These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night.

May 29.

May 29, 2015

These last two days, with their sultry, hazy air, are the first that suggest the expression “the furnace-like heat.”

Bathing has begun.

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air, so that some have to shut the windows toward the river, but when you awake in the morning not one is to be heard. As it grows warmer in the forenoon I hear a few again; but still I do not hear them numerously and loudly as earlier in the season at that hour, though far more numerously and loudly at night.

P. M. - To Hosmer's Holden place.

Thimble-berry two or three days.

Cattle stand in the river by the bridge for coolness.

Place my hat lightly on my head that the air may circulate beneath.

Wild roses budded before you know it — will be out often before you know they are budded.

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed 

—a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds.

Some plants have already reached their fall.

How still the hot noon; people have retired behind blinds.

Yet the kingbird — lively bird, with white belly and tail edged with white, and with its lively twittering— stirs and keeps the air brisk.

I see men and women through open windows in white undress taking their Sunday-afternoon nap, overcome with heat.

At A. Hosmer's hill on the Union Turnpike I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil, advanced picket of that Brazilian army, — parrot-like. But no more shall we see; it is only an affair of outposts. It appears as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest.

May 29, 2024

These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night; the outlines of cloudy cumuli are dimly seen through the hazy, furnace-like air, rising in the west.

Spergularia rubra, spurry sandwort, in the roadside ditch on left just beyond A. Hosmer's hill; also Veronica peregrina (?) a good while. The last also in Great Fields in the path.

Raspberry out.

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.

The barrenest pastures wear now a green and luxuriant aspect.

I see many of those round, white, pigeon-egg fungi in the grass since the rains. Do they become puffballs? 

The thyme-leaved veronica shows its modest face in little crescent-shaped regiments in every little hollow in the pastures where there is moisture, and around stumps and in the road ditches.

The Cratægus Crus-Galli this side the Holden place on left, probably yesterday, thorns three inches long, flowers with anthers not conspicuously red.

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow south side of road.

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

Bathing has begun. See May 8, 1857 (“Summer has suddenly come upon us, and . . . Some boys have bathed in the river.") May 12, 1860 ("First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough."); May 15,1853 ("The weather has grown rapidly warm. I even think of bathing in the river .")

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed — a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds. See May 29, 1854 ("Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. These are interesting as methinks the first of the class of downy seeds which are more common in the fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); See also May 31, 1854 (“Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.”); June 6, 1855 (“Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places.”); June 15, 1851 (“The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven.”); June 15, 1852 ("The fields are blued with blue-eyed grass, — a slaty blue. "); June 15, 1859 ("Blue-eyed grass at height."); June 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); June 19, 1853 ("I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window"); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. ")

 

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air.  See May 20, 1854 ("The steadily increasing sound of toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in proportion to the increased temperature of the day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: The Ring of Toads

I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil. . .as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest. See May 23, 1853 ("That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky!. . .this bird's colors and his note tell of Brazil. "); May 28, 1855 (" the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. He brings heat, or heat him. A remarkable contrast with the green pines. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the  Scarlet Tanager

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow. See May 22, 1853 ("Found an abundance of the Viola Muhlenbergii (debilis of Bigelow), a stalked violet, pale blue and bearded"); May 22, 1856 ("To Viola Muhlenbergii, which is abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches, but in spots a little drier than the V. cucullata and blanda.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

These are afternoons

when you expect a thunder-

shower before night.

Goldenrods and asters.

August 24.

Another cool, autumn-like morning, also quite foggy.

Rains a little in the forenoon and cloudy the rest of the day.

P. M. – To Saw Mill Brook via Trillium Woods.

A cool breeze blows this cloudy afternoon, and I wear a thicker coat.

The mulgedium by railroad is seven feet high, with great panicles of a regular, somewhat elliptic-lanceolate (?) form, two and a half feet long by ten inches.

The Prinos lævigatus berries begin to redden.

The farmers are beginning to clear out their ditches now.

Blue-stemmed goldenrod, apparently a few days in some places.

