Wednesday, June 1, 2016

A Book of the Seasons: June 1 (summer begins, waving grass and buttercups, crickets, young birds, moonlight).



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 year has many
more seasons than recognized
in the almanac.

Buttercups blossom
in now luxuriant grass
this, the first of June.

Summer begins now
with expanded leaves and shade 
and the warm weather.

 Red-wing's nest, four eggs, 
low in a tuft of sedge in 
an open meadow. 
June 1, 1857

June 1, 2020

The year has many seasons more than are recognized in the almanac. June 1850

There is that time about the first of June, the beginning of summer, when the buttercups blossom in the now luxuriant grass. June 1850

Summer begins now about a week past, with the expanded leaves, the shade and warm weather. June 1, 1853

The first bloom of the year is over -- It is now the season of growth. June 1, 1853

Plants are rapidly growing, -- shooting. June 1, 1853

June-grass there well out. June 1, 1860


The birds have now all come and no longer fly in flocks. June 1, 1853

The hylodes are no longer heard. The bullfrogs begin to trump. June 1, 1853

I sit with window shut and walk with a thick coat, as yesterday. Do we not always have these changes about the first of June? June 1, 1854

The weather has been less reliable for a few weeks past than at any other season of the year. June 1, 1857

Thick and extensive fogs in the morning begin. June 1, 1853

A very windy day, the third, drowning the notes of birds, scattering the remaining apple blossoms. June 1, 1855

I hear the note of a bobolink concealed in the top of an apple tree behind me . . . His notes fall with the apple blossoms in the orchard. June 1, 1857

Most trees have bloomed and are now forming their fruit. June 1, 1853 

Young berries, too, are forming, and birds are being hatched.  June 1, 1860

A red-wing's nest, four eggs, low in a tuft of sedge in an open meadow. What Champollion can translate the hieroglyphics on these eggs? June 1, 1857

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. June 1, 1856

The nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs. June 1, 1859

This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees June 1, 1860

Add to this one red squirrel's nest of the same kind. June 1, 1860

Breams' nests begun at Hubbard's Grove shore. June 1, 1860

The barberry flower is now in prime, and it is very handsome with its wreaths of flowers. June 1, 1860

Many low blackberry flowers at Lee's Cliff. June 1, 1860


I see a swamp white fully and abundantly out, apparently a day or two; so the chestnut oak June 1, 1857

Linaria Canadensis
on Emerson Cliff. Rock-rose, a day or two there. June 1, 1856

I find the Linnaea borealis growing near the end of the ridge in this lot toward the meadow, near a large white pine stump recently cut. June 1, 1855

C. has found the arethusa out at Hubbard’s Close; say two or three days at a venture, there being considerable. June 1, 1855

Eleocharis palustris not quite open yesterday in river June 1, 1859

Hear my evergreen-forest note . . . I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head. June 1, 1854

This and the red-eye and wood pewee are singing now at mid day. June 1, 1854

Walking up this side-hill, I disturb a nighthawk eight or ten feet from me, which goes down the hill, half fluttering, half hopping, as far as I can see. June 1, 1853


To the Lee place, the moon about full. June 1, 1852

Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets. June 1, 1856

The sounds I hear by the bridge: the midsummer frog (I think it is not the toad), the nighthawk, crickets, the peetweet (it is early), the hum of dor-bugs, and the whip-poor-will. June 1, 1852

The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights.  June 1, 1852

June 1, 2016


*****



*****

The year has many seasons more than are recognized in the almanac. See May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); June 11, 1851 ("No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons."); December 5, 1856 ("I love best to have each thing in its season only") June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting"); October 26, 1857 ("My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike.") April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.")

Summer begins now with the expanded leaves, the shade and warm weather..
 See June 2, 1854 ("June meadows, edged by the cool shade of shrubs and trees, — a waving shore of shady bays and promontories, . . . These virgin shades of the year, when everything is tender, fresh and green, — how full of promise! ") June 4, 1860 ("You may say that now, the leafy season has fairly commenced. , , ,, making already a grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow.")

