A Book of the Seasons: July 16. (midsummer moods, basswood in bloom, yellow butterflies, yellow flowers, devil's needles, blueberries ripe, milkweed, wood thrush, walking at night)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

July 16

What kind of life and 

cool deliberation dwells 

in a spark of fire? 

Every man carries 

fire in his eye or in his 

blood or in his brain. 

July 16, 1850 

A pleasure a joy

an existence which I have

not procured myself.

July 16, 1851

Dark-blue winding stripe

green meadow dark-green forest

blue dark and white sky.

July 16, 1851

A still thoughtful day.

The air is full of sweetness,

the tree -- poetry.

July 16, 1852

Dog-dayish – a damp

earthy mildewy scent to

the ground in wood-paths.

July 16, 1854

July 16, 2018

It is an air this afternoon that makes you indifferent to all things, - perfect summer, but with a comfortable breeziness. . . .you fear no rain to-day. You know not heat nor cold. What season of the year is this? July 16, 1851

We had grand views of the Franconia Mountains from Campton, and were surprised by the regular pyramidal form of most of the peaks, including Lafayette, which we had ascended. July 16, 1858

On the mountains, especially at Tuckerman’s Ravine, the notes even of familiar birds sounded strange to me. I hardly knew the wood thrush and veery and oven-bird at first. They sing differently there. July 16, 1858

About the mountains were wilder and rarer birds, more or less arctic, like the vegetation. I did not even hear the robin on them, and when I had left them a few miles behind, it was a great change and surprise to hear the lark, the wood pewee, the robin, and the bobolink. July 16, 1858

And now I hear the wood thrush from the shade, who loves these pine woods as well as I. July 16, 1851

The color of the cows on Fair Haven Hill, how fair a contrast to the hillside! How striking and wholesome their clean brick-red! When were they painted? How carelessly the eye rests on them, or passes them by as things of course! July 16, 1851

The river is a dark-blue winding stripe amid the green of the meadow. July 16, 1851

 What is the color of the world? Green mixed with yellowish and reddish for hills and ripe grass, and darker green for trees and forests; blue spotted with dark and white for sky and clouds, and dark blue for water. July 16, 1851

July 16, 2015

Methinks this is the first of dog-days. The air in the distance has a peculiar blue mistiness, or furnace-like look July 16, 1851

After the late rains and last night's fog, it is somewhat dog-dayish, and there is a damp, earthy, mildewy scent to the ground in wood-paths. July 16, 1854

I walk through these elevated fields, terraced upon the side of the hill so that my eye looks off into the blue cauldron of the air at his own level. July 16, 1851

The bass on Conantum is a very rich sight now, a solid mass of verdure and of flowers with its massed and rounded outline.  July 16, 1852 

The tree resounds with the hum of bees, -- bumblebees and honey-bees; rose-bugs and butterflies, also, are here,-- a perfect susurrus, a sound unlike any other in nature. July 16, 1852

The elder-blow fills the air with its scent. July 16, 1851

The twittering of swallows is in the air, reminding me of water. July 16, 1851

The devil's-needles seem to rest in air over the water.  July 16, 1851

Methinks there were most devil's-needles a month ago. July 16, 1854

I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed. . .; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored.July 16, 1851

Many yellow butterflies and red on clover and yarrow. July 16, 1854

Woodcock by side of Walden in woods. July 16, 1854

Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings? July 16, 1854

St.John's-wort, one of the first of yellow flowers, begins to shine along the roadside.  July 16, 1851

Solidago nemoralis yesterday. July 16, 1854

The Polygala sanguinea heads in the grass look like sugar-plums. July 16, 1854

The milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch. July 16, 1857

Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them.  July 16, 1857

Aralia nudicaulis berries well ripe.  July 16, 1854

I hear of the first early blueberries brought to market. What a variety of rich blues their berries present, i. e. the earliest kind! Some are quite black and without bloom. What innocent flavors!  July 16, 1857

Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies, winged sparks of fire! who would have believed it?  July 16, 1850 

What kind of life and cool deliberation dwells in a spark of fire in dewy abodes? Every man carries fire in his eye, or in his blood, or in his brain July 16, 1850 

I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself, — I said to others, — " There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and [I] have had nought to do with it. I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers." This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself. July 16, 1851

