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
Now is the time for
the fresh light green shoots spotting
the dark green hemlocks.
Red lady’s-slippers
with two broad curving green leaves
rejoicing in June.
June 5, 1856
Hear the cool night rain
and the peeping of hylodes –
my open window.
June 5, 1860
May is the bursting into leaf and early flowering, with much coolness and wet and a few decidedly warm days, ushering in summer; June, verdure and growth with not intolerable, but agreeable, heat. June 5, 1853
The world now full of verdure and fragrance and the air comparatively clear (not yet the constant haze of the dog-days), through which the distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wet green, full of fresh grass, and
The world now full of verdure and fragrance and the air comparatively clear (not yet the constant haze of the dog-days), through which the distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wet green, full of fresh grass, and
the trees in their first
beautiful, bright, untarnished
and unspotted green.
June 5, 1853
 |
| June 5, 2017 |
Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill, it seemed to me that the atmosphere was never so full of fragrance and spicy odors. . . . The air seemed filled with the odor of ripe strawberries, though it is quite too early for them. The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell. June 5, 1850
I am interested in each contemporary plant in my vicinity, and have attained to a certain acquaintance with the larger ones. They are cohabitants with me of this part of the planet, and they bear familiar names. Yet how essentially wild they are! as wild, really, as those strange fossil plants whose impressions I see on my coal. June 5, 1857
The fresh light green shoots of the hemlocks have now grown half an inch or an inch, spotting the trees, contrasting with the dark green of last year's foliage. June 5, 1853
The fresh light green shoots of the hemlocks have now grown half an inch or an inch, spotting the trees, contrasting with the dark green of last year's foliage. June 5, 1853
Hemlock bead-work handsome, but hardly yet large ones. June 5, 1860
Pitch pine out, the first noticed on low land, maybe a day or two. Froth on pitch pine. June 5, 1856
The young pitch pines in Mason's pasture are a glorious sight, now most of the shoots grown six inches, so soft and blue-green, nearly as wide as high. It is nature's front yard. June 5, 1853
The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. June 5, 1854
Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. June 5, 1854
Some apparent beach plum (?) almost completely out of bloom, ten to twelve feet high, along the wall behind Adolphus Clark's. This is the largest I know of. June 5, 1857
The mocker-nuts on Mrs. Ripley's hill apparently a day or more. June 5, 1857
Pitch pine out, the first noticed on low land, maybe a day or two. Froth on pitch pine. June 5, 1856
The young pitch pines in Mason's pasture are a glorious sight, now most of the shoots grown six inches, so soft and blue-green, nearly as wide as high. It is nature's front yard. June 5, 1853
The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. June 5, 1854
Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. June 5, 1854
Some apparent beach plum (?) almost completely out of bloom, ten to twelve feet high, along the wall behind Adolphus Clark's. This is the largest I know of. June 5, 1857
The mocker-nuts on Mrs. Ripley's hill apparently a day or more. June 5, 1857
Green oak-balls. June 5, 1855
Pincushion gall on oak. June 5, 1857
Clasping hound's-tongue in garden. June 5, 1858
Can our second gooseberry in garden be the R. rotundifolium? June 5, 1858
Cat-briar in flower, how long? . June 5, 1859
The new white maple leaves look reddish, and at a distance brown, as if they had not put out yet. June 5, 1859
Some red maples are much more fertile than others. Their keys are now very conspicuous. But such trees have comparatively few leaves and have grown but little as yet. June 5, 1857
The larch cones are still very beautiful against the light, but some cones, I perceive, are merely green. June 5, 1857
The larch cones appear not so red yet as they will be. June 5, 1852
The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more important because it occurs in such extensive patches, . . ., and of such a pleasing variety of colors, - purple, pink, or lilac, and white, - especially with the sun on it, when the transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. June 5, 1852
