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
Waiting for the tide –
the singular feature in
this life by the shore.
The grand sound of rain
on the leaves of the forest –
distant, approaching.
After midsummer
we have belated feelings
presage of the fall.
July 30, 1852
Nature is a gall –
man the grub she is destined
to house and to feed.
The tobacco-pipes
are still pushing up white
amid the dry leaves.
A perfect dog-day.
Atmosphere thick, mildewy.
The sun is obscured.
The lake smooth as glass
we make the only ripple
as we paddle on.
July 30, 1857
July 30, 2018
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, 1852
The forepart of this month was the warmest weather we have had; the last part, sloping toward autumn, has reflected some of its coolness, for we are very forward to anticipate the fall. July 30, 1852
A small purple orchis (Platanthera psycodes), quite small. July 30, 1853
The swamp pink shows its last white petals. July 30, 1852
Do not all flowers that blossom after mid-July remind us of the fall? July 30, 1852
Some days ago, before this weather, I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. July 30, 1856
In every meadow you see far or near the lumbering hay-cart with its mountainous load and the rakers and mowers in white shirts .. . . If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow's edge. July 30, 1853
In every meadow you see far or near the lumbering hay-cart with its mountainous load and the rakers and mowers in white shirts .. . . If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow's edge. July 30, 1853
The tobacco-pipes are still pushing up white amid the dry leaves, sometimes lifting a canopy of leaves with them four or five inches.
July 30, 1854
This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain. July 30, 1856
This dog-day weather I can see the bottom where five and a half feet deep . . . I see the fishes moving leisurely about amid the weeds, their affairs revealed, especially perch, — some large ones prowling there; and pickerel, large and small, lie imperturbable. July 30, 1859
All the secrets of the river bottom are revealed. I look down into sunny depths which before were dark. The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now, exactly as if the water had been clarified. This is our compensation for a heaven concealed. The air is close and still. July 30, 1856
I am struck with the splendid crimson-red under sides of the white lily pads where my boat has turned them, at my bath place near the Hemlocks. July 30, 1856
It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill. July 30, 1859
When I have just rowed about the Island a green bittern crosses in my rear with heavy flapping flight, its legs dangling, not observing me. It looks deep slate-blue above, yellow legs, whitish streak along throat and breast, and slowly plows the air with its prominent breast-bone, like the stake-driver. July 30, 1856
I aroused the Indian early this morning to go in search of our companion, expecting to find him within a mile or two, farther down the stream.. . . The morning was a bright one, and perfectly still and serene, the lake as smooth as glass, we making the only ripple as we paddled into it. July 30, 1857 The Maine Woods
The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand. July 30, 1852
I notice a small blue egg washed up and half buried by the white sand, and as it lay there, alternately wet and dry, July 30, 1852
The ripple-marks on the east shore of Flint's are nearly parallel firm ridges in the white sand. July 30, 1852
I notice a small blue egg washed up and half buried by the white sand, and as it lay there, alternately wet and dry, July 30, 1852
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, alternating with young birches and raspberry, high blueberry andromeda (high and low), and great dense flat beds of Rubus sempervirens. Amid these, perhaps in cool openings, stands an island or two of great dark-green high blueberry bushes, with big cool blueberries, July 30, 1860
There are some of what I will call the clustered low blackberries on the sand just beyond the Dugan Desert. There are commonly a few larger grains in dense clusters on very short peduncles and flat on the sand, clammy with a cool subacid taste. July 30, 1854.
In a frosty hollow in the woods west of this and of the blackberry field, find a thick patch of shad-bush, about a rod and a half long, the bushes about three feet high, and quite interesting now, in fruit. Firm dark-green leaves with short, broad, irregular racemes (cluster-like) of red and dark dull purplish berries intermixed, making considerable variety in the color. The ripest and largest dark-purple berries are just half an inch in diameter. The conspicuous red -- for most are red --remind me a little of the wild holly, the berry so contrasts with the dark leaf. These berries are peculiar in that the red are nearly as pleasant-tasted as the more fully ripe dark-purple ones. July 30, 1860
There are some of what I will call the clustered low blackberries on the sand just beyond the Dugan Desert. There are commonly a few larger grains in dense clusters on very short peduncles and flat on the sand, clammy with a cool subacid taste. July 30, 1854.
In a frosty hollow in the woods west of this and of the blackberry field, find a thick patch of shad-bush, about a rod and a half long, the bushes about three feet high, and quite interesting now, in fruit. Firm dark-green leaves with short, broad, irregular racemes (cluster-like) of red and dark dull purplish berries intermixed, making considerable variety in the color. The ripest and largest dark-purple berries are just half an inch in diameter. The conspicuous red -- for most are red --remind me a little of the wild holly, the berry so contrasts with the dark leaf. These berries are peculiar in that the red are nearly as pleasant-tasted as the more fully ripe dark-purple ones. July 30, 1860
Caught in a thunder-shower, when south of Flint's Pond. It is a grand sound, that of the rain on the leaves of the forest a quarter of a mile distant, approaching. 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
Nighthawks squeak and fly low over Thrush Alley at 4 p. m. July 30, 1852
The wood thrush still sings and the peawai. July 30, 1853
See the lightning on the telegraph battery and hear the shock about sundown from our window -- an intensely bright white light. July 30, 1855
July 30, 2014
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
*****
July 30, 2014
June 27,1852 ("All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are.")
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 28, 1859 ("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 ("The sweet and plaintive note of the pewee (wood pewee) is now prominent, since most other birds are more hushed.")July 28, 1859 ("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 29, 1853 ("There is not only the tobacco-pipe, but pine-sap.")
July 29, 1853 ("About these times some hundreds of men with freshly sharpened scythes make an irruption into my garden when in its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can")
July 29, 1859 ("Heard from a bittern, a peculiar hoarse, grating note, lazily uttered as it flew over the meadows. A bittern's croak: a sound perfectly becoming the bird, as far as possible from music.")
July 31, 1856 ("Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.")
July 31, 1856. ("How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill !")
July 31, 1856. ("How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill !")
July 31, 1858 ("I see tobacco-pipes now in the path. ")
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, 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 23, 1856 (“ At the Lincoln bound hollow, Walden, there is a dense bed of the Rubus hispidus, matting the ground seven or eight inches deep, and full of the small black fruit, now in its prime.")
August 24, 1854 ("The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind")
August 24, 1854 ("The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind")
July 30, ,2022
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 30A 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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