As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look..

September 10

As I watch the groves on the meadow opposite our house, I see how differently they look at different hours of the day, i. e. in different lights, when the sun shines on them variously. In the morning, perchance, they seem one blended mass of light green. In the afternoon, distinct trees appear, separated by heavy shadows, and in some places I can see quite through the grove.

3 P M. - To the Cliffs and the Grape Cliff beyond.

Hardhack and meadow-sweet are now all dry.

I see the smoke of burning brush in the west horizon this dry and sultry afternoon, and wish to look off from some hill. It is a kind of work the farmer cannot do without discovery. Sometimes I smell these smokes several miles off, and by the odor know it is not a burning building, but withered leaves and the rubbish of the woods and swamp.

As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look.

The boiling spring is almost completely dry. Nothing flows (I mean without the shed), but there are many hornets and yellow wasps apparently buzzing and circling about in jealousy of one another, either drinking the stagnant water, which is the most accessible this dry parching day, or it may be collecting something from the slime, - I think the former.

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I see some signs of the approaching fall of the white pine. On some trees the old leaves are already somewhat reddish, though not enough to give the trees a parti-colored look, and they come off easily on being touched, - the old leaves on the lower part of the twigs.

Some farmers are sowing their winter rye? I see the fields smoothly rolled. (I hear the locust still.) I see others plowing steep rocky and bushy fields, apparently for the same purpose.

How beautiful the sproutland (burnt plain) seen from the Cliff! No more cheering and inspiring sight than a young wood springing up thus over a large tract, when you look down on it, the light green of the maples shaded off into the darker oaks, and here and there a maple blushes quite red, enlivening the scene yet more.

Surely this earth is fit to be inhabited, and many enterprises may be undertaken with hope where so many young plants are pushing up.

In the spring I burned over a hundred acres till the earth was sere and black, and by midsummer this space was clad in a fresher and more luxuriant green than the surrounding even.

Shall man then despair? Is he not a sprout-land too, after never so many searings and witherings? If you witness growth and luxuriance, it is all the same as if you grew luxuriantly.

I see three smokes in Stow. One sends up dark volumes of wreathed smoke, as if from the mouth of Erebus. It is remarkable what effects so thin and subtile a substance as smoke produces, even at a distance, -- dark and heavy and powerful as rocks at a distance.

The woodbine is red on the rocks.

The poke is a very rich and striking plant. Some which stand under the Cliffs quite dazzled me with their now purple stems gracefully drooping each way, their rich, somewhat yellowish, purple-veined leaves, their bright purple racemes, -- peduncles, and pedicels, and calyx-like petals from which the birds have picked the berries (these racemes, with their petals now turned to purple, are more brilliant than anything of the kind), -- flower-buds, flowers, ripe berries and dark purple ones, and calyx-like petals which have lost their fruit, all on the same plant.

I love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the richest color. I love to press these berries between my fingers and see their rich purple wine staining my hand. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year. It speaks to my blood.

Every part of it is flower, such is its superfluity of color, -- a feast of color. That is the richest flower which most abounds in color. What need to taste the fruit, to drink the wine, to him who can thus taste and drink with his eyes? Its boughs, gracefully drooping, offering repasts to the birds. It is cardinal in its rank, as in its color.

Nature here is full of blood and heat and luxuriance. What a triumph it appears in Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, -- as if this were enough for a summer.

The downy seeds of the groundsel are taking their flight here. The calyx has dismissed them and quite curled back, having done its part.

Lespedeza sessiliflora, or reticulated lespedeza on the Cliffs now out of bloom.

At the Grape Cliff, the few bright-red leaves of the tupelo contrast with the polished green ones. The tupelos with drooping branches.

The grape-vines overrunning and bending down the maples form little arching bowers over the meadow, five or six feet in diameter, like parasols held over the ladies of the harem, in the East.

Cuscuta Americana, or dodder, in blossom still.

The Desmodium paniculatum of De Candolle and Gray (Hedysarum paniculatum of Linnaeus and Bigelow), tick-trefoil, with still one blossom, by the path-side up from the meadow.  The rhomboidal joints of its loments adhere to my clothes. One of an interesting family that thus disperse themselves.

