Overtaken by a shower

August 17. 

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season. 

Minott has only lately been reading Shattuck’s “History of Concord,” and he says that his account is not right by a jugful, that he does not come within half a mile of the truth, not as he has heard tell. 

Some days ago I saw a kingbird twice stoop to the water from an overhanging oak and pick an insect from the surface. 

C. saw pigeons to-day. 

P. M. —To Annursnack via swimming-ford. 

The river is twelve to eighteen inches deeper there than usual at this season. Even the slough this side is two feet deep. There has been so much rain of late that there is no curling or drying of the leaves and grass this year. The foliage is a pure fresh green. The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. 

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. 

The dog-days, the foggy and mouldy days, are not over yet. The clouds are like a mildew which over  spreads the sky. It is sticky weather, and the air is filled with the scent of decaying fungi.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 17, 1858

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season.See August 1, 1853 ("I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.")

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. See July 22, 1858 (“C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. . . .Left a little too soon, but enjoyed a splendid rainbow for half an hour.”)