Acorns now turned brown fallen or falling.

September 30

September 30, 2020

I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly. I see a countless fleet of them slowly carried round in the still bay by the Leaning Hemlocks.

I find a fine tupelo near Sam Barrett’s now all turned scarlet. I find that it has borne much fruit — small oval bluish berries, those I see — and a very little not ripe is still left. Gray calls it blackish-blue. 

It seems to be contemporary with the sassafras. Both these trees are now particularly forward and conspicuous in their autumnal change. I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant. 

Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels. The white oak ones are dark and the most glossy. The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again. 

The song sparrow is still about, and the blackbird. See a little bird with a distinct white spot on the wing, yellow about eye, and whitish beneath, which I think must-be one of the wrens I saw last spring. 

At present the river’s brim is no longer browned with button-bushes, for those of their leaves which the frost had touched have already fallen entirely, leaving a thin crop of green ones to take their turn.

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

I am surprised to see that some red maples. . . have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly. October 17, 1857 ("The swamp floor is covered with red maple leaves, many yellow with bright-scarlet spots or streaks. Small brooks are almost concealed by them.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

A countless fleet of them slowly carried round in the still bay by the Leaning Hemlocks.   See November 11, 1853 ("As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks

A fine tupelo near Sam Barrett’s now all turned scarlet has borne much fruit — small oval bluish berries. See September 7, 1857 ("Measured that large tupelo behind Merriam's which now is covered with green fruit, and its leaves begin to redden."); October 6, 1858 (“The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves”)

I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant. See September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.")

The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again. See September 12, 1854 ("[White oak acorns] are small and very neat light-green acorns, with small cups, commonly arranged two by two close together, often with a leaf growing between them");   September 18, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . .with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately. [The black oak acorns also slightly marked thus.]"); November 27, 1858 (""I find scarlet oak acorns like this

in form not essentially different from those of the black oak, except that the scales of the black stand out more loose and bristling about the fruit.); January 19, 1859 ("Gathered a scarlet oak acorn . . .with distinct fine dark stripes or  rays, such as a Quercus ilicifolia has.")

The song sparrow is still about. See September 24, 1854 ("See a song-sparrow-like bird singing a confused low jingle."); September 25, 1854 ("And then I hear some clear song sparrow strains.")

At present the river’s brim is no longer browned with button-bushes. See September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim. "); September 25, 1854 ("The button-bush leaves are rapidly falling and covering the ground with a rich brown carpet")

The acorns turned brown 

 fallen or falling – the ground 

now strewn with them. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Acorns now turned brown

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-540930

Road Construction

This morning after dawn

fog rising from Bristol Pond

cornfields yellowed by frost -- 

Mount Abraham.

zphx 20140929

Cool breezy evening with a prolonged white twilight.

September 29

September 29, 2018

P. M. —— To Lee’s Bridge via Mt. Misery and return by Conantum.

Yesterday was quite warm, requiring the thinnest coat. To-day is cooler. 

The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen and strew the ground with thick rustling beds, — as front of Hubbard’s, — perhaps earlier than usual. 

Bass berries dry and brown. 

Now is the time to gather barberries. 

Looking from the Cliffs, the young oak plain is now probably as brightly colored as it will be. The bright reds appear here to be next the ground, the lower parts of these young trees, and I find on descending that it is commonly so as yet with the scarlet oak, which is the brightest. It is the lower half or two thirds which have changed, and this is surmounted by the slender, still green top. In many cases these leaves have only begun to be sprinkled with bloody spots and stains, — sometimes as if one had cast up a quart of blood from beneath and stained them.

I now see the effect of that long drought on some young oaks, especially black oaks. Their leaves are in many in stances all turned to a clear and uniform brown, having so far lost their vitality, but still plump and full veined and not yet withered. Many are so affected and, of course, show no bright tints. They are hastening to a premature decay. The tops of many young white oaks which had turned are already withered, apparently by frost.

