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
Rowing home in haste
before a black approaching
storm from the northeast.
Cool fall-like weather –
with a pang I remember
spring and summer past.
Endless and varied
play of light and shadow on
the river bottom!
August 13, 2017
For ten days or so we have had comparatively cool, fall-like weather. August 13, 1854
It has rained more or less at least half the days. You have had to consider each afternoon whether you must not take an umbrella. August 13, 1858
Rain this forenoon. Windy in afternoon August 13, 1860
This is a quite hot day again, after cooler weather. August 13, 1854
First marked dog-day; sultry and with misty clouds. August 13, 1854
First marked dog-day; sultry and with misty clouds. August 13, 1854
Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze. August 13, 1854
I remember only with a pang the past spring and summer thus far. August 13, 1854
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| Spotted coral-root Mt. Pritchard August 2018 (Avesong) |
I hear that the Corallorhiza odontorhiza, coral-root, is out. August 13, 1852
Corallorhiza multiflora and Desmodium rotundifolium, how long? August 13, 1857
The small circaea (C. alpina) . . . leaves are of the same color with those of the large at Bittern Cliff, but more decidedly toothed. August 13, 1856
 |
| alpine enchanter’s-nightshade (Circaea alpina) |
The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor. August 13, 1856
Pennyroyal abundant in bloom. I find it springing from the soil lodged on large rocks in sprout-lands, and gather a little bundle, which scents my pocket for many days. August 13, 1852
The broad-leaved helianthus on bank opposite Assabet Spring is not nearly out, though the H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th. August 13, 1858
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 13, 1856
I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know. August 13, 1856
Where that dense young birch grove, four to eight feet high, was burned over in the spring, — I am pretty sure it was early in May,— I see now a yet more dense green crop of Solidago altissima, three or four feet high and budded to bloom. Where did all the seed come from? . . . Nature practices a rotation of crops, and always has has some seed ready in the ground. August 13, 1858
The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river, amid cornels and willows and button-bushes. August 13, 1858
The umbelled fruits —viburnums and cornels, aralias, etc. — have begun. August 13, 1858
I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?), and the seedless down strews the ground. August 13, 1854
Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown. August 13, 1854.
At Thrush Alley, I am surprised to behold how many birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground with a pretty thick bed under each tree. So far as the birches go it is a perfect autumnal scene here. August 13, 1854
Some of the little cranberries at Gowing's Swamp appear to have been frost-bitten. Also the blue-eyed grass, which is now black-topped. August 13, 1860
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 13, 1856
I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know. August 13, 1856
Where that dense young birch grove, four to eight feet high, was burned over in the spring, — I am pretty sure it was early in May,— I see now a yet more dense green crop of Solidago altissima, three or four feet high and budded to bloom. Where did all the seed come from? . . . Nature practices a rotation of crops, and always has has some seed ready in the ground. August 13, 1858
The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river, amid cornels and willows and button-bushes. August 13, 1858
The umbelled fruits —viburnums and cornels, aralias, etc. — have begun. August 13, 1858
I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?), and the seedless down strews the ground. August 13, 1854
Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown. August 13, 1854.
At Thrush Alley, I am surprised to behold how many birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground with a pretty thick bed under each tree. So far as the birches go it is a perfect autumnal scene here. August 13, 1854
Some of the little cranberries at Gowing's Swamp appear to have been frost-bitten. Also the blue-eyed grass, which is now black-topped. August 13, 1860
Hear the steady shrill of the alder locust. August 13, 1860
Such endless and varied play of light and shadow is on the river bottom! August 13, 1858
Rowing home in haste before a black approaching storm from the northeast. How fast the black cloud comes up and passes over my head. August 13, 1853
Such endless and varied play of light and shadow is on the river bottom! August 13, 1858
Rowing home in haste before a black approaching storm from the northeast. How fast the black cloud comes up and passes over my head. August 13, 1853
The remarkable difference between the two branches of our river, kept up down to the very junction, indicates a different geological region for their channels. August 13, 1858
Saw the head and neck of a great bittern projecting above the meadow-grass, exactly like the point of a stump, only I knew there could be no stump there. August 13, 1852.
Saw the head and neck of a great bittern projecting above the meadow-grass, exactly like the point of a stump, only I knew there could be no stump there. August 13, 1852.
Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? August 13, 1853
August 13, 2022
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
May 30, 1857 (“Perhaps I could write meditations under a rock in a shower.”)
July 16, 1859 ("The stream is remarkably different from the [Concord]. It is not half so deep. It is considerably more rapid. The bottom is not muddy but sandy and occasionally stony. Though far shallower, it is less weedy than the other. ... This is owing, perhaps, not only to the greater swiftness of the current, but to the want of mud under the sand. You wonder what makes the difference between this stream and the other. It seems impossible that it should be a geological difference in the beds of the streams so near together. Is it not owing simply to the greater swiftness of this stream?"
