The stub ends of corn-stalks rise above the snow.

November 30.

Sunday. P. M.— To Cliffs via Hubbard's Grove. 

Several inches of snow, but a rather soft and mild air still. Now see the empty chalices of the blue-curls and the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust. 

(The very cat was full of spirits this morning, rushing about and frisking on the snow-crust, which bore her alone. When I came home from New Jersey the other day, was struck with the sudden growth and stateliness of our cat Min, — his cheeks puffed out like a regular grimalkin. I suspect it is a new coat of fur against the winter chiefly. The cat is a third bigger than a month ago, like a patriarch wrapped in furs; and a mouse a day, I hear, is nothing to him now.) 

This as I go through the Depot Field, where the stub ends of corn-stalks rise above the snow. I find half a dozen russets, touched and discolored within by frost, still hanging on Wheeler's tree by the wall. 

I see the fine, thin, yellowish stipule of the pine leaves now, on the snow by Hubbard's Grove and where some creature has eaten the resinous terminal pitch pine buds. 

In Hubbard's bank wall field, beyond the brook, see the tracks of many sparrows that have run from weed to weed, as if a chain had dropped there. 

Not an apple is left in the orchard on Fair Haven Hill; not a track there of walker. 

Now all plants are withered and blanched, except perhaps some Vaccinium vacillans red leaves which sprang up in the burning last spring. 

Here and there a squirrel or a rabbit has hastily crossed the path. 

Minott told me on Friday of an oldish man and woman who had brought to a muster here once a great leg of bacon boiled, to turn a penny with. The skin, as thick as sole-leather, was flayed and turned back, displaying the tempting flesh. A tall, raw-boned, omnivorous heron of a Yankee came along and bargained with the woman, who was awaiting a customer, for as much of that as he could eat. He ate and ate and ate, making a surprising hole, greatly to the amusement of the lookers-on, till the woman in her despair, unfaithful to her engagement, appealed to the police to drive him off. 

Sophia, describing the first slight whitening of snow a few weeks ago, said that when she awoke she noticed a certain bluish-white reflection on the wall and, looking out, saw the ground whitened with snow. 

My first sight of snow this year I got as I was surveying about the 5th of November in a great wooded gully making up from the Raritan River, in Perth Amboy, N. J. It was a few fine flakes in the chilly air, which very few who were out noticed at all.

That country was remarkable for its gullies, commonly well wooded, with a stream at the bottom. One was called Souman's [?] Gully, the only good name for any feature of the landscape thereabouts, yet the inhabitants objected especially to this word "gully." 

That is a great place for oysters, and the inhabitants of Amboy are said to be very generally 'well off in con sequence. All are allowed to gather oysters on the flats at low tide, and at such times I saw thirty or forty wading about with baskets and picking them up, the indigenous ones. Off the mouth of the Raritan, I saw about seventy-five boats one morning busily taking up the oysters which they had laid down, — their usual morning's work. 

I used to get my clothes covered with beggar-ticks in the fields there, and burs, small and large. 

Minot Pratt tells me that he watched the fringed gentian this year, and it lasted till the first week in November.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1856

Now see the empty chalices of the blue-curls and the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust. See November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)

Depot Field, where the stub ends of corn-stalks rise above the snow. See November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)

Minot Pratt tells me the fringed gentian lasted till the first week in November. See November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late. “); October 27, 1855 (“There are many fringed gentians, now considerably frost-bitten, in what was E. Hosmer’s meadow between his dam and the road.”); October 19, 1852 (“It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare . . .”) See also A Book of the Seasons, the Fringed Gentian.

First snow after a remarkably pleasant November.

First Snow

November 29. 

Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen, but they say the ground was whitened for a short time some weeks ago. 

