Small yellow apples
hanging over the road, branches
gracefully drooping.
October 24, 1852
High winds just after dark,
some fear to go to bed lest
the roof be blown off.
The rich yellow and
scarlet leaves of the sugar
maple on the Common
now thickly cover
the grass in great circles
about the trees, and,
half having fallen,
look like the reflection of
the trees in water.
light up the Common,
reflecting light even to
surrounding houses.
October 24, 1855The rich yellow and
scarlet leaves of the sugar
maple on the Common
now thickly cover
the grass in great circles
about the trees and --
half having fallen --
look like the reflection of
the trees in water
lighting up the Common
reflecting light even to the
surrounding houses.
This northeast storm warns
the approach of winter and
speeds geese on their way.
October is the
red sunset sky, November
the later twilight.
of the goldenrods, so fine
we do not notice.
October 24, 1860
October 24, 2015
Another Indian-summer day. October 24, 1852
It has rained all day, filling the streams. October 24, 1853
Just after dark, high southerly winds arise, but very warm, blowing the rain against the windows and roof and shaking the house. October 24, 1853
Rained last night and all this day for the most part, bringing down the leaves, buttonwoods and sugar maples, in the street. October 24, 1855
Rain last night, raising the springs a little. To-day and yesterday still, gray days, but not cold. October 24, 1857
A northeast storm, though not much rainfalls to-day, but a fine driving mizzle or “drisk.” October 24, 1858
This, as usual, brings the geese, and at 2.30 P. M. I see two flocks go over. . . . A great many must go over to-day and also alight in this neighborhood. This weather warns them of the approach of winter, and this wind speeds them on their way. October 24, 1858
This, as usual, brings the geese, and at 2.30 P. M. I see two flocks go over. . . . A great many must go over to-day and also alight in this neighborhood. This weather warns them of the approach of winter, and this wind speeds them on their way. October 24, 1858
The gentle touch of the rain brings down more leaves than the wind. October 24, 1855
This rain and wind too bring down the leaves very fast. October 24, 1858
Some trees lose their lower leaves first, as birches and locusts; some the upper, as apples (though a few green leaves may remain on the very tips of the twigs) and generally maples, though the last fall fast. October 24, 1858
The sugar maple leaves are now falling fast. October 24, 1857
The rich yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maple on the Common now thickly cover the grass in great circles about the trees, and, half having fallen, look like the reflection of the trees in water lighting up the Common, reflecting light even to the surrounding houses. October 24, 1855
The yard is strewn with the yellow leaves of the peach and the orange and scarlet ones of the cherry. You could not spread a cloth but it would soon be strewn with them. October 24, 1858
People are busy raking the leaves before their houses; some put them over their strawberries. October 24, 1853
The brilliant autumnal colors are red and yellow and the various tints, hues, and shades of these. October 24, 1858
The very forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth as it were, must acquire a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness, as if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with ever one cheek toward the sun. October 24, 1858
Blue is reserved to be the color of the sky, but yellow and red are the colors of the earth flower. October 24, 1858
Every fruit, on ripening, and just before its fall, acquires a bright tint. So do the leaves; so the sky before the end of the day, and the year near its setting. October 24, 1858
Color stands for all ripeness and success. October 24, 1858
We are wont to forget that an immense harvest which we do not eat, hardly use at all, is annually ripened by nature. . . .but round about and within our towns there is annually another show of fruits, on an infinitely grander scale, fruits which address our taste for beauty alone. October 24, 1858
The road through the woods this side the powder- mills was very gorgeous with the sun shining endwise through it, and the red tints of the deciduous trees, now somewhat imbrowned, mingled with the liquid green of the pines. October 24, 1852
Catnip fresh and green and in bloom. October 24, 1853
Hedge-mustard still fresh and in bloom. October 24, 1853
Barberries green, reddish, or scarlet. October 24, 1853
Waxwork shows red. October 24, 1853
The scarlet oak, which was quite green the 12th, is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. . . . is now in its glory. Look at one, completely changed from green to bright dark-scarlet, every leaf, as if it had been dipped into a scarlet dye, between you and the sun. Was not this worth waiting for? October 24, 1858
The deep reds and scarlets and purples show exposure to the sun. October 24, 1858
Cranberry beds at distance in meadows (from hill) are red, for a week or more. October 24, 1853