August 1, 1855 ("Pennyroyal and alpine enchanter’s-nightshade well out, how long?”)
August 5, 1854 ("See a large bittern, pursued by small birds, alight on the shorn meadow near the pickerel-weeds, but, though I row to the spot, he effectually conceals himself.")
August 5, 1857 ("To my surprise found on the dinner-table at Thatcher's the Vaccinium Oxycoccus")
August 6, 1853 ("Cranberries show red cheeks, and some are wholly red, like varnished cherry wood.")
August 9, 1851 (“ I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste.”)
August 9, 1851 ("The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning.")
August 9, 1856 ("The goldfinch twittering over. Does the last always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds")
August 9, 1857 ("Hear the shrilling of my alder locust.")
August 9, 1857 ("Hear the shrilling of my alder locust.")
August 10, 1853 ("Small rough sunflowers, six feet high, with many branches and flowers.")
August 10, 1856 ("Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long?")
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, 1852 ("The autumnal ring of the alder locust.")
August 11, 1853 ("The small, dull, lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now hang over the water.")
August 11, 1853 ("The small, dull, lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now hang over the water.")
August 11, 1858 ("Now is our rainy season. It has rained half the days for ten days past")
August 11, 1858 ("Instead of dog-day clouds and mists, we have a rainy season. You must walk armed with an umbrella")August 11, 1858 ("The small rough sunflower (now abundant")
August 11, 1858 ("The birches have lately lost a great many of their lower leaves, which now cover and yellow the ground.")
August 12, 1851 ("Now the great sunflower’s golden disk is seen")
August 12, 1854 ("I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds.")
August 12, 1856 ("Surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus . . . The bruised leaves of these helianthuses are rather fragrant.")
August 12, 1858 (“Hear what I have called the alder locust (?) as I return over the causeway, and probably before this.”)
August 14, 1852 ("Viburnum dentatum berries blue.")
August 14, 1852 ("There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.")
August 14, 1856 ("Solidago odora abundantly out.")August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it")
August 15, 1852 ("That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season. ")
August 15, 1852 ("Some cranberries turned red on one cheek along the edges of the meadows.")
August 15, 1851 ("Cnicus pumilus, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one attracts!")
August 15, 1854 ("On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.")
August 16, 1852 ("These are locust days.")August 16, 1856 ("I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum”).
August 17, 1851 ("The Trichostema dichotomum, — not only its bright blue flower above the sand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the season, -- feed my spirit. endear the earth to me, make me value myself and rejoice.")
August 17, 1851 ("The lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now.")August 17, 1859 ("Frost in low ground this Morning.")
August 18. 1852 ("No mountains can be seen.")
August 19, 1856 ("The wind rises and the pasture thistle down is blown about")
August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull leadcolored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 29, 1857 ("Nearby, north, is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant. Call that Corallorhiza Rocks.”)
August 19, 1856 (“I feel an agreeable surprise as often as I come across a new locality for desmodiums. Rarely find one kind without one or two more species near, their great spreading panicles, yet delicate, open, and airy, occupying the August air.")
August 20, 1852 ('The Corallorhiza multiflora, coral-root (not odontorhiza, I think, for it has twenty-four flowers, and its germ is not roundish oval, and its lip is three-lobed), by Brister's Spring. Found by R. W. E., August 12")
August 21, 1854 (" Now, say, is hazelnut time. I see robins in small flocks and pigeon woodpeckers with them.")
August 23, 1854 (“I find a new cranberry on the sphagnum amid the A. calyculata, — V. Oxycoccus")
August 24, 1857 ("The Corallorhiza multiflora was common in these [Natick] woods, and out.")
August 26, 1856 ("I gather a bundle of pennyroyal.")August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull leadcolored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 29, 1857 ("Nearby, north, is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant. Call that Corallorhiza Rocks.”)
August 30, 1856 "(I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, which Emerson says is the common cranberry of the north of Europe.")
August 31, 1855 ("Passed in boat within fifteen feet of a great bittern, standing perfectly still in the water by the riverside, with the point of its bill directly up, as if it knew that from the color of its throat, etc., it was much less likely to be detected in that position, near weeds.")
January 22, 1856 ("I see where a squirrel has . . . eaten a hazelnut. Where does he find a sound hazelnut now? Has them in a hollow tree.")
August 13, 2019
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.
August 12 .<<<<< August 13 >>>>> August 14
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 13
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
tinyurl.com/HDT13August
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