Now a new season begins.

November 10

November 10, 2023

A pleasant day, especially the forenoon. Thermometer 46° at noon. Some would call it Indian summer, but it does not deserve to be called summer; grows cool in afternoon when I go — 

To Baker Farm aspen via Cliffs. 

Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.) 

I think I may say that about the 5th the white, swamp white, and black, and perhaps red, oaks (the last may be later) were in their November condition, i. e. for the most part fallen. The few large black oak tops, still covered with leaves above the forest (i. e. just withered), are brownish-yellow. The brilliancy of the scarlet oak being generally dulled, the season of brilliant leaves may be considered over, — say about the 10th; and now a new season begins, the pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods, etc. 

From Fair Haven Hill, using my glass, I think that I can see some of the snow of the 7th still left on the brow of Uncannunuc. It is a light line, lying close along under the edge of a wood which covers the summit, which has protected it. I can understand how much nearer they must feel to winter who live in plain sight of that than we do. I think that I could not have detected the edge of the forest if it had not been for the snow. 

In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple. 

The Jersey tea is fallen, all but the terminal leaves. These, how ever, are the greenest and apparently least changed of any indigenous plant, unless it be the sweet-fern. 

Withered leaves generally, though they remain on the trees, are drooping. As I go through the hazel bushes toward the sun, I notice the silvery light reflected from the fine down on their tender twigs, this year’s growth. This apparently protects them against the winter. The very armor that Nature puts on reminds you of the foe she would resist. 

This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. A true November seat is amid the pretty white-plumed Andropogon scoparius, the withered culms of the purple wood grass which covers so many dry knolls. There is a large patch at the entrance to Pleasant Meadow. It springs from pink-brown clumps of radical leaves, which make good seats. Looking toward the sun, as I sit in the midst of it rising as high as my head, its countless silvery plumes are a very cheerful sight. At a distance they look like frost on the plant. 

I look out westward across Fair Haven Pond. The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow. 

Hornbeam bare; how long? Perhaps with the ostrya. and just after elms? 

There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. 

Hearing in the oak and near by a sound as if some one had broken a twig, I looked up and saw a jay pecking at an acorn. There were several jays busily gathering acorns on a scarlet oak. I could hear them break them off. They then flew to a suitable limb and, placing the acorn under one foot, hammered away at it busily, looking round from time to time to see if any foe was approaching, and soon reached the meat and nibbled at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they held it very firmly with their claws. (Their hammering made a sound like the woodpecker’s.) Nevertheless it some times dropped to the ground before they had done with it. 

Aphides on alder. Sap still flows in scarlet oak. 

Returned by Spanish Brook Path. Notice the glaucous white bloom on the thimble-berry of late, as there are fewer things to notice. 

So many objects are white or light, preparing us for winter. 

By the 10th of November we conclude with the scarlet oak dulled (and the colors of October generally faded), with a few golden spangles on the white birches and on a lingering Populus tremuliformis and a few sallows, a few green leaves on the Jersey tea, and a few lingering scarlet or yellow or crimson ones on the flowering dogwood in a sheltered place, the gooseberry, the high blueberry, Cornus sericea, the late rose and the common smooth one, and the sweet-briar, meadow-sweet, sweet-fern, and Viburnum nudum. But they are very rare or uninteresting. 

To these may be added the introduced plants of November 9th, which are more leafy. Of them the silvery abele, English cherry, and broom have been of the most interesting colors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1858

A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; all the light of November may be called an afterglow. See October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, 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. Hers is a cool, silvery light. ”); October 27, 1858 (“the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 2, 1853("We come home in the autumn twilight. . . — clear white light, which penetrates the woods”); November 9, 1858 (“We had a true November sunset . . .  a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.”);  November 14, 1853 ("the clear, white, leafless twilight of November”); November 17, 1858 (“We are interested at this season by the manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us. . . . A myriad of surfaces are now prepared to reflect the light. This is one of the hundred silvery lights of November. The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me. ”); November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”); November 29, 1853 (""Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape. . .I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.)

Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost. In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod. See October 22, 1859 ("In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together.”); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. ”); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”).

There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. See October 29, 1858 ("Am surprised to see, by the path to Baker Farm, a very tall and slender large Populus tremuliformis still thickly clothed with leaves which are merely yellowish greén,. . . Afterwards, when on the Cliff, I perceive . . .one or two poplars  (tremuliformis) . . . brighter than they were, for they hold out to burn longer than the birch."):October 31, 1858 ("The only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th. It, too, is far more yellow at this distance than it was close at hand");  November 2, 1858 ("That small poplar seen from Cliffs on the 29th is a P. tremuloides. It makes the impression of a bright and clear yellow at a distance,"); November 13 1858 ("Now, on the advent of much colder weather, the last Populus tremuliformis has lost its leaves."): November 25, 1858 ("I see aspen (tremuliformis) leaves, which have long since fallen, turned black, which also shows the relation of this tree to the willow, many species of which also turn black")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

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