It paints a whole hillside with its blue, . . .. Its leaf was made to be covered with dewdrops. June 5, 1852
No other flowers exhibit so much blue. That is the value of the lupine. The earth is blued with them. June 5, 1852
Pincushion gall on oak. June 5, 1857
Clasping hound's-tongue in garden. June 5, 1858
Can our second gooseberry in garden be the R. rotundifolium? June 5, 1858
Cat-briar in flower, how long? . June 5, 1859
The new white maple leaves look reddish, and at a distance brown, as if they had not put out yet. June 5, 1859
Some red maples are much more fertile than others. Their keys are now very conspicuous. But such trees have comparatively few leaves and have grown but little as yet. June 5, 1857
The larch cones are still very beautiful against the light, but some cones, I perceive, are merely green. June 5, 1857
The larch cones appear not so red yet as they will be. June 5, 1852
The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more important because it occurs in such extensive patches, . . ., and of such a pleasing variety of colors, - purple, pink, or lilac, and white, - especially with the sun on it, when the transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. June 5, 1852
It paints a whole hillside with its blue, . . .. Its leaf was made to be covered with dewdrops. June 5, 1852
No other flowers exhibit so much blue. That is the value of the lupine. The earth is blued with them. June 5, 1852
When the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons. June 5, 1850
Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves. June 5, 1856
The common cerastium is in tufts, spreading, a darker green and much larger, hairy but not glutinous, pods but little longer than calyx (as yet) and upright. June 5, 1856
I find one Vaccinium Oxycoccus open. The petals are not white like the common, but pink like the bud. June 5, 1857
That low reedy sedge about the edge of the central pool in the swamp is just out of bloom and shows the seeds. June 5, 1857
Ranunculus repens in prime. June 5, 1855
Some oxalis done, say two or three days, on ditch bank. June 5, 1855
Yellow clover well out some days. June 5, 1855
Yellow Bethlehem-star in prime. . June 5, 1855
Aphyllon, or orobanche, well out apparently several days. June 5, 1855
Nuphar Kalmiana budded above water. June 5, 1855
Green-briar flower out apparently two or three days. June 5, 1855
Golden senecio is not uncommon now. June 6, 1858
Low blackberry out in low ground. June 5, 1855
June 5, 2018
Lamb-kill. June 5, 1857
The sidesaddle- flowers. June 5, 1852
Side-flowering sandwort apparently three days out in Clamshell flat meadow .June 5, 1855
Common cress well out along river June 5, 1855
Flowering ferns, reddish-green, show on meadows. June 5, 1855
Achillea Millefolium. Black cherry, apparently yesterday. June 5,
A bird, probably a song sparrow. . . flew up from between my feet, and I soon found its nest remarkably concealed. It was under the thickest of the dry river wreck, with an entry low on one side, full five inches long and very obscure. On looking close I detected the eggs from above by looking down through some openings in the wreck about as big as sparrows’ eggs, through which I saw the eggs, five in number. I never saw the nest so perfectly concealed. June 5, 1855 f
A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine on the old north edge of the desert, lined with root-fibres. The bird utters its peculiar tchuck near by. June 5, 1856
A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, eight feet from ground, next to the stem, of twigs lined with root-fibres; three fresh eggs, dark dull greenish, with dusky spots equally distributed all over, . . . . Jay screams as usual. Sat till I got within ten feet at first. June 5, 1856
A yellowbird's nest; four eggs, developed. June 5, 1859
Pigeon woodpecker's nest in a hollow black willow over river; six eggs, almost hatched.
A cuckoo’s nest with three light bluish-green eggs partly developed, short with rounded ends, nearly of a size; in the thicket up railroad this side high wood, in a black cherry that had been lopped three feet from ground, amid the thick sprouts; a nest of nearly average depth (?), of twigs lined with green leaves, pine needles, etc., and edged with some dry, branchy weeds. The bird stole off silently at first. Five rods south of railroad. June 5, 1856
The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine, and shows white rump (?), etc., unlike kingbird June 5, 1856.
