To gaze in any direction and see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and to the mountains in the horizon.

August 30

Another great fog this morning, which lasts till 8.30. After so much dry and warm weather, cool weather has suddenly come, and this has produced these two larger fogs than for a long time.

August 30, 2013

The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction. Though there has been no rain, the valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon. Coolness and clarity go together.

I go along through J. Hosmer's meadow near the river, it is so dry. I walk dry-shod quite to the phalanxes of bulrushes of a handsome blue-green glaucous color. The colors of the rainbow rush are now pretty bright. 

Blue-eyed grass still. Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn. A few small maples are scarlet along the meadow. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1854

The valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon. See August 25, 1854 (“I think I never saw the haze so thick as now . . . The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.”); August 22, 1854 (“The haze, accompanied by much wind, is so thick this forenoon that the sun is obscured as by a cloud. I see no rays of sunlight.. . . The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”); August 19, 1854 (“There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.”); August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze.”)

Blue-eyed grass still. See See A Book of the Seasons, blue-eyed grass

August 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 30

Coolness 

and clarity 

go together

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Coolness and clarity go together.

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/hdt-540830

I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool

August 29.

It is a great pleasure to walk in this clearer atmosphere, though cooler. 

August 29, 2016

How great a change, and how sudden, from that sultry and remarkably hazy atmosphere to this clear, cool autumnal one, in which all things shine, and distance is restored to us! It is so cool that we are inclined to stand round the kitchen fire a little while these mornings, though we sit and sleep with open windows still.

The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous. I see a boy already raking cranberries. The moss rose hips will be quite ripe in a day or two. Many birds nowadays resort to the wild black cherry tree, as here front of Tarbell's. I see them continually coming and going directly from and to a great distance, — cherry birds, robins, and kingbirds.

At Clamshell Bank the barn swallows are very lively, filling the air with their twittering now, at 6 p.m. They rest on the dry mullein-tops, then suddenly all start off together as with one impulse and skim about over the river, hill, and meadow. Some sit on the bare twigs of a dead apple tree. Are they not gathering for their migration?

I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. I love to sit on the withered grass on the sunny side of the wall. My mistress is at a more respectful distance, for, by the coolness of the air, I am more continent in my thought and held aloof from her, while by the genial warmth of the sun I am more than ever attracted to her. 

Early for several mornings I have heard the sound of a flail.  It leads me to ask if I have spent as industrious a spring and summer as the farmer, and gathered as rich a crop of experience.

If so, the sound of my flail will be heard by those who have ears to hear, separating the kernel from the chaff all the fall and winter, and a sound no less cheering it will be . . .  

Have you commenced to thresh your grain? 

The lecturer must commence his threshing as early as August, that his fine flour may be ready for his winter customers. The fall rains will make full springs and raise his streams sufficiently to grind his grist. We shall hear the sound of his flail all the fall, early and late.

For him there is no husking-bee, but he does it all alone and by hand, at evening by lamplight, with the barn door shut and only the pile of husks behind him for warmth. For him, too, I fear there is no patent corn-sheller, but he does his work by hand, ear by ear, on the edge of a shovel over a bushel, on his hearth, and after he takes up a handful of the yellow grain and lets it fall again, while he blows out the chaff; and he goes to bed happy when his measure is full. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 29, 1854

It is so cool that we are inclined to stand round the kitchen fire . See  August 29, 1859 ("It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun.") .See also  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.")

The sound of a flail . . . leads me to ask if I have spent as industrious a spring and summer as the farmer, and gathered as rich a crop of experience. See August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits. I trust, too, that I am maturing some small fruit as palatable in these months, which will communicate my flavor to my kind."); August 18, 1853 (“The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit?") July 31, 1856 ("I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years."); August 18, 1856 ("It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail"); September 13,1858 ("From many a barn these days I hear the sound of the flail.") September 14, 1859 ("Now all things suggest fruit and the harvest, and flowers look late, and for some time the sound of the flail has been heard in the barns."); October 31, 1860 ("I hear the sound of the flailing . . . and gradually draw near to it from the woods, thinking many things")

August 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 29

How sudden a change

this clear cool autumnal air

in which all things shine.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool

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/hdt-540829

By Great Meadows and Bedford meadows to Carlisle Bridge; back by Carlisle and Concord side across lots to schoolhouse.

