The history of a shower

August 31.



P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill.

Was caught in five successive showers, and took refuge in Hayden's barn, under the cliffs, and under a tree. 

A thunder-cloud, seen from a hilltop, as it is advancing rapidly across the sky on one side, whose rear at least will soon strike us. The dark-blue mass (seen edgewise) with its lighter upper surface and its copious curving rain beneath and behind, like an immense steamer holding its steady way to its port, with tremendous mutterings from time to time, a rush of cooler air, and hurried flight of birds. 

These later weeds, — chenopodiums, Roman wormwood, amaranth, etc., — now so rank and prevalent in the cultivated fields which were long since deserted by the hoers, now that the potatoes are for the most part ripened, are preparing a crop for the small birds of the fall and winter, those pensioners on civilization. These weeds require cultivated ground, and Nature perseveres each year till she succeeds in producing a bountiful harvest by their seeds, in spite of our early assiduity. Now that the potatoes are cared for, Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds.

Now especially the crickets are seen and heard on dry and sandy banks and fields, near their burrows, and some hanging, back down, to the stems of grass, feeding. I entered a dry grassy hollow where the cricket alone seemed to reign, — open like a bowl to the sky. 

While I stand under a pine for shelter during the rain, on Fair Haven Hill-side, I see many sarsaparilla plants fallen and withering green, i. e. before changing. It is as if they had a weak hold on the earth, on the subterranean stocks. 

The nightshade berries are handsome, not only for their clear red, but the beautifully regular form of their drooping clusters, suggesting a hexagonal arrangement for economy of room. 

There was another shower in the night (at 9 p. m.), making the sixth after 1.30 p. m. It was evidently one cloud thus broken into six parts, with some broad intervals of clear sky and fair weather. 

It would have been convenient for us, if it had been printed on the first cloud, "Five more to come!" Such a shower has a history which has never been written. One would like to know how and where the cloud first gathered, what lands and water it passed over and watered, and where and when it ceased to rain and was finally dissipated.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1859

These weeds require cultivated ground, and now that the potatoes are cared for, Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds. See May 13, 1856 ("Wheeler says that many a pasture, if you plow it up after it has been lying still ten years, will produce an abundant crop of wormwood, and its seeds must have lain in the ground."); August 8, 1851 ("As I recross the string-pieces of the bridge, I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight and scent the Roman wormwood in the potato fields."); August 26, 1859 ("Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood."); August 31, 1854 ("Wormwood pollen yellows my clothes commonly")