See two either pigeon or sparrow hawks, apparently male and female, the one much larger than the other. 

I see in many places the fallen leaves quite thickly covering the ground in the woods. 

A large flock of crows wandering about and cawing as usual at this season. 

I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season. 

The catbird still mews. 

I see two ducks alternately diving in smooth water near the shore of Fair Haven Pond. Sometimes both are under at once. 

The milkweed down is flying at Clematis Ditch. 

This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish. 

When I look at the stars, nothing which the astronomers have said attaches to them, they are so simple and remote. Their knowledge is felt to be all terrestrial and to concern the earth alone. It suggests that the same is the case with every object, however familiar; our so-called knowledge of it is equally vulgar and remote. 

One might say that all views through a telescope or microscope were purely visionary, for it is only by his eye and not by any other sense —not by his whole man —that the beholder is there where he is presumed to be. It is a disruptive mode of viewing as far as the beholder is concerned.

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

Yesterday was quite warm, requiring the thinnest coat.  See September 3, 1852 ("A warm night.  A thin coat sufficient."); September 9, 1851 ("A sultry night; a thin coat is enough."); September 14, 1851 ("A great change in the weather from sultry to cold, from one thin coat to a thick coat or two thin ones."); September 14, 1859 ("When cooler weather and frosts arrive . . . we shift from the shady to the sunny side of the house, and sit there in an extra coat for warmth.") September 28, 1852 ("It has been too cold for the thinnest coat since the middle of September"); October 2, 1852 ("A very warm day after the frosts, so that I wish — though I am afraid to wear — a thin coat")

The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen and strew the ground with thick rustling beds. See September 28, 1853 ("The elm leaves are falling"); September 28, 1857 ("Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which . . . caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon."); October 1, 1858 ("The harvest of elm leaves is come, or at hand.")

Bass berries dry and brown.See September 30, 1859 ("Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees, and some bass berries.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

Looking from the Cliffs, the young oak plain is now probably as brightly colored as it will be. See September 24, 1854 ("On the shrub oak plain under Cliffs, the young white oaks are generally now tending to a dull inward red. The ilicifolia generally green stil , with a few yellowish or else scarlet leaves. The young black oaks with many red , scarlet , or yellowish leaves."); September 25, 1854 ("On the shrub oak plain, as seen from Cliffs, the red at least balances the green. It looks like a rich, shaggy rug now, before the woods are changed."); October 2, 1852 ("From Cliffs the shrub oak plain has now a bright-red ground, perhaps of maples."); October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red, with grayish, withered, apparently white oak leaves intermixed."); January 30, 1853 (" What I have called the Shrub Oak Plain contains comparatively few shrub oaks, — rather, young red and white and, it may be, some scarlet (?).")

Now is the time to gather barberries. See September 29, 1853 ("Barberry ripe.") See also September 28, 1852 ("Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Common Barberry

A large flock of crows wandering about and cawing as usual at this season.See September 22, 1860 ("See a large flock of crows."); October 6, 1860 ("The crow, methinks, is our only large bird that hovers and circles about in flocks in an irregular and straggling manner, filling the air over your head and sporting in it as if at home here."); October 9, 1858 ("Crows fly over and caw at you now.") See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The catbird still mews. See September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher."); September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side");September 25, 1858 ("The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly."); October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint.") 

The milkweed down is flying at Clematis Ditch. See September 10, 1860 ("If you sit at an open attic window almost anywhere, about the 20th of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by.") September 24, 1852 ("At Clematis Brook I perceive that the pods or follicles of the Asclepias Syriaca . . . already bursting . . .How many myriads go sailing away at this season, high over hill and meadow and river, on various tacks until the wind lulls, to plant their race in new localities, who can tell how many miles distant! And for this end these silken streamers have been perfecting all summer, snugly packed in this light chest, — a perfect adaptation to this end, a prophecy not only of the fall but of future springs. Who could believe in prophecies . . .that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds?")

This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish. See August 19, 1853 ("Now, while off Conantum, we have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars."); August 28, 1853 ("A cool, white, autumnal evening."); August 30, 1856 ("A cold white horizon sky in the north, forerunner of the fall of the year."); September 11, 1854 "This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first in these respects decidedly autumnal evening."); October 27, 1858 (“The cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 2, 1853("We come home in the autumn twilight . . . clear white light, which penetrates the woods”); November 14, 1853 ("the clear, white, leafless twilight of November”)

When I look at the stars, nothing which the astronomers have said attaches to them. See November 21, 1850(" I begin to see ... an object when I cease to understand it."); August 5, 1851 ("The astronomer is as blind to the significant phenomena, or the significance of phenomena . . . The question is not what you look at, but what you see."); February 18, 1852 ("I am grateful to the man who introduces order among the clouds. Yet I look up into the heavens so fancy free, I am almost glad not to know any law for the winds."); January 21, 1853 ("if I am elevated in the least toward the heavens, I do not accept their classification of them. I am not to be distracted by the names which they have imposed. The sun which I know is not Apollo, nor is the evening star Venus. The heavens should be as new, at least, as the world is new . . . Nobody sees the stars now. They study astronomy "); September 29, 1858 ("What astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down?");  October 4, 1859 ("It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.")

Cool breezy evening

with a prolonged white twilight –

quite Septemberish.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Cool breezy evening 

with a prolonged white twilight.

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-540929

Seen from my window

September 28

R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them. 

September 28, 2014

The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.

Sweet-briar hips ripe.

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

R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall. See September 28, 1851 ("The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled.")  See also September 29, 1857 ("Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves."); October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish."); October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet. See September 30, 1854 (“I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.”)

Sweet-briar hips ripe. See October 5, 1856 ("The sweet-briar rose hips are very handsome now, but . . . are very dry, hard, seedy, and unpalatable.")

September 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 28

The sassafras trees

are now a bright orange scarlet

seen from my window.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Seen from my window

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-540928

Single red maples bright against the cold green pines, now seen a mile off.

September 26.

Took my last bath the 24th. Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.

It is a warm and very pleasant afternoon, and I walk along the riverside in Merrick’s pasture. I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows ––tree or else song sparrows. 

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. 

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. It is too fair to be believed, especially seen against the light. Some are a reddish or else greenish yellow, others with red or yellow cheeks. I suspect that the yellow maples had not scarlet blossoms.

The bunches of panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. 

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.

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

Probably shall not bathe again this year. See September 26, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing") See also September 25, 1851 ("I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over."); September 25, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows.  See September 24, 1854 ("Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last year. "); September 29, 1854 ("I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season") Compare March 23, 1854 ("The birds in yard active now, — hyemalis, tree sparrow, and song sparrow. The hyemalis jingle easily distinguished.")

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. See September 30, 1859 ("Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees ") See also September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.")

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines. See September 19, 1852 ("And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.");  September 20, 1857   ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("It flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Red Maple

Panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. See September 24, 1854 ("The panicled cornel green with a tinge of reddish purple.")

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on. See August 13, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river."); August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

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

Single red maples

bright against the cold green pines –

now seen a mile off.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Single red maples now seen a mile off.

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-540926

At a distance a fox or an otter withdraws from the riverside.

 September 25. 

P. M. — To boat opposite Bittern Cliff  via Cliffs. 

Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last year. 

I am detained by the very bright red blackberry leaves strewn along the sod, the vine being inconspicuous.

On the shrub oak plain, as seen from Cliffs, the red at least balances the green. It looks like a rich, shaggy rug now, before the woods are changed. 

The button-bush leaves are rapidly falling and covering the ground with a rich brown carpet. 

At a distance a fox or an otter withdraws from the riverside.  