August 28, 2014

August 28. 









Much cooler this morning, making us think of fire. This is gradually clearing the atmosphere, and, as it is about as dry as ever, I think that haze was not smoke; quite as dry as yesterday.  

P. M. By Great Meadows and Bedford meadows to Carlisle Bridge; back by Carlisle and Concord side across lots to schoolhouse.  Improve the continued drought to go through the meadows . 

August 28, 2014

There is a cool east wind (it has been east a good deal lately in this drought), which has cleared the air wonderfully, revealing the long-concealed woods and hills in the horizon and making me think of November even. 

And now that I am going along the path to the meadow in the woods beyond Peter's, I perceive the fall shine on the leaves and earth.  A great deal of light is reflected through the clearer air, which has also a vein of coolness in it. 

The farmers improve this dry spell to cut ditches and dig mud in the meadows and pond-holes. I see their black heaps in many places. 

The meadow is drier than ever, and new pools are dried up. The breams, from one to two and a half inches long, lying on the sides and quirking from time to time, a dozen together where there is but a pint of water on the mud, are a handsome but sad sight, — pretty green jewels, dying in the sun. 

I saved a dozen or more by putting them in deeper pools. 

The muddy bottom of these pools dried up is cracked into a sort of regular crystals. In the soft mud, the tracks of the great bittern and the blue heron. Scared up one of the former and saw a small dipper on the river. 

We did not come to a fence or wall for about four miles this afternoon. Heard some large hawks whistling much like a boy high over the meadow. 

In my experience, at least of late years, all that depresses a man's spirits is the sense of remissness, — duties neglected, unfaithfulness, — or shamming, impurity, falsehood, selfishness, inhumanity, and the like. 

August 28, 2014

From the experience of late years I should say that a man's seed was the direct tax of his race. It stands for my sympathy with my race. When the brain chiefly is nourished, and not the affections, the seed becomes merely excremental. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1854

I saved a dozen or more by putting them in deeper pools. See April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore . . . ”); June 6, 1856 (“In the large circular hole or cellar at the turntable on the railroad, which they are repairing, I see a star-nosed mole endeavoring in vain to bury himself in the sandy and gravelly bottom. Some inhuman fellow has cut off his tail. I carry him along to plowed ground, where he buries himself in a minute or two.”); July 23, 1856 ("Saw . . . a small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris, . . . I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him. "); May 19, 1856 ("saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. "); August 23, 1851("I saw a snake by the roadside and touched him with my foot to see if he were alive.He had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his jaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey in haste and fled; and I thought, as the toad jumped leisurely away with his slime-covered hind-quarters glistening in the sun, as if I, his deliverer, wished to interrupt his meditations, — without a shriek or fainting, — I thought what a healthy indifference he manifested. Is not this the broad earth still? he said.")

The top of Pine Hill wears its October aspect – effect of the drought.

August 27

August 27, 2023

From Heywood's Peak I am surprised to see the top of Pine Hill wearing its October aspect, — yellow with changed maples and here and there faintly blushing with changed red maples. This is the effect of the drought. 

As I go up Pine Hill, gather the shrivelled Vaccinium vacillans berries, many as hard as if dried on a pan. They are very sweet and good, and not wormy like huckleberries. Far more abundant in this state than usual, owing to the drought. 

As I stand there, I think I hear a rising wind rustling the tops of the woods, and, turning, see what I think is the rear of a large flock of pigeons.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1854

.
The top of Pine Hill wearing its October aspect.  See October 22, 1852 ("Looking over the forest on Pine Hill, I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sunshine and which are the yellow chestnut-tops")

Blushing with changed red maples. See August 27, 1852 ("The leaves of some young maples in the water about the pond are now quite scarlet, running into dark purple-red.”)

