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
Thick blue musty veil
of mist drawn before the sun.
Perfect dog-days now.
August 1, 1856
I take off my shoes
and go barefoot some two miles
through the Great Meadows.
August 1, 2016
How much of beauty — of color, as well as form — on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us! No one but a botanist is likely to distinguish nicely the different shades of green with which the open surface of the earth is clothed, — not even a landscape-painter if he does not know the species of sedges and grasses which paint it. August 1, 1860
Meadow-haying begun for a week. August 1, 1854
Meadow-haying commenced. August 1, 1860
Since July 30th, inclusive, we have had perfect dog-days without interruption. The earth has suddenly invested with a thick musty mist. The sky has become a mere fungus. A thick blue musty veil of mist is drawn before the sun. The sun has not been visible, except for a moment or two once or twice a day, all this time, nor the stars by night. Moisture reigns. August 1, 1856
Found a long, dense spike of the Orchis psycodes. Much later this than the great orchis. The same, only smaller and denser, not high-colored enough. August 1, 1852
I was surprised to see dense beds of rhexia in full bloom there. . . It is about the richest color to be seen now . . . these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. August 1, 1856
The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats. August 1, 1852
Helianthus annuus, common sunflower. May it not stand for the character of August? August 1, 1852.
The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low. August 1, 1859
I saw at the end of this carry small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. August 1, 1857
Is not that the small-flowered hypericum? August 1, 1852.
I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard. August 1, 1853.
I have not heard the catbird or the thrush for a long time. August 1, 1852
The nuthatch is active now. August 1, 1860
I see a kingbird hovering within six inches above the potamogetons, front of Cheney's, and repeatedly snapping up some insects, perhaps a devil's-needle. August 1, 1859
The pewee sings yet. August 1, 1852
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 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening")
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 ")July 31, 1854 ("Wood thrush still sings.")
August 2, 1856 ("A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water. ")
August 2, 1856 ("Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts.")
Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching the black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry. August 1, 1856
Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths. August 1, 1856
August 1, 2014
alternate-leaved dogwood
The berries of what I have called the alternate-leaved cornel are now ripe, a very dark blue - blue-black - and round, but dropping off prematurely, leaving handsome red cymes, which adorn the trees from a distance. August 1, 1852 .
Found a long, dense spike of the Orchis psycodes. Much later this than the great orchis. The same, only smaller and denser, not high-colored enough. August 1, 1852
Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow. August 1, 1856.
I was surprised to see dense beds of rhexia in full bloom there. . . It is about the richest color to be seen now . . . these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. August 1, 1856
The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats. August 1, 1852
Helianthus annuus, common sunflower. May it not stand for the character of August? August 1, 1852.
Sunflower. August 1, 1854
Small rough sunflower a day or two. August 1, 1855
Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall. August 1, 1856
Liatris will apparently open in a day or two. August 1, 1856
Hieracium Canadense apparently a day or two. August 1, 1854.
The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low. August 1, 1859
I saw at the end of this carry small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. August 1, 1857
Is not that the small-flowered hypericum? August 1, 1852.
You will be surprised, on looking through a large maple swamp which two months ago was red with maple seed falling in showers around, at the very small number of maple seeds to be found there . . . Indeed, almost every seed that falls to the earth is picked up by some animal or other whose favorite and perhaps peculiar food it is. They are daily busy about it in the season, and the few seeds which escape are exceptions. There is at least a squirrel or mouse to a tree. They ransack the woods. These little creatures must live, and this apparently is one of the principal ends of the abundance of seeds that falls August 1, 1860
Squirrels have eaten and stripped pitch pine cones. August 1, 1855.
A green bittern, this year’s bird, apparently full grown but not full plumaged . . . So the green bitterns are leaving the nest now. August 1, 1858
I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard. August 1, 1853.
I have not heard the catbird or the thrush for a long time. August 1, 1852
The nuthatch is active now. August 1, 1860
I see a kingbird hovering within six inches above the potamogetons, front of Cheney's, and repeatedly snapping up some insects, perhaps a devil's-needle. August 1, 1859
The pewee sings yet. August 1, 1852
August 1, 2020
No catbird or thrush.
The singing birds are scarce but
the pewee sings yet.
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
*****
August 1, 2017
July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening")
July 29, 1853 ("Peter appears to have cut all the liatris before its time.")
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, 1856 (“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, 1853 ("A small purple orchis (Platanthera psycodes).")July 30, 1856 (“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, 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 ")
July 30, 1853 ("The wood thrush still sings and the peawai.")
July 30, 1856 ("A green bittern crosses in my rear with heavy flapping flight, its legs dangling, not observing me.")July 31, 1857 ("A new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch,")
July 31, 1859 ("We have now got down to the water milfoil and the B. Beckii. These might be called low - water plants.")July 31, 1859 ("The small green bitterns are especially numerous.")
August 2, 1856 ("A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water. ")
August 2, 1856 ("Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts.")
August 3, 1856 ("Cornus alternifolia berries ripe . . . in open cymes, dull-blue, somewhat depressed globular, tipped with the persistent styles, yet already, as usual, mostly fallen. But handsomer far are the pretty (bare) red peduncles and pedicels, like fairy fingers spread. They make a show at a distance")
August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")
August 5, 1856 ("At the Assabet stone bridge, apparently freshly in flower, . . . apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?).”)
August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")
August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")
August 5, 1858 ("[Willows] resound still with the sprightly twitter of the kingbird, that aerial and spirited bird hovering over them, swallow-like, which loves best, methinks, to fly where the sky is reflected beneath him.")
August 6, 1858 ("If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast.")
August 9, 1853 ("At Peter's well . . . I also find one or two heads of the liatris. Perhaps I should have seen it a few days earlier, if it had not been for the mower. It has the aspect of a Canada thistle at a little distance")
August 9, 1853 ("The Hieracium Canadense is out and is abundant at Peter's well.")
August 17, 1858 ("Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season.")
August 21, 1851 ("Hieracium paniculatum,. . . I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”)
September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.")
August 21, 1851 ("Hieracium paniculatum,. . . I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”)
September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.")
August 1, 2020
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 1.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/HDT01AUG
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