It has been a remarkably pleasant November, warmer and pleasanter than last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1856

This the first snow. See

•  November  8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. ”)
•  November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
•  November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”)
•  November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon. Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”)
• November 15, 1854 ("The first snow, a mere sugaring which went off the next morning.")
• November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”)
• November 18, 1855 ("About an inch of snow fell last night, but the ground was not at all frozen or prepared for it. A little greener grass and stubble here and there seems to burn its way through it this forenoon.")
• November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.”)
• November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)
• November 26, 1850 ("An inch of snow on ground this morning, our first.") 
• November 29, 1856  ("Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen...")
• December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night.”)
• December 4, 1859 ("Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence.")
• December 4, 1860 ("The first snow, four or five inches, this evening."); This evening and night, December 22, 1860 ("the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now ")
•  December 8, 1850 (“The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.”)
•  December 26,1853  (“This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”)
•  December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.”).
• January 13, 1853 ("A drifting snow-storm last night and to day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.")
  
  

See also November 30, 1856 ("Sophia, describing the first slight whitening of snow a few weeks ago, said that when she awoke she noticed a certain bluish-white reflection on the wall and, looking out, saw the ground whitened with snow."); November 28, 1858 ("In half an hour the russet earth is painted white even to the horizon. Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change? "); January 26, 1855 ("What changes in the aspect of the earth!")

A true November phenomenon

November 28. 

P. M. — To chestnut wood by Turnpike, to see if I could find my comb, probably lost out of my pocket when I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago. 

Unexpectedly find many chestnuts in the burs which have fallen some time ago. Many are spoiled, but the rest, being thus moistened, are softer and sweeter than a month ago, very agreeable to my palate. The burs from some cause having fallen without dropping their nuts. 

As I stand looking down the hill over Emerson's young wood-lot there, perhaps at 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. 

It is a true November phenomenon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1856

I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago .See October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop . . .")

They remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season. See October 25, 1858 (“The light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights”); November 3, 1857("Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig,")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

A turn down the river.

November 27.  

P. M. — Take a turn down the river. 

A painted tortoise sinking to the bottom, and apparently tree sparrows along the shore.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 27, 1856

Take a turn down the river.   See December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat, which before I had got out and turned up on the bank.”)

A painted tortoise . See   November 1, 1855.("I see no painted tortoises out, and I think it is about a fortnight since I saw any. ");   November 7, 1855 ("I see a painted tortoise swimming under water, and to my surprise another afterward out on a willow trunk . . .”)  November 9, 1855 ("See a painted tortoise and a wood tortoise in different places out on the bank still!”); November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Tree sparrows. See November 7, 1855 ("Birds are pretty rare now. I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain...”);  November 20, 1857 (“The hardy tree sparrow has taken the place of the chipping and song sparrow, so much like the former that most do not know it is another. His faint lisping chip will keep our spirits up till another spring.”); and  J..J. Audubon (" It reaches Massachusetts at the approach of winter, and is more frequent in the maritime districts of that State than in the interior, where, however, it is met with in considerable numbers. In the beginning of October, if the weather be cold, the Tree Sparrow is seen among the magnificent elm trees that ornament the beautiful city of Boston and its neighbouring villages; and, like the hardy, industrious, and enterprising people among whom it seems to spend the severe season by choice, it makes strenuous efforts to supply itself with the means of subsistence . . . According to Dr. T. M. BREWER, this is the most common Sparrow found near Boston during the winter, inhabiting in large flocks the low bushes and grass in marshy, sheltered situations, much of the time very quiet and inactive.”)

Glad to get back to New England,

November 25. 

November 25.

Tuesday. Get home again this morning.

Am glad to get back to New England, the dry, sandy, wholesome land, land of scrub oaks and birches and white pines, now in her russet dress, reminding me of her flaxen-headed children. 

When I got back to New England the grass seemed bleached a shade or two more flaxen, more completely withered. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1856

November is the best month.

November 13. 

No memory prepares us for Cassiopeia in the now leafless night sky, or for that moment in the moonlight when a shadow crosses the forest floor, an owl overhead. 
November. Trees spread their seed, set their buds and open the sky to the stars.  Returning home under this full moon I am one with the universe.

