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
Blackbird all alone
singing very earnestly
on an apple tree.
singing very earnestly
on an apple tree.
 |
| September 20, 2015 |
As I go through the fields, endeavoring to recover my tone and sanity and to perceive things truly and simply again, after having been perambulating the bounds of the town all the week, and dealing with the most commonplace and worldly-minded men, and emphatically trivial things, I feel as if I had committed suicide in a sense . . . The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof. Let him perambulate the bounds of Imagination's provinces, the realms of faery, and not the insignificant boundaries of towns. The excursions of the imagination are so boundless, the limits of towns are so petty. September 20, 1851
Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country. September 20, 1852
Cattle-Show. September 20, 1860
Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug found on the earth floor of their shed (I think a month ago). Had two bright points in its tail, as bright or brighter than the glow-worm. September 20, 1858
There has been no drought the past summer. September 20, 1857
It rained very hard while we were aboard the steamer. September 20, 1853
Windy rain-storm last night. September 20, 1854
Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard. September 20, 1856
Sunday. Another mizzling day. September 20, 1857
This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall. September 20, 1857
Rainy in forenoon. September 20, 1860
The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark. September 20, 1857
This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings. September 20, 1851
On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. September 20, 1851
Cattle-Show. September 20, 1860
Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug found on the earth floor of their shed (I think a month ago). Had two bright points in its tail, as bright or brighter than the glow-worm. September 20, 1858
There has been no drought the past summer. September 20, 1857
It rained very hard while we were aboard the steamer. September 20, 1853
Windy rain-storm last night. September 20, 1854
Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard. September 20, 1856
Sunday. Another mizzling day. September 20, 1857
This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall. September 20, 1857
Rainy in forenoon. September 20, 1860
The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark. September 20, 1857
This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings. September 20, 1851
On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. September 20, 1851
First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves. September 20, 1855
All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched. September 20, 1851
The smooth sumachs are turning conspicuously and generally red, apparently from frost. September 20, 1852
In some hollows in sprout-lands, the grass and ferns are crisp and brown from frost. September 20, 1852
All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched. September 20, 1851
The smooth sumachs are turning conspicuously and generally red, apparently from frost. September 20, 1852
In some hollows in sprout-lands, the grass and ferns are crisp and brown from frost. September 20, 1852
The ivy here is reddened. September 20, 1851
The dogwood, or poison sumach, by Hubbard's meadow is also turned reddish. September 20, 1851
The cleared plateau beneath the Cliff, now covered with sprouts, shows red, green, and yellow tints, like a rich rug. September 20, 1851
White pines on Fair Haven Hill begin to look parti-colored with the falling leaves, but not at a distance. September 20, 1851
And here and there is a whole maple tree red, about water. September 20, 1852
A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there. September 20, 1857
I fear that the autumnal tints will not be brilliant this season, the frosts have commenced so early. September 20, 1851
To-day it is warmer and hazier, and there is, no doubt, some smoke in the air, from the burning of the turf and moss in low lands, where the smoke, seen at sunset, looks like a rising fog. September 20, 1851
Last week was the warmest perhaps in the year. September 20, 1851
I hear the locust sing as in August. September 20, 1851
Here are late buttercups and dwarf tree-primroses still. September 20, 1851
Methinks there are not many goldenrods this year. September 20, 1851
Butter-and-eggs on Fair Haven. September 20, 1851
I suppose it is the Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers. September 20, 1852
The Viola sagittata has blossomed again. September 20, 1852.
