A peculiar light

July 23.

July 23, 2014

There is a peculiar light reflected from the shorn fields, as later in the fall, when rain and coolness have cleared the air. Hazel leaves in dry places have begun to turn yellow and brown. 

I see broods of partridges later than the others, now the size of the smallest chickens.   

The white orchis at same place, four or five days at least; spike one and three quarters by three inches. 

Small flocks of song sparrows rustle along the walls and fences.  

See a thunder-cloud coming up in northwest, but as I walk and wind in the woods, lose the points of compass and cannot tell whether it is travelling this way or not. At length the sun is obscured by its advance guard, but, as so often, the rain comes, leaving thunder and lightning behind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 23, 1854

I see broods of partridges later than the others, now the size of the smallest chickens. See June 26, 1857 ("See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least."); July 5, 1857 ("Partridges big as quails.");
 July 7, 1854 ("Disturb two broods of partridges this afternoon, — one a third grown, flying half a dozen rods over the bushes, yet the old, as anxious as ever, rushing to me with the courage of a hen."); July 10, 1854 ("Partridge, young one third grown.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

The white orchis . . . spike one and three quarters by three inches. See August 8, 1858 (" I find at Ledum Swamp, near the pool, the white fringed orchis, quite abundant but past prime, only a few, yet quite fresh. It seems to belong to this sphagnous swamp and is some fifteen to twenty inches high, quite conspicuous, its white spike, amid the prevailing green. The leaves are narrow, half folded, and almost insignificant. It loves, then, these cold bogs"); August 11, 1852 ("Platanthera blephariglottis, white fringed orchis.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Fringed Orchis

See a thunder-cloud coming up in northwest. See July 20, 1854 ("A muttering thunder-cloud in northwest gradually rising and with its advanced guard hiding in the sun and now and then darting forked lightning."); July 24, 1854 ("Now, at 2 p. m., I hear again the loud thunder and see the dark cloud in the west.")

As I walk and wind in the woods, lose the points of compass. See March 29, 1853 ("Every man has once more to learn the points of compass as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or from any abstraction.")

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

But, as so often, 

the rain comes, leaving thunder 

and lightning behind.

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