I see several smokes in the distance, of burning brush.  I think that if that August haze had been much of it smoke, I should have smelt it much more strongly, for I now smell strongly the smoke of this burning half a mile off, though it is scarcely perceptible in the air.

September 25, 2019

There is a splendid sunset while I am on the water, beginning at the Clamshell reach. 

All the lower edge of a very broad dark-slate cloud which reached up backward almost to the zenith was lit up through and through with a dun golden fire, the sun being be low the horizon . . . a clear, pale robin's-egg sky beneath. 

All the colors are prolonged in the rippled reflection to five or six times their proper length. The effect is particularly remarkable in the case of the reds, which are long bands of red perpendicular in the water.

Bats come out fifteen minutes after sunset, and then I hear some clear song sparrow strains, as from a fence-post amid snows in early spring.

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

Do I see an F. hyemalis . . . a month earlier than last year? See October 26, 1853 ("Slate-colored snowbirds."); See also September 3, 1857 ("A slate-colored snowbird back."); October 5, 1857 ("F.  hyemalis . . . only transiently visit us in spring and fall."); November 6, 1853 ("These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late, have flitted before me so many falls and springs, yet they have been strangers to me. I have not inquired whence they came or whither they were going,") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

I am detained by the very bright red blackberry leaves strewn along the sod. See September 23, 1854 ("Low blackberry vines generally red. "); October 3, 1858 ("Have noticed a very brilliant scarlet blackberry patch within a week."); October 22, 1858 ("Blackberry and other small reddish plants are seen through the fine bleached grass and stubble"); October 23, 1853 ("Blackberry vines still red")

On the shrub oak plain . . . the red at least balances the green . . . like a rich, shaggy rug. See   October 2, 1852 ("From Cliffs the shrub oak plain has now a bright-red ground, perhaps of maples."); October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red,"); October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree"); January 30, 1853 (" What I have called the Shrub Oak Plain contains comparatively few shrub oaks, — rather, young red and white and, it may be, some scarlet (?).") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Shrub Oak.

The button-bush leaves are rapidly falling and covering the ground with a rich brown carpet See September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim."); See also September 24, 1855 ("The button bushes pretty well browned with frost . . . their pale yellowish season past."); October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish"); October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water")

At a distance a fox or an otter withdraws from the riverside.  January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Otter

I think that if that August haze had been much of it smoke, I should have smelt it much more strongly. See August 25, 1854 ("Between me and Nawshawtuct is a very blue haze like smoke. Indeed many refer all this to smoke"): August 26, 1854 ("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."); August 28, 1854 ("I think that haze was not smoke;"); August 31, 1854 ("At nine this evening I distinctly and strongly smell smoke, I think of burning meadows . . .There must be more smoke in this haze than I have supposed. ")

There is a splendid sunset while I am on the water, beginning at the Clamshell reach. See July 15, 1854 ("Again I am attracted by the Clamshell reach of the river  running east and west, as seen from Hubbard's fields . . . My thoughts are driven inward, even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still , smooth water. "); September 4, 1854 ("Looking up the reach beyond Clamshell, the moon on our east quarter, its sheen was reflected for half a mile . . . and it looked like a sort of Broadway with the sun reflected from its pavements."); December 29, 1856 (“When I return by Clamshell Hill, the sun has set, and the cloudy sky is reflected in a short and narrow open reach at the bend there.”); February 12, 1860 ("Sunset Reach, where the river flows nearly from west to east and is a fine sparkling scene from the hills eastward at sunset; ") See also Ray Angelo, Thoreau Place Names, 44 (Clamshell Reach – an east-west stretch of the Sudbury River, referred as Sunset Reach after this date)

All the colors are prolonged in the rippled reflection. See September 14, 1854 ("Crossing Fair Haven, the reflections are very fine, prolonged by the ripples made by an east wind just risen. "); October 7, 1857 (" The effect of this prolongation of the reflection was a very pleasing softening and blending of the colors . . . reflected and re-reflected from ripple to ripple, losing brightness each time by the softest possible gradation, and tapering toward the beholder . . . This is one of the prettiest effects of the autumnal change.. . .The ripples convey the reflection toward us.")

