A Book of the Seasons: October 3.

October 3.

A wild sound heard far,
suited to the wildest lake.
Laughing of a loon.
October 3, 1852

These lit glowing leaves
by the dry stony shore of
this cool and deep well.
October 3, 1856

Maples of all tints,
clear pale yellow black birches
on the southwest side.
October 3, 1858

,

Serene as the sky,

emulating nature with

calm and peaceful lives.

October 3, 1859

See about the pond
clear pale yellow black birches,
maples of all tints.
October 3, 1858

Cooler, autumnal.
You incline to sit in a
sunny sheltered place.
October 3, 1859

A great many leaves have fallen and the trees begin to look thin. You incline to sit in a sunny and sheltered place. This season, the fall which the have now entered on, commenced, I may say, as long ago as when the first frost was seen and felt in low ground in August. From that time, even, the year has been gradually winding up its accounts. October 3, 1859



Have noticed a very brilliant scarlet blackberry patch within a week.October 3, 1858


The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish. October 3, 1852


The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. October 3, 1856
White pines fairly begin to change. October 3, 1858

The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron. October 3, 1857

The sumachs are generally crimson (darker than scarlet), and young trees and bushes by the water and meadows are generally beginning to glow red and yellow. October 3, 1856

The red maples which changed first, along the river, are now faded and partly fallen. They look more pink. But others are lit, and so there is more color than before. Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd. October 3, 1858



The maples about Walden are quite handsome now. . . .About the pond I see maples of all their tints, and black birches (on the southwest side) clear pale yellow; and on the peak young chestnut clumps and walnuts are considerably yellowed. .October 3, 1858

Especially the hillsides about Walden begin to wear these autumnal tints in the cooler air. These lit leaves, this glowing, bright-tinted shrubbery, is in singular harmony with the dry, stony shore of this cool and deep well. October 3, 1856


Looking all around Fair Haven Pond yesterday, where the maples were glowing amid the evergreens, my eyes invariably rested on a particular small maple of the purest and intensest scarlet. October 3, 1858






I see the ground strewn with Populus grandidentata leaves in one place on the old Carlisle road, where one third are fallen. These yellow leaves are all thickly brown-spotted and are very handsome. . .— they cover the still green sward by the roadside and the gray road thick as a pavement, each one worthy to be admired as a gem or work of Oriental art. October 3, 1859


The hard frost of September 28th, 29th, and 30th, and especially of October 1st, has suddenly killed, crisped, and caused to fall a great many leaves of ash, hickory, etc., etc. October 3, 1860

Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. October 3, 1852

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. October 3, 1852

See Vanessa Antiopa. October 3, 1860


Bay-wings about. October 3, 1860

I see on a wall a myrtle-bird in its October dress, looking very much like a small sparrow. October 3, 1859


I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began. October 3, 1860

Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now. October 3, 1857
The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray... October 3, 1852
A fringed gentian, plucked day before yesterday, at length, this forenoon, untwists and turns its petals partially, in my chamber. October 3, 1858

Viola lanceolata in Moore's Swamp.  October 3, 1853

*****

September 17, 1858 (“Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden”)

September 19, 1852 ("The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again, and the lambkill."); September 20, 1852 ("The Viola sagittata has blossomed again.")

September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers.");

September 23, 1851 ("I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.");
September 23, 1854 ("Low blackberry vines generally red. ")
September 25, 1854 ("I am detained by the very bright red blackberry leaves strewn along the sod")

September 25, 1857 (“A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar.”); 

September 26, 1854 ("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. ")

September 26, 1858 (“Now is the time, too, when flocks of sparrows begin to scour over the weedy fields,”)

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 (“At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum.”)
September 27, 1858 ("What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns?”)

September 28, 1852 (" I find the hood-leaved violet quite abundant in a meadow, and the pedata in the Boulder Field. I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring")

 September 28, 1853 ("Viola cucullata")

September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”)
October 1, 1860.(“C. saw the first Vanessa Antiopa since spring.”)
October 1, 1860 ("Remarkable frost and ice this morning . . . I do not remember such cold at this season.")

October 1, 1858 ("Viola lanceolata again.")

October 1, 1858 ("The fringed gentians are now in prime. . . .They who see them closed, or in the afternoon only, do not suspect their beauty.")
October 1, 1852 ("The young and tender trees begin to assume the autumnal tints more generally,"); October 1, 1854 ("The young black birches about Walden, next the south shore, are now commonly clear pale yellow, very distinct at distance, like bright-yellow white birches, so slender amid the dense growth of oaks and evergreens on the steep shores. ")
October 2, 1853 ("The smooth sumach is but a dull red. ")
October 2, 1852 ("How much more beautiful the lakes now, like Fair Haven, surrounded by the autumn-tinted woods and hills, as in an ornamented frame!")
October 2, 1852 ("A great many red maples are merely yellow; more, scarlet, in some cases deepening to crimson")
October 2, 1852 ("Some maples in sprout-lands are of a delicate, pure, clear, unspotted red, inclining to crimson, surpassing most flowers. I would fain pluck the whole tree and carry it home for a nosegay.")

October 2, 1851 ("Some of the white pines on Fair Haven Hill have just reached the acme of their fall; others have almost entirely shed their leaves, and they are scattered over the ground and the walls.")
. October 2, 1856 ("Solidago bicolor considerably past prime")
October 2, 1856 ("The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally. )
. October 2, 1857("A great many red maples are merely yellow; more, scarlet, in some cases deepening to crimson")
October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered")
.October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively")
October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings.")
October 2, 1859 ("The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce.")

October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus")
October 5, 1858 (“I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”)
October 5, 1853 ("The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds like a loon on the pond. How fit”)
October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path.")

October 8, 1852 ("after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself.”)

October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)
October 9, 1858 (“Bay-wings flit along road.”)

October 10, 1853 ("There are . . . large flocks of small sparrows, which make a business of washing and pruning themselves in the puddles in the road, as if cleaning up after a long flight and the wind of yesterday.”)

October 10, 1851 ("There are many things to indicate the renewing of spring at this season")

October 11, 1856 (“Bay-wing sparrows numerous.”)
October 12, 1859 (“ I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences.”)

 October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.")

 November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom")

 November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")

November 9, 1850 (" I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen.")

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 © 2009-2019