I walk where in ordinary times I cannot go.

August 22

August 22, 2019

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.  

P. M. — To Great Meadows on foot along bank into Bedford meadows; thence to Beck Stow's and Gowing's Swamp.

Walking may be a science, so far as the direction of a walk is concerned. I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go. There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case. 

This is a prairial walk. I go along the river and meadows from the first, crossing the Red Bridge road to the Battle-Ground. In the 'Mill Brook, behind Jones's, am attracted by one of those handsome high-colored masses of fibrous pink roots of the willow in the water. It is three or four feet long, five or six inches wide, and four or five inches thick, — long parallel roots nearly as big as a crow-quill, with in numerable short fibres on all sides, all forming a dense mass of a singular bright-pink color. 

There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut. 

Am surprised to hear a phoebe's pewet pewee and see it. 

I perceive a dead mole in the path half-way down the meadow. 

At the lower end of these meadows, between the river and the firm land, are a number of shallow muddy pools or pond-holes, in which, even in this dry season, there is considerable water left. In these shallow muddy pools, but a few inches deep and few feet in diameter, I am surprised to observe the undulations produced by pretty large fishes endeavoring to conceal themselves. In one little muddy basin where there is hardly a quart of water, caught half a dozen little breams and pickerel, only an inch long, as perfectly distinct as full grown, and in another place, where there is little else than mud left, breams two or three inches long still alive. In many dry hollows are dozens of small breams, pickerel, and pouts, quite dead and dry. Hundreds, if not thousands, of fishes have here perished on account of the drought. 

See a blue heron — apparently a young bird, of a brownish blue — fly up from one of these pools, and a stake-driver from another, and also see their great tracks on the mud, and the feathers they had shed, — some of the long, narrow white neck-feathers of the heron. The tracks of the heron are about six inches long. Here is a rare chance for the herons to transfix the imprisoned fish. It is a wonder that any have escaped. 

To these remote shallow and muddy pools, usually surrounded by reeds and sedge, far amid the wet meadows, — to these, then, the blue heron resorts for its food. Here, too, is an abundance of the yellow lily, on whose seeds they are said to feed. There, too, are the paths of muskrats. 

There are now hopping all over this meadow small Rana palustris, and also some more beautifully spotted halecina or shad frogs. 

There is a pretty strong wind from the north-northwest. The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile. The low blue haze around the distant edge of the meadow looks even like a low fog at a sufficient distance. 

I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew. It is wonderful that in all this drought it has not evaporated. Arum berries ripe. High blueberries pretty thick, but now much wilted and shrivelled. 

Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits, and doubtless they are well acquainted with suitable retired pools far in the marshes to go a-fishing in. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1854

Walking may be a science, so far as the direction of a walk is concerned. See July 2, 1854 ("There is a cool wind from the east, which makes it cool walking that way while it is melting hot walking westward. "); October 20, 1858 ("There is one advantage in walking eastward these afternoons, at least, that in returning you may have the western sky before you" ). See also note to December 18, 1856 ("stepping westward seems to be / a kind of heavenly destiny.”); Walking (“Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.”)

I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go. See August 21, 2019 ("There is quite a drought, and I can walk almost anywhere over these meadows without wetting my feet . . . It is like the summer of '54.")

Hundreds, if not thousands, of fishes have here perished on account of the drought. See August 21, 1859 ("The water having dried up, I see many small fishes — pouts and pickerel and bream — left dead and dying. In one place there were fifty or one hundred pouts from four to five inches long with a few breams, all dead and dry.")

I perceive a dead mole in the path. See July 12, 1856 (“A short-tailed shrew dead after the rain.. I have found them thus three or four times before”); July 31, 1856 ("Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path.")

There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut. Compare August 24, 1858 ("They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Now hopping all over this meadow small Rana palustris, and also some more beautifully spotted halecina or shad frogs. See June 29, 1852 ("The Rana halecina, shad frog, is our handsomest frog, bronze striped, with brown spots, edged and inter mixed with bright green"); September 26, 1859 ("I hear a frog or two, either palusiris or halecina, croak and work faintly, as in spring, along the side of the river")

The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile. See August 25, 1854 ("I think I never saw the haze so thick as now, at 11 A.M., looking from my attic window.")

I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew. It is wonderful that in all this drought it has not evaporated. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); September 11, 1851 ("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them . . . Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

Arum berries ripe. See August 22, 1852.("The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds."); August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows."); September 1, 1859 ("The scarlet fruit of the arum spots the swamp floor."); September 2, 1853 (" The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground.”); September 28, 1856 ("The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. A large cluster is two and a half inches long by two wide and rather flattish. . . . These singular vermilion-colored berries, about a hundred of them, surmount a purple bag on a peduncle six or eight inches long.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Arum Berries

Thus the drought serves the herons. See August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."); August 21, 1859 ("The blue herons must find it easy to get their living now. Are they not more common on our river such years as this?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Blue Heron

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