The oak-ball of dirty drab now.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1851

How differently they look at different hours of the day. See February 5, 1852 ("The trunks and branches of the trees are of different colors at different times and in different lights and weathers, - in sun, rain, and in the night.”); February 9, 1852 ("Objects do not twice present exactly the same appearance. The air changes from hour to hour of every day. It paints and glasses everything. It is a new glass placed over the picture every hour")

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I see some signs of the approaching fall of the white pine. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look. September 6, 1854 ("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered);   September 12, 1858("Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

The grape-vines overrunning and bending down the maples form little arching bowers over the meadow. See September 8, 1854 (" Sometimes I crawl under low and thick bowers, where they have run over the alders only four or five feet high, and see the grapes hanging from a hollow hemisphere of leaves over my head. At other times I see them dark-purple or black against the silvery undersides of the leaves, high overhead where they have run over birches or maples, and either climb or pull them down to pluck them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Grape

The Desmodium paniculatum . . . tick-trefoil, with still one blossom, by the path-side up from the meadow. See August 7, 1856 ("At Blackberry Steep, apparently an early broad-leafed variety of Desmodium paniculatum, two or three days. This and similar plants are common there and may almost name the place . . . All these plants seem to love a dry open hillside, a steep one. Are rarely upright, but spreading, wand-like."); September 29, 1856 ("I can hardly clamber along the grape cliff now with out getting my clothes covered with desmodium ticks, — there especially the rotundifolium and paniculatum. Though you were running for your life, they would have time to catch and cling to your clothes . . .How surely the desmodium, growing on some rough cliff-side, or the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller, brute or human, that will transport their seeds on his coat! ")

'

Yellow leaves by their color conceal the flowers.

October 4

October 4, 2018

Going by Dr. Barrett’s, just at the edge of evening, I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire, as if molten lead were scattered along, and then I wondered if a drunkard’s spittle were luminous, and proceeded to poke it on to a leaf with a stick. It was rotten wood. I found that it came from the bottom of some old fence-posts which had just been dug up near by and there glowed for a foot or two, being quite rotten and soft, and it suggested that a lamp-post might be more luminous at bottom than at top. 

I cut out a handful and carried it about. It was quite soft and spongy and a very pale brown — some almost white — in the light, quite soft and flaky; and as I withdrew it gradually from the light, it began to glow with a distinctly blue fire in its recesses, becoming more universal and whiter as the darkness increased. Carried toward a candle, it is quite a blue light. 

One man whom I met in the street was able to tell the time by his watch, holding it over what was in my hand. 

The posts were oak, probably white. 

Mr. Melvin, the mason, told me that he heard his dog barking the other night, and, going out, found that it was at the bottom of an old post he had dug up during the day, which was all aglow. 

P. M. (before the above). — Paddled up the Assabet. Strong north wind, bringing down leaves. 

Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black willow leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs. The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow. 

See B a-fishing notwithstanding the wind. A man runs down, fails, loses self-respect, and goes a-fishing, though he were never seen on the river before. Yet methinks his “misfortune” is good for him, and he is the more mellow and humane. Perhaps he begins to perceive more clearly that the object of life is something else than acquiring property, and he really stands in a truer relation to his fellow-men than when he commanded a false respect of them. There he stands at length, per chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. It is better than a poor debtors’ prison, better than most successful money-getting. 

I see some rich-weed in the shade of the Hemlocks, for some time a clear, almost ivory, white, and the boehmeria is also whitish. 

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. 

Grape leaves apparently as yellow as ever.

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. 

The white maples that changed first are about bare. 

The brownish-yellow clethra leaves thickly paint the bank. 

Salix lucida leaves are one third clear yellow. The 

Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon, etc. 

Scare up two ducks, which go off with a sharp creaking ar-r-week, ar-r-week, ar-r-week. Is not this the note of the wood duck? 

Hornets are still at work in their nests. 

Ascend the hill. 

The cranberry meadows are a dull red. 

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools.

The Great Meadows, where not mown, have long been brown with wool-grass. 

The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. The outmost parts and edges of the foliage are orange, the recesses green, as if the outmost parts, being turned toward the sunny fire, were first baked by it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 4, 1858

I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire.  See October 5, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky."); October 6, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.") See also July 24, 1857 and The Maine Woods ("Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see . . . I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it.")

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. See September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”); October 3, 1857 ("The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron."); October 11, 1857 ("I see some fine clear yellows from the Rhus Toxicodendron on the bank by the hemlocks and beyond.")

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime.  See September 24, 1853 ("Witch-hazel well out."); September 27, 1857 ("Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. "); September 29, 1853 ("The witch-hazel . . .has but begun to blossom . . . Its leaves are yellowed."); October 9, 1851 ("The sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its top-most sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other. I lie on my back with joy under its bough. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon. See  October 1, 1858 ("The cinnamon ferns are crisp and sour in open grounds"); October 11, 1857 ("The osmunda ferns are generally withered and brown except where very much protected from frost. The O. regalis is the least generally withered of them"); October 12, 1858 ("The Osmunda regalis . . . in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent.")

Hornets are still at work in their nests. See October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window.")

Holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. See June 26, 1853 ("They might go there a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, — before they began to angle for the pond itself."); December 2, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords.") 

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. See note to October 20, 1856 (“I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter.")

