The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

November 2.


Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias, Polygonum aviculare, still.

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds.

The prinos berries also now attract me in the scarcity of leaves, its own all gone; its berries are apparently a brighter red for it.

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds.

At long intervals I see or hear a robin still.

To Walden.

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond, and then and in November, when the weather is perfectly calm, it is almost absolutely as smooth as glass.

This afternoon a three-days' rain-storm is drawing to an end, though still overcast.

The air is quite still but misty, from time to time mizzling, and the pond is very smooth, and its surface difficult to distinguish, though it no longer reflects the bright tints of autumn but sombre colors only, — calm at the end of a storm, except here and there a slight glimmer or dimple, as if a few skaters which had escaped the frosts were still collected there, or a faint breeze there struck, or a few rain-drops fell there, or perchance the surface, being remarkably smooth, betrayed by circling dimples where a spring-welled up from below.

I paddled gently toward one of these places and was surprised to find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there, one after another rising to the surface and dimpling it, leaving bubbles on it. They were very handsome as they surrounded the boat, with their distinct transverse stripes, a rich brown color.

There were many such schools in the pond, as it were improving the short season before the ice would close their window. When I approached them suddenly with noise, they made a sudden plash and rippling with their tails in fright, and then took refuge in the depths. Suddenly the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves rose, and still the perch leaped, but much higher, half out of water, a hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, perhaps the opposite side of the wave, a sort of changeable or watered-silk blue, more cerulean if possible than the sky itself, which was now seen overhead. It required a certain division of the sight, however, to discern this. Like the colors on a steel sword-blade.

Slate - colored snowbirds (?) with a faint note.

The leaves which are not withered, whose tints are still fresh and bright, are now remarked in sheltered places. Plucked quite a handsome nosegay from the side of Heywood's Peak, - white and blue-stemmed goldenrods, asters (undulatus and ?).

I do not know whether the perch amuse themselves thus more in the fall than at any other time. In such transparent and apparently bottomless water their swimming impresses the beholder as a kind of flight or hovering, like a compact flock of birds passing be low one, just beneath his level on the right or left. What a singular experience must be theirs in their winter quarters, their long night, expecting when the sun will open their shutters! 

November 2, 2017

If you look discerningly, so as to see the reflection only, you see a most glorious light blue, in comparison with which the original dark green of the opposite side of the waves is but muddy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 2, 1852

Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias.  See October 26, 1855 ("I see a houstonia in bloom."); November 5, 1855 ("I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers."); 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) . . . and perhaps tall buttercup, etc."

Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to be blueberry buds. See November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 23, 1857 (“You distinguish it by its gray spreading mass; its light-gray bark, rather roughened; its thickish shoots, often crimson; and its plump, roundish red buds.”); November 25, 1858 ("See a few high blueberry buds which have fairly started, expanded into small red leaves, apparently within a few weeks.")

 

The month of chickadees and new-swollen buds. 

The chickadee

Hops near to me.

November 8, 1857

See November 9, 1850 (" The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note."); November 26, 1859 ("The chickadee is the bird of the wood the most unfailing.. . . At this season it is almost their sole inhabitant."); November 2, 1853 ("Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four, — the minute red buds of the panicled andromeda, the roundish plump ones of the common hazel, the longish sharp ones of the witch-hazel, etc.") See also October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); November 1, 1853 ("I notice the shad-bush conspicuously leafing out. Those long, narrow, pointed buds, prepared for next spring, have anticipated their time."); November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”); November 6, 1863 ( Noticing Buds); December 1, 1852 (“At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring the large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink, the already downy ones of the Populus tremuloides and the willows, the red ones of the blueberry, the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier, the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum; also the catkins of the alders and birches."); January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.,")

The pond, dark before, was now a glorious and indescribable blue, mixed with dark, . . .more cerulean if possible than the sky itself. See June 26, 1852 ("the smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted . . .blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore,");  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.”); September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, [Walden] reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green."); October 9, 1858 ("The mountains are darker and distincter, and Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. It is quite Novemberish."); and 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 hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”); Walden , The Pond in Winter ("Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue,") See also  January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown)

In the latter part of October the skaters and water bugs entirely disappear from the surface of the pond [but I]  find myriads of small perch about five inches long sporting there See September 1, 1852 ("Paddling over it, I see large schools of perch only an inch long, yet easily distinguished by their transverse bars. This is a very warm and serene evening, and the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun.")

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush.

September 19

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush

September 19, 2014

P. M. - To Great Meadows.

The red capsules of the sarothra.

