A Book of the Seasons: November 15 (buds and twigs and gossamer reflecting November light)

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

November 15

Clear yellow light of

the western sky reflected

in this smooth water.

November 15, 1853

November 15, 2016

I saw to-day a very perfect lichen on a rock in a meadow. It formed a perfect circle about fifteen inches in diameter though the rock was uneven, and was handsomely shaded by a darker stripe of older leaves, an inch or more wide, just within its circumference, like a rich lamp-mat. November 15, 1850

Here is a rainy day, which keeps me in the house. November 15, 1851

It is Indian-summer-like. November 15, 1853

A very pleasant Indian-summer day. P. M. -- To Ledum Swamp. November 15, 1859

The first snow, a mere sugaring which went off the next morning. November 15, 1854

A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. November 15, 1858

Slight as the snow is. . . I see the track of a fox which was returning from his visit to a farmyard last night, and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog.  November 15, 1858 

By the first of November, or at most a few days later, the trees generally wear, in the main, their winter aspect, their leaves gradually falling until spring. November 15, 1857

The obvious falling of leaves (i.e., not to include the fall of the pitch pines and larches and the complete fall of the birches, white willows, etc.) ended about the first of November. November 15, 1857

At C. Miles Swamp, I see that the larches have finished falling. November 15, 1857

The white willows, which retain many of their leaves even yet, are of a peculiar buff or fawn color. November 15, 1857

A very few bright-colored leaves on small shrubs, such as oak sprouts, black cherry, blueberry, etc., have lingered up to this time in favorable places. November 15, 1857

As I look along over the grass toward the sun at Hosmer's field, beyond Lupine Hill, I notice the shimmering effect of the gossamer, — which seems to cover it almost like a web, — occasioned by its motion, though the air is so still. This is noticed at least forty rods off. November 15, 1859

A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it. November 15, 1859

Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the frost-weed and evergreen ferns. November 15, 1858

I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up. The end of last month and the first part of this is the time. November 15, 1858

Buds and twigs . . ., and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery light on this down and the silver-haired andropogon grass [belong] to the first half of November. November 15, 1858

I break my way into the midst of Holden Swamp to get a specimen of Kalmia glauca leaf. November 15, 1857

The water is frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants. November 15, 1857

Find plenty of Andromeda Polifolia there, where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood, together with Kalmia glauca. November 15, 1857

The water andromeda leaves have fallen, and the persistent turned that red brown. November 15, 1858

The Kalmia glauca has fewer leaves now, opposite, glossy above; a very sharp two-edged twig,. . .so that when the twig is held up to the light it appears alternately thicker and thinner. November 15, 1857

I look up the river from the railroad bridge. It is perfectly smooth between the uniformly tawny meadows, November 15, 1859

I see several musquash-cabins off Hubbard Shore distinctly outlined as usual in the November light. November 15, 1859

The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease. November 15, 1853

The river rising. I see a spearer’s light to-night. November 15, 1855

I see no ants on the great ant-hills, and methinks I have not for three weeks at least. November 15, 1857

My walk is the more lonely when I perceive that there are no ants now upon their hillocks in field or wood. These are deserted mounds. They have commenced their winter's sleep. November 15, 1857

This cold blast has swept the water-bugs from the pools. November 15, 1857

I hear in several places a faint cricket note, either a fine z-ing or a distincter creak, also see and hear a grasshopper's crackling flight. November 15, 1859

There is but little insect-life abroad now. November 15, 1857

As I returned over the Corner Bridge I saw cows in the sun half-way down Fair Haven Hill next the Cliff, half a mile off, the declining sun so warmly reflected from their red coats that I could not for some time tell if they were not some still bright-red shrub oaks. November 15, 1859

Just after sundown, the waters become suddenly smooth, and the clear yellow light of the western sky is handsomely reflected in the water, making it doubly light to me on the water, diffusing light from below as well as above. November 15, 1853

The clouds were never more fairly reflected in the water than now. November 15, 1859

Were those insects on the surface after the moon rose skaters or water-bugs? November 15, 1853

Get yourself therefore a name, and better a nickname than none at all. November 15, 1851

November 15, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Seen from a Hillside

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moods

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now

*****

November 15, 2019

Walking (1861 ("Travelers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every new exploit.. . .So every man has an original wild name. . . . Our true names are nicknames.")
February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen, but I see none burst. They are very tightly filled and smooth, apparently stretched")
April 8, 1853 ("The spearer's light last night shone into my chamber on the wall and awakened me. ")
April 16, 1855 ("The spearer’s light to-night, and, after dark, the sound of geese honking")
April 25, 1856 ("At evening see a spearer’s light.")
April 25, 1855 ("A spearers’ fire seems three times as far off as it is.")
April 30, 1852 ("To-night and last night the spearer's light is seen on the meadows; he has been delayed by the height of the water.")
June 4, 1856 ("He pointed out the site of “Perch” Hosmer’s house in the small field south of road this side of Cozzens’s; all smooth now. Dr. Heywood worked over him a fortnight, while the perch was dissolving in his throat. He got little compassion generally, and the nickname “Perch” into the bargain.")
August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty.")
August 19, 1851 ("There was one original name well given, Buster Kendal");

September 28, 1851 ("This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant.")