This is a still thoughtful day, the air full of vapors which shade the earth, preparing rain for the morrow. The air is full of sweetness. The tree is full of poetry. July 16, 1852

July 16, 2013

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberry

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Milkweed.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Polygala

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Devil's-needle

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Savannah Sparrow (Fringilla savanna)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wood  Thrush
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Woodcock

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moods

See also A Body Awake in the World

July 16, 2015

***** 

June 4, 1858 ("It is remarkable how, as you are leaving a mountain and looking back at it from time to time, it gradually gathers up its slopes and spurs to itself into a regular whole, and makes a new and total impression")

June 15, 1851 ("I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The bird begins on a low strain, i. e. it first delivers a strain on a lower key, then a moment after another a little higher, then another still varied from the others, — no two successive strains alike, either ascending or descending.") 

June 19, 1860 ("The devil's-needles now abound in wood-paths and about the Ripple Lakes.")

June 23, 1853 ("Devil's-needles of various kinds abundant, . . .thousands of devil's-needles of all sizes hovering over the surface of this shallow pond in the woods,. "); See also 

July 5, 1853 ("Such a habit have cows in a pasture of moving forward while feeding that, in surveying on the Great Fields to-day, I was interrupted by a herd of a dozen cows, which successively passed before my line of vision, feeding forward, and I had to watch my opportunity to look between them.")
July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday. ")
July 11, 1852; ("The bass on Conantum is now well in blossom. It probably commenced about the 9th. Its flowers are conspicuous for a tree, and a rather agreeable odor fills the air. The tree resounds with the hum of bees on the flowers. On the whole it is a rich sight.”)
July 11, 1857 (“Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum ripe. Their dark blue with a bloom is a color that surprises me. ”)

July 12, 1851 ("This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn had commenced.")

July 13, 1852 ("of the very early blueberries at least two varieties, one glossy black with dark-green leaves, the other a rich light blue with bloom and yellowish-green leaves")
July 13, 1853 ("Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also  . . . Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two. ")
July 13, 1854 (“The V. Pennsylvanicum . . .with its fine light-blue bloom, very handsome, simple and ambrosial.”) 

July 14, 1851 ("If I take the same walk by moonlight an hour later or earlier in the evening, it is as good as a different one. I love the night for its novelty; it is less prophaned than the day.  ")

July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road”)

July 14, 1854 ("The cooler and stiller day has a valuable effect on my spirits.")

July 15, 1854 ("There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now. ")

July 17, 1854 (" I was surprised by the loud humming of bees, etc., etc., in the bass tree; thought it was a wind rising at first. .")
July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore. . .; also yellow butterflies ")
July 17, 1856 (" It is 5 P. M. The wood thrush begins to sing")
July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”)
July 18, 1854 ("At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms. . . .You will know if you pass within a few rods of a bass tree at this season in any part of the town, by this loud murmur, like a water fall, which proceeds from it.”)
July 18, 1860 (" The Asclepias Cornutiis abundantly visited nowadays by a large orange-brown butterfly with dark spots and with silver spots beneath. Wherever the asclepias grows you see them.")
July 19, 1851 ("The butterflies have swarmed within these few days, especially about the milkweeds.")

July 19, 1856 ("Fleets of yellow butterflies on road.") 

July 19, 1851  ("And beyond the bridge there is a goldenrod partially blossomed.  Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us.")

July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night.")

July 20, 1852 (" It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked. Now the first whip-poor- will sings hollowly in the dark pitch pine wood on Bear Garden Hill. And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.")

July 22, 1853 ("Yellow butterflies in the road");

July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places.") 

 July 27, 1852  (" I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered; she makes nothing red.")

August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where . . . sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are.")

October 20, 1854 ("Soon after sunrise I saw the pyramidal shadow of the mountain reaching quite across the State")

October 22, 1857 ("I look up northwest toward my mountains, . . . See how they look. They are shaped like tents, inclining to sharp peaks.. . .They are a succession of pickets with scallops between.")

July 16, 2017

Air full of sweetness.

The tree full of poetry.

A still thoughtful day.

July 16, 1852

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

July 15 < <<<<<  July 16 >>>>> July 17

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 16

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 ©  2009-2022