Many large crickets about on the sand.

Observe the effects of frost in particular places.

Some blackberry vines are very red.

I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still.

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.

The polygala and the purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color.

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound.

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again, and the lambkill.

What pretty six-fingered leaves the three oxalis leafets make! 

I see the effects of frost on the Salix Purshiana, imbrowning their masses; and in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.

That small, slender-leaved, rose-tinted (white petals, red calyx) polygonum by the river is perhaps in its prime now; slender spikes and slender lanceolate sessile leaves, with rent hairy and ciliate sheaths, eight stamens, and three styles united in middle. Not biting. I cannot find it described.

Cicuta maculata

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata, except that the veins do not terminate in the sinuses?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1852

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises,  September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); See also September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); .("September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.") September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

The red capsules of the sarothra. See August 3, 1852 ("The Hypericum Sarothra appears to be out.."); August 3, 1856 ("Sarothra apparently now in prime."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. ); August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); September 2, 1859 ("The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. "); September 23, 1852 ("The sarothra in bloom");   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The Norway cinquefoil. See August 30, 1851 ("I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. There is one door closed, of the closing year.")

The purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days."); August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass."); August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now."); September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors. Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.")

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. See September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside."); . September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. "); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant")

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again. See September 28, 1852 ("I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush. See  September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 18, 1858 ("Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge."); September 18, 1860 ("The first autumnal tints (of red maples) are now generally noticed"); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 21, 1854 ("The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, "); September 24, 1851 ("I notice one red tree, a red maple, against the green woodside in Conant's meadow. It is a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer and more conspicuous."); September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush"); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 25, 1857 ("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."); September 25, 1857 ("A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar."); 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."); September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."); September 29, 1851 ("The intense brilliancy of the red-ripe maples scattered here and there in the midst of the green oaks and hickories on its hilly shore is quite charming. They are unexpectedly and incredibly brilliant, especially on the western shore and close to the water's edge, where, alternating with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, they remind me of a line of soldiers, redcoats and riflemen in green mixed together."); September 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly."); October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd"); October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata? See June 6, 1851 ("Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated."); August 20, 1851 ("Sium lineare, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the Cicuta maculata.") August 29, 1858 ("Cicuta maculata, apparently generally done."); August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio.."); October 2, 1859 ("The Cicuta maculata, for instance, the concave umbel is so well spaced, the different um-bellets (?) like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament.") Note. Cicuta maculata is a highly poisonous species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by several common names, including spotted water hemlock, spotted parsley, spotted cowbane, and suicide root. It is considered to be North America's most toxic plant.~ Wikipedia

September 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 19

And in the distance

a maple by the water

beginning to blush.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. A maple by the 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520919 

Fall flowers.

September 8 

Roses, apparently R. lucida, abundantly out on a warm bank on Great Fields by Moore's Swamp, with Viola pedata.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 8, 1853

Roses, apparently R. lucida, abundantly out. See June 15, 1851 (“See the first wild rose to-day on the west side of the railroad causeway”); June 15, 1853 (“Here are many wild roses northeast of Trillium Woods. It is the pride of June. I bring home the buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.”); June 18, 1854 (“The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines.”); September 25, 1852 ("A rose again, apparently lucida (?). This is always unexpected."); September 28, 1852 ("This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again")

Viola pedata. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); August 31, 1853 ("Viola pedata out again.") September 4, 1856 ("Viola pedata again."); September 28, 1852 (" I find the hood-leaved violet quite abundant in a meadow, and the pedata in the Boulder Field. I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us"); October 23, 1853 ("The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. "); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

Fall flowers

 October 9.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)

 

Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.

My rainbow rush must be the Juncus militaris, not yet colored.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1852

Touch-me-not. 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"); September 27, 1852 ("The touch-me-not seed-vessels go off like pistols, — shoot their seeds off like bullets. They explode in my hat.")

Self-heal, Prunella vulgaris; Gerard said "there is not a better wounde herbe in the world.'" See August 18, 1853 ("The sound of so many insects and the sight of so many flowers affect us so, — the creak of the cricket and the sight of the prunella and autumnal dandelion. They say, "For the night cometh in which no man may work."") See also June 9, 1853 ("Prunella out."); June 15 , 1851 ("The prunella too is in blossom "); July 2, 1852 ("The prunella has various tints in various lights, now blue, now lilac. As the twilight deepens into night, its color changes. It always suggests freshness and coolness, from the places where it grows"); July 16, 1851 ("The prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk."); July 17, 1852 ("At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. ")

Bidens cernua. See September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds"); September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed."); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens ,or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.")

