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| 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. ")
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.
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