The St. John's-worts begin to bloom..

July 13. 

July 13, 2020

Purslane, probably to-day.

Chenopodium album.

Pontederias in prime.

Purple bladderwort (Utricularia purpurea), not long, near Hollowell place, the buds the deepest-colored, the stems rather loosely leaved or branched, with whorls of five or six leaves.

On the hard, muddy shore opposite Dennis’s, in the meadow, Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also ilysanthes, sium with leaves a third of an inch wide, and the cardinal flower, probably the 11th.

Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two.

Whorled bladderwort, for some time, even gone to seed; this, the purple, and the common now abundant amid the pads and rising above them.

Potamogeton compressus (?) immersed, with linear leaves. I see no flower.

I believe it is the radical leaves of the heart-leaf, — large, waved, transparent, — which in many places cover the bottom of the river where five or six feet deep, as with green paving-stones. Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1853

Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two. See  July 14, 1854 ("The red capsules of the Hypericum ellipticum, here and there. This one of the fall-ward phenomena in still rainy days."); July 15, 1856 ("Both small hypericums, Canadense and mutilum, apparently some days at least by Stow's ditch."); July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now."); July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. . . . The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee."); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”)  See also July 19, 1851 ("First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us. . . .Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Whorled bladderwort, the purple, and the common now abundant. .See  July 13, 1852 ("The pool by Walden is now quite yellow with the common utricularia (vulgaris).") See also August 3, 1856 ("The purple utricularia abundant "); August 5, 1854 ("I see very few whorled or common utricularias, but the purple ones are exceedingly abundant on both sides the river"); September 1, 1857 ("On the west side of Fair Haven Pond, an abundance of the Utricularia purpurea and of the whorled, etc., whose finely dissected leaves are a rich sight in the water")

Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?  See July 27, 1856 ("I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. . . .The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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 thermometer at ninety-five degrees, and we have had no rain.

July 13. 

July 13, 2019

A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy.

The pool by Walden is now quite yellow with the common utricularia (vulgaris).

The northern wild red cherry of the woods is ripe, handsome, bright red, but scarcely edible; also, sooner than I expected, huckleberries, both blue and black; the former, not described by Gray or Bigelow, in the greater abundance, and must have been ripe several days. They are thick enough to pick. The black only here and there. The former is apparently a variety of the latter, blue with bloom and a tough or thick skin. 

There are evidently several kinds of huckleberries and blueberries not described by botanists: of the very early blueberries at least two varieties, one glossy black with dark-green leaves, the other a rich light blue with bloom and yellowish-green leaves; and more kinds I remember. 

I found the Vaccinium corymbosum well ripe on an exposed hillside. 

Each day now I scare up woodcocks by shady springs and swamps. 

The dark-purple amelanchier are the sweetest berries I have tasted yet.

One who walks the woods and hills daily, expecting to see the first berry that turns, will be surprised at last to find them ripe and thick before he is aware of it, ripened, he cannot tell how long before, in some more favorable situation. It is impossible to say what day — almost what week — the huckleberries begin to be ripe, unless you are acquainted with, and daily visit, every huckleberry bush in the town, at least every place where they grow.


The Polygala sanguinea and P. cruciata in Blister's meadow, both numerous and well out. The last has a fugacious (?) spicy scent, in which, methinks, I detect the scent of nutmegs. Afterward I find that it is the lower part of the stem and root which is most highly scented, like checkerberry, and not fugacious.

The weather has been remarkably warm for a week or ten days, the thermometer at ninety-five degrees, more or less; and we have had no rain. You have not thought of cold or of taking cold, night or day, but only how you should be cool enough. 


Such weather as this the only use of clothing is to cover nakedness and to protect the body from the sun. It is remarkable that, though it would be a great luxury to throw aside all clothing now except one thin robe to keep off the sun, yet throughout the whole community not one is found to do it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1852

A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy. See September 2, 1851 ("We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto. . . . Expression is the act of the whole man. . .. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.”); January 22, 1852 ("Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves."); May 6, 1854 ("Every important worker will report what life there is in him. All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.”); February 23, 1860 ("May we measure our lives by our joys. We have lived, not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth, but in proportion as we have enjoyed.")

