So the tree gets planted!

July 14

P. M. — To Muhlenbergii Brook. 

Anthony Wright found a lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th in E. Hubbard's meadow by ash tree, — two nests, probably one a second brood. 

Nasturtium hispidum (?), apparently three or four days. 

See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside. 

Bass out about two days at Island. 

There is a pyrus twenty feet high with small fruit at Assabet Spring. 

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook, some days. 

Saw apparently my little ruby(?)-crested wren(?) on the weeds there. 

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. 

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. 

Ceratophyllum with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. 

While drinking at Assabet Spring in woods, noticed a cherry-stone on the bottom. A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. So the tree gets planted!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1856

A lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th. See July 11, 1857 ("And now the lark must look out for the mowers."); July 16, 1851 ("The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound") July 26, 1856 ("I see young larks fly pretty well before me.")

Bass out about two days at Island. See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars"); July 18, 1854 ("We have very few bass trees in Concord, but walk near them at this season and they will be betrayed, though several rods off, by the wonderful susurrus of the bees, etc., which their flowers attract.") Compare July 3, 1853 ("There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year."); June 3, 1857 ("The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. ") See also Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook. See August 15, 1851 ("Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets")

Saw apparently my little ruby-crested wren on the weeds there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. See  June 12, 1852 ("The meadows are yellow with golden senecio."); See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Golden Senecio

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. See  July 15, 1859 ("To Ledum Swamp. First notice Canada thistle."); July 19, 1851 ("Here is the Canada thistle in bloom, visited by butterflies and bees.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Thistle and Thistle-down

Ceratophyllum [hornwort] with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. See July 27, 1856 ("Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre."); .July 30, 1856 ("The water is suddenly clear,. . . It assists me very much as I go looking for the ceratophyllum, potamogetons, etc. All the secrets of the river bottom are revealed. ")

While drinking at Assabet Spring. See May 2, 1855 ("Open the Assabet spring."); July 12, 1857 ("I drink at every cooler spring in my walk these afternoons."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Assabet Spring

A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. See September 1, 1860 ("How artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it . . . The bird is bribed with the pericarp to take the stone with it and do this little service for Nature. Thus a bird's wing is added to the cherry-stone which was wingless, and it does not wait for winds to transport it."); also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that . . . those [seeds] the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds") and  August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them.").

July 14.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 14

A bird come to drink

must have brought this cherry-stone –

the tree gets planted.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, So the tree gets planted!

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560714

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant

July 13

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land. 

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. 

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant along walls, to be strung on herd's-grass, but not much flavor to them; honest and wholesome. See where the mowers have plucked them. Gather the large black and blackening ones. No drought has shrivelled them this year. 

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. Reminds me somewhat of a peetweet, and also of the squeak of a rabbit, but much louder and sharper. And all is still. 

Hubbard's meadow — or I will call it early meadow-aster, some days, now rather slender and small- bushed. Drosera longifolia and also rotundifolia, some time. Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. 

Have noticed bright-red geranium and pyrus leaves a week or more. 

In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. Then one after another got up and went to feeding, straggling into the midst of the field. With a chattering appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects, the cow still eating along and almost hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined by two or three more birds. 

An abundance of spurry in the half-grown oats adjoining, apparently some time out. 

Yellow lily, how long? 

Am surprised to see an Aster laevis, out a day or two, in road on sandy bank. 

Goldfinches twitter over. 

Hydrocotyle, some time. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1856

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. See July 11, 1856 ("Hear now the link of bobolinks, and see quite a flock of red-wing blackbirds and young."); July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn . . . Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods."); July 22, 1855 ("See small flocks of red-wings, young and old, now, over the willows."); July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant . . . No drought has shrivelled them this year. See July 4, 1852 ("One thimble-berry which will be quite ripe by to-morrow.");  July 18, 1854 ("Every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.");  October 8, 1856 ("Sophia brings home two or three clusters of very large freshly ripe thimble-berries, with some unripe, a second crop, apparently owing to the abundance of rain for the last six weeks.")

