The Bee Tree, part two

September 30.

After we got to the Baker Farm, we repaired to the tree I had marked, a hemlock two feet, and a half in diameter on a side-hill a rod from the pond. I had cut my initials in the bark in the winter,* for custom gives the first finder of the nest a right to the honey and to cut down the tree to get it and pay the damages, and if he cuts his initials on it no other hunter will interfere. Not seeing any signs of bees from the ground, one of the party climbed the tree to where the leading stem had formerly been broken off, leaving a crotch it about eighteen feet from the ground, and there lie found a small hole into which he thrust a stick two or three feet down the tree, and dropped it to the bottom; and, putting in his hand, he took out some old comb. The bees had probably died.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1852
*See March 4, 1852: "I cut my initials on the bee tree."

After a day lining bees.

September 30.

I was surprised - though I had been informed of it - at the distance to which the village bees go for flowers.  The tiny bee which we thought lived far away there in a flower-bell in that remote vale, he is a great voyager, and anon he rises up over the top of the wood and sets sail with his sweet cargo straight for his distant haven. 

How well they know the woods and fields and the haunt of every flower! 

If there are any sweet flowers still lingering on the hillside, it is known to the bees both of the forest and the village.

The rambler in the most remote woods and pastures little thinks that the bees which are humming so industriously on the rare wild flowers he is plucking for his herbarium, in some out-of-the-way nook, are, like himself, ramblers from the village, perhaps from his own yard, come to get their honey for his hives.  

I feel the richer for this experience. It taught me that even the insects in my path are not loafers, but have their special errands. Not merely and vaguely in this world, but in this hour, each is about its business. 

The flowers, perchance, are widely dispersed, because the sweet which they collect from the atmosphere is rare but also widely dispersed, and the bees are enabled to travel far to find it.

It is not in vain that the flowers bloom, and bloom late too, in favored spots. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1852

Wild apples

September 21. 

As I walk through the maple swamp by the Corner Spring, I am surprised to see apples on the ground. At first I suppose that somebody has dropped them, but, looking up, I detect a wild apple tree, as tall and slender as the young maples and not more than five inches in diameter at the ground. This has blossomed and borne fruit this year. The apples are quite mellow and of a very agreeable flavor, though they have a rusty-scraperish look, and I fill my pockets with them. The squirrels have found them out before me. It is an agreeable surprise to find in the midst of a swamp so large and edible a fruit as an apple.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1852

"My friend is he who can make a good guess at me,
hit me on the wing."

The peaceful pond!

September 20.

How soothing to sit on a stump

on this height overlooking the pond,

and study the dimpling circles

incessantly inscribed and again erased

on the smooth 
and otherwise invisible surface

amid the reflected skies!

     The reflected sky is a deeper blue.

How beautiful that over this vast expanse

every disturbance is gently smoothed away

as the trembling circles seek the shore

and all is smooth again.

Not a fish can leap or an insect fall

but it is reported in lines of beauty,

in circling dimples,

as if it were

     the constant welling up of its fountain,

     the gentle pulsing of its life,

     the heaving of its breast.

The thrills of joy and those of pain are indistinguishable.

How sweet the phenomena of the lake!

Everything that moves on its surface
produces a sparkle.

The motion of an oar or an insect

produces a flash of light;

and if an oar falls,

how sweet the echo!

     The peaceful pond!

How distinctly each thing in nature is marked!

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, September 20, 1852



Sept. 20. The smooth sumachs are turning conspicuously and generally red, apparently from frost, and here and there is a whole maple tree red, about water. In some hollows in sprout-lands, the grass and ferns are crisp and brown from frost. I suppose it is the Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers. The Viola sagittata has blossomed again. The Galium circcezans (?) still, and narrow-leaved johnswort.