The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year are (I do not remember the order exactly):

• (1) stricta,
• (2) lanceolata,
• (3) arguta (?),
• (4) nemoralis,
• (5) bicolar,
• (6) odora,
• (7) altissima,
• (8) ulmifolia (?),
• (9) cæsia.

The 4th is the prevailing one and much the most abundant now.

The 1st perhaps next, though it may be getting old.

The altissima (7th) certainly next. It is just beginning to be abundant. Its tops a foot or more broad, with numerous recurved racemes on every side, with yellow and yellowing triangular points. It is the most conspicuous of all.

The bicolor (5th) next, though not conspicuous.

The 3d, 8th, 2d, and 6th perhaps never abundant.

The cæsia (9th) just begun. 

The asters and diplopappi are about in this order:

• (1) Radula,
• (2) D. cornifolius (?),
• (3) A. corymbosus,
• (4) patens,
• (5) lævis,
• (6) dumosus (?),
• (7) miser,
• (8) macrophyllus,
• (9) D. umbellatus,
• (10) A. acuminatus,
• (11) puniceus.

The patens (4), of various forms, some lilac, is the prevailing blue or bluish one now, middle sized and very abundant on dry hillsides and by wood paths; the lævis next.

The 1st, or Radula, is not abundant.

(These three are all the distinctly blue ones yet.) 

The dumosus is the prevailing white one, very abundant; miser mixed with it.

D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so.

But D. cornifolius, A. corymbosus, macrophyllus, and acuminatus are confined to particular localities.

Dumosus and patens (and perhaps lævis, not common enough) are the prevailing asters now. 

The common large osmunda (?) is already consider ably imbrowned, but the odorous dicksonia (?), which, like most ferns, blossoms later, is quite fresh.

This thin, flat, beautiful fern it is which I see green under the snow.? I am inclined to call it the lace fern.

(Peaches fairly begun.) 

It is a triangular web of fine lace-work surpassing all the works of art.

Solidago latifolia not yet.

I see roundish silvery slate-colored spots, surrounded by a light ring, near the base of the leaves of an aster (miser ?), one beneath another like the dropping of a bird, or as if some tincture had fallen from above.

Some of the leaves of the A. patens are red.

The alternate cornel berries, which are particularly apt to drop off early, are a dark, dull blue, not china-like.

I see those of maple-leaved viburnum merely yellowish now.

There grows by Saw Mill Brook a long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains, with more green ones still on it, which I think like the New Hampshire kind.

I see some black and some greenish light slate-colored fungi. This certainly is the season for fungi.

I see on the shrub oaks now caterpillars an inch and a half or more long, black with yellowish stripes, lying along the petioles, — thick living petioles. They have stripped off the leaves, leaving the acorns bare.

The Ambrina (Chenopodium, Bigelow) Botrys, Jerusalem-oak, a worm-seed, by R. W. E.' s heater piece. The whole plant is densely branched — branches spike-like-and appears full of seed. Has a pleasant, more distinct wormwood-like odor.

In a dry sprout-land (Ministerial Lot), what I will call Solidago puberula  will open in a day or two, — upright and similar to stricta in leaves, with a purple stem and smooth leaves, entire above, and a regular oblong appressed panicle.

Bidens chrysanthemoides, of a small size and earlier, by Turn pike, now in prime there.

I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why?

Yellow Bethlehem-star still.

A. miser (?), with purplish disk and elliptic-lanceolate leaves, serrate in middle, may be as early as dumosuus.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1853


The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year .(1) stricta,(2) lanceolata,(3) arguta (?),(4) nemoralis etc. . . .The asters are about in this order:(1) Radula,(2) D. cornifolius (?), (3) A. corymbosus, etc.. Compare August 24, 1851 ("The autumnal flowers, — goldenrods, asters, and johnswort, — though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign."):  August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta. . .; 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom. . . .The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens etc. ); August 30, 1859 ("The prevailing flowers, considering both conspicuous-ness and numbers, at present time, as I think now: Solidagos, especially large three-ribbed, nemoralis, tall rough, etc.; Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus")

This certainly is the season for fungi.See September 10, 1854 ("Last year, for the last three weeks of August, the woods were filled with the strong musty scent of decaying fungi, but this year I have seen very few fungi and have not noticed that odor at all.")