Sky full of stars,
heart full of tears,
love for the world

lost all these years.

zphx 20161113

Thoreau called upon me in Brooklyn, 1856, and . . .gave me this volume.

Whitman

November 10.

About the 10th of November, I first noticed long bunches of very small dark-purple or black grapes fallen on the dry leaves in the ravine east of Spring's house. Quite a large mass of clusters remained hanging on the leafless vine, thirty feet overhead there, till I left, on the 24th November. 

These grapes were much shrivelled, but they had a very agreeably spicy acid taste, evidently not acquired till after the frosts. I thought them quite a discovery and ate many from day to day, swallowing the skins and stones, and recommended them to Spring. He said that they were very much like a certain French grape, which he had eaten in France. 

It is a true frost grape, but apparently answers to Vitis aestivalis (?). Vide fruit and leaves. One I opened has only two seeds, while one of the early ones at Brattleboro has four, but one of the late ones of Brattleboro has only two, which also I have called V. aestipalis. 


Visited the principal antique bookstore, in Fulton Street, upstairs, west of Broadway; also Tunison's antique bookstore, 138 Fulton Street.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, November 2, 1856 (sic)

A[lcott] and I heard Beecher preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning [the 10th of November] (A. had already seen him), and were much interested and provoked. 

He is apparently the greatest democrat the world has seen. Kings and aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long deserved to. 

A remarkably strong though coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and much prized by his friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior, his skin (all over (?)) red, he is essentially a gentleman.

I am still somewhat in a quandary about him, — feel that he is essentially strange to me, at any rate; but I am surprised by the sight of him. He is very broad, but, as I have said, not fine.

He said that I misapprehended him. I am not quite sure that I do. 

He told us that he loved to ride up and down Broadway all day on an omnibus, sitting beside the driver, listening to the roar of the carts, and sometimes gesticulating and declaiming Homer at the top of his voice. 

He has long been an editor and writer for the newspapers, — was editor of the New Orleans Crescent once; but now has no employment but to read and write in the forenoon, and walk in the afternoon, like all the rest of the scribbling gentry.

H. D. Thoreau, Letter to Blake, November 18, 1856

A and I heard Beecher preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning. See Alcott's Diary ("(Monday, 10th.) Mrs. Tyndale of Philadelphia goes with us to see Walt, Walt the satyr, the Bacchus, the very god Pan. We sat with him for two hours . . . ")

The Library of Congress contains a second edition of Leaves of Grass inscribed "H.D. Thoreau from Walt Whitman" and a copy of Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers with the signature of Walt Whitman and, on the front flyleaf in Whitman's hand:

 "Thoreau call'd upon me in Brooklyn 1856 and upon my giving him L of G first edition-gave me this volume – We had a two hours talk + walk. I liked him well-l think he told me he was busy at a surveying job down on Staten Island. He was full of animation-seemed in good health-looked very well. -W.W." 

 

See  A Tale of  Two Books; and  Thoreau's New Jersey Connection  See also December 2, 1856 ("As for the sensuality in Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," I do not so much wish that it was not written, as that men and women were so pure that they could read it without harm.")

" Three men , " said Emerson , in his funeral eulogy of Thoreau , " have of late years strongly impressed Mr. Thoreau , - John Brown , his Indian guide in Maine , Joe Polis , and a third person  [Whitman]

https://tinyurl.com/hdtwhman

A day in the life, lived.

I read the news today, November 4. 

It is truly a raw and gusty day,

and I hear a tree creak sharply

 like a bird, a phoebe.

The jays with their scream 

are at home in the scenery. 

November 4, 1851

My thought is a part 
of the meaning of the world,

and hence i use a part of the world

as a symbol to express my thought.

November 4, 1852.