As I go up Pine Hill, gather the shrivelled Vaccinium vacillans . . . very sweet and good. See July 13, 1854 ("In the midst of July heat and drought.. . .Vaccinium vacillans on Bare Hill ripe enough to pick, now considerably in advance of huckleberries; sweeter than last and grow in dense clusters . . . This vacillans is more earthy, like solid food"): July 29, 1858 ("The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not."); July 29, 1859 ("Vaccinium vacillans begin to be pretty thick and some huckleberries.") July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”);August 4, 1854 ("On this hill (Smith's) the bushes are black with huckleberries. ...Now in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans inter mixed."); August 4. 1856 ("Still denser bunches and clusters of V. vacillans, of various varieties, firm and sweet, solid food"); August 28, 1856 ("Huckleberries are about given up"); September 1, 1859 ("Vacciniums, now past prime and drying up,"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries

I think I hear a rising wind rustling the tops of the woods, and, turning, see what I think is the rear of a large flock of pigeons. See August 17, 1858 ("C. saw pigeons to-day."); September 2, 1852 ("Small flocks of pigeons are seen these days."): September 13, 1858 ("A small dense flock of wild pigeons dashes by over the side of the hill. ") and note to September 15, 1859 ("Dense flocks of pigeons hurry-skurry over the hill.")

August 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 27

The top of Pine Hill 

wears its October aspect – 

effect of the drought.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The top of Pine Hill  wears its October aspect.

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/hdt-540827

In the evening lightning in the horizon – soon a gentle rain. (An irresistible necessity for mud turtles.)

August 26. 

August 26, 2016

I hear of a great many fires around us, far and near, both meadows and woods; in Maine and New York also. There may be some smoke in this haze, but I doubt it.  

I hear part of a phoebe's strain, as I go over the railroad bridge. It is the voice of dying summer. 

I think I hear a red-eye. 

Rudbeckia, — the small one, — still fresh. 

Open one of my snapping turtle's eggs. Its eyes are open. It puts out its head, stretches forth its claws, and liberates its tail. With its great head it has already the ugliness of the full-grown, and is already a hieroglyphic of snappishness. 

If Iliads are not composed in our day, snapping turtles are hatched and arrive at maturity. It already thrusts forth its tremendous head, — for the first time in this sphere, — and slowly moves from side to side, — opening its small glistening eyes for the first time to the light, — expressive of dull rage, as if it had endured the trials of this world for a century. 

When I behold this monster thus steadily advancing toward maturity, all nature abetting, I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles. With what tenacity Nature sticks to her idea!

Hear by telegraph that it rains in Portland and New York. In the evening, some lightning in the horizon, and soon after a little gentle rain ...

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1854

There may be some smoke in this haze, but I doubt it .) See August 25, 1854 ("Many refer all this to smoke . . . This blue haze is not dissipated much by the night, but is seen still with the earliest light."") See also note to August 31, 1854 ("There must be more smoke in this haze than I have supposed.")

I hear part of a phoebe's [sic] strain . . . It is the voice of dying summer. See  April 14, 1852 ("I do not hear those peculiar tender die-away notes from the pewee yet. Is it another pewee, or a later note?"); August 20, 1854 ("The pewees sit still on their perch a long time . . . It often utters a continous pe-e-e. ");  August 21, 1853 ("The peawai still,"); August 22, 1853 ("Hear a peawai whose note is more like singing — as if it were still incubating — than any other.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee

I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles. See September 11, 1852 ("Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head."); September 11, 1854 ("It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been. "); September 16, 1854 ("I find the mud turtle’s eggs at the Desert all hatched, one still left in the nest . . . At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water."); April 1, 1858 ("I see on the wet mud a little snapping turtle evidently hatched last year . . . Talk of great heads, look at this one!"). See also August 28, 1856 ("I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th,\ and find a young turtle partly out of his shell. . . .What's a summer? Time for a turtle's eggs to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. "); September 9, 1854 ("Thus the earth is the mother of all creatures.”)

Hear by telegraph that it rains in Portland and New York. See May 31, 1856 ("It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day"); October 20, 1859 ("I learn the next day that snow fell to-day in northern New York and New Hampshire . . . We feel the cold of it here as soon as the telegraph can inform us.")

