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
Climbing the steep hills
through furnace-like heat
sweet-fern
as high as one's head.
The tinkling notes of
goldfinches and bobolinks –
one with the season.
Like nuts of sound, notes
like the sparkle on water
friction on crisped air.
Along the railroad
I observe the darker green
of early-mown fields.
August 10, 1854
August 10, 2013
August 10, 2013
8:15PM
August 10, 2014
8:01 PM
August 10, 2018
8:20 PM
Pregnant with poem
When the evening comes
my shadow leans on a wall.
What is this sorrow?
20190810
Have the gods sent us into this world to do chores? August 10, 1857
What kind of gift is life unless we have spirits to enjoy it and taste its true flavor? . . . First a sound and healthy life, and then spirits to live it with. August 10, 1857
It is cloudy and misty dog-day weather, with a good deal of wind, and thickening to occasional rain this afternoon. August 10, 1858
This rustling wind is agreeable, reminding me, by its unusual sound, of other and ruder seasons. August 10, 1858
The weather is fair and clear at last. The dog-days over at present, which have lasted since July 30th. August 10, 1856
August, royal and rich. Green corn now, and melons have begun. That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen. July could not do it. What a moist, fertile heat now! August 10, 1853.
The heat is furnace-like while I am climbing the steep hills covered with shrubs on the north of Walden, sweet-fern as high as one's head. The goldfinch sings . August 10, 1853
Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink. August 10, 1853
The woods are comparatively still at this season. August 10, 1854
I hear only the faint peeping of some robins (a few song sparrows on my way), a wood pewee, kingbird, crows, before five, or before reaching the Springs. August 10, 1854
Then a chewink or two, a cuckoo, jay, and later, returning, the link of the bobolink and the goldfinch. August 10, 1854
I hear only the faint peeping of some robins (a few song sparrows on my way), a wood pewee, kingbird, crows, before five, or before reaching the Springs. August 10, 1854
Then a chewink or two, a cuckoo, jay, and later, returning, the link of the bobolink and the goldfinch. August 10, 1854
The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, – ripened seeds of sound. It is the linking of ripened grains in Nature's basket. It is like the sparkle on water, – sound produced by friction on the crisped air. August 10, 1854.
Saw an alder locust this morning. August 10, 1853
Hear a quail now. August 10, 1853
That is a peculiar and distinct hollow sound made by the pigeon woodpecker's wings, as it flies past near you. August 10, 1854
.
Cohush berries ripe. August 10, 1853
I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing. August 10, 1853.
Middle of huckleberrying. August 10, 1855
There are more varieties of blackberries between the low and the high than I take notice of. August 10, 1856
It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe there, bending the bushes in moist, rocky sprout-lands, down amid the strong, bracing scented, tender ferns, which you crush with your feet. August 10, 1853 .
Saw an alder locust this morning. August 10, 1853
Hear a quail now. August 10, 1853
That is a peculiar and distinct hollow sound made by the pigeon woodpecker's wings, as it flies past near you. August 10, 1854
.
Cohush berries ripe. August 10, 1853
I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing. August 10, 1853.
Middle of huckleberrying. August 10, 1855
There are more varieties of blackberries between the low and the high than I take notice of. August 10, 1856
It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe there, bending the bushes in moist, rocky sprout-lands, down amid the strong, bracing scented, tender ferns, which you crush with your feet. August 10, 1853 .
Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit . . . — where I had not detected fertile flowers. August 10, 1858
It is the most surprising berry that we have: first, since it is borne by an evergreen . . . and secondly, because of its form, so like art, and which could be easily imitated in wax, a very thick scarlet cup or mortar with a dark-purple (?) bead set at the bottom. August 10, 1858
The trillium fruit (varnished and stained cherry wood) now ripe. August 10, 1853
Boehmeria in prime, for long time. August 10, 1853
It is the most surprising berry that we have: first, since it is borne by an evergreen . . . and secondly, because of its form, so like art, and which could be easily imitated in wax, a very thick scarlet cup or mortar with a dark-purple (?) bead set at the bottom. August 10, 1858
The trillium fruit (varnished and stained cherry wood) now ripe. August 10, 1853
Boehmeria in prime, for long time. August 10, 1853
By Everett's wall beyond Cheney's, small rough sunflowers, six feet high, with many branches and flowers. August 10, 1853
I see again the Aster patens . . . though this has no branches nor minute leaves atop. Yet it differs from the A. undalatus, not yet out plainly, in that the latter's lower leaves are petioled and hearted, with petioles winged at base. August 10, 1853
Fragrant everlasting, maybe some days. August 10, 1856
The Pycnanthemum incanum, the handsomest of the pycnanthemums, . . . swarming with great wasps of different kinds, and bees. August 10, 1856
Vernonia, how long? August 10, 1856
Is not that small narrow fern I find on Conantum about rocks ebony spleenwort? Now in fruit. August 10, 1853
Rhus copallina not yet for two or three days. August 10, 1856
Sand cherry is well ripe — some of it — and tolerable, better than the red cherry or choke-cherry. August 10, 1860
Juncus acuminatus aka paradoxus
Juncus paradoxus, that large and late juncus (tailed), as in Hubbard's Close and on island above monument and in Great Meadows, say ten days. August 10, 1860
The fine (early sedge?) grass in the frosty hollows about Walden (where no bushes have sprung up) looks like an unkempt head. August 10, 1856
The grass and bushes are quite wet, and the pickers are driven from the berry-field. August 10, 1858
The rabbit’s-foot clover is very wet to walk through, holding so much water. August 10, 1858
The fine grass falls over from each side into the middle of the woodland paths and wets me through knee-high. August 10, 1858
Cat-tail commonly grows in the hollows and boggy places where peat has' been dug. August 10, 1857
In Clintonia Swamp I see a remarkable yellow fungus about the base of some grass growing in a tuft. It is a jelly, shaped like a bodkin . . .It was strong-scented and disagreeable. August 10, 1857
Toadstools, which are now very abundant in the woods since the rain, are of various colors, — some red and shining, some polished white, some regularly brown- spotted, some pink, some light-blue, — buttons. August 10, 1853
I see many tobacco-pipes, now perhaps in their prime, if not a little late, and hear of pine-sap. August 10, 1858
The Indian pipe, though coming with the fungi and suggesting, no doubt, a close relation to them, — a sort of connecting link between flowers and fungi, — is a very interesting flower, and will bear a close inspection when fresh. August 10, 1858
Springing up in the shade with so little color, they look the more fragile and delicate. August 10, 1858
They have very delicate pinkish half-naked stems with a few semitransparent crystalline-white scales for leaves. August 10, 1858
The whole plant has a sweetish, earthy odor. August 10, 1858
I notice several of the hylodes hopping through the woods like wood frogs, far from water August 10, 1858
They are probably common in the woods, but not noticed, on account of their size, or not distinguished from the wood frog. August 10, 1858
One hylodes which I bring home has a perfect cross on its back,— except one arm of it. August 10, 1858
spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)
Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)
sitting on acorn.