I see an intensely scarlet high blueberry— but where one leaf has overlapped another it is yellow — with a regular outline. October 24, 1858
The rock maple leaves a clear yellow; now and then [one] shows some blood in its veins, and blushes. October 24, 1853
The larches in the swamps are now conspicuously yellow and ready for their fall. They can now be distinguished at a distance. October 24, 1852
Larch yellow. October 24, 1853
Lombardy poplar yellow. October 24, 1853
Golden willow with yellow leaves. October 24, 1853
In sheltered woods you [see] some dicksonia still straw-color or pale-yellow. Some thoroughwort the same color. In the shade generally you find paler and more delicate tints, fading to straw-color and white. October 24, 1858
I saw in Stow some trees fuller of apples still than I remember to have ever seen. Small yellow apples hanging over the road. . . . The topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions. October 24, 1852
I read of an apple tree in this neighborhood that had blossomed again about a week ago. October 24, 1857
Celtis almost bare, with greenish-yellow leaves at top. October 24, 1853
The celtis has just fallen. Its leaves were apparently a yellow green. October 24, 1858
Locusts half bare, with greenish-yellow leaves. October 24, 1853
The locusts are bare except the tops, and in this respect those on the hills, at least, are as peculiar as birches. October 24, 1858
Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. October 24, 1853
Hickories are two thirds fallen, at least. October 24, 1858
White thorns bare, and berries mostly fallen, reddening the ground. October 24, 1853
Thorns and balm-of-Gilead and red mulberries bare. October 24, 1858
The sassafras trees are bare, — how long ? — and the white ash apparently just bared. October 24, 1858
Button-woods half bare. October 24, 1853
Black willows bare. October 24, 1853
Most alders by river bare except at top. October 24, 1853
The andromeda is already browned, has a grayish-brown speckled look. October 24, 1852
There is an agreeable prospect from near the post-office in the northwest of Sudbury. October 24, 1852
The Populus grandidentata and sugar maple . . .have lost the greater part of their leaves.) October 24, 1858
Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape. October 24, 1853
Countless downy thistle-like seeds of the goldenrods, so fine that we do not notice them in the air, cover our clothes like dust. No wonder they spread over all fields and far in to the woods. October 24, 1860
The southeast ( ?) horizon is very distant, — but what perhaps makes it more agreeable, it is a low distance, — extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. October 24, 1852
You are more impressed with the extent of earth overlooked than if the view were bounded by mountains. October 24, 1852
Surely, then, while geese fly overhead we can live here as contentedly as they do at York Factory on Hudson’s Bay. We shall perchance be as well provisioned and have as good society as they. Let us be of good cheer, then, and expect the annual vessel which brings the spring to us without fail. October 24, 1858
We think of vessels on the coast, and shipwrecks, and how this will bring down the remaining leaves and to-morrow morning the street will be strewn with rotten limbs of the elms amid the leaves and puddles, and some loose chimney or crazy building will have fallen. October 24, 1853
I get a couple of quarts of chestnuts by patiently brushing the thick beds of leaves aside with my hand in successive concentric circles till I reach the trunk; more than half under one tree. October 24, 1857
As I go stooping and brushing the leaves aside by the hour, I am not thinking of chestnuts merely, but I find myself humming a thought of more significance. October 24, 1857
This occupation affords a certain broad pause and opportunity to start again afterward, – turn over a new leaf. October 24, 1857
I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. October 24, 1857
I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts. October 24, 1852
At the fall on the river at Parker's paper-mill, there is a bright sparkle on the water long before we get to it. October 24, 1852
It is very dark withal, so that I can hardly find my way to a neighbor's. October 24, 1853
That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window. October 24, 1858
Some fear to go to bed, lest the roof be blown off. October 24, 1853
We have dreamed that the hero should carry his color aloft, as a symbol of the ripeness of his virtue. October 24, 1858
The noblest feature, the eye, is the fairest colored, the jewel of the body. The warrior’s flag is the flower which precedes his fruit. October 24, 1858
He unfurls his flag to the breeze with such confidence and brag as the flower its petals. Now we shall see what kind of fruit will succeed. October 24, 1858
October 24, 2015
October 24, 2021
October 24, 2021
October 23, 1853 ("It is the season of fuzzy seeds, — goldenrods, everlasting, senecio, asters, epilobium, etc., etc.")
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 © 2009-2017
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