The farmers are beginning to clear out their ditches now. See August 21, 1859 ("Many are ditching."); August 28, 1854 ("The farmers improve this dry spell to cut ditches and dig mud in the meadows and pond-holes. I see their black heaps in many places. ")

D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so. See August 24, 1859 ("Aster puniceus and Diplopappus umbellatus, how long? ")

A long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains. See August 24, 1859 ("The small sempervirens blackberry in prime in one place. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? See September 6, 1859 ("Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country."); September 20, 1852 ("Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country"); October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.") See also note to April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country.")

The sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying.

a fragrance

from the past

almost forgotten

~ Buson

October 2. 

Rain in the night and cloudy this forenoon. We had all our dog-days in September this year. It was too dry before, even for fungi. Only the last three weeks have we had any fungi to speak of. 

Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them. 

I see a cricket feeding on an apple, into which he has eaten so deep that only his posteriors project, but he does not desist a moment though I shake the apple and finally drop it on the ground. 

P. M. — To lygodium. 

One of the large black birches on Tarbell's land is turned completely brownish-yellow and has lost half its leaves; the other is green still. 

I see in the cornfield above this birch, collected about the trunk of an oak, on the ground, fifty to a hundred ears of corn which have been stripped to the cob, evidently by the squirrels. Apparently a great part of the kernels remain on the ground, but in every case the germ has been eaten out. It is apparent that the squirrel prefers this part, for he has not carried off the rest. 

October 2, 2014

I perceive in various places, in low ground, this afternoon, the sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying. It is an agreeable phenomenon, reminding me of the season and of past years. 

So many maple and pine and other leaves have now fallen that in the woods, at least, you walk over a carpet of fallen leaves. 

As I sat on an old pigeon-stand, not used this year, on the hill south of the swamp, at the foot of a tree, set up with perches nailed on it, a pigeon hawk, as I take it, came and perched on the tree. As if it had been wont to catch pigeons at such places. 

That large lechea, now so freshly green and some times scarlet, looks as if it would make a pretty edging like box, as has been suggested. 

The Aster undulatus and Solidago coesia and often puberula are particularly prominent now, looking late and bright, attracting bees, etc. 

I see the S. coesia so covered with the little fuzzy gnats as to be whitened by them. 

How bright the S. puberula in sprout-lands, — its yellow wand, — perhaps in the midst of a clump of little scarlet or dark-purple black oaks! 

The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce. 

The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen, — the more easily found amid the withered cinnamon and flowering ferns. 

Acorns generally, as I notice, — swamp white, shrub, black, and white, — are turned brown; but few are still green. Yet few, except of shrub oaks, have fallen. I hear them fall, however, as I stand under the trees. This would be the time to notice them. 

How much pleasanter to go along the edge of the woods, through the field in the rear of the farmhouse, whence you see only its gray roof and its haystacks, than to keep the road by its door! This we think as we return behind Martial Miles's. 

I observed that many pignuts had fallen yesterday, though quite green. 

Some of the Umbelliferoe, now gone to seed, are very pretty to examine. 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. 

Hear a hylodes in the swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 2, 1859

Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them. See note to September 21, 1859 ("And now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over) and the taller, brighter-yellow above. Those shell-less slugs which eat apples eat these also."); October 15, 1857 ("I saw the other day a cricket standing on his head in a chocolate-colored (inside) fungus")

I see a cricket feeding on an apple. See October 2, 1857 ("Since the cooler weather many crickets are seen clustered on warm banks and by sunny wall-sides."); See also October 11, 1857 ("These are cricket days.")

The sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying, an agreeable phenomenon, reminding me of the season and of past years. See October 2, 1857 ("In the more open swamp beyond, these ferns, recently killed by the frost and exposed to the sun, fill the air with a very strong sour scent") See also  October 1, 1858 ("The cinnamon ferns are crisp and sour in open grounds");  and note to September 24, 1859 (" Stedman Buttrick's handsome maple and pine swamp is full of cinnamon ferns.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern and  May 7, 1852 ("How full of reminiscence is any fragrance!"): July 31, 1856 ("Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years."); August 18, 1856 (" The alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal . . . reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time . . . a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail.")