The first of June, the beginning of summer, when the buttercups blossom in the now luxuriant grass. See April 25, 1859 ("I got to-day and yesterday the first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail, summer-like. . . .It reminds you of the time, not far off, when you will see the dark shadows of the trees there and buttercups spotting the grass."); May 15, 1853 ("Yellow is the color of spring; red, of midsummer. Through pale golden and green we arrive at the yellow of the buttercup; through scarlet, to the fiery July red, the red lily."); May 23, 1853 ("And buttercups and silvery cinquefoil, and the first apple blossoms, and waving grass beginning to be tinged with sorrel, introduce us to a different season . . .At first we had the lighter, paler spring yellows of willows, dandelion, cinquefoil, then the darker and deeper yellow of the buttercup; and then this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July."); May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June. . . . The buttercups in the church-yard and on some hillsides are now looking more glossy and bright than ever after the rain."); May 28, 1851 ("The buttercups spot the churchyard."); May 30, 1857 ("Buttercups thickly spot the churchyard."); June 2, 1852 (“Buttercups now spot the churchyard.”); June 6, 1857 ("This is June, the month of grass and leaves.”); June 8, 1850 ("Not till June can the grass be said to be waving in the fields. When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun")  and note to May 27, 1855 (“The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave.”)

Some boys found the nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs. See June 13, 1859 ("My rail's egg of June 1st looks like that of the Virginia rail in the Boston collection"). See also September 7, 1858 (Storrow Higginson brings . . .some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, . . . So perhaps it breeds here. [Yes. Vide Sept. 9th. Vide Sept. 21st and Dec. 7th, and June 1st, 1859]”).

[S]eeing a shadow on the ground, look up and see the bird . . . now circling low and swiftly pass over my head, showing the white spot on each wing in true nighthawk fashion.
See June 5, 1854 ("Now, just be fore sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting. ") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

Plants are rapidly growing, -- shooting. See June 1, 1854 ("Within little more than a fortnight the woods, from bare twigs, have become a sea of verdure, and young shoots have contended with one another in the race"); and note to May 26, 1854 ("They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, . . . They are properly called shoots. ")

Arethusa at Hubbard's Close. See May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”); May 29, 1856 ("Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two.”).

The now more general creak of crickets.
. . . See May 18, 1860 ("The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week, - inaugurating the summer."); May 30, 1855 ("Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general?"); June 4, 1854 ("These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool. It is the iced-cream of song. It is modulated shade."); May 22, 1854 ("At Lee's Cliff. --First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. . . ."); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer."); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”).

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. See June 10, 1856 (“Chewink’s nest with four young in the dry sprout-land of Loring’s thick wood that was, under a completely overarching tuft of dry sedge grass.”); July 8, 1857 (“A chewink's nest with four young just hatched, at the bottom of the pyrola hollow and grove, where it is so dry, about seven feet southwest of a white pine.”)

Linaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. See May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.") [Linaria Canadensis: A native annual or biennial that prefers highly disturbed areas with sandy soils. Its attractive light-blue to blue-violet flowers have a white throat and a nectar spur. (Nuttallanthus canadensisis, Blue Toadflax,, Canada Toadflax. Old-field Toadflax)]

The chestnut oak . . . its young reddish leaves resemble the young Q. Chinquapin and its bloom, and apparently it opens with it in similar places.
See May 25, 1852 ("The chinquapin shrub oak is blossoming.")

A red-wing's nest, four eggs, . . .who determines the style of the marking?
See May 20, 1853 ("Probably a red-wing blackbird's nest, of grass, hung between two button-bushes; whitish eggs with irregular black marks"); May 25, 1855 ("Red-wing’s nest with four eggs — white, very faintly tinged with (perhaps) green and curiously and neatly marked with brown-black spots and lines on the large end.”); June 12, 1855 ("At mouth of Mill Brook, a red-wing’s nest tied on to that thick, high grass and some low willow, eighteen inches from ground, with four eggs variously marked, full of young.”) ; June 28, 1855 ('Two red-wings’ nests, four eggs and three —one without any black marks.")

