Cobwebs

December 6.

Though foul weather yesterday, this is the warmest and pleasantest day yet.

Cows are turned out to pasture again. 

On the Corner causeway fine cobwebs glimmer in the air, covering the willow twigs and the road, and sometimes stretching from side to side above my head. 

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there.  

Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since.

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river.

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1852

This is the warmest and pleasantest day yet.  See May 6, 1857 ("A beautiful and warm day."); December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year"); December 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day.") See also December 5, 1856 ("I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Cows are turned out to pasture again. See December 8, 1850 ("A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home.")

Fine cobwebs glimmer in the air . . . sometimes stretching from side to side above my head. See November 1, 1851 ("It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs . . . They have the effect of a shimmer in the air . . . the effect of a drifting storm of light."); October 20, 1858 ("Flocks of this gossamer, like tangled skeins, float gently through the quiet air as high as my head, like white parachutes to unseen balloons.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since. See November 12, 1853 ("Tansy is very fresh still in some places"); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce."); December 12, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge.")

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river. See October 16, 1851 ("To-night the spearers are out again."); November 15, 1855 ("The river rising. I see a spearer’s light to-night.")

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs. See December 31, 1859 ("Do I ever see a small hawk in winter ?"); December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant. . . says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart")

Now is the summer come.

May 30

May 30. 2012

Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.

What kind of blackberry do I find in blossom in Hubbard's Swamp? Pass a cow that has just dropped her calf in the meadow. The sumach (glabra) is well under weigh now. The yellow water ranunculus by the Corner causeway. There are young robins in nests. To what sparrow belong the coffee-colored eggs in Hubbard's field by the brook? White cohosh in bloom; high blueberry flowers are quite conspicuous.

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . .Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow, near the sidesaddle-flowers, which last are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.

Strong lights and shades now. It is a day of shadows, the leaves have so grown, and of wind, – a washing  day, – and the shadows of the clouds are observed flitting over the landscape.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1852

Now is the summer come.  . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.  . . .   See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave;. . .”);  May 26, 1854 (At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant.”); May 19, 1860 ("The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them.")

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . . Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow,. See May 30, 1853 ("The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent, one of the most common, in fact, in low ground and a very handsome purple, with more red than usual in its violet.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

Strong lights and shades now.

It is a day of shadows,

the leaves have so grown –

and of wind –

A day for shadows

of fast moving clouds over

fields of waving grass.

,A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now is the Summer come

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

May 30. Sunday.

Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.

 Senecio in bloom. A bird's nest in grass, with coffee-colored eggs. Cinquefoil and houstonia cover the ground, mixed with the grass and contrasting with each other.

 Strong lights and shades now.

Wild cherry on the low shrubs, but not yet the trees, a rummy scent.

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac.

The tall pipe-grass (Equisetum uliginosum) .

The Drosera rotundifolia now glistens with its dew at midday, a beautiful object closely examined.

The dwarf andromeda is about out of bloom. Its new shoots from the side of the old stem are an inch or more long. The little leaves appear to be gradually falling off, after all. See again if they do not all fall off in the summer.

Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow, near the sidesaddle-flowers, which last are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.

It is a day of shadows, the leaves have so grown, and of wind, — a washing day, — and the shadows of the clouds are observed flitting over the landscape.

 I do not yet observe a difference between the two kinds of Pyrus arbutifolia, if, indeed, I have compared the two, i. e. my early black and later red-fruited, which last holds on all winter.

The fruit of the amelanchier is as big as small peas. I have not noticed any other berry so large yet.

The anemones appear to be nearly gone.

Yellow lilies are abundant.

The bulbous arethusa, the most splendid, rich, and high-colored flower thus far, methinks, all flower and color, almost without leaves, and looking much larger than it is, and more conspicuous on account of its intense color. A flower of mark. It appeared two or three times as large as reality when it flashed upon me from the meadow. Bigelow calls it a " crystalline purple." (Saw some the 6th of June, but no longer fresh.)

What kind of blackberry did I find in blossom in Hubbard's Swamp?

 Passed a cow that had just dropped her calf in the meadow.

The sumach (glabra) is well under weigh now.

The yellow water ranunculus by the Corner causeway.

There are young robins in nests.

To what sparrow belong the coffee-colored eggs in Hubbard's field by the brook ?

White cohush in bloom; also Smilacina stellata.

The branches or branchlets of the maidenhair fern are so disposed as to form two thirds of a cup around the stem.

The flowers of the sassafras have not such a fragrance as I perceived last year.

High blueberry flowers are quite conspicuous.

The bass leaf is now large and handsome.

The geranium is a delicate flower and be longs especially to shady places under trees and shrubs, — better if about springs, — in by-nooks, so modest.

The early gnaphaliums are gone to seed, having run up seven or ten inches.

The field plantain, which I saw in Plymouth a week ago, abundant there.

The narrow- leaved cotton-grass.

The Equisetum sylvaticum, or wood horse-tail in the meadows.

The lupine, which I saw almost in blossom a week ago at Plymouth, I hear is in blossom here.

 The river is my own highway, the only wild and unfenced part of the world hereabouts.

 How much of the world is widow's thirds, with a hired man to take negligent care of it!

The apple trees are about out of blossom. It is but a week they last.

 Israel Rice thinks the first half of June is not commonly so warm as May, and that the reason is that vegetation is so advanced that the earth is shaded and protected from the sun by the grass also, so that it is delayed in being warmed by the summer sun.

The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather.

May 14

First kingbird. Its voice and flight relate it to the swallow. 

The maple-keys are already formed, though the male blossoms (on different trees) are not withered.

Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow! These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, and are now haunted by the summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat. 

They see this now conspicuous mass of yellowish verdure at a distance and fly to it. Single large willows at distance are great nosegays of yellow. This orchard precedes the peach and apple weeks. 

The Salix nigra (?) is leafing out now with its catkins appearing.

The sounds and sights — as birds and flowers — heard and seen at those seasons when there are fewest are most memorable and suggestive of poetic associations.

 The trillium is budded. 

bellwort
May 14, 2017

The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold.

The Ranunculus bulbosus  shows its yellow by this spring thus early (Corner Spring).

The grass is now whitened with bluets; the fields are green, and the roadsides. (I am on the C. Miles road.) Now is the season to travel.

The deciduous trees are rapidly investing the evergreens, making the woods rich and bosky by degrees. 

The robin sings this louring day. They sang most in and about that great freshet storm. The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather. 

I have not heard any toads during this rain (of which this is the third day), and very few peepers. 

The beautiful birch catkins hang down four inches.

Saw a whip-poor-will sitting in the path in woods on the mill road, — the brown mottled bird. It flutters off blindly, with slow, soft flight. 

Most birds are silent in the storm. Hear the robin, oven-bird, night warbler, and, at length, the towhee's towee, chickadee's phoebe, and a preluding thrasher and a jay.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, May 14, 1852

The Ranunculus bulbosus shows it by this spring thus early (Corner Spring)s yellow. See May 14, 1853 ("The glossy or varnished yellow of buttercups (bulbosus, also abundant, some days out) spots the hillside.") See also May 17, 1856 ("Ranunculus bulbosils a day or two at least.")May 29, 1859 ("The Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime."); May 29, 1857 ("Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom.");

The deciduous trees are rapidly investing the evergreens, making the woods rich and bosky by degrees. See May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees.”) May 22, 1855 ("The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens.”); June 9, 1852 (“The deciduous trees have filled up the intervals between the evergreens, and the woods are bosky now.”)

The song of the robin is most suggestive in cloudy weather. See April 26, 1855 ("We see and hear more birds than usual this mizzling and still day, and the robin sings with more vigor and promise than later in the season.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

A hummingbird and a summer shower

July 9. 

Clears up at noon. See two handsome rose-breasted grosbeaks on the Corner causeway. One utters a peculiar squeaking or snapping note. By form, note, and color, both remind me of some of those foreign birds with great bills in cages. 

There is a smart shower at 5 p. m., and in the midst of it a hummingbird is busy about the flowers in the garden, unmindful of it, though you would think that each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1860

You would think each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident. See May 29, 1857 ("the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning.”)

July 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 9

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