 The climbing fern is perfectly fresh, — and apparently therefore an evergreen. See May 1, 1859 ("The climbing fern is persistent, i. e. retains its greenness still, though now partly brown and withered.")

The Cicuta maculata like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament. See August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio. ")

October 2. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 2

The sour scent of ferns

reminds me of the season

and of the past years.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

The sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying. 

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-591002

I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time

August 26. 

The dust is laid, the streets washed, the leaves — the first ripe crop — fallen, owing to yesterday's copious rain. It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer. 

The trees look greener and fresher, not only because their leaves are washed and erected, but because they have for the most part shed their yellow and sere leaves. 

The front-rank polygonum is now perhaps in its prime. Where it forms an island in the river it is surmounted in the middle or highest part by the P. hydropiperoides. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill. 

Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe, as also the Cornus sericea berries, and the dull-reddish leaves of the last begin to be conspicuous. 

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound.

 Potato vines are generally browning and rank. Roman wormwood prevails over them; also erechthites, in new and boggy ground, and butterweed. These lusty natives prevail in spite of the weeding hoe, and take possession of the field at last. Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood. 

The barn-yard grass and various panics (sanguinale, capillare, and bottle-grass) now come forward with a rush and take possession of the cultivated fields, partly abandoned for the present by the farmer and gardener. 

How singular that the Polygonum aviculare should grow so commonly and densely about back doors where the earth is trodden, bordering on paths ! Hence properly called door-grass. I am not aware that it prevails in any other places. 

The pontederia leaves are already slightly imbrowned, though the flowers are still abundant. 

The river is a little cooled by yesterday's rain, and considerable heart-leaf (the leaves mainly) is washed up. 

I begin to think of a thicker coat and appreciate the warmth of the sun. I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. There may be cool veins in the air now, any day. 

Now for dangle-berries. 

Also Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. 

I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. It dropped to the ground, and then the bird picked it up. It left a hole or rent in the middle of the web. The spider cunningly spreads his net for feebler insects, and then takes up his post in the centre, but perchance a passing bird picks him from his conspicuous station. 

I perceived for the first time, this afternoon, in one place, a slight mouldy scent. There are very few fungi in a dry summer like this.

The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. 

Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. 

I see a goldfinch eating the seeds of the coarse barn yard grass, perched on it. It then goes off with a cool twitter. 

Notice arrowhead leaves very curiously eaten by some insect. They are dotted all over in lines with small roundish white scales, — which your nail will remove, and then a scar is seen beneath, — as if some juice had exuded from each puncture and then hardened. 

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 distinct; saw-grass reveals its spikes in the shorn fields; sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. Farmers feel encouraged about their late potatoes and corn. Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. Meadow-haying is over. 

The first significant event (for a long time) was the frost of the 17th. That was the beginning of winter, the first summons to summer. Some of her forces succumbed to it. The second event was the rain of yesterday. 

My neighbor told me yesterday that about four inches of rain had fallen, for he sent his man for a pail that was left in the garden during the rain, and there was about four inches depth of water in it. I inquired if the pail had upright sides. "No," he said, "it was flaring ! ! " However, according to another, there was full four inches in a tub. 

Leersia or cut-grass in prime at Potter's holes. 

That first frost on the 17th was the first stroke of winter aiming at the scalp of summer. Like a stealthy and insidious aboriginal enemy, it made its assault just before daylight in some deep and far-away hollow and then silently withdrew. Few have seen the drooping plants, but the news of this stroke circulates rapidly through the village. Men communicate it with a tone of warning. The foe is gone by sunrise, but some fearful neighbors who have visited their potato and cranberry patches report this stroke. The implacable and irresistible foe to all this tender greenness is not far off, nor can we be sure, any month in the year, that some scout from his low camp may not strike down the tenderest of the children of summer. 