The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. See October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow, more or less broadly green-striped on the principal veins, to pure yellow, at first almost lemon-yellow, at last browner and crisped. This mingling of yellow and green on the same leaf, the green next the veins where the life is most persistent, is very pleasing."); October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods. ");  October 22, 1858 ("The leaves of the hickory are a very rich yellow, though they may be quite withered and fallen, but they become brown.");  October 24, 1853 ("Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. "); October 24, 1858 ("Hickories are two thirds fallen, at least."); November 13, 1858 ("One hickory at least (on the hill) has not lost its leaves yet, i. e., has a good many left. So they are a month falling.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

October 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 4

Witch-hazel in prime –

Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

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-581004 

Looking for pine cones, a time to see hornets' nests.

October 15

October 15, 2015

P. M. — Go to look for white pine cones, but see none. 

See a striped squirrel on a rail fence with some kind of weed in his mouth. Is it milkweed seed? At length he scuds swiftly along the middle rail past me, and, instead of running over or around the posts, he glides through the little hole in the post left above the rails, as swiftly as if there had been no post in the way. 

Thus he sped through five posts in succession in a straight line, incredibly quick, only stooping and straightening himself at the holes. 

The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone.  I see one a very perfect cone, like a pitch pine cone, uninjured by the birds, about twelve feet from the ground, by a swamp, three feet from the end of a maple twig and upheld by it alone passing through its top, about an inch deep, seven and a half inches wide, by eight long. A few sere maple leaves adorn and partly conceal the crown, at the ends of slight twigs which are buried in it. 

October 8, 2024

What a wholesome color! somewhat like the maple bark (and so again concealed) laid on in successive layers in arcs of circles a tenth of an inch wide, eye brow-wise, gray or even white or brown of various shades, with a few dried maple leaves sticking out the top of it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 15, 1855

Go to look for white pine cones, but see none. See September 9, 1857 ("To the Hill for white pine cones. Very few trees have any. I can only manage small ones, fifteen or twenty feet high, climbing till I can reach the dangling green pickle-like fruit in my right hand, while I hold to the main stem with my left");, September 18, 1859 ("There is an abundant crop of cones on the white pines this year, and they are now for the most part brown and open . . . How few attend to the ripening and dispersion of the pine seed!"); September 18, 1860 ("White pine cones (a small crop), and all open that I see. [Are they not last year's] ?") . October 6, 1857 ("I see thousands of white pine cones on the ground, fresh light brown, which lately opened and shed their seeds and lie curled up on the ground. The seeds are rather pleasant or nutritious tasting, taken in quantity, like beech nuts, methinks"); October 8, 1856 ("At length I discover some white pine cones, a few . . . are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them."); October 13, 1860 ("So far as I have observed, if pines or oaks bear abundantly one year they bear little or nothing the next year. This year, so far as I observe, there are scarcely any white pine cones (were there any ?). . . This is a white oak year, not a pine year."); October 19, 1855 ("I see at last a few white pine cones open on the trees, but almost all appear to have fallen."); November 3, 1853 ("I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them."); November 4, 1855 ("I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines

See a striped squirrel on a rail fence . . . scuds swiftly along the middle rail past me, and, instead of running over or around the posts, he glides through the little hole in the post left above the rails, as swiftly as if there had been no post in the way. See October 8, 1857 ("The chipmunk, the wall-going squirrel, that will cross a broad pasture on the wall, now this side, now that, now on top, and lives under it, — as if it were a track laid for him expressly. "); November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday . . . And the last striped squirrel, too, perchance, yesterday.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Squirrel

The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone . . . What a wholesome color . . . laid on in successive layers in arcs.  See September 25, 1851 ("The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance."); September 28, 1851 ("Here was a large hornets' nest . . . out came the whole swarm upon me lively enough. I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day."); October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window."); October 25, 1854 ("The maples being bare, the great hornet nests are exposed.") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets

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

Looking for pine cones –

a time to see hornets' nests 

the hornets now gone.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Looking for pine cones

 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-551015

A beautiful, calm Indian-summer afternoon

October 25

On Assabet. 

The maples being bare, the great hornet nests are exposed. 

A beautiful, calm Indian-summer afternoon, the withered reeds on the brink reflected in the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 25, 1854

The great hornet nests are exposed. See  October 4, 1858 ("Hornets are still at work in their nests."); October 15, 1855 (“The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone.”); October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window.") See also September 25, 1851 ("The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets

A beautiful, calm Indian-summer afternoon. See October 22, 1854 ("This and the last two days Indian-summer weather, following hard on that sprinkling of snow west of Concord. Pretty hard frosts these nights"); October 31, 1854 ("Ever since October 27th we have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

A calm afternoon

reflected in the water –

Indian summer.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  A beautiful, calm Indian-summer afternoon

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-541025