In the evening, some lightning in the horizon, and soon after a little gentle rain See  March 25, 1860 (" The first lightning is seen in the horizon by one who is out in the evening"); June 16, 1852 (“Heat lightning in the horizon. A sultry night. A flute from some villager.”); July 23, 1854 ("As so often, the rain comes, leaving thunder and lightning behind. ") July 29, 1857 ("Heat lightning flashes, which reveal a distant horizon to our twilight eyes. But my fellows simply assert that it is not broad day, which everybody knows, and fail to perceive the phenomenon at all. ")

August 26.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 26

 In the evening

 lightning in the horizon –

 soon a gentle rain.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, lightning in the horizon

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/hdt-540826

The sun concealed by haze.

August 25

August 25, 2017

I think I never saw the haze so thick as now, at 11 A.M., looking from my attic window. 

I cannot quite distinguish J. Hosmer's house, only the dark outline of the woods behind it. There appears to be, as it were, a thick fog over the Dennis plains. Between me and Nawshawtuct is a very blue haze like smoke. Indeed many refer all this to smoke. 

Opposite the bath place, the pools are nearly all dry, and many little pollywogs, an inch long, lie dead or dying together in the moist mud. Others are covered with the dry brown-paper conferva.  

The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster. 

Also the choke-berries are very abundant there, but mostly dried black. 

We still continue to have strong wind in the middle of the day. The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.

This blue haze is not dissipated much by the night, but is seen still with the earliest light.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1854

I cannot quite distinguish J. Hosmer's house, only the dark outline of the woods behind it. See July 26, 1854 ("I am going over the hill through Ed. Hosmer's orchard, when I observe this light reflected from the shorn fields, contrasting affectingly with the dark smooth Assabet, reflecting the now dark shadows of the woods. The peculiarity of . . . the bordering woods [is] in a dog-day density of shade reflected darkly in the water."); August 6, 1854 ("As I look westward up the stream , the oak , etc. , on Ponkawtasset are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer. Has this anything to do with the bluish mistiness of the air?"); August 20, 1854 ("There is so thick a bluish haze these dog-days that single trees . . . stand out distinctly a dark mass, almost black, as seen against the more distinct blue woods.") Compare April 30, 1852 ("Hosmer's house and cottage under its elms and on the summit of green smooth slopes looks like a terrestrial paradise, the abode of peace and domestic happiness. Far over the woods westward, a shining vane, glimmering in the sun.")

Many refer all this[blue haze] to smoke. See note to August 31, 1854 ("There must be more smoke in this haze than I have supposed.")

Opposite the bath place, the pools are nearly all dry , and many little pollywogs, an inch long, lie dead or dying See August 22, 1854 ("At the lower end of these meadows, between the river and the firm land, are a number of shallow muddy pools or pond-holes"); August 28, 1854 ("The meadow is drier than ever, and new pools are dried up."); June 15, 1852 ("This half-stagnant pond-hole, drying up and leaving bare mud, with the pollywogs and turtles making off in it."); ,June 21, 1859 ("that little pool near the Assabet, above our bath-place there") See aksi December 3, 1858 ("I have often seen pollywogs in small numbers in the winter, in spring-holes, etc., but never such crowding to air-holes in the ice."); December 11, 1858 ("I find at the Pout’s Nest, now quite frozen over, air-holes and all, twenty-two pollywogs frozen in and dead within a space of two and a half feet square"); December 21, 1857 ("They appear to keep in motion in such muddy pond-holes, where a spring wells up from the bottom till midwinter, if not all winter.”)

The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe. See August 25, 1852 (“One of the most noticeable wild fruits at present is the Viburnum nudum berries, their variegated cymes amid the green leaves in the swamps or low grounds, some whitish, some greenish, some red, some pink, some rose-purple and very beautiful”) See also August 23, 1858 (“Viburnum nudum berries, apparently but a day or two.”); August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. The sweet viburnum not yet purple, and the maple-leaved still yellowish. ");August 28, 1856 ("Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green. "); August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple. I brought home a bunch of fifty-three berries, all of this color, and the next morning thirty were turned dark purple. In this state they are soft and just edible, having somewhat of a cherry flavor, not a large stone." ); September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side.. . . Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity.")