The earliest and latest frosts are not distinguishable. This foe will go on steadily increasing in strength and boldness, till his white camps will be pitched over all the fields, and we shall be compelled to take refuge in our strongholds, with some of summer's withered spoils stored up in barns, maintaining ourselves and our herds on the seeds and roots and withered grass which we have embarned. Men in anticipation of this time have been busily collecting and curing the green blades all the country over, while they have still some nutriment in them. Cattle and horses have been dragging homeward their winter's food.

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side, Drosera Flat, not out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1859


Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe. See note to August 23, 1856 (Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance. ")
  
Cornus sericea berries See August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. .”)

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound. See August 23, 1857 ("The mole cricket nowadays"); August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore."); September 11, 1855 ("Loudly the mole cricket creaks by mid-afternoon.")

Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. See August 25, 1854 ("The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster.")

One of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders. See September 12, 1858 ("They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward.")

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum. See August 28, 1860 ("The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.") 

[Northern bog-clubmoss is by far the most common species of bog-clubmoss in New England.  The tops of the erect shoots are distinctively widened. Its diminutive size, thin horizontal shoots, and entire trophophylls (sterile leaves) quickly distinguish most populations; it frequently occurs in the absence of other species or hybrids. ~ GoBotany]

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

How earthy old people become.

August 16. 

P. M. — To Flint's Pond with Mr. Conway. 

Started a woodcock in the woods. 

Also saw a large telltale, I think yellow-shanks, whose note I at first mistook for a jay's, giving the alarm to some partridges. 

The Polygonum orientale, probably some days, by Turnpike Bridge, a very rich rose-color large flowers, distinguished by its salver-shaped upper sheaths. It is a color as rich, I think, as that of the cardinal-flower. 

Desmodium paniculatum in the wood-path northeast of Flint's Pond. Its flowers turn blue-green in drying. 

Yesterday also in the Marlborough woods, perceived everywhere that offensive mustiness of decaying fungi. 

How earthy old people become, — mouldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1853

Also saw a large telltale, I think yellow-shanks. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock.").

Polygonum orientale, probably some days. See September 12 1852 ("the Polygonum orientale, prince's-feather, in E. Hosmer's grounds.")

Yesterday also in the Marlborough woods, perceived everywhere that offensive mustiness of decaying fungi. See September 10, 1854 ("Last year, for the last three weeks of August, the woods were filled with the strong musty scent of decaying fungi, but this year I have seen very few fungi and have not noticed that odor at all ."); August 14, 1853 ("there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather . . . and for most of my walk the air is tainted with a musty, carrion like odor, in some places very offensive")

August 16. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  August 16

 

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

The first object I saw on approaching this planet in the spring.

October 27. 

6.30 a. m. — To Island by boat. 

The river still rises, — more than ever last night, owing to the rain of the 24th (which ceased in the night of the 24th). It is two feet higher than then. 

I hear a blackbird in the air; and these, methinks, are song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast. 

Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year?

I love to be reminded of that universal and eternal spring when the minute crimson-starred female flowers of the hazel are peeping forth on the hillsides, — when Nature revives in all her pores.  

Some less obvious and commonly unobserved signs of the progress of the seasons interest me most, like the loose, dangling catkins of the hop-hornbeam or of the black or yellow birch. I can recall distinctly to my mind the image of these things, and that time in which they flourished is glorious as if it were before the fall of man. I see all nature for the time under this aspect. 

These features are particularly prominent; as if the first object I saw on approaching this planet in the spring was the catkins of the hop-hornbeam on the hillsides. As I sailed by, I saw the yellowish waving sprays.

See nowadays concave chocolate-colored fungi passing into dust on the edges, close on the ground in pastures.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1853

Song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast. See October 26, 1855 (“The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.”); November 1, 1853 ("I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly. ")

Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year? See October 27, 1855 ("It is high time we came a-nutting,")  See alao  October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”);  October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts.”); November 9, 1852 ("Fore part of November time for walnutting"); and note to December 10, 1856 ("Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill.")  Also  October 11, 1860 ("The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall. . . .The best time to gather these nuts is now.”); October 22, 1857 ("Now is just the time for chestnuts.”); November 11, 1850 ("Now is the time for wild apples. “); November 18, 1858 (" Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts.”)