Must be out-of-doors enough

 to get experience of wholesome reality,

as a ballast to thought and sentiment.

Health requires this relaxation, 

this aimless life.

This life in the present.

Let a man have thought 

what he will of Nature in the house,

she will still be novel outdoors.

I keep out of doors for the sake of the

mineral, vegetable, and animal in me. 

November 4, 1852.

To Hubbard's Close.

I find no traces of the fringed gentian here,

so that in low meadows

I suspect it does not last very late. 

November 4, 1853

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch

appear to be in the same state

 with those of the white,

and their scales 

are also shaped like birds,

but much larger. 

November 4, 1853

The shad-bush buds

have expanded into 

small leaflets already. 

November 4, 1854

I have failed to find 

white pine seed this year,

though I began to look for it a month ago.

The cones were fallen and open.

Look the first of September. 
November 4, 1855

But those grand and glorious mountains, 

how impossible to remember daily 

that they are there, 

and to live accordingly! 

They are meant to be 

a perpetual reminder to us, 

pointing out the way. 

November 4, 1857

The true sportsman 

can shoot you almost 

any of his game from his windows.

It comes and perches at last

 on the barrel of his gun;

but the rest of the world 

never see it with the feathers on.

He will keep himself supplied 

by firing up his chimney.

The geese fly exactly under his zenith,

and honk when they get there.

The fisherman, too, dreams of fish,

till he can almost catch them

in his sink-spout.

November 4, 1858

We cannot see any thing

until we are possessed 

with the idea of it,

and then 

we can hardly see 

anything else.

In my botanical rambles

I find that first the idea, 

or image,of a plant 

occupies my thoughts,

though it may at firat 

seem very foreign to this locality,

and for some weeks or months

I go thinking of it and 

expecting it unconsciously,

and at length I surely see it,

and it is henceforth 

an actual neighbor of mine.

This is the history of my finding

a score or more of rare plants

 which I could name. 

November 4, 1858

 As I go over John Hosmer's High Level,

I notice for the first time

that peculiar blueness of the river 

agitated by the wind

and contrasting with 

the tawny fields,

a fall phenomenon. 

November 4, 1860

 White birch seed 
has but recently begun to fall.

I see a quarter of an inch 
of many catkins bare.

The birch begins to shed its seed

about the time our winter birds

arrive from the north.

November 4, 1860

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

The oaks of New Jersey.

November 2. 

November 2

Sunday. Took a walk two miles west of Eagleswood. The Quercus palustris, or pin oak, very common there, much like the scarlet oak. Name said to be derived from the dead stub ends of branches on the trunk beneath, like pins or treenails. Its acorns subglobose, and marked with meridional lines. 

A mile and a half west of Spring's, a new oak, with narrow and entire willow-like leaves, apparently Q. imbricaria, laurel or shingle oak, or perhaps Michaux's Q. cinerea, which may be a variety of it. 

According to Michaux's plates, I see that the leaves of the Q. Phellos, or willow oak, are about two and three quarters by one third plus inches, of the laurel oak three and a half by seven eighths. His upland willow oak (Q. cinerea) leaf is about three by three quarters and less tapering at base. 

Cornus florida

The Cornus florida was exceedingly common and large there. Conspicuous with its scarlet berries, fed on by robins. The leaves were turned a brown scarlet or orange red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1856 


Bronson Alcott, recorded in his journal for Nov. 2, 1856:

Evening, Thoreau reads his lecture on Walking to the whole company, and interests his company deeply in his treatment of nature. Never had such a walk as this been taken by any one before, and the conversation so flowing and lively and curious – the young people enjoying it particularly.

The oaks of New Jersey.  Compare note to  November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ...I doubt if there is another hereabouts of oaks as large.")

The Cornus florida was exceedingly common . . .    See May 22, 1856 ("The Cornus florida does not bloom this year."); May 25, 1855 ("Cornus florida, no bloom. Was there year before last? Does it not flower every other year?”)