On Heywood's Peak by Walden. — The surface is not perfectly smooth, on account of the zephyr, and the reflections of the woods are a little indistinct and blurred. How soothing to sit on a stump on this height, over looking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are incessantly inscribed and again erased on the smooth and otherwise invisible surface, amid the reflected skies! The reflected sky is of a deeper blue. How beautiful that over this vast expanse there can be no disturbance, but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again ! Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on it but it is reported in lines of beauty, in circling dimples, as it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and those of pain are indistinguishable. How sweet the phenomena of the lake! Everything that moves on its surface produces a sparkle. The peaceful pond! The works of men shine as in the spring. The motion of an oar or an insect produces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo ! The groundsel and hieracium down is in the air. The golden plover, they say, has been more than usually plenty here this year. Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country. How distinctly each thing in nature is marked! as the day by a little yellow sunlight, so that the sluggard cannot mistake it.

Signs of Fall

September 18.

The poor student begins now to seek the sun. In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round. It is agreeable to stand in a new relation to the sun. They begin to have a fire occasionally below-stairs. 

The goldenrods have generally lost their brightness. Methinks the asters were in their prime four or five days ago. There are many large toadstools, pecked apparently by birds.

The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener. The partridges, grown up, oftener burst away. 

The crows congregate and pursue me through the half-covered woodland path, cawing loud and angrily above me, and when they cease, I hear the winnowing sound of their wings.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, September 18, 1852

They begin to have a fire occasionally below-stairs.  See September 11, 1853 ("Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. . . .The air has got an autumnal coolness which it will not get rid of again.”); September 21, 1854 ("The forenoon is cold, and I have a fire, but it is a fine clear day, as I find when I come forth to walk in the afternoon.”)

In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round. See September 17, 1858 (“Cooler weather now for two or three days, so that I am glad to sit in the sun on the east side of the house mornings.”)

Hawk season

September 16.

The jay screams; the goldfinch twitters; the barberries are red. The corn is topped. I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long, and the common che-wink note in the woods. Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall.

The rippled blue surface of Fair Haven from the Cliffs, with its smooth white border where weeds preserve the surface smooth, a placid silver-plated rim. The pond is like the sky with a border of whitish clouds in the horizon. 

Yesterday it rained all day. What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs, large and small, one or more with a white rump. 

I detect the transit of the first by his shadow on the rock, and look toward the sun for him. Though he is made light beneath to conceal him, his shadow betrays him. 

Now I see a large one circling and circling higher and wider. This way he comes. How beautiful does he repose on the air in the moment when he is directly over you and you see the form and texture of his wings. How light he must make himself before he can thus soar and sail.

They are out by families; while one is circling this way, another circles that; kites without strings. Where is the boy that flies them? Are not the hawks most observed at this season?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1852

Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall. See October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. . . .")

I detect the transit of the first by his shadow on the rock, and look toward the sun for him. See  May 11, 1855 ("It is most impressive when, looking for their nests, you first detect the presence of the bird by its shadow."); September 27, 1857 ("I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays.")

How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts!

September 13.

September 13, 2019

Yesterday, it rained all day, with considerable wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls. More leaves also have fallen. Rain has as much to do with it as wind.

Ride round through Lincoln and a part of Weston and Wavland. 

The barberries, now reddening, begin to show. Asters, various shades of blue, and especially the smaller kinds of dense-flowering white ones, are more than ever by the roadsides.

In my ride I experience the pleasure of coming into a landscape where there was more distance and a bluish tinge in the horizon. The farther off the mountain which is the goal of our enterprise, the more of heaven's tint it wears. This is the chief value of a distance in landscapes.

  

The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn. It yellows along the brook.

The earth wears different colors or liveries at different seasons. At this season, a golden blaze salutes me here from a thousand suns.

How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! Nature never lost a day, nor a moment. As the planet in its orbit and around its axis, so do the seasons, so does time, revolve, with a rapidity inconceivable. In the moment, in the eon, time ever advances with this rapidity. Clear the track ! The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay.

To the conscience of the idle man, the stillness of a placid September day sounds like the din and whirl of a factory.  Only employment can still this din in the air.

I have the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest, but suffer from a constant strain. When I have found myself ever looking down and confining my gaze to the flowers, I have thought it might be well to get into the habit of observing the clouds as a corrective; but no! that study would be just as bad. It is as bad to study stars and clouds as flowers and stones.