I love to be reminded of that universal and eternal spring. See   October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show.”); October 26, 1857 ("The seasons and all their changes are in me. . . . The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her! ")

I can recall distinctly to my mind the image of . . . the catkins of the hop-hornbeam on the hillsides. See May 7, 1853 ("The catkins of the hop-hornbeam, yellow tassels hanging from the trees, which grow on the steep bank of the Assabet, give them a light, graceful, and quite noticeable appearance.")

Chocolate-colored fungi passing into dust on the edges. See October 5, 1856 (“This before they are turned to dust. Large chocolate-colored ones have long since burst and are spread out wide like a shallow dish”)

The humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own

October 10. 

October 10, 2018

Sunday. P. M. ——-To Annursnack. 

November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, and the fall and blackening of the pontederia. The leaves of the two former are the greater part fallen, letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment. 

As I go along the Groton road, I see afar, in the middle of E. Wood’s field, what looks like a stone jug or post, but my glass reveals it a woodchuck, a great, plump gray fellow, and when I am nearly half a mile off, I can still see him nibbling the grass there, and from time to time, when he hears, perchance, a wagon on the road, sitting erect and looking warily around for approaching foes. I am glad to see the woodchuck so fat in the orchard. It proves that is the same nature that was of yore. 

The autumnal brightness of the foliage generally is less, or faded, since the fading of the maples and hickories, which began about the 5th. Oak leaves generally (perhaps except scarlet?) begin to wither soon after they begin to turn, and large trees (except the scarlet) do not generally attain to brilliancy.[?] 

Apparently Fringilla pusilla yet.

The Salix humilis leaves are falling fast in Wood Turtle Path (A. Hosmer’s), a dry Wood-path, looking curled and slaty-colored about the half-bare stems.

Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. 

I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas, apparently poduras, skipping about when it is turned up to the light. 

The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, because it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute. It is the expression of an idea; growth according to a law; matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. If I take up a handful of earth, however separately interesting the particles may be, their relation to one another appears to be that of mere juxtaposition generally. I might have thrown them together thus. But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter, in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles. 

Genius is inspired by its own works; it is hermaphroditic. 

I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence. [Inclosing it in a mass of the sphagnum near or in which it often grows, I carry it home, and it opens for several days in succession.]

The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the fiyaway grass.

I find some of those little rooty tubers (?), now woody, in the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge.

Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done, I find many bright-purple shoots, a half to three quarters of an inch long, freshly put forth underground and ready to turn upward and form new plants in the spring.

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

November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush. See note to  October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish.")

The simplest and most lumpish fungus . . .betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. See  February 19, 1854 ("The mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. . .kindred mind with mine that admires and approves decided it so.") See also August 7, 1853 ("The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now the earth is strewn with fungi."); October 22, 1851 ("The rain and dampness have given birth to a new crop of mushrooms.")

Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence. See October 19, 1852 ("It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories")

Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. See September 12, 1858 ("Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. "); October 14, 1860 (" Consider how many leaves there are to fall each year and how much they must add to the soil. We have had a remarkably fertile year."); October 16, 1857 ("How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! They fall to rise again; as if they knew that it was not one annual deposit alone that made this rich mould in which pine trees grow. They live in the soil whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. "); October 20, 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! So they troop to their graves, light and frisky. They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay."); October 29, 1855 ("When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me.")

The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the fiyaway grass. See June 3, 1851 ("I noticed the indigo-weed a week or two ago pushing up like asparagus."); July 10, 1855 ("Indigo out."); July 17, 1852 ("Some fields are covered now with tufts or clumps of indigo- weed, yellow with blossoms, with a few dead leaves turned black here and there."); July 25, 1853 ("Bunches of indigo, still in bloom, more numerously than anywhere that I remember");  August 6, 1858 ("indigo, ' ' 'is still abundantly in bloom. "); August 17, 1851 ("Indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side,");  October 22, 1859 ("In my blustering walk over the Mason and Hunt pastures yesterday, I saw much of the withered indigo-weed which was broken off and blowing about, and the seeds in its numerous black pods rattling like the rattlepod though not nearly so loud"); February 28, 1860 ("As I stood by Eagle Field wall, I heard a fine rattling sound, produced by the wind on some dry weeds at my elbow. It was occasioned by the wind rattling the fine seeds in those pods of the indigo-weed which were still closed, — a distinct rattling din which drew my attention to it, — like a small Indian's calabash. Not a mere rustling of dry weeds, but the shaking of a rattle, or a hundred rattles, beside.")

Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done. See August 22, 1859 ("The savory-leaved aster (Diplopappus linariifolius) out; how long?"); September 18, 1856 ("Diplopappus linariifolius in prime.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT581010

Wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet, with the curved lines of falling rain beneath..

April 25.

Saturday. P. M. — Down Turnpike to Smith's Hill and return by Goose Pond. 

Saw a large old hollow log with the upper side [gone], which [made] me doubt if it was not a trough open at the ends, and suggested that the first trough was perhaps such a hollow log with one side split off and the ends closed. 

It is cool and windy this afternoon. 

Some sleet falls, but as we sit on the east side of Smith's chestnut grove, the wood, though so open and leafless, makes a perfect lee for us, apparently by breaking the force of the wind. A dense but bare grove of slender chestnut trunks a dozen rods wide is a perfect protection against this violent wind, and makes a perfectly calm lee. 

I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running, to carry a moss or other thing in safely. I have only to make three cuts and strip off a piece from a clear space some ten inches long, and then, rolling it up wrong side outward, as it naturally curls backward as soon as taken off (the dry side shrinking, the moist swelling) and so keeps its place, I bend or fold the ends back on it, as if it were paper, and so close them, and, if I please, tie it round with a string of the same bark. This is resilient or elastic, and stands out from a plant, and also is not injured by moisture like paper. When the incision is made now, the crystalline drops of sap follow the knife down the tree. This box dries yellow or straw-colored, with large clouds of green derived from the inner bark. 

The inner bark of the Betula populifolia just laid bare is green with a yellow tinge; that of the B. papyracea is buff. The undermost layer of the outer bark of the last, next to the inner bark, is straw-colored and exceedingly thin and delicate, and smoother to the lips than any artificial tissue. 

Bluets numerous and fully out at the Smith hillside between trough and Saw Mill Brook Falls. 

Got to-day unquestionable Salix humilis in the Britton hollow, north of his shanty, but all there that I saw (and elsewhere as yet) [are] pistillate. It is apparently now in prime, and apparently the next to bloom after the various larger and earlier ones, all which I must call as yet S. discolor. This S. humilis is small-catkined and loves a dry soil. 

A correspondent of the Tribune of April 24th, 1857, who signs "Lyndeborough, N. H., April 15, 1857. J. Herrick," says that he taps his sugar maples four feet from the ground so that cattle may not disturb the buckets, and that the sap will run as freely from the topmost branch as from a root. 

"Any one may learn this fact from the red squirrel, who, by the way, is a famous sugar maker, and knows when to tap a tree and where to do it. He performs his tapping in the highest perpendicular limbs or twigs, and leaves the sun and wind to do the evaporating, and in due season and pleasant weather you will see him come round and with great gusto gather his sirup into his stomach." 

The dense, green, rounded beds of mosses in springs and old water-troughs are very handsome now, — intensely cold green cushions. 

Again we had, this afternoon at 2 o'clock, those wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet, with the curved lines of falling rain beneath. The wind is so strong that the thin drops fall on you in the sunshine when the cloud has drifted far to one side. 

The air is peculiarly clear, the light intense, and when the sun shines slanting under the dark scud, the willows, etc., rising above the dark flooded meadows, are lit with a fine straw-colored light like the spirits of trees. 

I see winkle fungi comparatively fresh, whose green and reddish-brown and pale-buff circles above turn to light and dark slate and white, and so finally fade all to white. 

The beds of fine mosses on bare yellow mouldy soil are now in fruit and very warmly red in the sun when seen a little from one side. 

No pages in my Journal are so suggestive as those which contain a rude sketch. 