The Galium circcezans (?) still, and narrow-leaved johnswort. September 20, 1852
The groundsel and hieracium down is in the air. September 20, 1852
The river is remarkably low. There is a rod wide of bare shore beneath the Cliff Hill. September 20, 1851
The river probably reaches its highest since June to-day. September 20, 1858
The button-bushes by the river are generally overrun with the mikania. September 20, 1859
It is a sort of tropical vegetation at the bottom of the river. The palm-like potamogeton,—or ostrich plumes. September 20, 1855
I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be. September 20, 1859
Vegetation is unusually fresh. Methinks the grass in some shorn meadows is even greener than in the spring. September 20, 1857
You are soon wet through by the underwood if you enter the woods, — ferns, aralia, huckleberries, etc. September 20, 1857
The early decaying and variegated spotted leaves of the Aralia nudicaulis, which spread out flat and of uniform height some eighteen (?) inches above the forest floor, are very noticeable and interesting in our woods in early autumn, now and for some time. For more than a month it has been changing. September 20, 1857
The branches of the alternate cornel are spreading and flat, somewhat cyme-like, as its fruit. September 20, 1857
Beach plums are now perfectly ripe and unexpectedly good, as good as an average cultivated plum. I get a handful, dark purple with a bloom, as big as a good-sized grape and but little more oblong, about three quarters of an inch broad and a very little longer. September 20, 1857
I got a handkerchief full of elder-berries, though I am rather late about it, for the birds appear to have greatly thinned the cymes. September 20, 1857
A pitch pine and birch wood is rapidly springing up between the Beck Stow Wood and the soft white pine grove. September 20, 1857
Try to trace by the sound a mole cricket, -- thinking it a frog, — advancing from two sides and looking where our courses intersected, but in vain. September 20, 1855
Open a new and pretty sizable muskrat-house with no hollow yet made in it. Many tortoise-scales upon it. September 20, 1855
The Maryland yellow-throat is here. September 20, 1858
Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms. September 20, 1858
The golden plover, they say, has been more than usually plenty here this year. September 20, 1852
I see ducks or teal flying silent, swift, and straight, the wild creatures. September 20, 1851
Melvin says that there are many teal about the river now. September 20, 1856
See larks in flocks on meadow. September 20, 1855
See to-day quite a flock of what I think must be rusty grackles about the willows and button-bushes. September 20, 1854
See blackbirds (grackle or red-wing or crow blackbird)? September 20, 1855
I get quite near to a blackbird on an apple tree, singing with the grackle note very earnestly and not minding me. He is all alone. September 20, 1859
Has a (rustyish) brown head and shoulders and the rest black. I think it is a grackle. Is this a grackle come from its northern breeding-place? September 20, 1859
Where are the red-wings now? I have not seen nor heard one for a long time. September 20, 1859
I scare up the great bittern in meadow by the Heywood Brook near the ivy. He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind, and sweeps south over the willow with outstretched neck, surveying. September 20, 1851
The great bittern, as it flies off from near the railroad bridge, filthily drops its dirt and utters a low hoarse kwa kwa; then runs and hides in the grass, and I land and search within ten feet of it before it rises. September 20, 1855
On Heywood's Peak by Walden. —
How soothing to sit on a stump
on this height overlooking the pond
and study the dimpling circles
which are incessantly inscribed
and again erased
on the smooth and otherwise
invisible surface
amid the reflected skies!
The reflected sky is of a deeper blue. September 20, 1852
How beautiful that over this vast expanse there can be no disturbance, but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as . . . the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again ! September 20, 1852
Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on it but it is reported in lines of beauty, in circling dimples, as it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. September 20, 1852
The thrills of joy and those of pain are indistinguishable. September 20, 1852
How beautiful that over this vast expanse there can be no disturbance, but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as . . . the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again ! September 20, 1852
Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on it but it is reported in lines of beauty, in circling dimples, as it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. September 20, 1852
The thrills of joy and those of pain are indistinguishable. September 20, 1852
How sweet the phenomena of the lake!
Everything that moves on its surface
produces a sparkle.
The motion of an oar or an insect
produces a flash of light
and if an oar falls –
how sweet the echo!
The peaceful pond!
How distinctly each thing
in nature is marked!
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Hawkweeds (hieracium)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Grape
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Seen from a Hillside
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections
*****
February 6, 1852 (A mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker and more primitive.)