Bats come out fifteen minutes after sunset. See September 4, 1854 ("Full moon; bats flying about; skaters and water bugs like sparks of fire on the surface between us and the moon."); September 7, 1854 ("The moon not yet risen, one star, Jupiter, visible, and many bats over and about our heads, and small skaters creating a myriad dimples on the evening waters.")

I hear some clear song sparrow strains. See September 24,1854 ("Hear from a willow by river a clear strain from a song sparrow!")

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

I am detained by

the bright red blackberry leaves

strewn along the sod.

At a distance a 

fox or an otter withdraws 

from the riverside.

A splendid sunset
all the colors prolonged in
rippled reflection.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At a distance a 

fox or an otter withdraws  from the riverside.

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-540925

A sudden and conspicuous fall aspect to the scenery of the river.

September 24

September 24, 2014

6 A. M. — To Hill. Low fog-like veil on meadows. On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups which have held fruit; and I see one or two elliptical but still green berries. Apparently the rest have ripened and fallen or been gathered by birds already, unless they fell prematurely.

Hear the flicker note. See a song-sparrow-like bird singing a confused low jingle. Afterward hear from a willow by river a clear strain from a song sparrow! 

The Viburnum Lentago berries now turn blue-black in pocket, as the nudum did, which last are now all gone, while the Lentago is now just in season.

P. M. —- By boat to Grape Cliff.

These are the stages in the river fall: first, the two varieties of yellow lily pads begin to decay and blacken (long ago); second, the first fall rains come after dog days and raise and cool the river, and winds wash the decaying sparganium, etc., etc., to the shores and clear the channel more or less; third, when the first harder frosts come (as this year the 21st and 22d inst), the button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts.

The first fall is so gradual as not to make much impression, but the last suddenly and conspicuously gives a fall aspect to the scenery of the river. The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim. There, where the land appears to lap over the water by a mere edging, these thinner portions are first done brown. 

I float over the still liquid middle. I have not seen any such conspicuous effect of frost as this sudden withering of the button-bushes.

The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed. It is now too cold to bathe with comfort. 

I scare up a duck which circles round four times high in the air a diameter of a. hundred rods, and finally alights with a long, slanting flight near where it rose. The muskrats make haste now to rear their cabins and conceal themselves. I see still what I, take to be small flocks of grackles feeding beneath the covert of the button-bushes and flitting from bush to bush. They seldom expose them-selves long. 

See a warbler which inquisitively approaches me creeper-wise along some dead brush twigs. It may be the pine-creeping warbler, though I see no white bars on wings. I should say all yellow olivaceous above; clear lemon-yellow throat and breast; narrow white ring around eye; black bill, straight; clay-colored legs; edge of wings white.

Young hickories, pretty generally, and some black oaks are frost-bitten, but no young white oaks. On the shrub oak plain under Cliffs, the young white oaks are generally now tending to a dull inward red. The ilicifolia generally green still, with a few yellowish or else scarlet leaves. The young black oaks with many red, scarlet, or yellowish leaves. The chinquapin pretty generally a clear brilliant dark red. The same with a few twigs of the scarlet oak, but not brilliant, i. e. glossy. The tupelo green, reddish, and brilliant scarlet, all together. The brightest hazel dim vermilion. Some red maple sprouts clear scarlet deepening to purplish. The panicled cornel green with a tinge of reddish purple. Only these young trees and bushes are yet conspicuously changed. 

The tupelo and the chinquapin the most brilliant of the above. The scarlet oak the clearest red. 

But little bright Solidago nemorosa is left. It is generally withered or dim. 

September 24, 2024

What name of a natural object is most poetic? That which he has given for convenience, whose life is most nearly related to it, who has known it longest and best.

