A Book of the Seasons: Cinquefoil in Autumn

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil.

This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part

in the revolution of the seasons.

August 30, 1851

August 17.  Cow-wheat and indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side, and Norway cinquefoil.   August 17, 1851

August 25.  Silvery cinquefoil now begins to show itself commonly again. Perhaps it is owing to the rain, spring like, which we have in August. August 25, 1856

August 28.  Potentilla Norvegica again. August 28, 1856

August 30.  I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them.  There is one door closed, of the closing year. Thus all the Norway cinquefoils in the world have curled back their calyx leaves, their warm cloaks, when now their flowering season was past, over their progeny, from the time they were created! It is as good as if I saw the great globe go round. I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil. This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!  August 30, 1851

September 1.  Methinks the silvery cinquefoil is of late much more abundant. September 1, 1853

September 19. I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still. September 19, 1852

September 23.  [Near Bangor]  Saw Aster undulatus, Solidago nemoralis, fragrant everlasting, silvery cinquefoil, small white birch, Lobelia inflata, both kinds of primrose, low cudweed, lactuca, Polygonum cilinode (apparently out of bloom), yellow oxalis. September 23, 1853

September 28. This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again  September 28, 1852

October 2.  There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet. October 2, 1857

October 9.  The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. October 9, 1851

October 9.  Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.  October 9, 1852

October 12. Yesterday afternoon, saw by the brook-side above Emerson's the dwarf primrose in blossom, the Norway cinquefoil and fall dandelions which are now drying up, the houstonia, buttercups, small goldenrods, and various asters, more or less purplish . . . The Anemone nemorosa in bloom and the Potentilla sarmentosa, or running cinquefoil, which springs in April, now again springing. October 12, 1851

October 21.  Silvery cinquefoil, hedge-mustard, and clover.  October 21, 1852

November 1.  The cinquefoil on Conantum. November 1, 1851

November 3.  To-day I see yarrow, very bright; red clover; autumnal dandelion; the silvery potentilla, and one Canadensis and the Norvegica.  November 3, 1853

November 6. Still the Canada snapdragon, yarrow, autumnal dandelion, tansy, shepherd's-purse, silvery cinquefoil, witch-hazel. November 6, 1853

November 9.  Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. A late three ribbed goldenrod, with large serratures in middle of the narrow leaves, ten or twelve rays. Potentilla argentea.   November 9, 1852

November 19.  There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock.  November 19, 1857

November 23. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc.   November 23, 1852

December 23.  At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis stricta especially fresh and bright.  December 23, 1855

December 31.   Potentilla Norvegica appears to have some sound seed in its closed heads.  December 31, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn

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/HDTcinque

Listening for the Last Cricket.

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

At the east window. — A temperate noon.

I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano  . . .

At length the melody steals into my being. 

I know not when it began to occupy me.

By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance 

I am attuned to the universe.

August 3, 1852

I hear one cricket – 

his theme is life immortal

now after one snow.

November 12, 1853

Novembeer 12, 2023

November 1.  I hear in the fields just before sundown a shriller chirping of a few crickets, reminding me that their song is getting thin and will soon be quenched . . . I seemed to recognize the November evening as a familiar thing come round again, and yet I could hardly tell whether I had ever known it  or only divined it . . . The long railroad causeway through the meadows west of me, the still twilight in which hardly a cricket was heard of [Probably too cool for any these evenings; only in the afternoon],  the dark bank of clouds in the horizon long after sunset, the villagers crowding to the post-office, and the hastening home to supper by candle-light, had I not seen all this before! What new sweet was I to extract from it?  November 1, 1858

November 3. Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.  November 3, 1858

November 5.  I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note, less creaking than before. . . It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker. November 5, 1858

November 7. I hear one faint cricket's chirp this afternoon. November 7, 1858

November 8.  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 8, 1853

November 8.    I hear a small z-ing cricket. November 8, 1859

November 9.  I hear a cricket singing the requiem of the year . . . Soon all will be frozen up, and I shall hear no cricket chirp in the land. November 9, 1851 

November 11. I hear a faint cricket (or locust?) still, even after the slight snow. November 11, 1853

November 11. Frogs are rare and sluggish, as if going into winter quarters. A cricket also sounds rather rare and distinct.  November 11, 1855

November 11.  I hear here a faint creaking of two or three crickets or locustæ, but it is a steady sound, - not the common cricket's, long-continued, and when one pauses, generally another continues the strain, so that it seems absolutely continuous. They are either in the grass or on the bushes by the edge of the water, under this sunny wood-side. I afterward 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 11, 1858

November 12 The ground is frozen and echoes to my tread. There are absolutely no crickets to be heard now. They are heard, then, till the ground freezes. November 12, 1851

November 12  I do not remember any hum of insects for a long time, though I heard a cricket to-day. November 12, 1853

November 12 I hear one cricket singing still, faintly deep in the bank, now after one whitening of snow. His theme is life immortal. The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might. November 12, 1853

November 13. Not a mosquito left. Not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters.  November 13, 1851

November 13.   Of course frozen ground, ice, and snow have now banished the few remaining skaters (if there were any ?), crickets, and water-bugs.  November 13, 1858

November 15.  Cricket still. November 15,  1853

November 15. 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

November 19.  Turning up a stone on Fair Haven Hill, I find many small dead crickets about the edges, which have endeavored to get under it and apparently have been killed by the frost. November 19, 1857

November 22.  Saw E. Hosmer this afternoon making a road for himself along a hillside . . . He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively, which had gone into winter quarters there apparently . . . That is the reason, then, that I have not heard the crickets lately.   November 22, 1851

See also :

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in September

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November 

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/HDTnovcrkt

A Book of the Seasons: November 1 (November, flocking crows, gossamer, birch, a poetic mood, luminous blue reflections)

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 1

It is a bright, clear,

warm November day.

I feel blessed.

I love my life.

I warm toward

all nature.

November 1, 1851

November 1, 2016

In November, a man will eat his heart, if in any month. November 1, 1852

As I go up the back road, I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned. November 1, 1853

It is a little cooler.  November 1, 1854

The road and ruts are all frosted and stiff, and the grass and clover leaves.   November 1, 1853

A warm, mizzling kind of rain for two days past and still. November 1, 1852

After a rain-threatening morning it is a beautiful Indian-summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind. November 1, 1855

A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. and probably warmer at two.   November 1, 1860

The air is still and warm. The river is perfectly smooth. November 1, 1855

The butterflies are out again . . . and yellow-winged grasshoppers with blackish edges.  November 1, 1860

The crickets now sound faintly and from very deep in the sod.   November 1, 1851

A striped snake basks in the sun amid dry leaves.  November 1, 1860

Now that the sun is fairly risen, I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler's meadow. November 1, 1853. 

I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. November 1, 1853

At this season there are stranger sparrows or finches about.   November 1, 1851

Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward. November 1, 1851

As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.  November 1, 1853

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

It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs. November 1, 1851

If at a distance you see the birch near its top forking into two or more white limbs, you may know it for a canoe birch. November 1, 1851

The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare.   November 1, 1853

The ground wears its red carpet under the pines. November 1, 1851

The grass has got a new greenness in spots. November 1, 1851

The skunk-cabbage is already pushing up again. November 1, 1851

Fall dandelions look bright still. November 1, 1851

The cinquefoil on Conantum. November 1, 1851

The witch-hazels have mostly lost their blossoms, perhaps on account of the snow. November 1, 1851 

I see much witch-hazel in the swamp by the south end of the Abiel Wheeler grape meadow. Some of it is quite fresh and bright. . . .What a lively spray it has, both in form and color! . . .They impart to the whole hillside a speckled, parti-colored look.  November 1, 1857

Another cloudy afternoon after a clear morning.   November 1, 1857

When I enter the woods I notice the drier crispier rustle of withered leaves on the oak trees, – a sharper susurrus. November 1, 1857

The red shrub oak leaves abide on the hills. November 1, 1851

Going over the high field west of the cut, my foot strikes a rattle-pod in the stubble, and it is betrayed. From that faint sound I knew it must be there, and went back and found it. I could have told it as well in the dark. How often I have found pennyroyal by the fragrance it emitted when bruised by my feet! November 1, 1857

The maples and swamp oaks and willows are for the most part bare, but some of the oaks are partly clothed yet with withered leaves.  November 1, 1855

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

The hawthorn is but three-quarters fallen and is a greenish yellow or yellowish green. November 1, 1858

The alders have lost their leaves, and the willows except a few shrivelled ones. November 1, 1851

Now you easily detect where larches grow, viz. in the swamp north of Sleepy Hollow. They are far more distinct than at any other season. November 1, 1858

The pitch pines show new buds at the end of their plumes.   November 1, 1851

 While getting the azaleas, I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time. November 1, 1853

I see the common prinos berries partly eaten about the hole of a mouse under a stump. November 1, 1857

As I approached their edge, I saw the woods beneath, Fair Haven Pond, and the hills across the river, . . .between the converging boughs of two white pines a rod or two from me on the edge of the rock; and I thought that there was no frame to a landscape equal to this, — to see, between two near pine boughs, whose lichens are distinct, a distant forest and lake, the one frame, the other picture. November 1, 1852

As I return by the Well Meadow Field and then Wheeler’s large wood, the sun shines from over Fair Haven Hill into the wood, and 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, and a distinct black shadow behind each. As if every grove, however dense, had its turn. November 1, 1857

The woods are now much more open than when I last observed them; the leaves have fallen, and they let in light, and I see the sky through them as through a crow's wing in every direction. November 1, 1851

For the most part only the pines and oaks (white?) retain their leaves. At a distance, accordingly, the forest is green and reddish.   November 1, 1851

The lowest and most succulent oak sprouts in exposed places are red or green longest. Large trees quite protected from sun and wind will be greener still. November 1, 1857

Many black oaks are bare in Sleepy Hollow. November 1, 1858

If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed  November 1, 1858

As I paddle under the Leaning Hemlocks, the breeze rustles the boughs, and showers of their fresh winged seeds come wafted down to the water and are carried round and onward in the great eddy there. November 1, 1853

I see so far and distinctly, my eyes seem to slide in this clear air. The river is peculiarly sky-blue to-day, not dark as usual. It is all in the air. November 1, 1851

As I stood on the south bank of the river a hundred rods southwest of John Flint’s, the sun being just about to enter a long and broad dark-blue or slate-colored cloud in the horizon, a cold, dark bank, I saw that the reflection of Flint’s white house in the river, prolonged by a slight ripple so as to reach the reflected cloud, was a very distinct and luminous light blue. November 1, 1858

It is a bright, clear, warm November day. I feel blessed. I love my life. I warm toward all nature. November 1, 1851

A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. Here, of course, is all that you love, all that you expect, all that you are. November 1, 1858  

There is no more tempting novelty than this new November.   November 1, 1858

This is the aspect under which the Musketaquid might be represented at this season: a long, smooth lake, reflecting the bare willows and button-bushes, the stubble, and the wool-grass on its tussock, a muskrat-cabin or two conspicuous on its margin amid the unsightly tops of pontederia, and a bittem disappearing on undulating wing around a bend.  November 1, 1855

This is the November shore. November 1, 1855

This, too, is the recovery of the year, — as if the year, having nearly or quite accomplished its work, and abandoned all design, were in a more favorable and poetic mood, and thought rushed in to fill the vacuum.  November 1, 1855

I hear in the fields just before sundown a shriller chirping of a few crickets, reminding me that their song is getting thin and will soon be quenched. November 1, 1858

I leaned over a rail in the twilight on the Walden road, waiting for the evening mail to be distributed, when . . . I seemed to recognize the November evening as a familiar thing come round again, and yet I could hardly tell whether I had ever known it or only divined it. The November twilights just begun! November 1, 1858

Returning in the twilight, I see a bat over the river. November 1, 1855

As the afternoons grow shorter, and the early evening drives us home to complete our chores, we are reminded of the shortness of life, and become more pensive, at least in this twilight of the year. We are prompted to make haste and finish our work before the night comes. November 1, 1858

November 1, 2 016

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Birches in Season

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Scarlet Oak

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pine Fall 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

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

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

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

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

November 1, 2019

June 19, 1852 (“Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth, samara?, tinged with his expectation.”)
July 16, 1851 ("I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.")
August 15, 1851 ("May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented.")
October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree.")
October 28, 1857("The white pine needles on the ground are already turned considerably redder.")

.October 29, 1858 ("The birch has now generally dropped its golden spangles")

October 31, 1858("As I sit on the Cliff there, the sun is now getting low, and the woods in Lincoln south and east of me are lit up by its more level rays, and there is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red.")

November 2, 1853 ("The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten ")

 November 2, 1858 ("In sprout-lands some young birches are still rather leafy and bright-colored.")

November 2, 1858 ("Going over the newly cleared pasture on the northeast of Fair Haven Hill, I see that the scarlet oaks are more generally bright than on the 22d . . . they interest me more than the maples, they are so widely and equally dispersed throughout the forest; they are so hardy, a nobler tree on the whole, lasting into November; our chief November flower, abiding the approach of winter with us, imparting warmth to November prospects.")

November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig,")

 November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.")

November 6, 1853 ("The witch-hazel spray is peculiar and interesting, with little knubs at short intervals, zig zag, crinkle-crankle. How happens it? Did the leaves grow so close? The bud is long against the stem, with a neck to it. ")
November 4, 1852 ("Saw witch-hazels out of bloom, some still fresh.")
November 7, 1855 ("Looking west over Wheeler’s meadow, I see that there has been much gossamer on the grass, and it is now revealed by the dewy mist which has collected on it.”)
November 9, 1851 ("Facts should only be as the frame to my pictures; they should be material to the mythology which I am writing;. . .facts to tell who I am, and where I have been or what I have thought:. . . I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought -- with these I deal.")
November 15, 1858 ("Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November")
November 21, 1850 ("Seeing the sun falling . . .in an angle where this forest meets a hill covered with shrub oaks, affects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth . . . It is one of the avenues to my future.")
February 18, 1852 ("I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, ... I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.")

November 1, 2021

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 31 <<<<<<<<<  November 1 >>>>>>>>  November 2

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 1

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/HDT01Nov