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
Yellowish light now.
Tufted yellowish broad-leaved
grass in new mown fields.
Goldenrod, asters
grasshoppers now abundant,
cooler breezy air.
Ripe sand cherry fruit
droops from peduncles in
umble-like clusters.
Evenings are longer
now and the cooler weather
make them improvable.
At year’s afternoon
we descend toward winter
all our hopes postponed.
We made this island
the limit of our excursion
in this direction.
July 28, 2018
The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water, -- see the bottom, the weeds, and fishes more than before. July 28, 1859.
Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets. July 28, 1854
When we awoke, we found a heavy dew on our blankets. I lay awake very early, and listened to the clear, shrill ah, te te, te te, te of the white-throated sparrow, repeated at short intervals, without the least variation, for half an hour. The Maine Woods July 28, 1857
They tell of eagles flying low over the island lately. July 28, 1851
The sweet and plaintive note of the pewee (wood pewee) is now prominent, since most other birds are more hushed. July 28, 1859.
Saw young martins being fed on a bridge-rail yesterday. July 28, 1859
Young purple finches eating mountain-ash berries. July 28, 1859
Cherry-bird common. July 28, 1854 .
The kingbirds eat currants. July 28, 1859.
Red-eye and chewink common. July 28, 1854 .
Partridges begin to go off in packs. July 28, 1854 .
Hear part of the song of what sounds and looks like a rose-breasted grosbeak. July 28, 1859.
Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. July 28, 1858
We were glad to find on this carry some raspberries, and a few of the Vaccinium Canadense berries, which had begun to be ripe here. July 28, 1857
Nightshade berries begin to ripen, — to be red. July 28, 1853
Sand cherry ripe. The fruit droops in umble-like clusters, two to four peduncles together, on each side the axil of a branchlet or a leaf. Emerson and Gray call it dark-red. It is black when ripe. July 28, 1856
The under sides of maples are very bright and conspicuous nowadays as you walk, also of the curled panicled andromeda leaves. Some grape leaves, also, are blown up. July 28, 1858
What is that slender hieracium or aster-like plant in woods on Corner road with lanceolate, coarsely feather-veined leaves, sessile and remotely toothed; minute, clustered, imbricate buds (?) or flowers and buds? Panicled hieracium? July 28, 1852
That low hieracium, hairy, especially the lower part, with several hairy, obovate or oblanceolate leaves, remotely, very slightly, toothed, and glandular hairs on peduncles and calyx, a few heads, some days at least. July 28, 1853
Gerardia flava, apparently several days. July 28, 1856
The Gerardia flava in the hickory grove behind Lee's Cliff, some days. . . . Have I seen the G. quercifolia? July 28, 1853
Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Dennis's. July 28, 1852
From wall corner saw a pinkish patch on side-hill west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, . . .This pink flower was distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile. July 28, 1858
There is a yellowish light now from a low, tufted, yellowish, broad-leaved grass, in fields that have been mown. July 28, 1852
Grasshoppers are very abundant, several to every square foot in some fields. July 28, 1852
Aster Radula (?) in J. P. Brown's meadow. July 28, 1852
Solidago altissima (?) beyond the Corner Bridge, out some days at least, but not rough-hairy. July 28, 1852
Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out. July 28, 1852
Enough has not been said of the beauty of the shrub oak leaf (Quercus ilicifolia), of a thick, firm texture, for the most part uninjured by insects, intended to last all winter; of a glossy green above and now silky downy beneath, fit for a wreath or crown.
By factory road clearing, the small rough sunflower, two or three days. July 28, 1856.
The evenings are now sensibly longer, and the cooler weather makes them improvable. July 28, 1852
Veery and wood thrush not very lately, nor oven-bird. July 28, 1854.
Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year. July 28, 1854
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season of Sunny Water.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Helianthus
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red-eyed Vireo;
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink (Rufous-sided Towhee)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues
June 12, 1854 (“[The kingfisher] hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives ”)
July 13, 1854. ("I hear the hot-weather and noonday birds, -- red eye, tanager, wood pewee, etc")
July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.")
July 23, 1854 ("There is a peculiar light reflected from the shorn fields, as later in the fall, when rain and coolness have cleared the air.")
July 24, 1852("There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields, the aftermath. When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination ")
July 24, 1853 ("The nighthawk squeaks, and the chewink jingles his strain, and the wood thrush; but I think there is no loud and general serenade from the birds.")
July 24, 1857 (“Great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color.)
July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun.")
July 25, 1854 (I now start some packs of partridges, old and young, going off together without mewing.)
July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open. . . This the afternoon of the year.")
July 26, 1853 ("How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! This the afternoon of the year.")
July 27, 1852 ("Have I heard the veery lately?")
July 27, 1853 ("The drought ceases with the dog-days.")
July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”)
July 29, 1853 (“The sight of the small rough sunflower about a dry ditch bank and hedge advances me at once further toward autumn.”)
July 30, 1852 ("How long since I heard a veery? Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn? ")
July 30 1852 (After midsummer we have a belated feeling and are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life.")
July 30, 1856 ("The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now.”)
July 31, 1856 ("Hieracium paniculatum by Gerardia quercifolia path in woods under Cliffs, two or three days.")
July 31, 1857 ("Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us.")
July 31, 1856 ("Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.")
August 2, 1854("a peawai and a chewink. Meanwhile the moon in her first quarter is burnishing her disk")
August 6, 1852 ("With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc. cease?")
August 6, 1852 ("A solitary peawai may be heard, perchance, or a red-eye, but no thrashers, or catbirds, or oven-birds, or the jingle of the chewink.")
August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)
August 10, 1860 ("Sand cherry is well ripe — some of it — and tolerable, better than the red cherry or choke-cherry.")
August 20, 1851 ("Where the brook issues from the pond, the nightshade grows profusely, spreading five or six feet each way, with its red berries now ripe.")
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 28
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
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