One who walks the woods and hills daily, expecting to see the first berry that turns, will be surprised at last to find them ripe and thick before he is aware of it See June 29, 1852 ("Children bring you the early blueberry to sell now."); July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them."); July 16, 1857 ("I hear of the first early blueberries brought to market. What a variety of rich blues their berries present, i. e. the earliest kind! Some are quite black and without bloom. What innocent flavors!");July 17, 1852 ("Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields."); July 24, 1853 ("This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries"); July 31, 1856 ("The children should grow rich if they can get eight cents a quart for black berries, as they do.");August 5, 1851 ("The question is not what you look at, but what you see”)

Huckleberries, both blue and black,must have been ripe several days. See July 13, 1854 ("Many of the huckleberries here on the hilltop have dried black and shrivelled before ripening."); July 18, 1854("every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.") July 21, 1853 ("to Fair Haven. Plenty of berries there now, — large huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries."); July 21, 1856 ("Plucked a handful of huckleberries from one bush!"); July 26, 1854 ("Almost every bush now offers a wholesome and palatable diet to the wayfarer, — large and dense clusters of Vaccinium vacillans, largest in most moist ground, sprinkled with the red ones not ripe; great high blueberries, some nearly as big as cranberries, of an agreeable acid; huckleberries of various kinds, some shining black, some dull-black, some blue; and low blackberries of two or more varieties."); July 29,, 1859 (“Vaccinium vacillans begin to be pretty thick and some huckleberries.”); July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems. "); July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”) August 4, 1852 (“Most huckleberries and blueberries and low blackberries are in their prime now.”); August 4, 1854 ("On this hill (Smith's) the bushes are black with huckleberries. ...Now in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans ntermixed.")

It is impossible to say what day — almost what week — the huckleberries begin to be ripe, unless you are acquainted with, and daily visit, every huckleberry bush in the town. See June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.”); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them"); April 16, 1852("Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. ")

Ninety-five degrees, more or less; and we have had no rain. See July 13, 1854 ("In the midst of July heat and drought."); July 13, 1857 ("Very hot weather. . . .I make haste home, expecting a thunder-shower, which we need, but it goes by.") See also  July 10, 1852 ("Every hour we expect a thundershower to cool the air, but none comes."); and note to July 12, 1859 ("Another hot day. 96° at mid-afternoon.")

Each day now I scare up woodcocks by shady springs and swamps. See July 3, 1856 ("I scare up one or two woodcocks in different places by the shore, where they are feeding, and in a meadow. They go off with a whistling flight. Can see where their bills have probed the mud. "); July 7, 1854 ("Woodcock at the spring under Clamshell"); July 15, 1857 ("Scare up . . . two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow, which go off with a whistling flight."); July 18, 1856 ("Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Woodcock

It would be a great luxury to throw aside all clothing now. See July 10, 1852 ("Walking up and down a river in torrid weather with only a hat to shade the head."); July 12, 1852 ("Divesting yourself of all clothing but your shirt and hat, which are to protect your exposed parts from the sun, you are prepared for the fluvial excursion.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

choke cherry

July 13,2024

The northern wild red 

cherry of the woods is ripe – 

scarcely edible. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The thermometer at ninety-five degrees

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-520713

The whole White Mountain range from Madison to Lafayette at sunset.

July 13. 

Tuesday. This morning it rained, keeping us in camp till near noon, for we did not wish to lose the view of the mountains as we rode along. 

We dined at Wood’s tavern in Randolph, just over Randolph Hill, and here had a pretty good view of Madison and Jefferson, which rose from just south the stream there, but a cloud rested on the summits most of the time. 

As we rode along in the afternoon, I noticed that when finally it began to rain hard, the clouds settling down, we had our first distinct view of the mountain outline for a short time. 

Wood said they had no spruce but white spruce there, though I called it black, and that they had no white pine nor oak. 

It rained steadily and soakingly the rest of the afternoon, as we kept on through Randolph and Kilkenny and Jefferson Hill, so that we had no clear view of the mountains. We put up at a store just opposite the town hall on Jefferson Hill. 

It here cleared up at sunset, after two days’ rain, and we had a fine view of the mountains, repaying us for our journey and wetting, Mt. Washington being some thirteen miles distant southeasterly. 

South westward we looked down over a very extensive, uninterrupted, and level-looking forest, which our host said  was very valuable on account of its white pine, their most valuable land, indeed. 
Over this the fog clouds were rolling beneath us, and a splendid but cloudy sunset was preparing for us in the west. 

By going still higher up the hill, in the wet grass north of the town house, we could see the whole White Mountain range from Madison to Lafayette. 

The alpine, or rocky, portion of Mt. Washington and its neighbors was a dark chocolate-brown, the extreme summits being dark topped or edged, — almost invariably this dark saddle on the top, — and, as the sun got lower, a very distinct brilliant and beautiful green, as of a thick mantle, was reflected from the vegetation in the ravines, as from the fold of a mantle, and on the lower parts of the mountains. They were chiefly Washington and the high northern peaks that we attended to. 

