A Book of the Seasons: October 7 (the mellowing year)

 

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 .

October 7

Indian-summer.

The sun comes out and lights up

the mellowing year.

October 7, 1852

Turning round, I am

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

October 7, 1857

May 17, 1853

May 22, 1854

 March 18, 1858 

October 7, 2015

This morning the fog over the river and the brooks and meadows running into it has risen to the height of forty or fifty feet. October 7, 1851

A very still, warm, bright, clear afternoon. October 7, 1851. 

I sit on Poplar Hill. It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. October 7, 1852

When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape, and I sit down to behold it. October 7, 1857

Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, as it were. See October 7, 1852

Nature holds her annual fair and gala days in October in every hollow and on every hillside. October 7, 1852

One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at that season when the maples blazed out in scarlet. October 7, 1857

I see, some fifty rods off, looking toward the sun, the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill, - a strip. . . of the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted. October 7, 1857

As usual, there is one tree-top of an especially brilliant scarlet, with which the others contrast. October 7, 1857

The bright-tinted shrubs about [Walden's] high shore on the sunny side were reflected from the water; . . . all reflected, dimly so far as the details of leaves, etc., were concerned, but brightly as to color, and, of course, in the order in which they stood, - -  scarlet, yellow, green, etc.; but, there being a slight ripple on the surface, these reflections . . .forming sharp pyramids of the several colors, gradually reduced to mere dusky points. The effect of this prolongation of the reflection was a very pleasing softening and blending of the colors. October 7, 1857

There was, accordingly, a sort of belt, as wide as the whole height of the hill, extending downward along the whole north or sunny side of the pond, composed of . . .inverted pyramids of the most brilliant colors intermixed. . . . reflected and re-reflected from ripple to ripple, losing brightness each time by the softest possible gradation, and tapering toward the beholder. October 7, 1857

This is one of the prettiest effects of the autumnal change. October 7, 1857

Little chincapin oaks are partly turned, dull scarlet or yellow as it may happen, nearly in prime, not fallen. October 7, 1857

Hornbeam generally green still, but becoming yellowish brown and falling. October 7, 1857

Black alder still green. October 7, 1857

Elder is greenish-yellow. October 7, 1857

I see some panicled andromeda dark red or crimson.October 7, 1857

Swamp-pink a dark reddish purple where exposed. October 7, 1857

Beach plum begins to turn a clear pale yellow in dry places. October 7, 1857

Sage willow is fairly yellowing and some even falling. October 7, 1857

Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there. October 7, 1857

I notice the Viola ovata, houstonia, Ranunculus repens, caducous polygala, small scratch-grass polygonum, autumnal dandelion (very abundant, yellowing the low turfy grounds and hills), small bushy white aster, a few goldenrods, Polygonum hydropiperoides and the unknown flowerless bidens, soapwort gentian (now turned dark purple), yarrow, the white erigeron, red clover, hedge-mustard.  October 7, 1852

Looking toward the sun from Lupine Bank, I see bloody patches of blackberry vines amid the fine hoary and sheeny grass of the pasture. October 7, 1857

Since the frosts such pastures are already a hoary russet. October 7, 1857

Some shrub oaks are yellow, others reddish. October 7, 1857

I see one small but spreading white oak full of acorns just falling and ready to fall. October 7, 1860

Some that have fallen have already split and sprouted, an eighth of an inch. October 7, 1860

I see, through the bright October air, a valley extending southwest and northeast and some two miles across, – so far I can see distinctly, — with a broad, yellow meadow tinged with brown at the bottom, and a blue river winding slowly through it northward, with a regular edging of low bushes on the brink, of the same color with the meadow. October 7, 1857

 Skirting the meadow are straggling lines, and occasionally large masses a quarter of a mile wide, of brilliant scarlet and yellow and crimson trees, backed by and mingled with green forests and green and hoary russet fields and hills; and on the hills around shoot up a million scarlet and orange and yellow and crimson fires amid the green; and here and there amid the trees, often beneath the largest and most graceful of those which have brown-yellow dome-like tops, are bright white or gray houses; and beyond stretches a forest, wreath upon wreath, and between each two wreaths I know lies a similar vale; and far beyond all, on the verge of the horizon, are half a dozen dark-blue mountain-summits. October 7, 1857

Large birds of a brilliant blue and white plumage are darting and screaming amid the glowing foliage a quarter of a mile below, while smaller blue birds warble faintly but sweetly around me. October 7, 1857

Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them. October 7, 1860

Our boat so small and low that we are close to the water. The weeds being dead and the weather cooler, the water is more transparent. October 7, 1851

The fishes are plainly seen. See a pickerel that has swallowed a smaller fish, with the tail projecting from his mouth. October 7, 1851

The sun comes out of clouds, and lights up and warms the whole scene. October 7, 1852

Windy. Elms bare. October 6 & 7, 1853

I see a hundred smokes arising through the yellow elm-tops in the village, where the villagers are preparing for tea. October 7, 1852

The sunshine harmonizes with the imbrowned and fiery foliage. October 7, 1852

But hark! I hear the tolling of a distant funeral bell, and they are conveying a corpse to the churchyard from one of the houses that I see, and its serious sound is more in harmony with this scenery than any ordinary bustle could be. October 7, 1857

There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- warm as this happens to be, -- as between one period of your life and another. October 7, 1851

Unless you look for reflections, you commonly will not find them. October 7, 1857 

It is perfect autumn. October 7, 1852

It is the mellowing year. October 7, 1852

October 7, 2017

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau:

 Elder-berries

Yellow Butterflies

the Chipping Sparrow

Pickerel

The Red Maple

Swamp-pink

The Alders

the Shrub Oak

the Autumnal Dandelion

Bells and Whistles

Indian Summer

The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Fair Haven Pond

Reflections

October

*****

February 21, 1855 (“I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them, seen through a telescope over bare, russet fields and dark forests ”)

March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. “);.

July 21, 1856 ("This has been a peculiarly fine afternoon. When I looked about casually, was surprised at the fairness of the landscape")

May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”)

May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”)

August 25, 1859 ("quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden")

September 1, 1854 ("Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden")

September 16, 1854 (“I see little flocks of chip-birds along the roadside and on the apple trees, showing their light under sides when they rise.”)

September 27, 1858 ("What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns?”);

September 28, 1857 ("Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which . . . caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.")

September 29,1854 ("The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen")

October 1, 1858 ("The harvest of elm leaves is come, or at hand. ")

October 5, 1858 ("I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”) 

October 10, 1853 ("Cooler and windy at sunset, and the elm leaves come down again.”)

October 12, 1852 (" The elms in the village, losing their leaves, reveal the birds' nests.”)

October 13, 1858 ("The elms are at least half bare.")

October 17, 1857 (“A great many more ash trees, elms, etc., are bare now.”)

October 17, 1857 ("How soon they have sprouted! “)
November 27, 1852 (“I find acorns which have sent a shoot down into the earth this fall.”)

October 7, 2017

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.

  April 7, 1853 

October 6 <<<<<<<<<  October 7 >>>>>>>>  October 8

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 7

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 © 2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT7OCTOBER 

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