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
All bushes resound.
I wade up to my ears in the
alder locust song.
August 26, 1860
I am surprised by
sun-sparkles on the river,
not seen for some time.
August 26, 1859
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| August 26, 2015 |
August 26, 1856
Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. August 26, 1859
We begin to apprehend frosts before the melons are ripe!
August 26, 1856
I hear of a great many fires around us, far and near, both meadows and woods; in Maine and New York also. There may be some smoke in this haze, but I doubt it. August 26, 1854
The first fall rain is a memorable occasion . . . The air is cleared; the dog- days are over . . . sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. August 26, 1859
A blue heron sails away from a pine at Holden Swamp shore and alights on the meadow above. Again he flies, and alights on the hard Conantum side, where at length I detect him standing far away stake-like (his body concealed), eying me and depending on his stronger vision. August 26, 1856
As I stand there, a young male goldfinch darts away with a twitter from a spear thistle top close to my side, and, alighting near, makes frequent returns as near to me and the thistle as it dares pass, not yet knowing man well enough to fear him. August 26, 1856
I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. August 26, 1859
The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface amid the grass-tops and apparently snapping up insects there. August 26, 1856
The wind roars amid the pines like the surf. You can hardly hear the crickets for the din. . . Such a blowing, stirring, bustling day, - what does it mean ?
August 26, 1856
I hear of a great many fires around us, far and near, both meadows and woods; in Maine and New York also. There may be some smoke in this haze, but I doubt it. August 26, 1854
The first fall rain is a memorable occasion . . . The air is cleared; the dog- days are over . . . sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. August 26, 1859
A blue heron sails away from a pine at Holden Swamp shore and alights on the meadow above. Again he flies, and alights on the hard Conantum side, where at length I detect him standing far away stake-like (his body concealed), eying me and depending on his stronger vision. August 26, 1856
As I stand there, a young male goldfinch darts away with a twitter from a spear thistle top close to my side, and, alighting near, makes frequent returns as near to me and the thistle as it dares pass, not yet knowing man well enough to fear him. August 26, 1856
I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. August 26, 1859
The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface amid the grass-tops and apparently snapping up insects there. August 26, 1856
The wind roars amid the pines like the surf. You can hardly hear the crickets for the din. . . Such a blowing, stirring, bustling day, - what does it mean ?
It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer . . .The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound. August 26, 1859
The shrilling of the alder locust is the solder that welds these autumn days together. Methinks the burden of their song is the countless harvests of the year, - berries, grain, and other fruits. August 26, 1860
A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side. August 26, 1859
Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours. August 26, 1856
Two interesting tall purplish grasses appear to be the prevailing ones now in dry and sterile neglected fields and hillsides, — Andropogon furcatus, forked beard grass, and apparently Andropogon scoparius, purple wool grass. . . . They also by their rich purple reflections or tinges seem to express the ripeness of the year. August 26, 1858
These desmodiums are so fine and inobvious that it is difficult to detect them. I go through a grove in vain, but when I get away, find my coat covered with their pods. They found me, though I did not them. August 26, 1856
The desmodium flowers are pure purple, rose-purple in the morning when quite fresh, excepting the two green spots. The D. rotundifolium also has the two green (or in its case greenish) spots on its very large flower. . . . The round-leafed desmodium has sometimes seven pods and large flowers still fresh. August 26, 1856 .
The Solidago arguta is apparently in its prime. August 26, 1858
Aster macrophyllus, now in its prime. It grows large and rank, two feet high. On one I count seventeen central flowers withered, one hundred and thirty in bloom, and half as many buds. August 26, 1856
The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime. August 26, 1858
I thread my way through the blueberry swamp in front of Martial Miles's. [Ledum Swamp] The high blueberries far above my head in the shade of the swamp retain their freshness and coolness a long time. Little blue sacks full of swampy nectar and ambrosia commingled. August 26, 1860
And now a far greater show of choke-berries is here, rich to see. August 26, 1860
Also Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. August 26, 1859
Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood. August 26, 1859
I gather a bundle of pennyroyal; it grows largest and rankest high and close under these rocks, amid the loose stones. I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed. August 26, 1856 .
