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 19, 2019
C. says that he saw a loon at Walden the 15th. October 19, 1859
The fall, now and for some weeks, is the time for flocks of sparrows of various kinds flitting from bush to bush and tree to tree — and both bushes and trees are thinly leaved or bare — and from one seared meadow to another. They are mingled together, and their notes, even, being faint, are, as well as their colors and motions, much alike. The sparrow youth are on the wing. October 19, 1856
See quite a flock of myrtle-birds, — which I might carelessly have mistaken for slate-colored snowbirds, — flitting about on the rocky hillside under Conantum Cliff. They show about three white or light-colored spots when they fly, commonly no bright yellow, though some are pretty bright. October 19, 1856
It is a very pleasant afternoon, quite still and cloudless, with a thick haze concealing the distant hills. Does not this haze mark the Indian summer?
Paddling up the river the other day, those (probably canoe) birches on Mt. Misery on the edge of the hill a mile in front looked like little dark clouds, for I could not distinguish their white trunks against the sky. October 19, 1859
The woods about the pond are now a perfect October picture. October 19, 1855
Yet there have been no very bright tints this fall. The young white and the shrub oak leaves were withered before the frosts came, perhaps by the late drought after the wet spring.
Both the white and black ash are quite bare, and some of the elms there. October 19, 1856
The leaves have fallen so plentifully that they quite conceal the water along the shore, and rustle pleasantly when the wave which the boat creates strikes them. October 19, 1853
I measure the depth of the needles under the pitch pines east of the railroad (behind the old shanties), which, as I remember, are about thirty years old. In one place it is three quarters of an inch in all to the soil, in another one and a quarter, and in a hollow under a larger pine about four inches. I think the thickness of the needles, old and new, is not more than one inch there on an average. Journal, October 19, 1855
The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff. October 19, 1856
I return by the west side of Lee's Cliff hill, and sit on a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles, amid the woods, whence I see Wachusett. October 19, 1856
 |
| Wachusett from Fair Haven Hill, August 2, 1852 |
How little unevenness and elevation is required for Nature's effects. October 19, 1856
To Westminster by cars; thence on foot to Wachusett Mountain, four miles to Foster’s, and two miles thence to mountain-top by road. October 19, 1854
With a glass you can see vessels in Boston Harbor from the summit. October 19, 1854
Mr. Sanborn tells me that he looked off from Wachusett last night, and that he saw the shadow of the mountain gradually extend itself eastward not only over the earth but finally on to the sky in the horizon. October 19, 1857
Wachusett Mountain. The prevailing tree on this mountain, top and all, is apparently the red oak, which toward and on the top is very low and spreading. On the sides, beside red oak, are rock maple, yellow birch, lever-wood, beech, chestnut, shagbark, hemlock, striped maple, witch-hazel, etc., etc. October 19, 1854
I see at last a few white pine cones open on the trees, but almost all appear to have fallen. October 19, 1855
The chestnuts are scarce and small and apparently have but just begun to open their burs. October 19, 1855
The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting. They point at various I angles with the stem like a flourish. The pretty brown fishes have loosened and lifted their scales somewhat, are bristling a little. Or, further advanced, the outer part of the down of the upper seeds is blown loose, while they are still retained by the ends of the middle portion in loops attached to the core. These white tufts, ready to burst and take to flight on the least jar, show afar as big as your fist. There they dangle and flutter, till they are quite dry and the wind rises. Others again are open and empty, except of the brown core, and you see what a delicate smooth white (slightly cream-colored) lining this casket has. October 19, 1856
The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost. October 19, 1856
Lycopodium dendroideum (not variety) is just shedding pollen near this cedar. October 19, 1859
The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos which I have noticed since the 8th is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now, hardly survives at all. October 19, 1856
Of the asters which I have noticed since [the 8th], the A.undulatus is, perhaps, the only one of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it. October 19, 1856
At 5 p. m. I found the fringed gentian now somewhat stale and touched by frost, being in the meadow toward Peter's . . . It may have been in bloom a month. It has been cut off by the mower, and apparently has put out in consequence a mass of short branches full of flowers. This may make it later. I doubt if I can find one naturally grown. October 19, 1852
At this hour the blossoms are tightly rolled and twisted, and I see that the bees have gnawed round holes in their sides to come at the nectar. They have found them, though I had not. October 19, 1852
It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories. October 19, 1852
It is remarkable how tightly the gentians roll and twist up at night, as if that were their constant state. Probably those bees were working late that found it necessary to perforate the flower. October 19, 1852
When, returning at 5 o'clock, I pass the pond in the road, I see the sun, which is about entering the grosser hazy atmosphere above the western horizon, brilliantly reflected in the pond, –– a dazzling sheen, a bright golden shimmer. October 19, 1855
Standing on Hunt’s Bridge at 5 o’clock, the sun just ready to set, I notice that its light on my note-book is quite rosy or purple, though the sun itself and its halo are merely yellow, and there is no purple in the western sky. October 19, 1858
I noticed, two or three days ago, after one of those frosty mornings, half an hour before sunset of a clear and pleasant day, a swarm, — were they not of winter gnats ? — between me and the sun like so many motes . . . Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter? October 19, 1856
To the northern voyager who does not see the sun for three months, night is expanded into winter, and day into summer. October 19, 1851
witch hazel in bloom
October 19, 2018
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October
October 19, 2019
October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus, and gnats are dancing in the air.")
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 ("As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh")
October 12, 1855 ("The leaves fallen last night now lie thick on the water next the shore, concealing it,")
October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. ")
October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.")
October 15, 1855 ("Go to look for white pine cones, but see none.")
October 15, 1856 ("Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet.")
October 17, 1856 ("Countless leafy skiffs are floating on pools and lakes and rivers and in the swamps and meadows, often concealing the water quite from foot and eye.")
October 17, 1857 ("The swamp floor is covered with red maple leaves, many yellow with bright-scarlet spots or streaks. Small brooks are almost concealed by them.")
October 17, 1858 ("They remind me of ditches in swamps, whose surfaces are often quite concealed by leaves now. The waves made by my boat cause them to rustle'")
October 18, 1857 ("The fringed gentian closes every night and opens every morning in my pitcher.")
October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare")Sun ready to set --
the light on my note-book is
rosy or purple
October 20, 1854 ("Soon after sunrise I saw the pyramidal shadow of the mountain reaching quite across the State")
October 20, 1858 (“Another remarkably warm and pleasant day, if not too hot for walking; 74° at 2 P. M. . . .There is a haze between me and the nearest woods, as thick as the thickest in summer.”)
October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings.")
November 2, 1853 ("The pollen of the Lycopodium dendroideum falls in showers or in clouds when my foot strikes it. How long? ")
October 19, 2015
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, October 19
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
tinyurl.com/HDT19Oct
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