Ladies'-tresses. See August 20, 1851 ("The neottia, or ladies'-tresses),

Cerastium. See October 4, 1853 ("The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost."); November 16, 1852 ("At Lee's Cliff the Cerastium viscosum.")

Silvery cinque-foil. See October 9, 1851 ("The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.") See also  October 2, 1857 ("There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet.")

Mayweed. See September 14, 1856 ("Mayweed! what a misnomer! Call it rut-weed rather."); October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow, ...”); October 20, 1852 ("Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. ")

My rainbow rush must be the Juncus militaris. See August 30, 1858 ("The Juncus militaris has been long out of bloom. . . .This is my rainbow rush."); October 27, 1858 ("Though a single stalk would not attract attention, when seen in the mass they have this singular effect. I call it, therefore, the rainbow rush. When, moreover, you see it reflected in the water, the effect is very much increased.")

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season.

September 11. 

September 11, 2022

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. 

They say our brain at birth is one sixth the weight of the body. 

Cranberries are being raked for fear of frosts. 

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. 

How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors.

Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.

The purple gerardia and blue-curls are interesting for their petals strewn about, beaten down by the rain.

Many a brook I look into is strewn with the purple petals of the gerardia, whose stalk is not obvious in the bank. 

Again the Potentilla Canadensis var. pumila, and dandelions occasionally.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1852

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. See September 11, 1854 ("It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been. ")

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. See August 25, 1852 ("One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind."); August 26, 1859 ("The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinctt"); September 20, 1856 ("Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard."); September 20, 1857 ("This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall."); September 20, 1860 ("Rainy in forenoon.");

The Bidens cernua. See September 11, 1851 ("Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick."); September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds"); September 13, 1852 ("The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook."); September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory,. . . Full of the sun. It needs a name."); September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed"); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens,or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Great Bidens

It is the season of fuzzy seeds.

October 23. 

Sunday. P. M. — Down railroad to chestnut wood on Pine Hill. 

October 23, 2022

A pleasant day, but breezy. 

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.

 I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: 

• fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom,
• one or two fall dandelions,
• red clover and white,
• yarrow, 
• Trifolium arvense (perhaps not fresh),
• one small blue snapdragon,
• fresh tansy in bloom on the sunny sand bank. 

There are green leaves on the ends of elder twigs; blackberry vines still red; apple trees yellow and brown and partly bare; white ash bare (nearly); golden willows yellow and brown; white birches, exposed, are nearly bare; some pines still parti-colored. 

White, black, and red oaks still hold most of their leaves. What a peculiar red has the white! And some black have now a rich brown. 

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare.

The hickories are finely crisped, yellow, more or less browned. 

Several yellow butterflies in the meadow. 

And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias. Can they be tree sparrows ? Some weeks. [Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch].] 

Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. 

Everywhere in the fields I see the white, hoary (ashy-colored) sceptres of the gray goldenrod. Others are slightly yellowish still. The yellow is gone out of them, as the last flake of sunshine disappears from a field when the clouds are gathering. But though their golden hue is gone, their reign is not over. Compact puffed masses of seeds ready to take wing. They will send out their ventures from hour to hour the winter through. 

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. 

I go through Brooks's Hollow. 

The hazels bare, only here and there a few sere, curled leaves on them. 

The red cherry is bare. 

The blue flag seed-vessels at Walden are bursting, — six closely packed brown rows. 

I find my clothes all bristling as with a chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, which hold on for many days. A storm of arrows these weeds have showered on me, as I went through their moats. How irksome the task to rid one's self of them! We are fain to let some adhere. Through thick and thin I wear some; hold on many days. In an instant a thousand seeds of the bidens fastened themselves firmly to my clothes, and  I carried them for miles, planting one here and another there. They are as thick on my clothes as the teeth of a comb. 

The prinos is bare, leaving red berries. 

The pond has gone down suddenly and surprisingly since I was here last, and this pool is left, cut off at a higher level, stagnant and drying up. This is its first decided going down since its going up a year or two ago. 

The red-looking water purslane is left bare, and the water-target leaves are turned brown and drying up on the bare mud. 

The clethra partly bare, crisped, yellowish and brown, with its fruit with persistent styles (?) in long racemes. 

Here are dense fields of light-colored rattlesnake grass drooping with the weight of their seeds. 