I see a great many tortoises in that pool [of Gowings swamp], showing their heads and backs above water and pursuing each other about the pool. It is evidently their copulating-season. Their shells are yellow-spotted, and their throats are of a reddish yellow . Are they the Emys guttata. . .. You would think it almost the labor of a lifetime for a tortoise to make its way from the surrounding shrubbery to this water, and how do they know that there is water here? June 5, 1857
I now see a painted turtle in a rut, crossing a sandy road. They are now laying, then. When they get into a rut they find it rather difficult to get out, and
hearing a wagon coming
they draw in their heads
lie still and are crushed.
June 5, 1858
At evening, paddle up Assabet. There are many ephemerae in the air; but it is cool, and their great flight is not yet. June 5, 1857
The shad-flies were very abundant probably last evening about the house, for this morning they are seen filling and making black every cobweb on the side of the house, blinds, etc. All freshly painted surfaces are covered with them. June 5, 1857
Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight . . . an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. . . . I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting. June 5, 1854
Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, unlike anything in the sky as yet. June 5, 1854
The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather. June 5, 1854
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. June 5, 1854
I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. June 5, 1854
I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet. June 5, 1854
When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape. June 5, 1854
To-night, June 5th, after a hot day, I hear the first peculiar summer breathing of the frogs. June 5, 1850
When I open my window at night I hear the peeping of hylodes distinctly through the rather cool rain. June 5, 1860
The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla. June 5, 1853
I would fain drink a draft of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep. June 5, 1854
I return by moonlight. June 5, 1854
*****
- Reminiscence and Prompting
- June Moonlight
- The world can never be more beautiful than now.
- Seen from a Hillside.
- Summer
- Spring Leaf-out
- June.
- Week of June 1
- The Red Maple
- The Lady Slipper
- The Song Sparrow
- The Brown Thrasher
- The Blue Jay
- The Summer Yellowbir
- the Nighthawk
- The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)
- the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)
- Insect Hatches in Spring
Froth on pitch pine. See June 4, 1854 ("I now notice froth on the pitch and white pines.”); June 15, 1851 ("A white froth drips from the pitch pines, just at the base of the new shoots. It has no taste.”).
A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, . . . See June 8, 1855 ("A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high ,. . . made of coarse sticks.”); June 10, 1859 ("a blue jay's nest about four feet up a birch, quite exposed beneath the leafy branches. “) .
A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine See June 6, 1857 ("A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground, near lower lentago wall and toward Bittern Cliff. ")
A yellowbird's nest; four eggs, developed. See June 7, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest on a willow bough against a twig, ten feet high, four eggs."); June 9, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple"); June 9, 1856 ("A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge; four fresh eggs; ten feet high, three rods beyond fence.")
Pigeon woodpecker's nest in a hollow black willow over river; six eggs, almost hatched. See June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered."); June 13, 1855 ("C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground."); June 13, 1858 ("In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers")
Pigeon woodpecker's nest in a hollow black willow over river; six eggs, almost hatched. See June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered."); June 13, 1855 ("C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground."); June 13, 1858 ("In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers")
Some red maples are much more fertile than others. Their keys are now very conspicuous. See June 2, 1859 ("Red maple seed is partly blown off. Some of it is conspicuously whitish or light-colored on the trees."); June 3, 1860 ("The roads now strewn with red maple seed.")
I now see a painted turtle in a rut. See June 15, 1857 ("Now is the time that they are killed in the ruts all the country over.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle
The fresh light green shoots of the hemlocks. See June 11, 1859 ("Hemlocks are about at height of their beauty, with their fresh growth."); June 26, 1860 ("The hemlocks are too much grown now and are too dark a green to show the handsomest bead-work by contrast..")
The heavens and the earth are one flower. See August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower.”); May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose.")
The heavens and the earth are one flower. See August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower.”); May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose.")
I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. See August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)
June 5, 2020
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 5
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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT05June
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