Overtaken by a shower

August 17. 

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season. 

Minott has only lately been reading Shattuck’s “History of Concord,” and he says that his account is not right by a jugful, that he does not come within half a mile of the truth, not as he has heard tell. 

Some days ago I saw a kingbird twice stoop to the water from an overhanging oak and pick an insect from the surface. 

C. saw pigeons to-day. 

P. M. —To Annursnack via swimming-ford. 

The river is twelve to eighteen inches deeper there than usual at this season. Even the slough this side is two feet deep. There has been so much rain of late that there is no curling or drying of the leaves and grass this year. The foliage is a pure fresh green. The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. 

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. 

The dog-days, the foggy and mouldy days, are not over yet. The clouds are like a mildew which over  spreads the sky. It is sticky weather, and the air is filled with the scent of decaying fungi.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 17, 1858

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season.See August 1, 1853 ("I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.")

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. See July 22, 1858 (“C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. . . .Left a little too soon, but enjoyed a splendid rainbow for half an hour.”)

The tree has its idea to be lived up to,

September 25. 

September 25, 2017

Friday. P. M. – To tupelo on Daniel B. Clark’s land.

Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels. One sits high on a hemlock bough with a nut in its paws. A squirrel seems always to have a nut at hand ready to twirl in its paws. Suddenly he dodges behind the trunk of the tree, and I hear some birds in the maples across the river utter a peculiar note of alarm of the same character with the hen’s (I think they were robins), and see them seeking a covert. Looking round, I see a marsh hawk beating the bushes on that side. 

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. 

Pushing by Carter’s pasture, I see, deep under water covered by the rise of the river, the cooper’s poles a-soak, held down by planks and stones. 

Fasten to the white maple and go inland. Wherever you may land, it would be strange if there were not some alder clump at hand to hide your oars in till your return. 

The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun. These first trees that change are most interesting, since they are seen against others still freshly green, — such brilliant red on green. I go half a mile out of my way to examine such a red banner. A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. 

At the eleventh hour of the year, some tree which has stood mute and inglorious in some distant vale thus proclaims its character as effectually as it stood by the highway-side, and it leads our thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits. The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence. I am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for its regiment of green-clad foresters around. The forest is the more spirited.

I remember that brakes had begun to decay as much as six weeks ago. 

Dogwood (Rhus venenata) is yet but pale-scarlet or yellowish. The R. glabra is more generally turned. 

Stopped at Barrett's mill. He had a buttonwood log to saw. 

In an old grist-mill the festoons of cobwebs revealed by the white dust on them are an ornament. Looking over the shoulder of the miller, I drew his attention to a mouse running up a brace. 

“Oh, yes,” said he, “we have plenty of them. Many are brought to the mill in barrels of corn, and when the barrel is placed on the platform of the hopper they scamper away.” 

As I came round the island, I took notice of that little ash tree on the opposite shore. It has been cut or broken off about two feet from the ground, and seven small branches have shot up from its circumference, all together forming a perfectly regular oval head about twenty-five feet high and very beautiful. With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree, one twig not straying farther on this side than its fellow on that! 

That the tree thus has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air, is the more evident, because if you should cut away one or all but one, the remaining branch or branches would still in time form a head in the main similar to this. 

Brought home my first boat-load of wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1857

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. See September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long"); September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown"); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian

A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. See September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. "); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water.")

Brought home my first boat-load of wood. See September 26, 1855 (Go up Assabet for fuel"); September 24, 1855 ("Brought home quite a boat-load of fuel . . . It would be a triumph to get all my winter’s wood thus")

With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree,. . . has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air. Compare February 12, 1859 ("You may account for that ash by the Rock having such a balanced and regular outline by the fact that in an open place their branches are equally drawn toward the light on all sides, and not because of a mutual understanding through the trunk.")

Idea of the tree.

Invisible mold in the 

air lived by each tree.

The full moon rises.

May 8, 2017

May 8.

A third fine day. 

The sugar maple at Barrett's is now in full bloom. 

I finish the arbor to-night. This has been the third of these remarkably warm and beautiful. I have worked all the while in my shirt-sleeves. 

Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together. Some boys have bathed in the river. 

Walk to first stone bridge at sunset. Salix alba, possibly the 6th. 

It is a glorious evening. 

I scent the expanding willow leaves (for there are very few blossoms yet) fifteen rods off. Already hear the cheerful, sprightly note of the yellowbird amid them. It is perfectly warm and still, and the green grass reminds me of June. The air is full of the fragrance of willow leaves. The high water stretches smooth around. 

I hear the sound of Barrett's sawmill with singular distinctness. The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin's evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water; and I see countless little fuzzy gnats in the air, and dust over the road, between me and the departed sun. 

Perhaps the evenings of the 6th and 7th were as pleasant. But such an evening makes a crisis in the year. I must make haste home and go out on the water. 

I paddle to the Wheeler meadow east of hill after sundown. From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush. One bullfrog's faint er-er-roonk from a distance. (Perhaps the Amphibia, better than any creatures, celebrate the changes of temperature.) One dump note. 

It grows dark around. The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. 

It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). I get within a few feet of them as they sit along the edge of the river and meadow, but cannot see them. Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance. I see them paddling in the water like toads. 

Within a week I have had made a pair of corduroy pants, which cost when done $1.60. They are of that peculiar clay-color, reflecting the light from portions of their surface. They have this advantage, that, beside being very strong, they will look about as well three months hence as now, — or as ill, some would say. Most of my friends are disturbed by my wearing them. I can get four or five pairs for what one ordinary pair would cost in Boston, and each of the former will last two or three times as long under the same circumstances. The tailor said that the stuff was not made in this country; that it was worn by the Irish at home, and now they would not look at it, but others would not wear it, durable and cheap as it is, because it is worn by the Irish. 

Moreover, I like the color on other accounts. Anything but black clothes. I was pleased the other day to see a son of Concord return after an absence of eight years, not in a shining suit of black, with polished boots and a beaver or silk hat, as if on a furlough from human duties generally, — a mere clothes-horse, — but clad in an honest clay-colored suit and a snug every-day cap. It showed unusual manhood. Most returning sons come home dressed for the occasion. 

The birds and beasts are not afraid of me now. A mink came within twenty feet of me the other day as soon as my companion had left me, and if I had had my gray sack on as well as my corduroys, it would perhaps have come quite up to me. 

Even farmers' boys, returning to their native town, though not unfamiliar with homely and dirty clothes, make their appearance on this new stage in a go-to-meeting suit.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1857

A third fine day. See May 6, 1857 ("A beautiful and warm day."); May 7, 1857 ("A second fine day."); May 9, 1857; ("Another fine day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together. See May 6, 1852  ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer."); May 7, 1852 ("One or more little warblers in the woods this morning are new to the season, . . .The first wave of summer from the south") ; May 7, 1852 ("The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once,"); May 10, 1858 ("It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Summer and The Birds of May

It is a glorious evening . . . I must make haste home and go out on the water. See August 31, 1852 ("This is the most glorious part of this day,. . . and the most suggestive.. . . Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water.”)

Already hear the cheerful, sprightly note of the yellowbird amid them. See May 8, 1854 (“Hear a yellowbird in the direction of the willows. Its note coarsely represented by che-che-che-char-char- char."); May 8 1859 ("Summer yellowbird.”) and note to May 11, 1856 ("At a distance I hear the first yellow-bird . . . All these willows blossom.”).

The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). See April 11, 1854 ("Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by.”); May 3, 1852 ("The moon is full. The air is filled with a certain luminous, liquid, white light. You can see the moonlight, as it were, reflected from the atmosphere."); . May 6, 1858 ("In the mornings now, I hear no R. palustris and no hylodes, but a few toads still, but now, at night, all ring together, the toads ringing through the day, the hylodes beginning in earnest toward night and the palustris at evening. I think that the different epochs in the revolution of the seasons may perhaps be best marked by the notes of [frogs]"); May 9, 1853 ("That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad' s (which is occasionally heard) now comes up from the meadows edge."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May Moonlight and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The  Pickerel frog  (Rana palustris)

Such an evening makes a crisis in the year.  Compare July 18, 1854 (“The atmosphere now imparts a bluish or glaucous tinge to the distant trees. A certain debauched look. This a crisis in the season.”); August 20, 1854 (“When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved.”)

May 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  May 8

It grows dark around.

The full moon rises, and I

paddle by its light. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The full moon rises

                                     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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570508

As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing.

May 19. 

Thick fog in the morning, which lasted late in the forenoon and left behind it rainy clouds for the afternoon. 

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp. 

Landed at Island Neck, and saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. 

Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before. Going and coming, he is in the top of the same swamp white oak and singing indolently, ullia — eelya, and sometimes varied to eelyee. 

The tanager is now heard plainly and frequently. 

Louisiana Water Thrush

I see running along the water’s edge on the Island Neck, amid the twigs, a new bird, slender and somewhat warbler-like, but plainly a Turdus, with a deep, dark chocolate-brown back (apparently uniformly) , apparently cream-colored beneath, handsomely and abundantly spotted with dark brown, vent white, light flesh-colored legs, yellowish or cream-colored line over eyes. Me thinks it teetered or wagged its tail. Flew soon and was quite shy. I think it must have been the Turdus aquaticus from its dark chocolate-brown back and running along the water’s edge. Feel pretty sure, yet that is said to have white (?) over eye. I lost it before I had examined fully. Quite a discovery. Vide golden-crowned thrush carefully. 

Apple in bloom; some, no doubt, earlier. Night hawk’s squeak. Red-Wing’s nest made, and a robin's without mud, on black willow four feet above water. 

As I sail up the reach of the Assabet above Dove Rock with a fair wind, a traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune. How inspiring and elysian it is to hear when the traveller or the laborer from a call to his horse or the murmur of ordinary conversation rises into song! It paints the landscape suddenly as no agriculture, no flowery crop that can be raised. It is at once another land, the abode of poetry. I am always thus affected when I hear in the fields any singing or instrumental music at the end of the day. It implies a different life and pursuits than the ordinary. As he looked at my sail, I listened to his singing. Perchance they were equally poetic, and we repaid each other. Why will not men oftener advertise me of musical thoughts? The singer is in the attitude of one inviting the muse, — aspiring. 

The Maryland yellow-throat amid the alders sings now, whit-we-chee whit-we-chee whit-we-chee whit-whit, the last two fast, or whit alone, or none. 

Wood pewee. 

Woolly aphides on alder. 

The Smilacina trifolia will apparently bloom to-morrow or next day.

Returning, stopped at Barrett’s sawmill while it rained a little. Was also attracted by the music of his saw. He was sawing a white oak log; was about to saw a very ugly and knotty white oak log into drag plank, making an angle. Said that about as many logs were brought to his mill as ten years ago, — he did not perceive the difference, — but they were not so large, and perhaps they went further for them. 

I observed that he was not grinding. No, he said, it was the first day he had not had a grist, though he had plenty of water; probably because the farmers were busy planting. There were white oak, pine, maple, and walnut logs waiting to be sawed. 

A bullfrog, sluggish, by my boat’s place. 

On the 13th I saw washed up to the edge of the ' meadow, this side of Clamshell, portions of one or two large bluish-white eggs, apparently a size larger than hens’ eggs, which may have been laid last year by some wild fowl in the meadow. 

May 19, 2016

If my friend would take a quarter part the pains to show me himself that he does to show me a piece of roast beef, I should feel myself irresistibly invited. He says, — 

“ Come and see
Roast beef and me.”

I find the beef fat and well done, but him rare.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1856

Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris . . .. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. See  August 23, 1851 ("He had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his jaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey in haste and fled"); July 23, 1856 ("Saw . . . a small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris, . . . I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him. ")

Hear and see a yellow-throated vireo, which methinks I have heard before. . . . See May 27, 1854 ("I see and hear the yellow-throated vireo. It is somewhat similar (its strain) to that of the red-eye, prelia pre-li-ay, with longer intervals and occasionally a whistle like tlea tlow, or chowy chow, or tully ho on a higher key.”)

A traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune. See March 26, 1855 ('"Sail down to the Great Meadows. A strong wind with snow driving from the west and thickening the air. The farmers pause to see me scud before it."); April 18, 1856 ("The farmer neglects his team to watch my sail."); September 27, 1858 ("The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.")

May 19.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 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 © 2009-2021

Three sounds and a sign of Spring.

March 15. 

Pleasant morning, unexpectedly. 

Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows. 

The sound of Barrett's sawmill in the still morning comes over the water very loud. 

I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water. 

Paint my boat.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1854

The first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows. See March 14, 1858 (I see a Fringilla hyemalis . . . They are now getting back earlier than our permanent summer residents.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Dark-eyed Junco and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward

The sound of Barrett's sawmill in the still morning. See May 8, 1857 ("I hear the sound of Barrett's sawmill with singular distinctness."); December 17, 1855 (" I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows.")

I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water. See March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings; it echoes peculiarly in the air of a spring morning.”); March 13, 1855 ("I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water."); March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring sounds. Woodpeckers Tapping; See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: woodpeckers tapping

Paint my boat. See February 26, 1857 (“Paint the bottom of my boat.”); March 9, 1855 (“Painted the bottom of my boat.”);  March 12, 1854 ("Men are eager to launch their boats and paddle over the meadows.");  March 18, 1854 ("Took up my boat, a very heavy one, which was lying on its bottom in the yard, and carried it two rods."); March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven. Still very cold. ")

March 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 15 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Three sounds and a sign of Spring.

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540315