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
Standing on the shore
I now see that sailing or
floating down a smooth
stream at evening
surrounded by water so
agreeable to
imagination
is like embarking on a
train of thought itself.
Silver-plated stream --
water full of reflections.
August 14, 1854
Now after sunset
the river is full of light
in the dark landscape
a silver strip of
sky of the same color and
brightness with the sky.
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| August 14, 2015 |
Heavy rain. August 14, 1860
There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains. August 14, 1852
I perceive the scent of the earliest ripe apples in my walk. How it surpasses all their flavors! August 14, 1853
In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather of a week ago. August 14, 1853
The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now, and I begin to perceive their musty scent. August 14, 1856
There are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather . . . and for most of my walk the air is tainted with a musty, carrion like odor, in some places very offensive. August 14, 1853
The recent heavy rains have caused many leaves to fall. August 14, 1856 .
They already spot the ground, rapidly yellowing and very handsomely spotted. August 14, 1856
The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. August 14, 1856
They already spot the ground, rapidly yellowing and very handsomely spotted. August 14, 1856
The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. August 14, 1856
Sedum Telephium, some time. August 14, 1856
Saw a rose still. August 14, 1852
Methinks the reign of the milkweeds is over. August 14, 1853
Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two. August 14, 1856
Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? August 14, 1856
Solidago odora abundantly out. August 14, 1856.
The zizania now makes quite a show along the river. August 14, 1859
A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path, at Flint's Pond. August 14, 1856
A portulaca with leaves one inch wide and seven petals (!) instead of five. August 14, 1856
Flowering blackberry still. August 14, 1856.
Viburnum dentatum berries blue. August 14, 1852.
The toads probably ceased about the time I last spoke of them. August 14, 1853
Bullfrogs, also, I have not heard for a long time. August 14, 1853
The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it. Often when I watch one go off, he flies at first one way, rising and falling, as if skimming close over unseen billows, but directly makes a great circuit as if he had changed his mind, and disappears in the opposite direction, or is seen to be joined there by his mate. August 14, 1858
The wood pewee, with its young, peculiarly common and prominent. August 14, 1858.
The pea-wai still, and sometimes the golden robin. August 14, 1853.
The fine note of the cherry-bird, pretty often. August 14, 1858
The twitter of the kingbird, pretty often. August 14, 1858
The more characteristic notes would appear to be the wood pewee’s and the goldfinch’s, with the squeal of young hawks. August 14, 1858
These might be called the pewee-days. August 14, 1858
Locust days, — sultry and sweltering. I hear them even till sunset. The usually invisible but far-heard locust. August 14, 1853
I hear no wood thrushes for a week. August 14, 1853
I hear no wood thrushes for a week. August 14, 1853
A blue heron standing in very shallow water amid the weeds of the bar and pluming itself. . . .Suddenly comes a second, flying low, and alights on the bar . . .There they stood in the midst of the open river, on this shallow and weedy bar in the sun, the leisurely sentries, lazily pluming themselves. August 14, 1859
How long we may have gazed on a particular scenery and think that we have seen and known it, when, at length, some bird or quadruped comes and takes possession of it before our eyes, and imparts to it a wholly new character. August 14, 1859
I now, standing on the shore, see that in sailing or floating down a smooth stream at evening it is an advantage to the fancy to be thus slightly separated from the land. August 14, 1854
To float thus on the silver-plated stream is like embarking on a train of thought itself. You are surrounded by water, which is full of reflections; and you see the earth at a distance, which is very agreeable to the imagination. August 14, 1854
I sit three-quarters up the hill. The crickets creak strong and loud now after sunset . . . as of a thousand exactly together, — though further off some alternate, — repeated regularly and in rapid time, perhaps twice in a second. August 14, 1854
I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man. August 14, 1854
I hear the nighthawk squeak and a whip-poor-ill sing. August 14, 1854
I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods, sounding somewhat like the neighing of a horse. August 14, 1854
Now at 7.45, perhaps a half-hour after sunset, the river is quite distinct and full of light in the dark landscape, — a silver strip of sky, of the same color and brightness with the sky. August 14, 1854
August 14, 2014
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago (nannyberry)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee;
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Young Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron
A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Nighthawk
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August
June 25, 1860 ("Hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds. Probably young birds, some of them, lately taken flight. ")
July 14, 1853 ("I see a rose, now in its prime, by the river, in the water amid the willows and button-bushes, while others, lower on shore, are nearly out of bloom.")
July 16, 1857 ("G[ray] shows five petals to Portulaca")
August 19, 1854 ("There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.”)
July 23, 1860 ("The late rose is now in prime along the river, a pale rose-color but very delicate, keeping up the memory of roses")
July 29, 1853 ("There is not only the tobacco-pipe, but pine-sap.")
July 31, 1859 ("See a blue heron several times to-day and yesterday. They must therefore breed not far off ")
August 1, 1856 ("Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths.")
August 4, 1854 ("See a late rose still in flower.")
July 29, 1853 ("There is not only the tobacco-pipe, but pine-sap.")
July 31, 1859 ("See a blue heron several times to-day and yesterday. They must therefore breed not far off ")
August 1, 1856 ("Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths.")
August 4, 1854 ("See a late rose still in flower.")
August 4, 1856 ( "Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached.")
August 5, 1855 ("The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long.”);
August 5, 1858 ("The late rose is still conspicuous, in clumps advanced into the meadow here and there.")
August 5, 1858 ("The kingbird, by his activity and lively note and his white breast, keeps the air sweet.")
August 5, 1858 ("The kingbird, by his activity and lively note and his white breast, keeps the air sweet.")
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, 1851 ("Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell.”)