What Champollion can translate the hieroglyphics on these eggs?
Jean-François Champollion was a French scholar, philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of egyptology. Wikipedia

I hear the note of a bobolink concealed in the top of an apple tree behind me . . . It is the foretaste of such strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which we should rush to our doors and contribute all that we possess and are.
See May 10, 1853 (“All at once a strain that sounds like old times and recalls a hundred associations. Not at once do I remember that a year has elapsed since I heard it, and then the idea of the bobolink is formed in my mind.”); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”); and note to May 12, 1856 (“We hear the first bobolink. . . How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! ”)

His notes fall with the apple blossoms in the orchard. See May 21. 1853 ("And while I hear the bobolink strain dying away in the distance through the maples, I can [ sic ] the falling apple blossoms which I do not see, as if they were his falling notes.")

June 1, 2017
(avesong)

The barberry flower is now in prime, and it is very handsome with its wreaths of flowers
. See May 29, 1852 ("Barberry in bloom. “); May 29, 1857 ("I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock,”)

Many low blackberry flowers at Lee's Cliff.
See May 25, 1857 (“Also low blackberry on the rocks a day or two.”); May 28, 1859 (“Low blackberry in bloom on railroad bank.”); June 2, 1852 (“ Low blackberry in bloom. ”); June 5, 1855 (“Low blackberry out in low ground”); June 16, 1858 (“How agreeable and wholesome the fragrance of the low blackberry blossom,”)

Breams' nests begun
. See June 6, 1855 (“I notice . . . two or three cleared or light-colored places, apparently bream-nests commenced.”); June 8, 1858 ("I see many breams’ nests”); June 11, 1856 (“See a bream’s nest two and a quarter feet diameter, laboriously scooped out, and the surrounding bottom for a diameter of eight feet (! !) comparatively white and clean”); June 26, 1857 (“Stand over a bream's nest close to the shore ”); July 1, 1852 (“From the bridge I see a bream's nest in soft sand on the edge of deeper water”); July 10, 1853 ("The bream poised over its sandy nest on waving fin”)

Three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees
. See April 25, 1860 (“Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squirrel's nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. I resolve that I too will find it.”); May 29, 1860 (“In another white pine near by, some thirty feet up it, I found a gray squirrel's nest, with young”); . See also January 24, 1856 (“That Wheeler swamp is a great place for squirrels. I observe many of their tracks along the riverside there. The nests are of leaves, and apparently of the gray species.”); March 6, 1856 (“ [A](probably) gray squirrel’s nest high in a pitch pine, and acorn shells about on it. ”); October 23, 1857 (“I see a squirrel's nest in a white pine, recently made, on the hillside near the witch-hazels.”); November 13, 1857 (“ I see, on a white oak on Egg Rock, where the squirrels have lately made a nest for the winter of the dry oak leaves . . . I suspect it is a gray squirrel's nest.”); May 31, 1858 (“go to see a gray squirrel's nest in the oak at the Island point. It is about fifteen feet from the ground,”); November 5, 1860 ([T]here are the nests of several gray squirrels in the trees.”)

Add to this one red squirrel's nest of the same kind
. See May 29, 1860 ("Some eighteen feet high in a white pine in a swamp in the oak meadow lot, I climbed to a red squirrel’s nest. . . . This was a mass of rubbish covered with sticks, such as I commonly see (against the main stem), but not so large as a gray squirrel’s . . . I have thus found three squirrels’ nests this year, two gray and one red, in these masses of twigs and leaves and bark exposed in the tree-tops and not in a hollow tree, and methinks this is the rule and not the exception.")

The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights. See August 12, 1851 ("The traveller’s whole employment is to calculate what cloud will obscure the moon and what she will triumph over.")

June 1, 2021
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.

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 1
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

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