March 29, 1855 ("As I stand on Heywood’s Peak, looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water,")
June 15, 1856 ("A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand."}
June 25, 1852 ("Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies. . .")
July 9, 1859 ("The button-bush and black willow generally grow together, especially on the brink of the stagnant parts of the river.")
July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")
August 1, 1853 ("Is it the Galium circæzans which I have seen so long on Heywood Peak and elsewhere, with four broad leaves, low and branched?")June 15, 1856 ("A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand."}
June 25, 1852 ("Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies. . .")
July 9, 1859 ("The button-bush and black willow generally grow together, especially on the brink of the stagnant parts of the river.")
July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")
August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects")
August 12, 1853 ("You now see and hear no red-wings along the river as in spring.")
August 16, 1859 ("A large flock of red-wings goes tchucking over")
August 15, 1854 ("The button-bush is now nearly altogether out of bloom, so that it is too late to see the river's brink in its perfection. It must be seen between the blooming of the mikania and the going out of bloom of the button bush, before you feel this sense of lateness in the year.")
August 15, 1858 (“The black willows are already being imbrowned.")
August 19, 1853 ("It is a glorious and ever-memorable day. . . . The first bright day of the fall" )
August 22, 1858 ("As for the beauty of the river’s brim: now that the mikania begins to prevail the button-bush has done . . . and the willows are already some what crisped and imbrowned , , , So perhaps I should say that the brim of the river was in its prime about the 1st of August this year")
August 16, 1859 ("A large flock of red-wings goes tchucking over")
August 15, 1854 ("The button-bush is now nearly altogether out of bloom, so that it is too late to see the river's brink in its perfection. It must be seen between the blooming of the mikania and the going out of bloom of the button bush, before you feel this sense of lateness in the year.")
August 15, 1858 (“The black willows are already being imbrowned.")
August 19, 1853 ("It is a glorious and ever-memorable day. . . . The first bright day of the fall" )
August 22, 1858 ("As for the beauty of the river’s brim: now that the mikania begins to prevail the button-bush has done . . . and the willows are already some what crisped and imbrowned , , , So perhaps I should say that the brim of the river was in its prime about the 1st of August this year")
August 22, 1856 ("The faint warbling I hear nowadays is from apparently the young Maryland yellow- throats, as it were practicing against another spring, — half-finished strains. ")
;August 22, 1852 ("The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned, and are still in bloom at the extremities of their twigs.");
August 24, 1854 ("The white pines are parti-colored there [Lee's Cliff]")August 24, 1853 ("I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? ") August 24, 1857 ("The Galium circæzans leaves taste very much like licorice")
August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare")
August 27, 1854 ("From Heywood's Peak I am surprised to see the top of Pine Hill wearing its October aspect, — yellow with changed maples and here and there faintly blushing with changed red maples. This is the effect of the drought.")August 27, 1859 ("The first notice I have that grapes are ripening is by the rich scent at evening from my own native vine against the house")
August 28, 1852 ("The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly. ")August 29, 1855 ("Saw two green-winged teal, somewhat pigeon-like, on a flat low rock in the Assabet.")
August 29, 1853 ("Walking down the street in the evening, I detect my neighbor’s ripening grapes by the scent twenty rods off.")
August 29, 1859 ("The very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights.")
August 29, 1859 ("The very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights.")
August 29, 1858 ("The mikania is apparently in prime or a little past.")
August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous.");
August 29, 1859 ("Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. Hence you see the green cymes perfectly erect, the half-ripe drooping, and the perfectly ripe hanging straight down on the same bush.");
August 30, 1853 ("Grapes are already ripe; I smell them first.")
August 31, 1852 ("That part of the sky just above the horizon seen reflected, apparently, some rods off from the boat is as light a blue as the actual, but it goes on deepening as your eye draws nearer to the boat, until, when you look directly down at the reflection of the zenith, it is lost in the blackness of the water.”)
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.")August 31, 1853 ("Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes.")
September 1, 1859 ("The elder-berry cyme, held erect, is of very regular form, four principal divisions drooping toward each quarter around an upright central one.")
September 1, 1851 ("Aster undulatus begins to be common.")September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness”)
September 4, 1859 ("Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter")
September 4, 1853 ("Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare")September 4, 1859 ("Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter")
September 4, 1853 ("The fragrance of a grape-vine branch, with ripe grapes on it, which I have brought home, fills the whole house.")
September 6, 1860 ("The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed since I noticed them August 22d.")
September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect.)
September 6, 1859 ("Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country.")
September 7, 1858 ( It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny. . .and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard.");
September 8, 1854 ("The grapes would no doubt be riper a week hence, but I am compelled to go now before the vines are stripped. I partly smell them out.");
September 8, 1858 (“Gather half my grapes, which for some time have perfumed the house.”).
September 9, 1856 ("A large alternate cornel, four or five inches in diameter, a dark-gray stem. ")September 8, 1854 ("The grapes would no doubt be riper a week hence, but I am compelled to go now before the vines are stripped. I partly smell them out.");
September 8, 1858 (“Gather half my grapes, which for some time have perfumed the house.”).
September 9, 1858 ("Now it is about time to gather elder-berries.")
September 11, 1852 ("I started a great bittern from the weeds at the swimming-place")
September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden.")
September 12, 1851 ("How autumnal is the scent of ripe grapes now by the roadside!")
September 12, 1851 ("How autumnal is the scent of ripe grapes now by the roadside!")
September 12, 1851 (" On Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of the town.")
September 13, 1858 ("Hear many warbling vireos these mornings")
September 13, 1856 ("Gather quite a parcel of grapes, quite ripe.. . . the best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity.")
September 13, 1856 ("Gather quite a parcel of grapes, quite ripe.. . . the best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity.")
September 15, 1851("The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost.")
September 15, 1851 ("Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.")
September 15, 1851 ("Commenced perambulating the town bounds.")
September 16, 1852 (" I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long.")
September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”)
September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”)
September 17, 1851 ("Perambulated the Lincoln line.")
September 17, 1852 ("Is it the alder locust that rings so loud in low land now?")
September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line.")
September 18, 1860 ("The shrilling of the alder locust fills the air")
September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . . the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day,")
September 19, 1851 ("Perambulated Carlisle line.")
September 19, 1856 ("Observed an Aster undulatus behind oak at foot of hill on Assabet ")
September 21, 1851 ("Here was the cider-mill, and there the orchard, and there the hog-pasture; and so men lived, and ate, and drank, and passed away, — like vermin.")
September 21, 1856 ("Aster undulatus in prime, in the dry woods just beyond Hayden's, large slanting, pyramidal panicles of some lilac-tinged, others quite white, flowers")
September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim.")
September 21, 1854 ("The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow")
September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night,")
September 22, 1852 ("Has been a great flight of blue-winged teal this season. ")September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim.")
September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush")
September 25, 1855 ("Scare up the usual great bittern above the railroad bridge, whose hoarse qua qua, as it flies heavily off, a pickerel-fisher on the bank imitates.")
September 25, 1855 ("Scare up the usual great bittern above the railroad bridge, whose hoarse qua qua, as it flies heavily off, a pickerel-fisher on the bank imitates.")
September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence")
September 25, 1857 ("The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun.")\
September 25, 1857 ("A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar.")
September 25, 1860 ("Hard, gusty rain (with thunder and lightning) in afternoon.")September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off.")
September 26, 1852 ("Larks, like robins, fly in flocks.")
September 26, 1852 ("Larks, like robins, fly in flocks.")
September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water.");
September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."; )
September 28, 1852 ("I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring")September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."; )
September 28, 1854 ("R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them.")
