A day of sunny water.

August 8. 

August 8, 2014

This is a day of sunny water. As I walk along the bank of the river, I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom.

Lobelia cardinalis

The cardinals are in perfection, standing in dark recesses of the green shore, or in the open meadow. They are fluviatile, and stand along some river or brook, like myself.

The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green. 

I see one large white maple crisped and tinged with a sort of rosaceous tinge, just above the Golden Horn. 

The surface is very glassy there.   

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 8, 1854

I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom.  See August 8, 1859 ("The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium."); see also July 30, 1856 ("The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now...”); July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water"); July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season of Sunny Water

The cardinals are in perfection. See July 27, 1852 ("The cardinal-flower just opened, close to the water's edge, remarkable for its intense scarlet color, contrasting with the surrounding green."); August 6, 1851 ("I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers . . It is remarkable for its intensely brilliant scarlet color. You are slow to concede to it a high rank among flowers, but ever and anon, as you turn your eyes away, it dazzles you and you pluck it."); August 6, 1852 ("I love to follow up the course of the brook and see the cardinal-flowers. . . their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open, but dark, cellar-like wood,"); August 16, 1858 ("I am surprised to find that where of late years there have been so many cardinal-flowers, there are now very few. So much does a plant fluctuate from season to season.")

The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green. See August 6, 1854 ("As I look westward up the stream, the oak, etc., on Ponkawtasset are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer"

I see one large white maple crisped and tinged with a sort of rosaceous tinge. See August 6, 1854 ("I see some smaller white maples turned a dull red, — crimsonish, — a slight blush on them. "); August 15, 1858 (“The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and their long row, seen against the fresh green of Ball’s Hill, is very surprising.”); August 22, 1856 (“I notice three or four clumps of white maples, at the swamp up the Assabet, which have turned as red (dull red) as ever they do, fairly put on their autumnal hue.”)

The surface is very glassy there. See June 11, 1854 (" A sheet of water . . . revealed by its reflections, a smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods.") See also note to August 4, 1852 ("A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast.")

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

Along the river

a day of sunny water –

I see the fishes.

Perfect cardinals,

fluviatile like myself

standing on the shore.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A day of sunny water

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540808

After leaf-out. Another season of spring.

May 25.

May 25, 2013

Steady fisherman's rain, without wind, straight down, flooding the ground and spattering on it, beating off the apple blossoms.

Within the last week or so the grass and leaves have grown many shades darker, and if we had leaped from last Wednesday to this, we should have been startled by the change - the dark bluish green of rank grass especially. 

How rapidly the young twigs shoot - the herbs, trees, shrubs no sooner leaf out than they shoot forward surprisingly, as if they had acquired a head by being repressed so long. They do not grow nearly so rapidly at any other season. 

Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature, and perhaps have a second spring in the latter part of summer or in the fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1853

Within the last week or so the grass and leaves have grown many shades darker. See May 25, 1860 ("The earth wears a new and greener vest.")

Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot See.May 15, 1859 ("Very properly these are called shoots. This plant has, perhaps, in four or five days accomplished one fourth part its whole summer's growth.")

To Walden

August 27.

Crickets sound much louder after the rain in this cloudy weather.  Hips of the early roses are reddening.  Lower leaves of the smooth sumach are red. Hear chic-a-day-day-day and crow; but, for music, reduced almost to the winter quire. Young partridges two-thirds grown burst away. The leaves of some young maples in the water about the pond are now quite scarlet, running into dark purple-red.

Paddle round the pond.  Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.  The shore is so steep that much of the way a single leap will carry you into water over your head. It is nowhere muddy, and the bottom is not to be touched, scarcely even seen again, except for the transparency of the water, till it rises on the other side. Both fishes and plants are clean and bright, like the element they live in.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1852

Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green. . . .See September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green. "): See also Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”)

A brisk walk with the little brown dog in the damp woods this morning,  wood asters shining in the dim light  along the trail swept clean from yesterdays thunder shower – taking the turn home surprised to see how bright green the trees against the sky. August 27, 2022. 

On Fair Haven Hill

July 15.

July 15

Looking down on a field of red-top now in full bloom, a quarter of a mile west of this hill, at 2.30 P.M. of this very warm and slightly hazy but not dog-dayish day in a blazing sun I am surprised to see a very distinct white vapor like a low cloud drifting along close over the moist coolness of that dense grass-field.

These cultivated grasses now clothe the earth with rich hues. Field after field, densely packed like the squares of a checker-board, all through and about the villages, paint the earth. 

The rich green of young grain now, of various shades; the flashing blades of corn; the yellowing tops of ripening grain; the dense uniform red of red-top; the purple of the fowl-meadow along the low river-banks; the very dark and shadowy green of herd's-grass as if clouds were always passing over it; the fresh light green where June-grass has been cut; the fresh dark green where clover has been cut; the hard, dark green of pastures; the cheerful yellowish green of the meadows where the sedges prevail, with darker patches and veins of grass in the higher and drier parts. 

Knowing where to look, I can just distinguish with my naked eye the darker green of pipes on the peat meadows two miles from the Hill.

The potato-fields are a very dark green.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1860

The fresh light green where June-grass has been cut. See July 24, 1852 (“There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields . . . the year has passed its culmination.”); July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun.”) 

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

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