The high blueberries about the pond have still a few leaves left on, turned bright scarlet red. These it is adorn the shore so, seen at a distance, small but very bright. 

The panicled andromeda is thinly clad with yellow and brown leaves, not sere. 

Alders are green. 

Smooth sumach bare. 

Chestnuts commonly bare. 

I now notice the round red buds of the high blueberry. 

The blue-stemmed, and also the white, solidago on Walden bank. 

Small sassafras trees bare. 

The Aster undulatus is still quite abundant and fresh on this high, sunny bank, — far more so than the Solidago coesia, — and methinks it is the latest of our asters and is besides the most common or conspicuous flower now. It is in large, dense masses, two or three feet high, pale purple or whitish, and covered with humble- bees. The radical leaves, now hearted and crenatish, are lake beneath. 

Also a hieracium quite freshly bloomed, but with white, bristly leaves and smooth stem, about twenty-flowered; peduncles and involucres glandular-hairy. Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? Almost as slender as the panicled. (In press.) 

No gerardias. 

Strawberries are red and green. 

It is the season of fuzzy seeds, — goldenrods, everlasting, senecio, asters, epilobium, etc., etc. 

Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves; young black cherry, fresh green or yellow; mayweed. 

The chestnuts have mostly fallen. 

One Diplopappus linariifolius in bloom, its leaves all yellow or red. 

This and A. undulatus the asters seen to-day. 

The red oak now red, perhaps inclining to scarlet; the white, with that peculiar ingrained redness; the shrub oak, a clear thick leather-color; some dry black oak, darker brown; chestnut, light brown; hickory, yellow, turning brown. These the colors of some leaves I brought home.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 23, 1853

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.  See October 23, 1855 ("A downy woodpecker on an apple tree utters a sharp, shrill, rapid tea te t, t, t, t t t t t. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. See October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us")

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare. See October 21, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet. "); October 25, 1858 ("Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. ")

Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? See note to July 17, 1853 ("I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis")

tinyurl.com/HDT531023

On a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles, amid the woods, whence I see Wachusett.

October 19. 

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The fall, now and for some weeks, is the time for flocks of sparrows of various kinds flitting from bush to bush and tree to tree — and both bushes and trees are thinly leaved or bare — and from one seared meadow to another. They are mingled together, and their notes, even, being faint, are, as well as their colors and motions, much alike. The sparrow youth are on the wing. They are still further concealed by their resemblance in color to the gray twigs and stems, which are now beginning to be bare. I have not noticed any kind of blackbird for a long time. 

The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos which I have noticed since the 8th is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now, hardly survives at all. 

Of the asters which I have noticed since that date, the A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only one of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it. 

Of lingering flowers which I have noticed during the last three or four days (vide list under 16th), not including fringed gentian and witch-hazel, the freshest, and at same time commonest, is the yarrow. 

I noticed, two or three days ago, after one of those frosty mornings, half an hour before sunset of a clear and pleasant day, a swarm, — were they not of winter gnats ? — between me and the sun like so many motes, seven or eight feet from the ground, by the side of a young cherry tree in the yard. The swarm was some three feet in diameter and seemed to have been revealed by the level rays of the sun. Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter?

I go across Hubbard's land and find that I must go round the corners of two or three new winter-rye fields, which show very green by contrast with the seared grass. 

I sit on the old Conantum door-step, where the wind rattles the loose clapboards above my head, though for the most part only the horizontal rows of wrought nails are left to show where the clap boards have been. It is affecting to behold a peach and apple orchard just come to maturity by the side of this house, which was planted since this house was an uninhabited ruin, as if the first step would have been to pull down the house. 

See quite a flock of myrtle-birds, — which I might carelessly have mistaken for slate-colored snowbirds, — flitting about on the rocky hillside under Conantum Cliff. They show about three white or light-colored spots when they fly, commonly no bright yellow, though some are pretty bright. They perch on the side of the dead mulleins, on rocks, on the ground, and directly dart off apparently in pursuit of some insect. I hear no note from them. They are thus near or on the ground, then, not as in spring. 

Both the white and black ash are quite bare, and some of the elms there. The bass has lost, apparently, more than half its leaves. 

The Botrychium lunarioides, now shedding its pale whitish dust when struck by the foot, but apparently generally a little past its maturity, is quite common in the pasture near the wall where I sat to watch the eagle. At first you notice only the stipe, four to seven or eight inches high, like a narrow hand partly closed, for the small (now dull-purplish) frond unites with it below the surface. 