The perception of truth, as of the duration of time, etc., produces a pleasurable sensation.

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

On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups. See September 3, 1856 ("I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. . . methinks, far from palatable.") See also September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

Hear the flicker note.  See October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring. "); December 9, 1858 ("At New Bedford. See a song sparrow and a pigeon woodpecker. ) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

Hear from a willow by river a clear strain from a song sparrow! September 25, 1854 (" I hear some clear song sparrow strains, as from a fence-post amid snows in early spring. "); September 30, 1854 ("The song sparrow is still about, and the blackbird.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown. See September 24, 1855 ("The button bushes pretty well browned with frost . . . their pale yellowish season past."); See also September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day . . . the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day, when the willows and button-bushes are a yellowed bower in parallel lines along the swollen and shining stream."); September 20, 1859 ("I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be"); September 20, 1855 ("First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves.")

The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed. It is now too cold to bathe with comfort. See September 5, 1854 ("This is a fall phenomenon. The river weeds, becoming rotten, though many are still green, fall or are loosened, the water rises, the winds come, and they are drifted to the shore, and the water is cleared."); August 9, 1855 ("River is risen and fuller, and the weeds at bathing-place washed away somewhat. Fall to them.")

The ilicifolia generally green still, with a few yellowish or else scarlet leaves. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); October 2, 1851 ("The shrub oaks on the terraced plain are now almost uniformly of a deep red"); October 7, 1857 ("Some shrub oaks are yellow, others reddish.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

But little bright Solidago nemorosa is left. It is generally withered or dim. See September 24, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, about done")

What name of a natural object is most poetic? See January 29, 1852 ("The names of plants are for the most part traced to Celtic and Arabian roots.");  August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? "); March 5, 1858 ("Our scientific names convey a very partial information only; they suggest certain thoughts only. It does not occur to me that there are other names for most of these objects, given by a people who stood between me and them, who had better senses than our race."); October 4, 1859 ("I do not get nearer by a hair's breadth to any natural object so long as I presume that I have an introduction to it from some learned man. To conceive of it with a total apprehension . . . you must approach the object totally unprejudiced You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be."); February 12, 1860 ("Natural objects and phenomena are in this sense forever wild and unnamed by us."); February 18, 1860 ("A name is at most a mere convenience and carries no information with it . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned. I think, therefore, that the best and most harmless names are those which are an imitation of the voice or note of an animal, or the most poetic ones.")

The perception of truth . . . produces a pleasurable sensation.See February 27, 1851 ("a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe.”); September 1851 (“There are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy; we reason from our hands to our head.”);  April 19 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled.");  August 8, 1852 ("No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him.”)

September 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 24

Suddenly withered

rich brown button-bushes now

paint the river’s brim.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Suddenly withered

rich brown button-bushes

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-540924

Redness on the face of the earth

September 23.

My pink azaleas which had lost their leaves in the drought are beginning to leave out again. 

Sept;mer 23, 2013

Low blackberry vines generally red. The high blueberry bushes scattered here and there, the higher islands in Beck Stow’s Swamp, begin to paint it bright-red. 

Now look out for redness on the face of the earth, such as is seen on the cheek of the sweet Viburnum, or as a frosty morning walk imparts to a man’s face.  Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered. 

Here is an end of its berries then. The hard frosts of the 21st and 22d have put an end to several kinds of plants, and probably berries, for this year.  After those frosts a day’s sun reveals what mischief the frost had done by the withering and blackened leaves. 

Many plants fall with the first frosts.  This is the crisis when many kinds conclude their summer.

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

The hard frosts of the 21st and 22d. See September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night, the grass white and stiff in the morning."); September 22. 1854 ("The frosts come to ripen the year, the days, like fruits.")

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

The summer concludes

with the crisis of first frosts –

the end of berries.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Redness on the face of the earth

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-540923