October 15, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses appear now for the most part to be finished. Some, it is true, are still rising. They line the river all the way. ")
October 16, 1859 ("I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores . .So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia and flags.")
October 16, 1851 ("To-night the spearers are out again")

October 20, 1858 ("There is one advantage in walking eastward these afternoons, at least, that in returning you may have the western sky before you.")

November 1, 1857 ("I see that the sun, when low, will shine into a thick wood, which you had supposed always dark, as much as twenty rods, lighting it all up, making the gray, lichen-clad stems of the trees all warm and bright with light")

November 1, 1857 ("The larches are at the height of their change.")

November 1, 1860 ("Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air.")

November 2, 1853 ("We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods, -- is seen through the woods, — the leaves being gone.")

November 2, 1857 (“The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods”)
November 2, 1857 (“My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed. ”);
November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear.")
November 4, 1855 ("Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather.")
November 4, 1855 (" Larches are now quite yellow, — in the midst of their fall.")
November 5, 1857 ("The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green.”)
November 5, 1857 ("At this season polypody is in the air. ")
November 5, 1857 ("The larches are fast falling.")

November 5, 1857 ("The pitch pines generally have lost their leaves now, and the larches are fast falling.”)

November 7, 1855 ("gossamer on the grass. . . revealed by the dewy mist which has collected on it.”)

November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess”)

November 8, 1853 ("The yellow larch leaves still hold on, — later than those of any of our pines")

November 8, 1858 ("Lichens . . .are the various grays and browns which give November its character.")

November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song.")

November 9, 1850 ("The leaves of the larch are now yellow and falling off")

November 11, 1858 (“In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. )

November 11, 1855 ('The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off.”)

November 11, 1858 ("Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October).")

November 11, 1855 ("Frogs are rare and sluggish, as if going into winter quarters. A cricket also sounds rather rare and distinct. ")
November 11, 1858 ("Hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset.")
November 12, 1853 ("The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might.")

November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
November 13, 1851 ("Not a mosquito left. Not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters.")

November 13, 1858 ("[Snow] comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth. Of course frozen ground, ice, and snow have now banished the few remaining skaters (if there were any ?), crickets, and water-bugs.")

November 13,1855 (" I see the streaming lines of gossamer from trees and fences.”);
November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”)
November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon. Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”)

November 13, 1858 ("The larch looks brown and nearly bare.")

November 14, 1858 ("The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights.")

November 16, 1858 (“Probably the larch about fallen.”)
November 16, 1853 ("I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock and various other ferns.")

November 16, 1852 ("Muskrat-houses completed. Interesting objects looking down a river-reach at this season, and our river should not be represented without one or two of these cones. They are quite conspicuous half a mile distant, and are of too much importance to be omitted in the river landscape.")
November 17, 1858 ("Evergreen ferns scattered about keep up the semblance of summer still")

November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”)
November 18, 1855 ("About an inch of snow fell last night, but the ground was not at all frozen or prepared for it. A little greener grass and stubble here and there seems to burn its way through it this forenoon.")

November 18, 1857 ("The sunlight is a peculiarly thin and clear yellow, falling on the pale-brown bleaching herbage of the fields at this season. There is no redness in it. This is November sunlight.")

November 19, 1853 (“This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm.”)

November 20, 1857 ("The water andromeda leaves are brown now, except where protected by trees.")

November 20, 1858("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights reflected from a myriad of surfaces.")

November 23, 1857 ("The water andromeda [at Gowing's Swamp] makes a still more uniformly dense thicket, which. . .makes an impression of smoothness and denseness, – its rich brown, wholesome surface, even as grass or moss.")

November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.”)
November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)

November 25, 1857 (“[T]he thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of”)

November 28, 1856 ("Sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches... remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon.").
November 29, 1856 ("Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen...")
December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night.”)
December 4, 1859 ("Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence.")
December 4, 1860 ("The first snow, four or five inches, this evening."); This evening and night,
December 6, 1852 ("In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river.")

December 6, 1856 ("I can walk through the spruce swamp now dry-shod, amid the water andromeda and Kalmia glauca.")

December 9, 1859 ("The air being very quiet and serene, I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. . . .Methinks it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer.")
December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky.")
December 22, 1860 ("the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now ")
December 8, 1850 (“The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.”)

December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour.")

December 26,1853 (“This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”)
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.”)

 December 31, 1859 ("The sidesaddle-flower, where it shows its head above the snow, now gray and leathery, dry, is covered beneath its cap with pretty large close-set light-brown seeds.")

January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . .the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.Very delicate evergreen opposite linear leaves, strongly revolute, somewhat reddish-green above, the blossom-buds quite conspicuous. . . .The pretty little blossom-buds arranged crosswise in the axils of the leaves as you look down on them.")

January 1, 1852 ("Perhaps the only thing that spoke to me on this walk was the bare, lichen-covered gray rock at the Cliff, in the moonlight, naked and almost warm as in summer")

January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky.")

January 13, 1853 ("A drifting snow-storm last night and to day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.")

January 26, 1852 ("The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”);
February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day”).

November 15, 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.

  April 7, 1853 

November 14 <<<<<<<<<  November 15.  >>>>>>>> November 16

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 15

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