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. See June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. See July 14, 1845 ("Alek Therien, he called himself; a Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts—holes them, i. e.—in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books, would not know what to do rainy days.")

A cowbird. . . lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects. See August 25, 1855 ("I count about one hundred and fifty cowbirds about eight cows, running before their noses and in odd positions, awkwardly walking with a straddle, often their heads down and tails up a long time at once, occasionally flying to keep up with a cow.")

Goldfinches twitter over. See July 15, 1854 ("This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 17, 1852 ("Again methinks I hear the goldfinch.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

See quite a large flock

of chattering red-wings,

the flight of first broods. 

Ripe thimble-berries

now abundant along walls

but not much flavor.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ripe Thimble-berries

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560713

Near Loring pond four houses and families now gone.

June 4

Surveying for J. Hosmer. Very warm.

While running a line on the west edge of Loring’s Pond, south of the brook, found, on a hummock in the open swamp, in the midst of bushes, at the foot of a pitch pine, a nest about ten inches over, made of dry sedge and moss. 

I think it must have been a duck’s nest. This pond and its islets, half flooded and inaccessible, afford excellent places. 

Anthony Wright says that he used to get slippery elm bark from a place southwest of Wetherbee’s Mill, about ten rods south of the brook. 

He says there was once a house at head of hollow next beyond Clamshell. 

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. Think of going to sleep for fourteen nights with a perch, his fins set and his scales (!), dissolving in your throat! ! What dreams! What waking thoughts! 

Also showed where one Shaw, whom he could just remember, used to live, in the low field north of Dennis’s barn, and also another family in another house by him.

English hawthorn from Poplar Hill blossoms in house.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1856

[A duck's nest] found, on a hummock in the open swamp, in the midst of bushes, at the foot of a pitch pine. See June 23, 1857 ("Found a black duck's nest Sunday before the last, i. e. the 14th, with perhaps a dozen eggs in it, a mere hollow on the top of a tussock, four or five feet within a clump of bushes forming an islet . . . in Hubbard's great meadow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

Anthony Wright says that he used to get slippery elm bark from a place southwest of Wetherbee’s Mill. See June 6, 1853 ("A slippery elm (Ulmus fulva) on Lee's Cliff, – red elm . . . It has large, rough leaves and straggling branches – a rather small, much-spreading tree, with an appearance between the common elm and iron-wood."); July 17, 1857 (" To Lee's Cliff. The young leaves of the slippery elm are a yellowish green and large, and the branches recurved or drooping."); April 6, 1851 ("On examining the buds of the elm at Helianthus Bank, I find it is not the slippery elm, and therefore I know but one.")

“Perch” Hosmer. See November 18, 1851("Deacon Brown told me to-day of a tall, raw-boned fellow by the name of Hosmer who used to help draw the seine behind the Jones house, who once, when he had hauled it without getting a single shad, held up a little perch in sport above his face, to show what he had got. At that moment the perch wiggled and dropped right down his throat head foremost, and nearly suffocated him; and it was only after considerable time, during which the man suffered much, that he was extracted or forced down. He was in a worse predicament than a fish hawk would have been.”)

English hawthorn from Poplar Hill blossoms in house. See June 2, 1856 ("English hawthorn will open apparently in two days.")

A duck's nest found on

a hummock in the swamp, made

of dry sedge and moss.

Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A nest of dry sedge and moss

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560604

The most springlike sight I have seen.

March 14

Quite warm. Thermometer 46°. 

3 P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The ice formed the fore part of this week, as that at Merrick’s noticed on the 12th, and heard of else where in the Mill Brook, appears to have been chiefly snow ice, though no snow fell. It was apparently blown into the water during those extremely cold nights and assisted its freezing. So that it is a question whether the river would have closed again at Merrick’s on the night of the 10th and 11th, notwithstanding the intense cold, if the snow had not been blown into it,—a question, I say, because the snow was blown into it. 

I think it remarkable that, cold as it was, I should not have supposed from my sensations that it was nearly so cold as the thermometer indicated. 

Tapped several white maples with my knife, but find no sap flowing; but, just above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely. Where the sap had dried on the bark, shining and sticky, it tasted quite sweet. 

Yet Anthony Wright tells me that he attempted to trim some apple trees on the 11th, but was obliged to give up, it was so cold. They were frozen solid. 

This is the only one of eight or ten white and red maples that flows. I do not see why it should be. 

March 14, 2016
camel’s hump

As I return by the old Merrick Bath Place, on the river,—for I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river, — the setting sun falls on the osier row toward the road and attracts my attention. They certainly look brighter now and from this point than I have noticed them before this year, — greenish and yellowish below and reddish above, — and I fancy the sap fast flowing in their pores. 

Yet I think that on a close inspection I should find no change. 

Nevertheless, it is, on the whole, perhaps the most springlike sight I have seen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 14, 1856

The ice formed the forepart of this week, as that at Merrick’s. . .appears to have been chiefly snow ice, See March 12, 1856 ("The last four cold days have closed the river again against Merrick’s, and probably the few other small places which may have opened in the town . . . which had not frozen before this winter.");   March 16, 1856 ("These few rather warmer days have made a little impression on the river . . . it is still thick enough."): March 20, 1856 ("Considering how solid and thick the river was a week ago, I am surprised to find how cautious I have grown about crossing it in many places now.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

One red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. See March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap.”) See also March 7, 1855 ("To-day, as also three or four days ago, I saw a clear drop of maple sap on a broken red maple twig, which tasted very sweet.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river. See  March 22, 1856 ("I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch."); March 24, 1856 ("Go everywhere on the North Branch — it is all solid Yet last year I paddled my boat to Fair Haven Pond on the 19th of March!"); April 2, 1856.(" I returned down the middle of the river to near the Hubbard Bridge without seeing any opening. "); April 3, 1856 ("The river is now generally and rapidly breaking up . . . It is now generally open about the town");  April 7, 1856 ("Launched my boat.")

The setting sun falls on the osier row . . . They certainly look brighter now . . .than I have noticed them before this year . . . Yet I think that on a close inspection I should find no change. See  March 16, 1856 ("There is, at any rate, such a phenomenon as the willows shining in the spring sun, however it is to be accounted for. ); See also March 10, 1853 ("It must be that the willow twigs, both the yellow and green, are brighter-colored than before. I cannot be deceived."); January 26, 1859 ("When I came down to the river and looked off to Merrick’s pasture, the osiers there shone as brightly as in spring, showing that their brightness depends on the sun and air rather than the season."); March 20, 1859 ("I am aware that the sun has come out of a cloud first by seeing it lighting up the osiers.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and Early Spring

March 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 14

A most springlike sight –

the osier looking bright

in the setting sun. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The most springlike sight I have seen.

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560314

Primitive forest

October 23

More or less rain to-day and yesterday.

Anthony Wright tells me that he cut a pitch pine on Damon's land between the Peter Haynes road and his old farm, about '41, in which he counted two hundred and seventeen rings, which was therefore older than Concord, and one of the primitive forest.

He tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood, between the Harvard turnpike and Stow, sometimes called Stow Woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 23, 1860

He tells me of a noted large and so-called primitive wood, Inches Wood. See ;November 9, 1860 ("Inches’ Woods in Boxboro. This wood is some one and three quarters miles from West Acton, .. . . in the east part of Boxboro, on both sides of the Harvard turnpike.");  November 10, 1860 ("I have lived so long in this neighborhood and but just heard of this noble forest, - probably as fine an oak wood as there is in New England, only eight miles west of me.Seeing this, I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy")