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 potato vines
and the beans which were still green
now blackened by frost.
September 15, 1851
Witch-hazel opened –
a third or half of its leaves
are yellow and brown.
I hear a nuthatch
occasionally but it
reminds of winter.
Sepember 15, 1858
Southeast wind with clouds
hummingbird in the garden
I suspect a storm.
September 15, 1858
Ancient dark stone weights –
oval stones brought from England
in a linen bag
Stone weights in an ancient linen bag, said to have been brought from England. They were oval stones or pebbles. There was a pound, a half-pound, a quarter, a two-ounce, and several one-ounce weights, now all rather dark and ancient to look at, like the bag. This was to me the most interesting relic in his collection.I love to see anything that implies a simpler mode of life and greater nearness to the earth. September 15, 1860
A hummingbird in the garden. There is a southeast wind, with clouds, and I suspect a storm brewing. It is very rare that the wind blows from this quarter. September 15, 1858
In morning river is three feet two and a half plus inches above summer level. Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th) September 15, 1860
This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines. See September 15, 1859
Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost. September 15, 1851
The grain of the wild rice is all green yet. September 15, 1859
The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost. September 15, 1851
The hypericums generally appear to be now about done. I see none. September 15, 1856
Early Solidago stricta (that is, arguta) done. September 15, 1856
Solidago speciosa at Clamshell out several days. September 15, 1854
I have not seen not heard a bobolink for some days at least, numerous as they were three weeks ago, and even fifteen days. They depart early. September 15, 1858
W. Ricketson says that, when looking for insects this morning under the loose bark of an apple tree on Nawshawtuct, he found a bat hanging there. September 15, 1859
See many painted tortoise scales being shed, half erect on their backs. September 15, 1855
An Emys insculpta which I mistook for dead, under water near shore; head and legs and tail hanging down straight. Turned it over, and to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle. September 15, 1855
Commenced perambulating the town bounds. September 15, 1851
I gather quite a lot of perfectly fresh high blueberries overhanging the south side [of Walden Pond], and there are many green ones among them still. September 15, 1858
Spiranthes cernua in prime. September 15, 1856
Aster longifolius and puniceus . . . in prime. September 15, 1856
Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot. September 15, 1851
What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed. September 15, 1856
The witch-hazel has opened . . . Its leaves, a third or a half of them, are yellow and brown. September 15, 1854
I hear a nuthatch occasionally, but it reminds me of winter. September 15, 1858
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bat
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Great Bidens
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)
*****
August 10, 1854 ("The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season.")
August 16, 1858 ("[Hear] the link of many bobolinks (and see large flocks on the fences and weeds; they are largish-looking birds with yellow throats)")
August 18, 1858 ("Heard a nuthatch.[And a week later. Not heard since spring.]")
August 21, 1856 ("the prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula), 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last)");
;August 22, 1853 ("Surprised to hear a very faint bobolink in the air; the link, link, once or twice later");
August 25, 1852 (" I hear no birds sing these days, only . . . the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare");
August 27, 1858 ("The Nabalus albus has been out some ten days, but N. Fraseriat Walden road will not open, apparently, for some days yet.")
August 30, 1856 ("The Aster puniceus is hardly yet in prime; its great umbel-shaped tops not yet fully out")
September 1, 1856 ("A. longifolius, hardly one seen yet.”);
September 4, 1852 ("The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long.")
September 5, 1854 ("A hummingbird about a cardinal-flower over the water’s edge.")
September 5, 1858 ("I find many high blueberries, quite fresh, overhanging the south shore of Walden.”)
September 6, 1856 ("Solidago arguta very common, apparently in prime, with sharp-toothed, more or less elliptic leaves and slender terminal drooping racemes; size of S. stricta."):
September 7, 1857 ("Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather; such weather as we have not had for a long time, a new experience, which arouses a corresponding breeze in us. ");
September 11, 1851 ("Bidens cernua and Bidens connata.")
September 11, 1852 ("The Bidens cernua")
September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first - in these respects- decidedly autumnal evening") ;
September 11, 1857 ("My old S. stricta (early form) must be S. Arguta var. juncea").
September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals")
September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds");
September 13, 1852 (" The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn. It yellows along the brook.")
September 13, 1856 ("Up Assabet. 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, 1859 ("The Bidens chrysanthemoides, now apparently in its prime by the river, now almost dazzles you with its great sunny disk. I feast my eyes on it annually. [Iin this is seen the concentrated heat of autumn.")
September 13, 1860 ("The river this morning, about 7 A.M., is already twenty-eight and a half inches above summer level, and more than twenty inches of this is owing to the rain of yesterday and last night!! . . . At evening the river is five inches higher than in the morning.")
September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost")
September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory, especially at I. Rice’s shore, where there are dense beds. It is a splendid yellow — Channing says a lemon yellow — and looks larger than it is (two inches in diameter, more or less). Full of the sun. It needs a name")
September 14, 1858 ('Bidens chrysanthemoides in river.")
September 14, 1860 ("A. M. — River still rising; at 4 p. m. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning.")
Septembeer 16, 1851 ("the inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people.")
September 16, 1854 ("I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now?")
September 16, 1854 ("There have been a few slight frosts in some places. ");
September 16, 1860 ("River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree.")
September 16, 1860 ("See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen.
September 17, 1860 ("6.30 a. m. — River thirty-four and an eighth above summer level, or fallen about four inches since evening of 15th.")
September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides. ”)
September 17, 1851 ("Perambulated the Lincoln line")
September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line.")
September 18, 1854 ("I see the potatoes all black with frosts that have occurred within a night or two in Moore’s Swamp.")
September 18, 1856 ("On account of freshet I have seen no Bidens Beckii nor chrysanthemoides")
September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.")
September 19, 1855 ("Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only? ")
September 19, 1860 (" 4 p. m. — River fallen about one foot.");
September 20, 1851 ("On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. . . .All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched.")
September 20, 1855 ("First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves..")
September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night,")
September 21, 1854 ("The nuthatch is common in woods and on street.")
These bracing fine days
when frosts come to ripen the
year, the days, like fruit.
September 23, 1857 ("Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods”)
The summer concludes
with the crisis of first frosts.
The end of berries.
September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")
September 26, 1858 ("Another smart frost, making dry walking amid the stiffened grass in the morning. ")
September 27, 1856 (“To Clamshell by boat. Solidago speciosa not quite out!!”)
September 27, 1860 ("Sept. 27. A. M. —. River about thirty-five inches above summer level, and goes no higher")
September 28, 1860 ("This morning we had a very severe frost, the first to kill our vines, etc., in garden; what you may call a black frost, - making things look black. Also ice under pump.")
September 29, 1853 ("Solidago speciosa. . .This must be a late one")
September 29, 1853 ("Aster puniceus and longifolius still.")
September 29, 1860 ("Another hard frost and a very cold day.")
September 30, 1860 ("Frost and ice.")
October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson.");
October 7, 1857 ("Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there.")
October 8, 1856 ("Of asters, only corymbosus, undulatus, Tradescanti, and longifolius . . .are common.")
October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost")
October 20, 1856 ("Think I hear the very faint gnah of a nuthatch. Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter (began to have a fire, more or less, say ten days or a fortnight ago), we hear the jay again more frequently, and the chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebenote, and the nuthatch is heard again, and the small woodpecker seen amid the bare twigs")
October 21, 1857 ("I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted.")
October 30, 1853 ("Along the Depot Brook, the great heads of Aster puniceus stand dry and fuzzy and singularly white, — like the goldenrods and other asters, — but some quite low are still green and in flower")
November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”)
November 11, 1859 ("I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet.")
Trail now overgrown
sudden memory of our
first walk on this land.
September 15, 2016
September 15, 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.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT15September
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