31, 1853 ("The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones.”); October 15, 1856 ("A great part of the hemlock seeds fallen."); October 13, 1859 ("The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river.")

I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. See October 13, 1859 ("The swamp amelanchier is leafing again, as usual."); November 4, 1854 (“The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”).

Crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.  November 1, 1851("Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward."); see also October 20, 1859 ("I see a large and very straggling flock of crows fly southwest from over the hill behind Bull's and contending with the strong and cold northwest wind. This is the annual phenomenon. They are on their migrations."); October 29, 1855 ("I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing."); October 29, 1857 ("A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing.") Compare March 5, 1854 ("And crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") Also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The American Crow

When we ripple the surface, the undulating light is reflected from the waves.

October 31

It is a clear, cool, November-ish morning, reminding me of those peculiarly pleasant mornings in winter when there is a slight vapor in the atmosphere. On the hill, I see flocks of robins, flitting from tree to tree and peeping. The hemlock seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones. 

It is a beautiful, warm and calm Indian-summer afternoon. The river is so high over the meadows, and the water is so smooth and glassy withal, that I am reminded of a calm April day during the freshets. The coarse withered grass, and the willows, and button-bushes with their myriad balls, and whatever else stands on the brink, are reflected with wonderful distinctness. This shore, thus seen from the boat, is like the ornamented frame of a mirror. 


When we ripple the surface, the undulating light is reflected from the waves upon the bank and bushes and withered grass.

Is not this already November, when the yellow and scarlet tints are gone from the forest ?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 31, 1853

See also October 31, 1853 ("A gossamer day.)

The landscape prepared for winter.

October 30

Sunday.

A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day.

This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still.

P. M. – To Hubbard's Meadow Wood.

I see tree sparrows in loose flocks, chasing one an other, on the alders and willows by the brook-side. They keep up a general low and incessant twittering warble, as if suppressed, very sweet at this season, but not heard far. It is, as Wilson says, like a chip-bird, but this has a spot commonly on breast and a bright chestnut crown. It is quite striped (bay and brown with dark) above and has a forked tail.

I am not quite sure that I have seen them before. They are a chubby little bird, and have not the stripes on the breasts which the song sparrow has. The last, moreover, has not that striped bay and blackish and ash above. 

By the bathing-place, I see a song sparrow with his full striped breast. He drops stealthily behind the wall and skulks amid the bushes ; now sits behind a post, and peeps round at me, ever restless and quirking his tail, and now and then uttering a faint chip. It is not so light beneath as the last.

The muskrat-houses are mostly covered with water now.

Saw a Solidago nemoralis in full flower yesterday.

Here is the autumnal dandelion and fragrant ever lasting to-day.

What with the rains and frosts and winds, the leaves have fairly fallen now. You may say the fall has ended.

Those which still hang on the trees are withered and dry.

I am surprised at the change since last Sunday. Looking at the distant woods, I perceive that there is no yellow nor scarlet there now.

They are (except the evergreens) a mere dull, dry red. The autumnal tints are gone.

What life remains is merely at the foot of the leaf-stalk.

The woods have for the most part acquired their winter aspect, and coarse, rustling, light-colored withered grasses skirt the river and the wood-side.

This is November. The landscape prepared for winter, without snow.

When the forest and fields put on their sober winter hue, we begin to look more to the sunset for color and variety.

Now, now is the time to look at the buds of the swamp-pink,— some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed-vessels, red, etc. 

The larger red maple buds have now two sets of scales, three in each.

The water andromeda is still green.

Along the Depot Brook, the great heads of Aster puniceus stand dry and fuzzy and singularly white, — like the goldenrods and other asters, — but some quite low are still green and in flower.

The prevalence of this light, dry color perhaps characterizes November, — that of bleaching withered grass, of the fuzzy gray goldenrods, harmonizing with the cold sunlight, and that of the leaves which still hang on deciduous trees.

The dead-looking fruit of the alders is now conspicuous.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 30, 1853

"...the fall has ended." See November 11, 1851 ("The fall of the year is over, and now let us see if we shall have any Indian summer.)

The prevalence of this light, dry color perhaps characterizes November, — that of bleaching withered grass. See October 27, 1858 (“countless sedges and grasses ...become pale-brown and bleached after the frost has killed them, and give that peculiar light, almost silvery, sheen to the fields in November.”)
See also  This is November

I see tree sparrows in loose flocks, chasing one an other, on the alders and willows by the brook-side.
See November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

Reflected moods of the seasons.

October 26

October 26, 2019

It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us.  You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. 

When I meet with any such in my Journal, it affects me as poetry.  I appreciate that other season and that particular phenomenon more than at the time. Only the rarest flower, the purest melody, of the season thus comes down to us. 

April 26, 2021

(What we should have called

a warm day in March is a

cold one at this date.

April 26, 1860)

The world so seen is all one spring, and full of beauty. 

As I go up the back road, see fresh sprouts in bloom on a tall rough goldenrod. 

The dense maple swamp against Potter's pasture is completely bare, and the ground is very thickly strewn with leaves, which conceal the wet places. 

October 26, 2018

Now leaves are off, or chiefly off, I begin to notice the buds of various form and color and more or less conspicuous, prepared for another season, — partly, too, perhaps, for food for birds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1853

It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. See May 10, 1852 ("We remember autumn to best advantage in the spring; the finest aroma of it reaches us then.”); April 7, 1853 ("If you make the least correct observation of nature this year, you will have occasion to repeat it with illustrations the next, and the season and life itself is prolonged.”); August 24, 1852 (“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.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

The dense maple swamp against Potter's pasture is completely bare, and the ground is very thickly strewn with leaves. See October 4, 1857 ("At Potter's Swamp, where they are all maples, it adds to the beauty of the maple swamp at this season that it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different trees being of different tints, – green, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and different shades of each, – the out line of each tree is distinct to where one laps on to another."); October 22, 1855 ("In Potter’s maple swamp, where the red maple leaves lie in thick beds on the ground, what a strong mustiness, even sourness in some places! Yet I like this scent. With the present associations, sweet to me is the mustiness of the grave itself."); November 5, 1855 ("Walk through Potter’s Swamp. The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October.")

I begin to notice the buds. See October 12, 1858 ("The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year."): October 25, 1858 ("Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year."); October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring.");January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds.")

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

Now leaves are off we

notice the buds prepared for

another season.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,

Reflected moods of the seasons.

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/HDT531026

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.

October 25.

7 A M To Hubbard s Grove .

The rain is over, the ground swept and washed. There is a high and cold west wind.  Birds fly with difficulty against it.   The brooks and the river are unexpectedly swelled with yesterday’s rain. The river is a very dark blue. The wind roars in the wood.  A maple is blown down.

PM -- Sail down river to the pitch pine hill behind Abner Buttrick's, with a strong northwest wind, and cold. 

The white maples are completely bare. The tall dry grass along the shore rustles in the cold wind. The shores are very naked now. 

I am surprised to see how much the river has risen.

The swamp white oaks in front of N. Barrett's — their leafy tops — look quite silvery at a distance in the sun, very different from near to.  

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 25, 1853

The tall dry grass along the shore rustles in the cold wind. See October 25, 1854 ("[T]he withered reeds on the brink reflected in the water."); October 25, 1855 ("The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore.”)

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight. See October 25, 1858 (“The silvery sheen of pine—needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles.”) See also October 22, 1851 ("[T]he ground in the pine woods is strewn with the newly fallen needles. "); October 26, 1855 ("The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. “) and
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall