Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape

November 29

I dug for frogs at Heart-leaf Pond, but found none.

The ice is two inches thick there, and already, the day being warm, is creased irregularly but agreeably on the upper surface.

What is the law of these figures as on watered silks? Has it anything to do with the waves of the wind, or are they the outlines of the crystals as they originally shot, the bones of the ice?

It would be worth the while to watch some water while freezing.

***

It has been cloudy and milder this afternoon, but now I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape - - russet fields and hillsides, evergreens and rustling oaks and single leafless trees. In addition to the clearness of the air at this season, the light is all from one side, and, none being absorbed or dissipated in the heavens, but it being reflected both from the russet earth and the clouds, it is intensely bright, and all the limbs of a maple seen far eastward rising over a hill are wonderfully distinct and lit.

November 29, 2021

I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year.  I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1853

It would be worth the while to watch some water while freezing. See November 11, 1858 (“Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice.  . . . The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as water.”)

Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . The afterglow of the year. See November 29, 1852 ("About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have elsewhere described.") . See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 ("Dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 14, 1853 ("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and whatever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,   November Sunsets

November 29. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 29

Yellow sunlight falls

 on all the eastern landscape –

light all from one side.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape 

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-531129

The pure November season.

November 10

November 10, 2023

A pleasant day, especially the forenoon. Thermometer 46° at noon. Some would call it Indian summer, but it does not deserve to be called summer; grows cool in afternoon when I go — 

To Baker Farm aspen via Cliffs. 

Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.) 

I think I may say that about the 5th the white, swamp white, and black, and perhaps red, oaks (the last may be later) were in their November condition, i. e. for the most part fallen. The few large black oak tops, still covered with leaves above the forest (i. e. just withered), are brownish-yellow. 

The brilliancy of the scarlet oak being generally dulled, the season of brilliant leaves may be considered over, — say about the 10th; and now a new season begins, the pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods, etc. 

From Fair Haven Hill, using my glass, I think that I can see some of the snow of the 7th still left on the brow of Uncannunuc. It is a light line, lying close along under the edge of a wood which covers the summit, which has protected it. I can understand how much nearer they must feel to winter who live in plain sight of that than we do. I think that I could not have detected the edge of the forest if it had not been for the snow. 

In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple. 

The Jersey tea is fallen, all but the terminal leaves. These, how ever, are the greenest and apparently least changed of any indigenous plant, unless it be the sweet-fern. 

Withered leaves generally, though they remain on the trees, are drooping. As I go through the hazel bushes toward the sun, I notice the silvery light reflected from the fine down on their tender twigs, this year’s growth. This apparently protects them against the winter. The very armor that Nature puts on reminds you of the foe she would resist. 

This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. 

A true November seat is amid the pretty white-plumed Andropogon scoparius, the withered culms of the purple wood grass which covers so many dry knolls. There is a large patch at the entrance to Pleasant Meadow. It springs from pink-brown clumps of radical leaves, which make good seats. Looking toward the sun, as I sit in the midst of it rising as high as my head, its countless silvery plumes are a very cheerful sight. At a distance they look like frost on the plant. 

I look out westward across Fair Haven Pond. The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow. 

Hornbeam bare; how long? Perhaps with the ostrya. and just after elms? 

There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. 

Hearing in the oak and near by a sound as if some one had broken a twig, I looked up and saw a jay pecking at an acorn. There were several jays busily gathering acorns on a scarlet oak. I could hear them break them off. They then flew to a suitable limb and, placing the acorn under one foot, hammered away at it busily, looking round from time to time to see if any foe was approaching, and soon reached the meat and nibbled at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they held it very firmly with their claws. (Their hammering made a sound like the woodpecker’s.) Nevertheless it some times dropped to the ground before they had done with it. 

Aphides on alder. Sap still flows in scarlet oak. 

Returned by Spanish Brook Path. Notice the glaucous white bloom on the thimble-berry of late, as there are fewer things to notice. 

So many objects are white or light, preparing us for winter. 

By the 10th of November we conclude with the scarlet oak dulled (and the colors of October generally faded), with a few golden spangles on the white birches and on a lingering Populus tremuliformis and a few sallows, a few green leaves on the Jersey tea, and a few lingering scarlet or yellow or crimson ones on the flowering dogwood in a sheltered place, the gooseberry, the high blueberry, Cornus sericea, the late rose and the common smooth one, and the sweet-briar, meadow-sweet, sweet-fern, and Viburnum nudum. But they are very rare or uninteresting. 

To these may be added the introduced plants of November 9th, which are more leafy. Of them the silvery abele, English cherry, and broom have been of the most interesting colors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1858

Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost) . . . In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod. See  November 2, 1852 ("Plucked quite a handsome nosegay from the side of Heywood's Peak, - white and blue-stemmed goldenrods"); November 2, 1853 ("I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf."), November 3, 1853 ("S. nemoralis by roadside. This, though it was not so prevalent as the S. ccesia three weeks ago, is still to be seen"); November 5, 1855 (“I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers.”); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”); November 9, 1852 ("Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. "); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy.");   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. 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.,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

The pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods. See October 12, 1859 ("We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage. . .  gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November.");  October 23, 1853 ("Everywhere in the fields I see the white, hoary (ashy-colored) sceptres of the gray goldenrod"); October 28, 1852 ("November the month of withered leaves and bare twigs and limbs."); November 3, 1852 ("It is the month of withered oak leaves."); November 5, 1855 (“The hoary gray of the goldenrod.”); November 5, 1855 ("The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October."); November 8, 1859 ("How richly and exuberantly downy are many goldenrod and aster heads now.") See also November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character."); November 28, 1858 ("In half an hour the russet earth is painted white even to the horizon. Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change?")

A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; all the light of November may be called an afterglow. See October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. ”); October 27, 1858 (“the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year.”); November 2, 1853("We come home in the autumn twilight. . . — clear white light, which penetrates the woods”); November 9, 1858 (“We had a true November sunset . . .  a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.”);  November 14, 1853 ("the clear, white, leafless twilight of November”); November 17, 1858 (“We are interested at this season by the manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us. . . . A myriad of surfaces are now prepared to reflect the light. This is one of the hundred silvery lights of November. The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me. ”); November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”); November 29, 1853 (""Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape. . .I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.)

There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. See October 29, 1858 ("Am surprised to see, by the path to Baker Farm, a very tall and slender large Populus tremuliformis still thickly clothed with leaves which are merely yellowish greén,. . . Afterwards, when on the Cliff, I perceive . . .one or two poplars  (tremuliformis) . . . brighter than they were, for they hold out to burn longer than the birch."):October 31, 1858 ("The only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th. It, too, is far more yellow at this distance than it was close at hand");  November 2, 1858 ("That small poplar seen from Cliffs on the 29th is a P. tremuloides. It makes the impression of a bright and clear yellow at a distance,"); November 13 1858 ("Now, on the advent of much colder weather, the last Populus tremuliformis has lost its leaves."): November 25, 1858 ("I see aspen (tremuliformis) leaves, which have long since fallen, turned black, which also shows the relation of this tree to the willow, many species of which also turn black")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

Now a new season –

russet earth and withered leaf,

bare twigs – November.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The pure November season.

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/HDT581110

  

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields.

November 9. 

It is remarkable that the only deciduous trees in the town which now make any show with their living leaves are: (1) scarlet oaks, perhaps only one (2) Populus tremuliformis, one (3) dogwood, (the small white birch i.e. young trees) spangles hardly deserved to be named), weeping willows, Salix alba, silvery abele, poplars (Italian), some apples, some horse chestnuts, rarely wild pear trees, some English cherries (orange or yellow),—the first three alone being indigenous, to eight foreign. 

And of shrubs, there are Jersey tea, gooseberry, two kinds of rose, perhaps sweet-fern, meadow-sweet, and high blackberry; also the lilac, quince, buckthorn, broom, privet, hawthorn, and barberry, well leaved. The very few leaves on sallows, Viburnum nudum, high blueberry, and perhaps Cornus sericea, do not deserve to be named, and hardly the five above. I have not seen the bayberry or beach plums. And add, perhaps, a few other shrubs. Sweet-briar pretty (?) well leaved. (Is it foreign ?) Or of shrubs, seven foreign to about six native, and the last much the least noticeable and much the thinnest-leaved. 

There are a very few living yellow leaves on young Wild cherries yet, but these are not nearly so much to be named as the birch spangles.

The newspaper tells me that Uncannunuc was white with snow for a short time on the morning of the 7th. Thus steadily but unobserved the winter steals down from the north, till from our highest hills we can discern its vanguard. Next week, perchance, our own hills will be white. 

Little did we think how near the winter was. It is as if a scout had brought in word that an enemy were approaching in force only a day’s march distant. Manchester was the spy this time, which has a camp at the base of that hill. We had not thought seriously of winter; we dwelt in fancied security yet. 

P. M. —— To Great Fields and Walden. 

The scarlet oak by Agricultural Ground (and no doubt generally) is falling fast, and has been for some days, and they have now generally grown dull—before the leaves have lost their color. Other oaks may be said [to] have assumed their true November aspect; i. e., the larger ones are about bare. Only the latest black oaks are leafy, and they just withered. 

The trees on the hill just north of Alcott’s land, which I saw yesterday so distinctly from Ponkawtasset, and thought were either larches or aspens, prove to be larches. On a hill like this it seems they are later to change and brighter now than those in the Abel Heywood swamp, which are brownish-yellow. The first-named larches were quite as distinct amid the pines seen a mile off as near at hand. 

Oak sprouts — white and black, at least —- are a deeper and darker red than the trees. Here is a white oak sprout, for example, far brighter red than any tree of the kind I ever saw. I do not find that black oaks get to be quite scarlet or red at all, yet the very young and sprouts often are, and are hard to distinguish from the scarlet oak. 

Garfield shot a hen-hawk just as I came up on the hillside in front of his house. He has killed three within two years about his house, and they have killed two hens for him. They will fly off with a hen. In this case the hen was merely knocked over. I was surprised to find that this bird had not a red tail, and guessed it must be a young one. I brought it home and found that it was so, the same which Wilson called “ Falco leverianus, American Buzzard or White-breasted Hawk,” it differed so much from the old. There [was] little if any rufous brown about this bird. It had a white breast and prettily barred (with blackish or dark-brown) white tail-coverts; was generally dark-brown with white spots above. He says that he killed the others also at this season, and that they were marked like this. They were all young birds, then, and hence so bold or inexperienced, perhaps. They take his hens from between the house and the barn. When the hawk comes, all the hens and roosters run for the barn.

 I see catnep turned at top to a crimson purple. 

As I stood upon Heywood’s Peak, I observed in the very middle of the pond, which was smooth and reflected the sky there, what at first I took to be a sheet of very thin, dark ice two yards wide drifting there, the first ice of the season, which had formed by the shore in the morning, but immediately I considered that it was too early and warm for that. Then I wondered for a moment what dark film could be floating out there on the pure and unruffled lake. To be sure, it was not a very conspicuous object, and most would not have noticed it! But, suspecting what it was, I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes continually coming to the surface there together. It was exactly analogous to the dark rippled patches on the sea made by the menhaden as seen from Cape Cod. Why have I never observed the like in the river? In this respect, also, Walden is a small ocean. 

November 9, 2024

We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.

It is of no use to plow deeper than the soil is, unless you mean to follow up that mode of cultivation persistently, manuring highly and carting on muck at each plowing, — making a soil, in short. Yet many a man likes to tackle mighty themes, like immortality, but in his discourse he turns up nothing but yellow sand, under which what little fertile and available surface soil he may have is quite buried and lost. He should teach frugality rather,— how to postpone the fatal hour,— should plant a crop of beans. He might have raised enough of these to make a deacon of him, though never a preacher. Many a man runs his plow so deep in heavy or stony soil that it sticks fast in the furrow. 

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields, whatever it may be, not be straining as if to reach apples or oranges when he yields only ground-nuts. He should be digging, not soaring. Just as earnest as your life is, so deep is your soil. If strong and deep, you will sow wheat and raise bread of life in it. 

Now the young hen-hawks, full-grown but inexperienced, still white-breasted and brown (not red)-tailed, swoop down after the farmer’s hens, between the barn and the house, often carrying one off in their clutches, and all the rest of the pack half fly, half run, to the barn! Unwarrantably bold, one ventures to stoop before the farmer’s eyes. He clutches in haste his trusty gun, which hangs, ready loaded, on its pegs; he pursues warily to where the marauder sits teetering on a lofty pine, and when he is sailing scornfully away he meets his fate and comes fluttering head forward to earth. 

The exulting farmer hastes to secure his trophy. He treats the proud bird’s body with indignity. He carries it home to show to his wife and children, for the hens were his wife’s special care. He thinks it one of his best shots, full thirteen rods. This gun is “ an all-fired good piece” -- nothing but robin-shot. The body of the victim is ' delivered up to the children and the dog and, like the body of Hector, is dragged so many times round Troy. 

But alas for the youthful hawk, the proud bird of prey, the tenant of the skies! We shall no more see his wave-like outline against a cloud, nor hear his scream from behind one. He saw but a pheasant in the field, the food which nature has provided for him, and stooped to seize it. This was his offense. He, the native of these skies, must make way for those bog-trotters from another land, which never soar. 

The eye that was conversant with sublimity, that looked down on earth from under its sharp projecting brow, is closed; the head that was never made dizzy by any height is brought low; the feet that were not made to walk on earth now lie useless along it. With those trailing claws for grapnels it dragged the lower sky. Those wings which swept the sky must now dust the chimney-corner, perchance. So weaponed, with strong beak and talons, and wings, like a war-steamer, to carry them about. In vain were the brown-spotted eggs laid, in vain were ye cradled in the loftiest pine of the swamp. Where are your father and mother? Will they hear of your early death? before ye had acquired your full plumage, they who nursed and defended ye so faithfully?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , November 9, 1858

We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. . . . cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year. See November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine between you and it, after a raw and louring afternoon near the beginning of winter, is a memorable phenomenon. . . . After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire.");  November 29, 1853 (""Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape. . .I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields, whatever it may be. See November 16, 1850 ("My Journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only of the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what I love to think of.”); September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart."); March 13, 1853 ("The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body . . . You must get your living by loving."); May 6, 1854 ("Every important worker will report what life there is in him. All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.").