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
The flowers of the
blue vervain have now reached the
summit of their spikes.
I cannot account
for this peculiar smoothness
of the dimpled stream.
Study botany --
the precision of it terms
words and its system.
If you do not know
the names of things the knowledge
of them is lost too.
Carl Linneaus 1751
It is still cool weather with a northwest wind. This weather is a preface to autumn. August 20, 1858
There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. August 20, 1858
I am struck by the clearness and stillness of the air, the brightness of the landscape, the reflection of light from the washed earth, the darkness and heaviness of the shade, and the smoothness of the dimpled stream as I look now up the river at the white maples and bushes. August 20, 1853
Single trees half a mile off . . . stand out distinctly a dark mass, — almost black. August 20, 1854
If they are between you and the sun, the trees are more black than green. August 20, 1853
The grass and foliage and landscape generally are of a more thought-inspiring color, suggest what some perchance would call a pleasing melancholy. August 20, 1858
The golden robin is now a rare bird to see. August 20, 1851
5.15 a. m. — To Hill. I hear a gold robin, also faint song of common robin. Wood pewee (fresh); red-wing blackbird with fragmentary trill; bobolinks (the males apparently darker and by themselves); kingbirds; nuthatch heard; yellow-throated vireo, heard and saw, on hickories (have I lately mistaken this for red-eye ?); goldfinch; slate- colored hawk (with white rump and black wing-tips.) August 20, 1854
The yellow-throated vireo is very restless, darting about. August 20, 1854
A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. August 20, 1851
But I cannot account for this peculiar smoothness of the dimpled stream August 20, 1853.
How copious and precise the botanical language to describe the leaves, as well as the other parts of a plant! Botany is worth studying if only for the precision of its terms, — to learn the value of words and of system. August 21, 1851
On the pitch pine plain, at first the pines are far apart, with a wiry grass between, and goldenrod and hardhack and St. John's-wort and blackberry vines. August 20, 1851.
Here are the small, lively-tasting blackberries, so small they are not commonly eaten. August 20, 1851.
I find raspberries still. August 20, 1852.
On the pitch pine plain, at first the pines are far apart, with a wiry grass between, and goldenrod and hardhack and St. John's-wort and blackberry vines. August 20, 1851.
Here are the small, lively-tasting blackberries, so small they are not commonly eaten. August 20, 1851.
I find raspberries still. August 20, 1852.
The hillside at Clintonia Swamp is in some parts quite shingled with the rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyera pubescens) leaves overlapping one another. The flower is now apparently in its prime. August 20, 1856/
The Goodyera repens grows behind the spring where I used to sit, amid the dead pine leaves. August 20, 1857
In the dry ditch, near Abel Minott's house that was, I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers, — red men, war, and bloodshed. Some are four and a half feet high. August 20, 1851
The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present. August 20, 1851
The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass, and the rhexia also, both difficult to get home. August 20, 1852
The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes. August 20, 1851
The Goodyera repens grows behind the spring where I used to sit, amid the dead pine leaves. August 20, 1857
In the dry ditch, near Abel Minott's house that was, I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers, — red men, war, and bloodshed. Some are four and a half feet high. August 20, 1851
The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present. August 20, 1851
The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass, and the rhexia also, both difficult to get home. August 20, 1852
The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes. August 20, 1851
Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field. August 20, 1852
The pewees sit still on their perch a long time, returning to the same twig after darting at an insect . . . It often utters a continous pe-e-e. August 20, 1854
When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over. August 20, 1854
July 19, 1851 ("I hear a cricket, too, under the blackberry vines, singing as in the fall. Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?")
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 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn..")
August 4, 1852 (“I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall.”)
August 4. 1854 ("A still, cloudy day with from time to time a gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects. Purple gerardia, by brook")
August 21, 1853 ("Methinks I have not heard a robin sing morning or evening of late, but the peawai still, and occasionally a short note from the gold robin.")
August 29, 1859 ("The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct; saw-grass reveals its spikes in the shorn fields; sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. Farmers feel encouraged about their late potatoes and corn. Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. Meadow-haying is over. ")
*****
August 20, 2017
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
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 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn..")
August 4, 1852 (“I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall.”)
August 4. 1854 ("A still, cloudy day with from time to time a gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects. Purple gerardia, by brook")
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 6, 1851 ("How often it happens that the traveller's principal distinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a native! ")
August 6, 1852 ("How different the feeble twittering of the birds here at sunrise from the full quire of the spring! Only the wood thrush, a huckleberry-bird or two, or chickadee, the scream of a flicker or a jay, or the caw of a crow, and commonly only an alarmed note of a robin")
August 6, 1855 ("Hear the autumnal crickets.")
August 6, 1858 (“The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent.”)
August 6, 1852 ("Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story.")
August 6, 1854 (“. . .this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon.”)
August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)
August 12, 1858 ("The note of the wood pewee is a prominent and common one now. You see old and young together.")
August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days")
August 14, 1853 (" The pea-wai still, and sometimes the golden robin.")
August 15, 1852 ("This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.")
August 6, 1858 (“The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent.”)
August 6, 1852 ("Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story.")
August 6, 1854 (“. . .this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon.”)
August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)
August 12, 1858 ("The note of the wood pewee is a prominent and common one now. You see old and young together.")
August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days")
August 14, 1853 (" The pea-wai still, and sometimes the golden robin.")
August 15, 1852 ("This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.")
August 15, 1853 ("Cooler and beautifully clear at last after all these rains, and the crickets chirp with a still more autumnal sound")
August 16, 1858 ("At sunset I hear a low short warble from a golden robin, and the notes of the wood pewee.")August 17, 1852 ("The creak of the crickets sounds louder.")
August 17, 1852("The woods are very still. I hear only a faint peep or twitter from one bird, then the never-failing wood thrush, it being about sunrise, and after, on the Cliff, the phoebe note of a chickadee, a night-warbler, a creeper (?), and a pewee (?), and, later still, the huckleberry-bird and red-eye, but all few and faint")
August 18, 1858 (“It was not the usual spring note of this [pewee] but a simple, clear pe-e-eet, rising steadily with one impulse to the end.”)
August 19, 1853 ("After more rain, with wind in the night, it is now clearing up cool. There is a broad, clear crescent of blue in the west, slowly increasing, and an agreeable autumnal coolness")
August 19, 1858 ("Here is a cool, clear, and elastic air. You may say it is the first day of autumn.")
August 19, 1851 ("The cricket's is a note which does not attract you to itself. It is not easy to find one.")
August 19, 1858 ("You notice the louder and clearer ring of crickets")
August 18, 1858 (“It was not the usual spring note of this [pewee] but a simple, clear pe-e-eet, rising steadily with one impulse to the end.”)
August 19, 1853 ("After more rain, with wind in the night, it is now clearing up cool. There is a broad, clear crescent of blue in the west, slowly increasing, and an agreeable autumnal coolness")
August 19, 1858 ("Here is a cool, clear, and elastic air. You may say it is the first day of autumn.")
August 19, 1851 ("The cricket's is a note which does not attract you to itself. It is not easy to find one.")
August 19, 1858 ("You notice the louder and clearer ring of crickets")
August 21, 1851("Bigelow, speaking of the spikes of the blue vervain (Verbena hastata), says, “The flowering commences at their base and is long in reaching their summit.” . . . It is very pleasant to measure the progress of the season by this and similar clocks. So you get, not the absolute time, but the true time of the season.")
August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now.")
August 21, 1852 ("The sound of the crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep.")
August 21, 1852 ("There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen ")
August 22, 1853 ("I hear but few notes of birds these days")
August 22, 1853 ("Hear a peawai whose note is more like singing — as if it were still incubating — than any other.")
August 22, 1853 ("Some of the warble of the golden robin.")
August 22, 1853 ("A hurried anxious note from a robin. Heard perhaps half a dozen afterward. They flit now, accompanied by their young.")August 22, 1853 ("Some of the warble of the golden robin.")
August 22, 1859 ("The circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season is.")
August 23, 1851 ("The Verbena hastata at the pond has reached the top of its spike, a little in advance of what I noticed yesterday; only one or two flowers are adhering.")
August 24, 1858 ("The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water.")
August 26, 1856 ("More wind and quite cold this morning, but very bright and sparkling, autumn-like air, reminding of frosts to be apprehended")
August 27, 1856 (""Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside, quite erect, with its white spike eight to ten inches high on the sloping hillside, . . .Is it not the prettiest leaf that paves the forest floor? )
August 27, 1856 ("The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now, though they would have been much fresher and finer a week ago. . . . They look like slender plumes of soldiers advancing in a dense troop, . . .the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw")
August 29, 1858 ("I hear this morning one eat it potter from a golden robin. They are now rarely seen.")
August 23, 1851 ("The Verbena hastata at the pond has reached the top of its spike, a little in advance of what I noticed yesterday; only one or two flowers are adhering.")
August 24, 1858 ("The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water.")
August 26, 1856 ("More wind and quite cold this morning, but very bright and sparkling, autumn-like air, reminding of frosts to be apprehended")
August 27, 1856 (""Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside, quite erect, with its white spike eight to ten inches high on the sloping hillside, . . .Is it not the prettiest leaf that paves the forest floor? )
August 27, 1856 ("The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now, though they would have been much fresher and finer a week ago. . . . They look like slender plumes of soldiers advancing in a dense troop, . . .the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw")
August 29, 1858 ("I hear this morning one eat it potter from a golden robin. They are now rarely seen.")
August 29, 1858 ("With the knowledge of the name comes a distincter recognition and knowledge of the thing. . . . My knowledge now becomes communicable and grows by communication. I can now learn what others know about the same thing.")
August 30, 1854 ("The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction.")
August 30, 1856 ("Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long?")
August 31, 1853 ("Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one.")
August 31, 1858 ("I see to-day one golden robin")
September 6, 1858 ("Also hear apparently a yellow-throated vireo")
September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors. Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.")August 30, 1856 ("Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long?")
August 31, 1853 ("Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one.")
August 31, 1858 ("I see to-day one golden robin")
September 6, 1858 ("Also hear apparently a yellow-throated vireo")
September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now")
September 21, 1856 ("I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange.")
August 20, 2015
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 20
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/HDT20August
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