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
The wind from the north
turns up the white lily pads
so that they look red.
The summer concludes
with the crisis of first frosts –
the end of berries.
September 23, 2013
The sumach are among the reddest leaves at present. September 23, 1851
I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow (Hubbard's), more full and bright than any flower. September 23, 1852
The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening. September 23, 1852
The ash is just beginning to turn. September 23, 1852
The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day. September 23, 1852
The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening. September 23, 1852
The ash is just beginning to turn. September 23, 1852
The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day. September 23, 1852
The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red, and their stems are slanted up-stream. September 23, 1852
A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. September 23, 1852
A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. September 23, 1852
Those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above. September 23, 1860
The woodbine high on trees in the shade a delicate pink. September 23, 1852
The barberry bushes in Clematis Hollow are very beautiful now, with their wreaths of red or scarlet fruit drooping over a rock. September 23, 1852
The high blueberry bushes scattered here and there, the higher islands in Beck Stow’s Swamp, begin to paint it bright-red. September 23, 1854
I find huckleberries on Conantum still sound and blackening the bushes. September 23, 1852
The fox eats huckleberries and so contributes very much to the dispersion of this shrub, for there were a number of entire berries in its dung in both the last two I chanced to notice . . . Like ourselves, he likes two courses, rabbit and huckleberries. September 23, 1860
Low blackberry vines generally red. September 23, 1854
Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered. September 23, 1854
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. September 23, 1854
Many plants fall with the first frosts. This is the crisis when many kinds conclude their summer. September 23, 1854
I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden. September 23, 1851
Small sparrows, with yellow on one side above eye in front and white belly, . . . crown divided by a light line. September 23, 1855
A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a.willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler? September 23, 1855
The sarothra in bloom. September 23, 1852
The forget-me-not still. September 23, 1852
Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods. September 23, 1857
I see yellow pine-sap, in the woods just east of where the beeches used to stand, just done, but the red variety is very common and quite fresh generally there. September 23, 1857
Red pine-sap by north side of Yew Path some ten rods east of yew, not long done. The root of the freshest has a decided checkerberry scent, and for a long time — a week after — in my chamber, the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness. September 23, 1860
I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two. September 23, 1855.
When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all. September 23, 1858
When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. September 23, 1858
We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest. September 23, 1858
Donati’s Comet 1858
After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town. September 23, 1858
How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon than one would expect! September 23, 1852
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pine-sap and Tobacco-pipe
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Common Barberry
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Geese in Autumn
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight
*****
September 23, 2013
*****
The red undersides
of the white lily pads
exposed by the wind.
June 29, 1852
of the white lily pads
exposed by the wind.
June 29, 1852
August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”)
August 14, 1856 (“Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed.”)
August 23, 1858 (“See an abundance of pine-sap on the right of Pine-sap Path.”)
August 24,1854 ("The bright crimson-red undersides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)
August 25, 1859 ("I see, after the rain, when the leaves are rustling and glistening in the cooler breeze and clear air, quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden")
September 1, 1854 (" A still, cloudy, misty day, through which has fallen a very little rain this forenoon already. Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden.")
September 9, 1857 (“C. brings me a small red hypopitys. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent”)
September 13, 1857 (“Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant, . . ."The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.”)
September 15, 1851 ("Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot.”)
September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides.”)
September 17, 1858 ("Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden,")
September 22, 1854 ("The frosts come to ripen the year, the days, like fruits.")
September 25, 1859 ("The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered. . . and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it.")
October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings")
October 6, 1857 (“I see a great quantity of hypopitys, now all sere, along the path in the woods beyond. Call it Pine-Sap Path. It seems to have been a favorable season for it”);
October 9, 1851 ("Heard two screech owls in the night")
October 14, 1858 ("On the top of Ball’s Hill, nearly half-way its length, the red pine-sap, quite fresh, apparently not long in bloom, the flower recurved. As last year, I suspect that this variety is later than the yellowish one, of which I have seen none for a long time.")
November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.")
November 25, 1857 ("Methinks there has been more pine-sap than usual the past summer.")
September 23, 2017
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 23A 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
tinyurl.com/HDT23September
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