Suppose we were to drink only the yellow birch sap and mix its bark with our bread, would not its yellow curls sprout from our foreheads, and our breath and persons exhale its sweet aroma? What sappy vigor there would be in our limbs! What sense we should have to explore the swamps with!

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

I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark . . . See April 13, 1857 ("I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side outward. I . . . tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, . . .")

Again we had, this afternoon at 2 o'clock, those wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet.  See December 14, 1859( "Snow-storms might be classified. .. . there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain.")

Suppose we were to drink only the yellow birch sap. See April 16, 1857 ("Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch. ")

Would not its yellow curls sprout from our foreheads. See  January 4, 1853 ("This is like a fair, flaxen haired sister of the dark-complexioned black birch, with golden ringlets."); February 18, 1854 ("The curls of the yellow birch bark form more or less parallel straight lines up and down on all sides of the tree, like parted hair blown aside by the wind, or as when a vest bursts and blows open."); January 26, 1858 ("The yellow birch . . .might be described as a tree whose trunk or bole was covered with golden and silver shavings glued all over it and dangling in curls. ")

That sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather.

February 27. 

Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. 

P. M. — To the Hill. 

FEBRUARY 27, 2017

The river has skimmed over again in many places. 

I see many crows on the hillside, with their sentinel on a tree. They are picking the cow-dung scattered about, apparently for the worms, etc., it contains. They have done this in so many places that it looks as if the farmer had been at work with his maul. They must save him some trouble thus.

I see cinders two or three inches in diameter, apparently burnt clapboards, on the bank of the North River, which came from the burning Lee house! Yet it was quite a damp night, after rain in the afternoon, and rather still. They are all curled by the heat, so that you can tell which side was first exposed to it. The grain is more distinct than ever. Nature so abhors a straight line that she curls each cinder as she launches it on the fiery whirlwind. 

All the lightness and ethereal spirit of the wood is gone, and this black earthy residuum alone returned. The russet hillside is spotted with them. They suggest some affinity with the cawing crows. 

I see some of those large purplish chocolate-colored puffballs. They grow in dry pastures. They are in various states. I do not understand their changes.

Some are quite pulverulent, and emitting a cloud of dust at every touch. 

Others present a firm, very light ash-colored surface above, in a shallow saucer, with a narrow, wrinkled, crenate border, and beneath this firm skin is a perfectly dry spongy mass, less ashy, more reddish than the last, and fibrous, with very little dust in it but many small ribbed grubs. 

The surface often looks as if it had been pecked by birds in search of these grubs. 

Sometimes there is, above the white skin of the saucer, considerable pulverulent substance, as if in the other case this had been dissipated. 

Sometimes two large ones are joined at the root. 

Was there any portion (now dissipated) above this light-colored skin? Did the portion beneath the skin originally contain more dust, which has escaped? Or will it yet come to dust? 

Are not fungi the best hygrometers?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1857

The peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, . . . as if its coming were premature. See February 27, 1861 ("Mother hears a robin to-day."); \ See also February 25, 1857 ("Goodwin says he saw a robin this morning.”); February 28, 1860 ("C. saw a dozen robins to-day on the ground on Ebby Hubbard's hill by the Yellow Birch Swamp."); March 8, 1855 ("I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood, —. . . This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years."); March 12, 1854 ("I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet."); April 2, 1856 ("Robins are peeping and flitting about. Am surprised to hear one sing regularly their morning strain"); April 2, 1854 ("Sitting on the rail over the brook, I hear something which reminds me of the song of the robin in rainy days in past springs."); April 2, 1852 ("The robin now peeps with scared note in the heavy overcast air, among the apple trees. The hour is favorable to thought.").  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

Crows on the hillside, with their sentinel on a tree. See January 8, 1855 (" I hear a few chickadees near at hand, and hear and see jays further off, and, as yesterday, a crow sitting sentinel on an apple tree. Soon he gives the alarm, and several more take their places near him.. . .")

Are not fungi the best hygrometers? See April 22, 1856 ("It requires wet weather, then, to expand and display them to advantage. They are hygrometers.")