September 29, 1857 ("Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves")
September 29, 1851 ("The intense brilliancy of the red-ripe maples scattered here and there in the midst of the green oaks and hickories on its hilly shore is quite charming. They are unexpectedly and incredibly brilliant, especially on the western shore and close to the water's edge, where, alternating with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, they remind me of a line of soldiers, redcoats and riflemen in green mixed together.")
September 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly.")
September 30, 1858 ("A large flock of grackles amid the willows by the riverside, or chiefly concealed low in the button bushes . . .These are the first I have seen, and now for some time, I think, the red wings have been gone. These are the first arrivers from the north where they breed.")October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast.")
October 1, 1858 ("See larks in small flocks.")
October 1, 1858 ("See larks in small flocks.")
October 2, 1859 ("The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce.")
October 3, 1852 ("The Aster undulates is common and fresh. ")October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish");
October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. ")
October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. ")
October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd");
October 4, 1857 ("The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the general aspect of the river's brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown")October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus")
October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. ")
October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. ")
October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)
October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish")
October 9, 1853 ("I smell grapes, . . . their scent is very penetrating and memorable.")October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish")
October 9, 1853 ("Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.")
October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water")
October 10, 1857 ("The most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this.")
October 11, 1857 ("This is the seventh day of glorious weather. Perhaps, these might be called Harvest Days")
October 10, 1857 ("The most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this.")
October 11, 1857 ("This is the seventh day of glorious weather. Perhaps, these might be called Harvest Days")
October 13, 1855 ("Larks in flocks in the meadows, showing the white in their tails as they fly, sing sweetly as in spring.")
October 14, 1857 ("I see a large flock of grackles, probably young birds, quite near me on William Wheeler's apple trees, pruning themselves and trying to sing.")October 16, 1858 (" I have not seen red-wings [for] a long while.");
October 16, 1858 See a large flock of grackles . . . [T]hese birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about.")
October 16, 1858 See a large flock of grackles . . . [T]hese birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about.")
October 18, 1858 ("See larks, with their white tail-feathers, fluttering low over the meadows these days")
October 19, 1856 ("The A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only [aster]of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it.")
October 20, 1852 ("Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed")
October 20, 1852 ("Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed")
October 23, 1853 ("The Aster undulatus is still quite abundant and fresh on this high, sunny bank")
October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.")
October 28, 1857 ("On a black willow, a single grackle with the bright iris")
October 28, 1857 ("On a black willow, a single grackle with the bright iris")
October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.")
October 29, 1859 (''Also a flock of blackbirds fly eastward over my head from the top of an oak, either red-wings or grackles")
November 2, 1853 ("I am somewhat surprised to find that the Aster undulatus at Walden is killed by the frost; only one low and obscure one has any flowers left.")
November 3, 1852 ("Only one or two butter-and-eggs left.")
October 29, 1859 (''Also a flock of blackbirds fly eastward over my head from the top of an oak, either red-wings or grackles")
November 2, 1853 ("I am somewhat surprised to find that the Aster undulatus at Walden is killed by the frost; only one low and obscure one has any flowers left.")
November 3, 1852 ("Only one or two butter-and-eggs left.")
November 3, 1853 ("I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon.")
November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom")
November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom")
November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . .The world and my life are simplified. ")
November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects.")
November 7, 1855("Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. Apparently they do not form that part yet."); November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")
November 9, 1858 ("As I stood upon Heywood’s Peak, I observed in the very middle of the pond, which was smooth and reflected the sky there, what at first I took to be a sheet of very thin, dark ice . . . But, suspecting what it was, I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes continually coming to the surface there together.")
November 14, 1855 ("Two red-wing blackbirds alight on a black willow.")
November 14, 1855 ("Two red-wing blackbirds alight on a black willow.")
November 29, 1850 ("The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist...As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes.")
December 9, 1853 ("The third (at least) glorious day, clear and not too cold . . .with peculiarly long and clear cloudless silvery twilights morn and eve")
December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time.")
December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time.")
September 20, 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.
September 19 <<<<<<<<< September 20 >>>>>>>> September 21
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT20September
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