The choke-berries are very abundant there, but mostly dried black. See August 12, 1858 ("I eat the blueberry, but I am also interested in the rich-looking glossy black choke-berries which nobody eats, but which bend down the bushes on every side,—sweetish berries with a dry, and so choking, taste. Some of the bushes are more than a dozen feet high."); August 21, 1854 ("Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. "); August 26, 1860 ("I thread my way through the blueberry swamp in front of Martial Miles's. . . . And now a far greater show of choke-berries is here, rich to see."); August 28, 1856 ("The bushes are weighed down with choke-berries, which no creature appears to gather. This crop is as abundant as the huckleberries have been. They have a sweet and pleasant taste enough, but leave a mass of dry pulp in the mouth.")

The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone. See June 5, 1854 ("The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather,"); June 16, 1854 ("Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams"); August 22, 1854 ("The haze, accompanied by much wind, is so thick this forenoon that the sun is obscured as by a cloud. I see no rays of sunlight."); August 24, 1854 ("To-night, as for at least four or five nights past, and to some extent, I think, a great many times within a month, the sun goes down shorn of his beams, half an hour before sunset, round and red, high above the horizon.")

August 25. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 25

I never saw haze

so thick as now from my

attic window.

The sun round and red

shorn of his beams and concealed 

by the haze alone.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The sun concealed by haze.

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/hdt-540825

The bright crimson-red undersides of the great white lily pads turned up by the wind.

August 24.

August 24, 2019

To Fair Haven Pond by boat. A strong wind from the south-southwest, which I expect will waft me back. So many pads are eaten up and have disappeared that it has the effect of a rise of the river drowning them. This strong wind against which we row is quite exhilarating after the stiller summer. Yet we have no rain, and I see the blue haze between me and the shore six rods off. 

The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously. Many are now turned over completely. After August opens, before these pads are decayed (for they last longer than the nuphars of both kinds), the stronger winds begin to blow and turn them up at various angles, turning many completely over and exposing their bright crimson-red under sides with their ribs. The surface being agitated, the wind catches under their edges and turns them up and holds them commonly at an angle of 45°. 

It is a very wholesome color, and, after the calm summer, an exhilarating sight, with a strong wind heard and felt, cooling and condensing your thoughts. This has the effect of a ripening of the leaf on the river. Not in vain was the under side thus colored, which at length the August winds turn up. 

The Soft pads eaten up mostly; the pontederias crisped and considerably blackened, only a few flowers left. 

It is surprising how the maples are affected by this drought. Though they stand along the edge of the river, they appear to suffer more than any trees except the white ash. Their leaves — and also those of the alders and hickories and grapes and even oaks more or less — are permanently curled and turned up on the upper three quarters of the trees; so that their foliage has a singularly glaucous hue in rows along the river. At a distance they have somewhat of the same effect with the silvered tops of the swamp white oak. The sight suggests a strong wind constantly blowing. I went ashore and felt of them. They were more or less crisped and curled permanently. It suggests what to a slight extent occurs every year. 

On the Cliffs so many young trees and bushes are withered that from the river it looks as if a fire had run over them. At Lee's Cliff larger ash trees are completely sere and brown, — burnt up. The white pines are parti-colored there.

Now, methinks, hawks are decidedly more common, beating the bush and soaring. I see two circling over the Cliffs. 

See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs. 

Looking across the pond, the haze at the water's edge under the opposite woods looks like a low fog. To-night, as for at least four or five nights past, and to some extent, I think, a great many times within a month, the sun goes down shorn of his beams, half an hour before sunset, round and red, high above the horizon. There are no variegated sunsets in this dog-day weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1854

A strong wind from the south-southwest, which I expect will waft me back. See August 12, 1854 ("To-day there is an uncommonly strong wind, against which I row, yet in shirt-sleeves, trusting to sail back. It is southwest.); May 28, 1855 ("Yesterday left my boat at the willow opposite this Cliff, the wind northwest. Now it is southeast, and I can sail back.")