I must walk more with free senses. I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking. Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe. Be not preoccupied with looking. Go not to the object; let it come to you. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 13, 1852

How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts!  See September 10, 1860 ("Almost every plant, however humble . . . has its day. March 18, 1853 ("These plants waste not a day, not a moment, suitable to their development."); August 26, 1856 ("Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours."); August 30, 1851 ("This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!"); September 17, 1857 ("How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone."); October 22, 1858 ("When you come to observe faithfully the changes of each humblest plant, you find, it may be unexpectedly, that each has sooner or later its peculiar autumnal tint or tints") See also the air.  See April 29, 1852 ("The art of life, not having anything to do, is to do something.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons revolve

Only employment can still this din in the air.  See April 29, 1852 ("The art of life, not having anything to do, is to do something.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To effect the quality of the day

Be not preoccupied with looking. See August 5, 1851 ("The question is not what you look at, but what you see."); August 21, 1851 ("You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things."); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. He really forgets himself, forgets to observe, and at night he dreams of the swamp, its phenomena and events. Not so the naturalist; enough of his unconscious life does not pass there. A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going."); March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye."); June 14, 1853 ("You are in that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before."); April 28, 1856 ("Again, as so many times, I am reminded of the advantage to the poet, and philosopher, and naturalist, and whomsoever, of pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, — seeing with the side of the eye.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDTwhilethe-daylasts

Quick Monadnock hike

September 7.

Across lots to Monadnock, some half-dozen miles in a straight line from Peterboro. Bunch-berries are everywhere now with the summit hardly more than a mile distant in a straight line, but about two miles as they go. Acer Pennsylvanicum, striped maple or moosewood or striped dogwood, but no keys to be seen.

Between the rocks on the summit, an abundance of large and fresh blueberries still, apparently Vaccnium Pennsylvanicum, very large fresh and cooling to eat, supplying the place of water. Though this vegetation was very humble, yet it was very productive of fruit. 

In one little hollow between the rocks grow blueberries, choke-berries, bunch-berries, red cherries, wild currants (Ribes prostratum, with the berry the odor of skunk-cabbage, but a not quite disagreeable wild flavor), a few raspberries still, holly berries, mountain cranberries (Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea), all close together. 

The little soil on the summit between the rocks was covered with the Potentilla tridentata, now out of bloom, the prevailing plant at the extreme summit. Mountain-ash berries also.

We are on the top of the mountain at 1 P.M. The cars leave Troy, four or five miles off, at three. Descending toward Troy, we see that the mountain had spurs or buttresses on every side, by whose ridge you might ascend. It is an interesting feature in a mountain. I have noticed that they will send out these buttresses every way from their centre.

We reach the depot, by running at last, at the same instant the cars, and reach Concord at a quarter after five, i.e. four hours from the time we were picking blueberries on the mountain, with the plants of the mountain fresh in my hat. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 7, 1852

Walden at evening, approaching autumn.

September 1.

Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky.  Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green. Paddling over it, I see large schools of perch only an inch long, yet easily distinguished by their transverse bars.

This is a very warm and serene evening, and the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun. 

Here and there is a thistle-down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at, and dimple the water, --  a delicate hint of approaching autumn, when the first thistle-down descends on some smooth lake's surface, full of reflections, in the woods, sign to the fishes of the ripening year. 

These white faery vessels are annually wafted over the cope of their sky. Bethink thyself, O man, when the first thistle-down is in the air. Buoyantly it floated high in air over hills and fields all day, and now, weighed down with evening dews, perchance, it sinks gently to the surface of the lake. Nothing can stay the thistle-down, but with September winds it unfailingly sets sail. The irresistible revolution of time. It but comes down upon the sea in its ship, and is still perchance wafted to the shore with its delicate sails. The thistle-down is in the air. Tell me, is thy fruit also there? Dost thou approach maturity?

Across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three birches diverge, at the point of a promontory next the water, I see two or three small maples already scarlet.

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

Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green. See August 27, 1852 ("Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green. . ."): See also Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”)

Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky . Some have referred the vivid greenness next the shores to the reflection of the verdure , but it is equally green there against the railroad sand - bank and in the spring before the leaves are expanded . Beyond the deep reflecting surface , near the shore , where the bottom is seen , it is a vivid green . I see two or three small maples already scarlet, across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three birches diverge, at the point of a promontory next the water, a distinct scarlet tint a quarter of a mile off.