The fall dandelion is as conspicuous and abundant now in Tuttle's meadow as buttercups in the spring. It takes their place. August 26, 1853.
Open one of my snapping turtle's eggs. August 26, 1854
I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles. August 26, 1854
Methinks I hear the crow of a cock come up from its barn-yard. August 26, 1856
What is a New England landscape this sunny August day? A weather-painted house and barn, with an orchard by its side, in midst of a sandy field surrounded by green woods, with a small blue lake on one side. August 26, 1856
Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. August 26, 1859
I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. August 26, 1859
I hear part of a phoebe's strain, as I go over the railroad bridge. It is the voice of dying summer. August 26, 1854
Saw the comet in the west to-night. August 26, 1853
Saw the comet in the west to-night. August 26, 1853
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Ledum Swamp
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago (nannyberry)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Liatris
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cucumber Root (medeola)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Young Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau Moods and Seasons of the Mind.
June 15, 1859 (“A regular old-fashioned country house, long and low, one story unpainted, with a broad green field, half orchard, for all yard between it and the road, — a part of the hill side, — and much June-grass before it. This is where the men who save the country are born and bred.”)
July 30, 1860 ("Am glad to press my way through Miles's Swamp. Thickets of choke-berry bushes higher than my head, with many of their lower leaves already red")
August 1, 1856 ("Liatris will apparently open in a day or two.")
August 1, 1855 ("Pennyroyal and alpine enchanter’s-nightshade well out, how long?”)
August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common ")
August 5, 1852 ("How wildly rich and beautiful hang on high there the blueberries which might so easily be poisonous, the cool blue clusters high in air. Choke-berries, fair to the eye but scarcely palatable, hang far above your head, weighing down the bushes. The wild holly berry, perhaps the most beautiful of berries, hanging by slender threads from its more light and open bushes and more delicate leaves. The bushes, eight feet high, are black with choke-berries, and there are no wild animals to eat them.")
August 6, 1855 ("The mole cricket creaks along the shore.")
August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought. . .The objects I behold correspond to my mood.”)
August 9, 1856 ("The flowers of A. macrophyllus are white with a very slight bluish tinge, in a coarse flat-topped corymb. Flowers nine to ten eighths of an inch in diameter.")
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 13, 1852 ("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, 1856 ("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 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, 1854 (" I see large flocks of bobolinks on the Union Turnpike")
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 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. Like raking masts with countless guys slanted far over the neighboring plants”)
August 21, 1859 ("The blue herons must find it easy to get their living now. Are they not more common on our river such [drought] years as this?")
August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore.")
August 23, 1857 ("The mole cricket nowadays.")
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 24, 1852("Autumnal dandelions are more common now.") \
August 25, 1854 ("Between me and Nawshawtuct is a very blue haze like smoke. Indeed many refer all this to smoke")
August 25, 1856 ("Some have seven or eight grasshoppers, clinging to their masts, one close and directly above an other, like shipwrecked sailors, now the third or fourth day exposed.”)
August 25, 1854 ("Also the choke-berries are very abundant [at Shadbush Meadow], but mostly dried black.")
August 28, 1854 ("I think that haze was not smoke;")
August 28, 1856 ("The bushes are weighed down with choke-berries, which no creature appears to gather. This crop is as abundant as the huckleberries have been. They have a sweet and pleasant taste enough, but leave a mass of dry pulp in the mouth.")
August 28, 1860 (" The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.')
August 30, 1851 ("This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!")
August 31, 1854 ("Wormwood pollen yellows my clothes commonly")
August 31, 1859("These weeds require cultivated ground, and now that the potatoes are cared for, Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds.")
September 1, 1859 ("The autumnal dandelion is a prevailing flower now")
September 2, 1854("The autumnal dandelion is conspicuous on the shore.")
September 10, 1854 ("Heard my last phoebe August 26th")
September 11, 1855 ("Loudly the mole cricket creaks by mid-afternoon.")September 13, 1856 (" Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime . . . A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season.")
September 26, 1859 ("("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows.")
September 27, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket sounds late along the shore.")
September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time.")
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 25 .<<<<< August 26. >>>>> August 27
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 26
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
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