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
Fog rises highest
over the river and ponds
which are thus revealed.
July 25, 2023
A decided rain-storm to-day and yesterday, such as we have not had certainly since May. Are we likely ever to have two days' rain in June and the first half of July? July 25, 1854
From Fair Haven Hill, the sun having risen, I see great wreaths of fog far northeast, revealing the course of the river, a noble sight, as it were the river elevated, or rather the ghost of the ample stream that once flowed to ocean between these now distant uplands in another geological period. July 25, 1852
The fog rises highest over the channel of the river and over the ponds in the woods which are thus revealed. July 25, 1852
The fog rises highest over the channel of the river and over the ponds in the woods which are thus revealed. July 25, 1852
This is one of those ambosial, white, ever-memorable fogs presaging fair weather. July 25, 1852
I now start some packs of partridges, old and young, going off together without mewing. July 25, 1854.
In the meanwhile the wood thrush and the jay and the robin sing around me here, and birds are heard singing from the midst of the fog. And in one short hour this sea will all evaporate and the sun be reflected from farm windows on its green bottom. July 25, 1854
Hear a wood thrush. July 25, 1854
Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking. July 25, 1857
Approaching the shore [Moosehead Lake], we scared up some young dippers with the old bird. Like the shecorways [sheldrake], they ran over the water very fast. July 25, 1857.
Blue-curls. July 25, 1853
Burdock, probably yesterday. July 25, 1853
Bunches of indigo, still in bloom, more numerously than anywhere that I remember. July 25, 1853
Up river to see hypericums out. July 25, 1856
The Hypericum perforatum, corymbosum, and ellipticum are not open this forenoon, but the angulosum, Canadense, mutilum, and Sarothra are partly curled up (their petals) even by 9 a.m.; perhaps because it is very warm, for day before yesterday, methinks, I saw the mutilum and Sarothra open later. July 25, 1856
The Hieracium Canadense grows by the road fence in Potter's hydrocotyle field, some seven or eight inches high, in dense tufts! July 25, 1856
See in woods a toad, dead-leaf color with black spots. July 25, 1854
Many little toads about. July 25, 1855
Cerasus Virginiana, — choke-cherry, — just ripe. July 25, 1853
High blackberries, a day or two . . . The rain has saved the berries. They are plump and large. July 25, 1854
The air begins to be thick and almost smoky. July 25, 1856
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
*****
June 2, 1853 ("The birds are wide awake, as if knowing that this fog presages a fair day. . . . and all around me is a sea of fog, level and white, reaching nearly to the top of this hill, only the tops of a few high hills appearing as distant islands in the main. It resembles nothing so much as the ocean")
June 9, 1854 ("Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days.. . . remarkable that this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the rarest, —. . .That so queenly a flower should annually bloom so rarely and in such withdrawn and secret places as to be rarely seen by man!")
July 11, 1853 ("The aromatic trichostema [blue-curls] now springing up.")
July 11, 1853 ("The aromatic trichostema [blue-curls] now springing up.")
July 12, 1852 ("I go to walk at twilight, — at the same time that toads go to their walks, and are seen hopping about the sidewalks or the pump")
July 16, 1854 ("A thick fog began last night and lasts till late this morning; first of the kind, methinks.")
July 17, 1853 ("Young toads not half an inch long.")
July 17, 1856 ("I see many young toads hopping about . . .not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long")
July 18, 1852 ("The Cerasus Virginiana, or choke-cherry, is turning, nearly ripe.")
July 18, 1852 ("The Cerasus Virginiana, or choke-cherry, is turning, nearly ripe.")
July 19, 1853 ('This morning a fog and cool.")
July 19, 1854 ("Black choke-berry, several days."); J
July 22, 1851 ("The season of morning fogs has arrived. A great crescent over the course of the river, the fog retreats, and I do not see how it is dissipated, leaving this slight, thin vapor to curl over the surface of the still, dark water, still as glass. These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.")
July 22, 1854 ("Fogs almost every morning now.")
July 23, 1854 (I see broods of partridges later than the others, now the size of the smallest chickens.)
July 24, 1856 ("The small purple fringed orchis, apparently three or four days at least.")From the midst of fog
wood thrush and jay and robin
sing around me here.
July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening.")
July 28, 1854 (Partridges begin to go off in packs.)
July 30, 1860 ("Am glad to press my way through Miles's Swamp. Thickets of choke-berry bushes higher than my head, with many of their lower leaves already red");
July 31, 1856 ("Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent when bruised, and I see one ready to open.")
July 31, 1859 ("The grass is thickly strewn with white cobwebs, tents of the night, which promise a fair day . . . They are revealed by the dew, and perchance it is the dew and fog which they reveal which are the sign of fair weather")
August 1, 1856 ("Burdock, several days at least")August 3, 1856 ("High blackberries beginning; a few ripe")
August 4, 1856 ("You go daintily wading through this thicket, picking, perchance, only the biggest of the blackberries — as big as your thumb")
August 5, 1856 ("Choke-cherries near . . . begin to be ripe, though still red. They are scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See those handsome racemes of ten or twelve cherries each, dark glossy red, semi- transparent. You love them not the less because they are not quite palatable.");
August 5, 1858 ("Choke-berries, fair to the eye but scarcely palatable, hang far above your head, weighing down the bushes.")
August 6, 1858 ("indigo . . . is still abundantly in bloom.")
August 7, 1860 ("The fog lies several hundred feet thick. . . in great spidery lakes and streams answering to the lakes, streams, and meadows beneath.")
August 13, 1856 ("Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?")
August 17, 1853 ("The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have")
August 19, 1856 ("I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 p. M. Apparently they did not bear the dry, hot weather of July so well. They are apparently now in prime, but the Sarothra is not open at this hour. The perforatum is quite scarce now, and apparently the corymbosum; the ellipticum quite done. The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like.")
July 25, 2017 9:24 PM
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, July 25
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 © 2009-2023
https://tinyurl.com/HDT25JULY
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