As the woods grow more silent

October 26. 

As warm as summer. Cannot wear a thick coat. Sit with windows open. 

I see considerable gossamer on the causeway and elsewhere. Is it the tree sparrows whose jingles I hear? 

As the weather grows cooler and the woods more silent, I attend to the cheerful notes of chickadees on their sunny sides. 

Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.

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

Sit with windows open. See October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week."); October 21, 1855 ("I sit with an open window, it is so warm.");  November 8, 1855 ("I can sit with my window open and no fire. Much warmer than this time last year."); October 10, 1856 ("This afternoon it is 80°, . . . I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night").

As the weather grows cooler and the woods more silent, I attend to the cheerful notes of chickadees. See October 10, 1851 ("The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter,in which it almost alone is heard.")