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