August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of 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 10, 1853 ("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 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of 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 10, 1853 ("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 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 12, 1858 ("Creak creak, creak creak, creak creak, creak creak. It is a sound associated with the declining year and recalls the moods of that season. It is so unobtrusive yet universal a sound, so underlying the other sounds . . ., I can hardly be sure whether I hear it still, or remember it, it so rings in my ears")
August12, 1858 ("It is surprising how young birds, especially sparrows of all kinds, abound now, and bobolinks and wood pewees and kingbirds.")August 12, 1860 ("Zizania several days")
August 13, 1856 (“In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea, growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide.”)
August 13, 1858 ("You have had to consider each afternoon whether you must not take an umbrella."')
August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze. ")
August 13, 1854 ("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, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river.")
August 13, 1856 (“In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea, growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide.”)
August 13, 1858 ("You have had to consider each afternoon whether you must not take an umbrella."')
August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze. ")
August 13, 1854 ("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, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river.")
August 13, 1860 ("Hear the steady shrill of the alder locust")
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, 1853 ("Rain again in the night, but now clear. . . . cooler and beautifully clear at last after all these rains, and the crickets chirp with a still more autumnal sound")
August 15, 1854 ("A dog-day, comfortably cloudy and cool as well as still. ")
August 15, 1858("Rain in the night and dog-day weather again, after two clear days.")
August 16, 1852 ("These are locust days.")
August 16. 1858 ("A blue heron, with its great undulating wings, prominent cutwater, and leisurely flight, goes over southwest, cutting off the bend of the river west of our house.")
August 17, 1851 ("The lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now.")
August 17, 1851 ("The lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now.")
August 18. 1852 ("No mountains can be seen.")
August 18, 1852 ("Ripe apples here and there scent the air.”)
August 18, 1856 ("I hear the steady shrilling of . . .the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. . . . It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy,")
August 18, 1854 ("The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant.")
August 19, 1856 ("I spent my afternoon among the desmodiums and lespedezas, sociably. . . . All the lespedezas are apparently more open and delicate in the woods, and of a darker green, especially the violet ones.")August 18, 1852 ("Ripe apples here and there scent the air.”)
August 18, 1856 ("I hear the steady shrilling of . . .the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. . . . It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy,")
August 18, 1854 ("The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant.")
August 19, 1854 ("There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.”)
August 19, 1853 ("A kingbird hovers almost stationary in the air, a foot above the water.")
August 19, 1858 ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows")
August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream. I have not seen the last since spring.")
August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me.")
August 22, 1854 (“The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”)
August 23, 1856 ("The scent of decaying fungi in woods is quite offensive now in many places, like carrion even. I see many red ones eaten more or less in the paths, nibbled out on the edges")
August 23, 1858 ("I see the spotted sarsaparilla leaves ")
August 24, 1853 ("This certainly is the season for fungi.")
August 19, 1858 ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows")
August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream. I have not seen the last since spring.")
August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me.")
August 22, 1854 (“The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”)
August 23, 1856 ("The scent of decaying fungi in woods is quite offensive now in many places, like carrion even. I see many red ones eaten more or less in the paths, nibbled out on the edges")
August 23, 1858 ("I see the spotted sarsaparilla leaves ")
August 24, 1853 ("This certainly is the season for fungi.")
August 24, 1854 (“See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs.”)
August 25, 1859 ("Copious rain at last, in the night and during the day. ")
August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 28, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters away from every thistle now, and soon returns to it when I am past. I see the ground strewn with the thistle-down they have scattered on every side")
August 30, 1854 ("The valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure o distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon.")
Sepetmber 1, 1856 ("We go admiring the pure and delicate tints of fungi on the surface of the damp swamp there, following up along the north side of the brook past the right of the old camp. There are many very beautiful lemon- yellow ones of various forms, some shaped like buttons, some becoming finely scalloped on the edge, some club-shaped and hollow, of the most delicate and rare but decided tints, contrasting well with the decaying leaves about them. There are others also pure white, others a wholesome red, others brown, and some even a light indigo-blue above and beneath and throughout. When colors come to be taught in the schools, as they should be, both the prism (or the rainbow) and these fungi should be used by way of illustration, and if the pupil does not learn colors, he may learn fungi, which perhaps is better.")
September 6, 1854 ("The sarsaparilla leaves, green or reddish, are spotted with yellow eyes centred with reddish, or dull-reddish eyes with yellow iris. They have a very pretty effect held over the forest floor")
August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.")
August 28, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters away from every thistle now, and soon returns to it when I am past. I see the ground strewn with the thistle-down they have scattered on every side")
August 30, 1854 ("The valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure o distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon.")
Sepetmber 1, 1856 ("We go admiring the pure and delicate tints of fungi on the surface of the damp swamp there, following up along the north side of the brook past the right of the old camp. There are many very beautiful lemon- yellow ones of various forms, some shaped like buttons, some becoming finely scalloped on the edge, some club-shaped and hollow, of the most delicate and rare but decided tints, contrasting well with the decaying leaves about them. There are others also pure white, others a wholesome red, others brown, and some even a light indigo-blue above and beneath and throughout. When colors come to be taught in the schools, as they should be, both the prism (or the rainbow) and these fungi should be used by way of illustration, and if the pupil does not learn colors, he may learn fungi, which perhaps is better.")
September 6, 1854 ("The sarsaparilla leaves, green or reddish, are spotted with yellow eyes centred with reddish, or dull-reddish eyes with yellow iris. They have a very pretty effect held over the forest floor")
November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, - the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountaintop through some new vista, - this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")
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| August 14, 2013 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 14.
tinyurl.com/HDT14August |
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