Walking through the reddened huckleberry bushes, whose leaves are fast falling, I notice the birds' nests already filling with withered leaves. 

Witch-hazel in bloom
October 19, 2018

Witch-hazel is in prime, or probably a little past, though some buds are not yet open. Their leaves are all gone. They form large clumps on the hillside there, even thirty to fifty stems from one to two or three inches in diameter and the highest twelve feet high, falling over on every side. The now imbrowned ferns around indicate the moist soil which they like. 

I have often noticed the inquisitiveness of birds, as the other day of a sparrow, whose motions I should not have supposed to have any reference to me, if I had not watched it from first to last. 

I stood on the edge of a pine and birch wood. It flitted from seven or eight rods distant to a pine within a rod of me, where it hopped about stealthily and chirped awhile, then flew as many rods the other side and hopped about there a spell, then back to the pine again, as near me as it dared, and again to its first position, very restless all the while. Generally I should have supposed that there was more than one bird, or that it was altogether accidental, — that the chipping of this sparrow eight or ten rods [away] had no reference to me, — for I could see nothing peculiar about it. 

But when I brought my glass to bear on it, I found that it was almost steadily eying me and was all alive with excitement.

Pokeweed has been killed by the severe frosts of the last three or four days. 

The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting. They point at various I angles with the stem like a flourish. The pretty brown fishes have loosened and lifted their scales somewhat, are bristling a little. Or, further advanced, the outer part of the down of the upper seeds is blown loose, while they are still retained by the ends  of the middle portion in loops  attached to the core. These white tufts, ready to burst and take to flight on the least jar, show afar as big as your fist. There they dangle and flutter, till they are quite dry and the wind rises. Others again are open and empty, except of the brown core, and you see what a delicate smooth white (slightly cream-colored) lining this casket has. 

The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost. 

A large pasture thistle bud close to the ground amid its leaves, as in spring. 

Among the dirty woolly heads of plants now gone to seed, I notice for the first time the peculiar matted, woolly top of the tall anemone, rising above some red-leaved huckleberries. I am surprised to see to what length and breadth one of these little compact conical heads has puffed out. Here are five which have flown and matted together into a mass four or five inches long, perpendicularly, by two wide, full of seeds with their wool. 

I return by the west side of Lee's Cliff hill, and sit on a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles, amid the woods, whence I see Wachusett. 

Wachusett from Fair Haven Hill, August 2, 1852

How little unevenness and elevation is required for Nature's effects! An elevation one thousand or fifteen hundred feet above the plain is seen from all eminences and level open plains, as from over the opening made by a pond, within thirty miles. Nature is not obliged to lift her mountains very high in the horizon, after all, to make them visible and interesting. 

The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff. 

I noticed the small woodpecker several days ago.

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

The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos . . .  is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

I see one [A. undulatus] so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it. See October 2, 1859  ("The Aster undulatus and Solidago coesia and often puberula are particularly prominent now, looking late and bright, attracting bees, etc."): October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus, and gnats are dancing in the air."); October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path."); October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom"); November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet." See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees

It is affecting to behold a peach and apple orchard just come to maturity by the side of this house, which was planted since this house was an uninhabited ruin.  See February 19, 1855 ("Conant was cutting up an old pear tree which had blown down by his old house on Conantum. This and others still standing. . . were set anciently with reference to a house which stood in the little peach orchard near by.”) See also May 20, 1857 ("Peach trees are revealed along fences where they were quite unobserved before.")

Witch-hazel is in prime . . . Their leaves are all gone. See October 19, 1859 ("Many witch-hazel nuts are not yet open. The bushes just bare"); See also October 9, 1851("The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! ");  October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") And also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

Whence I see Wachusett . . . from all eminences and level open plains. See October 19, 1854 ("To Westminster by cars; thence on foot to Wachusett Mountain, four miles to Foster’s, and two miles thence to mountain-top by road."); October 20, 1854 ("Soon after sunrise I saw the pyramidal shadow of the mountain reaching quite across the State") See also November 30, 1852 ("From Pine Hill, Wachusett is seen over Walden. The country seems to slope up from the west end of Walden to the mountain."); August 25, 1853 ("Looking up the valley of the Mill Brook . . . I was surprised to see the whole outline and greater part of the base of Wachusett, though you stand in a low meadow."); December 27, 1853 ("Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down"); And also September 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day."); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Mountains in the Horizon

October 19.   See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 19

On a rounded rock

covered with fresh pine-needles

I see Wachusett.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, On a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles

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-561019