I also saw a young wood frog, with the dark line through the eye, no bigger than the others. August 10, 1858
The Ranunculus repens numerously out about Britton's Spring. August 10, 1853
A small red maple there, seven or eight feet high, all turned scarlet. August 10, 1853.
The whorled polygala in the Saw Mill Brook Path, beyond the Desmodium paniculatum, may have been out as long as the caducous. August 10, 1853
New plants spring up where old woods are cut off, having formerly grown here, perchance. August 10, 1853
Find the Arabis Canadensis, or sickle-pod, on Heywood Peak, nearly out of bloom. Never saw it before. August 10, 1853
I have also found here, for example, round-leaved and naked-flowered desmodium and Desmodium loe-vigatum (??) and Gnaphalium decurrens and queria. August 10, 1853
The river has been rising all day. August 10, 1856
The meadows have quite a springlike look, yet the grass conceals the extent of the flood. It appears chiefly where it is mown. August 10, 1856
As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields. August 10, 1854
A small red maple there, seven or eight feet high, all turned scarlet. August 10, 1853.
The whorled polygala in the Saw Mill Brook Path, beyond the Desmodium paniculatum, may have been out as long as the caducous. August 10, 1853
New plants spring up where old woods are cut off, having formerly grown here, perchance. August 10, 1853
Find the Arabis Canadensis, or sickle-pod, on Heywood Peak, nearly out of bloom. Never saw it before. August 10, 1853
I have also found here, for example, round-leaved and naked-flowered desmodium and Desmodium loe-vigatum (??) and Gnaphalium decurrens and queria. August 10, 1853
The river has been rising all day. August 10, 1856
The meadows have quite a springlike look, yet the grass conceals the extent of the flood. It appears chiefly where it is mown. August 10, 1856
As I go along the railroad, I observe the darker green of early-mown fields. August 10, 1854
A cool wind at this hour over the wet foliage, as from over mountain-tops and uninhabited earth. August 10, 1854
The large primrose conspicuously in bloom. Does it shut by day? August 10, 1854
The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest, made solely of such materials as that unfrequented grove afforded, the refuse of the wood or shore of the pond. August 10, 1858
Hear the wood thrush still. August 10, 1856.
*****
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| August 10, 2018 8:32 P |
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
August 10, 2019
8:23 PM
July 30, 1854 ("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 31, 1858 ("Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th.")
August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats"
August 4, 1851 ("It is now the royal month of August. ")August 4, 1853 ("The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring.")
August 5, 1856 ("Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales.")
August 5, 1856 ("Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales.")
August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green.")
August 7, 1853 ("The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now the earth is strewn with fungi. The earth itself is mouldy. I see a white mould in the path. Great toadstools stand in the woods")
August 9, 1856 ("The goldfinch twittering over. . . .already feeding on the thistle seeds.") August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits.")
August 9, 1857 ("Hear the shrilling of my alder locust.")
August 11, 1852 ("The autumnal ring of the alder locust.")
August 11, 1853 ("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.”)
August 11, 1858 ("I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off. It reminds me of the lateness of the season. ")August 12, 1851("I hear a wood thrush even now, long before sunrise, as in the heat of the day.")
August 12, 1854 (" It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year . . . when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen and early apples and peaches. It is already the yellowing year.")
August 12, 1854 ("Have not heard a wood thrush since last week of July.")
August 15, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet.")
August 12, 1854 ("Have not heard a wood thrush since last week of July.")
August 15, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet.")
August 17, 1858 ("The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green.")
August 18, 1852 ("There is indeed something royal about the month of August”)
August 25, 1852 ("I hear no birds sing these days, only . . . the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare.")
August 30, 1858 ("Juncus paradoxus, with seeds tailed at both ends, . . .Some of it with few flowers! A terete leaf rises above the flower. It looks like a small bayonet rush.")
October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — . . . the peeping of the hylodes for some time ,,,")
August 18, 1852 ("There is indeed something royal about the month of August”)
August 25, 1852 ("I hear no birds sing these days, only . . . the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare.")
August 30, 1858 ("Juncus paradoxus, with seeds tailed at both ends, . . .Some of it with few flowers! A terete leaf rises above the flower. It looks like a small bayonet rush.")
October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — . . . the peeping of the hylodes for some time ,,,")
August 10, 2018
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, August 10
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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT10August
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