The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads. See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red under sides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now"); June 30, 1859 ("The pads blown up by it already show crimson, it is so strong, but this not a fall phenomenon yet."); August 12, 1854 ("As I look down-stream from southwest to northeast, I see the red under sides of the white lily pads about half exposed, turned up by the wind to [an] angle of 45 ° or more. These hemispherical red shields are so numerous as to produce a striking effect on the eye")

Now, methinks, hawks are decidedly more common, beating the bush and soaring. I see two circling over the Cliffs. See August 24, 1860 ("See a large hen-hawk . .. soaring very high and toward the north. At last it returns southward, at that height impelling itself steadily and swiftly forward, with its wings set without apparent motion, it thus moves half a mile directly.") See also September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau ,The hen-hawk

  

See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond.  See  August 12, 1853 ("See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here.”);  August 19, 1858  ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows. "); August 22, 1854 ("Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits.");  August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me.");  September 5, 1854 ("Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Looking across the pond, the haze at the water's edge under the opposite woods looks like a low fog. . . There are no variegated sunsets in this dog-day weather. See August 22, 1854 ("The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile."); August 25, 1854 ("The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.This blue haze is not dissipated much by the night, but is seen still with the earliest light."); see also August 24, 1861 ("This and yesterday very foggy, dogdayish days. Yesterday the fog lasted till nine or ten, and to-day, in the afternoon, it amounts to a considerable drizzling rain.") andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust, Dogdayish Days

Crimson undersides

of the great white lily pads

turned up by the wind.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Great white lily pads turned up by the wind

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/hdt-540824

Hadlock meadows have been on fire (spread from bogging) several weeks.

August 23.

I improve the dry weather to examine the middle of Gowing's Swamp. There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, nearly full of sphagnum and green froth on the surface (frog-spittle), and what other plants I could not see on account of the danger in standing on the quaking ground; then a dense border, a rod or more wide, of a peculiar rush, with clusters of seed-vessels, three together, now going to seed, a yellow green, forming an abrupt edge next the water, this on a dense bed of quaking sphagnum, in which I sink eighteen inches in water, upheld by its matted roots, where I fear to break through. On this the spatulate sundew abounds. This is marked by the paths of muskrats, which also extend through the green froth of the pool. 

Andromeda polifolia

Next comes, half a dozen rods wide, a dense bed of Andromeda calyculata, — the A. Polifolia mingled with it, — the rusty cotton- grass, cranberries, — the common and also V. Oxycoccus, — pitcher-plants, sedges, and a few young spruce and larch here and there, — all on sphagnum, which forms little hillocks about the stems of the andromeda. Then ferns, now yellowing, high blueberry bushes, etc., etc., etc., — or the bushy and main body of the swamp, under which the sphagnum is now dry and white.

I find a new cranberry on the sphagnum amid the A. calyculata, — V. Oxycoccus, of which Emerson says it is the "common cranberry of the north of Europe," cranberry of commerce there, found by "Oakes on Nantucket, in Pittsfield, and near Sherburne." It has small, now purplish-dotted fruit, flat on the sphagnum, some turned scarlet partly, on terminal peduncles, with slender, thread-like stems and small leaves strongly revolute on the edges. 

Cross the Brooks or Hadlock meadows, which have been on fire (spread from bogging) several weeks. They present a singularly desolate appearance. Much of the time over shoes in ashes and cinders. Yellowish peat ashes in spots here and there. The peat beneath still burning, as far as dry, making holes sometimes two feet deep, they say. The surface strewn with cranberries burnt to a cinder. 

I seemed to feel a dry heat under feet, as if the ground were on fire, where it was not. It is so dry that I walk lengthwise in ditches perfectly dry, full of the proserpinaca, now beginning to go to seed, which usually stands in water. Its pectinate lower leaves all exposed. On the baked surface, covered with brown-paper conferva.

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

The open pool. See May 31, 1857 ("That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb. Methinks every swamp tends to have or suggests such an interior tender spot. The sphagnous crust that surrounds the pool is pliant and quaking, like the skin or muscles of the abdomen; you seem to be slumping into the very bowels of the swamp.")

Gowing's Swamp today:  historical survey - botanical inventory

I find a new cranberry on the sphagnum. See November 20, 1850 ("The farmer, in picking over many bushels of cranberries year after year, finds at length, or has forced upon his observation, a new species of that berry, and avails himself thereafter of his discovery for many years before the naturalist is aware of the fact"); August 5, 1857 ("To my surprise found on the dinner-table at Thatcher's the Vaccinium Oxycoccus. T. did not know it was anything unusual, but bought it at such a rate per bushel of Mr. Such-a-one, who brought it to market. ")