The waifs of fog-like cloud skirting the sides of Cherry Mountain and Mt. Deception in the south had the appearance of rocks, and gave to the mountainsides a precipitous look. I saw a bright streak looking like snow, a narrow bright ribbon where the source of the Ammonoosuc, swollen by the rain, leaped down the side of Mt. Washington from the Lake of the Clouds. 

The shadows on Lafayette betrayed ridges running toward us. That brilliant green on the northern mountains was reflected but a moment or two, for the atmosphere at once became too misty. It several times disappeared and was then brought out again with wonderful brilliancy, as it were an invisible writing, or a fluid which required to be held to the sun to be brought out. 

After the sun set to us, the bare summits were of a delicate rosaceous color, passing through violet into the deep dark-blue or purple of the night which already invested their lower parts, for this night-shadow was wonderfully blue, reminding me of the blue shadows on snow. There was an afterglow in which these tints and variations were repeated. It was the grandest mountain view I ever got.

In the meanwhile, white clouds were gathering again about the summits, first about the highest, appearing to form there, but sometimes to send off an emissary to initiate a cloud upon a neighboring peak. You could tell little about the comparative distance of a cloud and a peak till you saw that the former actually impinged on the latter. 

First Washington, then Adams, then Jefferson put on their caps, and you saw the latter, as it were, send off one small nucleus to gather round the head of Madison. This was the best point from which to observe these effects that we saw in our journey, but it appeared to me that from a hill a few miles further westward, perhaps in Whitefield, the view might be even finer. 

I made two sketches of the mountain outline here, as far south only as what the landlord called Mt. Pleasant, the route from the Notch house being visible no further.

This was said to be a fine farming town. I heard the ring of toads and saw a remarkable abundance of buttercup (the tall) yellowing the fields in this town and the next, somewhat springlike.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1858

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

we did not wish to

 lose the view of the mountains 

as we rode along. 

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

Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark against the glaucous mist.

July 13. 

Very hot weather. 

P. M. — To Rattlesnake Fern Swamp. 

I hear before I start the distant mutterings of thunder in the northwest, though I see no cloud. The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. 

I keep on, regardless of the prospect. 

See the indigo-bird still, chirping anxiously on the bushes in that sprout-land beyond the red huckleberry. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries pretty thick there, and one lass is picking them with a dipper tied to her girdle. The first thought is, What a good school this lass goes to! 

Rattlesnake fern just done. 

I make haste home, expecting a thunder-shower, which we need, but it goes by. The grass by the roadside is burnt yellow and is quite dusty. This, with the sultry air, the parched fields, and the languid inhabitants, marks the season. Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark against the glaucous mist. 

The price of friendship is the total surrender of yourself; no lesser kindness, no ordinary attentions and offerings will buy it. There is forever that purchase to be made with that wealth which you possess, yet only once in a long while are you advertised of such a commodity. 

I sometimes awake in the night and think of friendship and its possibilities, a new life and revelation to me, which perhaps I had not experienced for many months. Such transient thoughts have been my nearest approach to realization of it, thoughts which I know of no one to communicate to. 

I suddenly erect myself in my thoughts, or find myself erected, infinite degrees above the possibility of ordinary endeavors, and see for what grand stakes the game of life may be played. 

Men, with their indiscriminate attentions and ceremonious good-will, offer you trivial baits, which do not tempt; they are not serious enough either for success or failure. 

I wake up in the night to these higher levels of life, as to a day that begins to dawn, as if my intervening life had been a long night. 

I catch an echo of the great strain of Friendship played somewhere, and feel compensated for months and years of commonplace. I rise into a diviner atmosphere, in which simply to exist and breathe is a triumph, and my thoughts inevitably tend toward the grand and infinite, as aeronauts report that there is ever an upper current hereabouts which sets toward the ocean. If they rise high enough they go out to sea, and be hold the vessels seemingly in mid-air like themselves. It is as if I were serenaded, and the highest and truest compliments were paid me. 

The universe gives me three cheers. 

Friendship is the fruit which the year should bear; it lends its fragrance to the flowers, and it is in vain if we get only a large crop of apples without it. 

This experience makes us unavailable for the ordinary courtesy and intercourse of men. We can only recognize them when they rise to that level and realize our dream.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1857

Rattlesnake fern swamp. This is Fever-bush Swamp, which HDT today names “Rattlesnake Fern Swamp”. On September 16, 1857 HDT begins to refer to it as Botrychium Swamp. It is the same as his Yellow Birch Swamp See May 5, 1859 and  Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts ( "Rattlesnake Fern")

The grass by the roadside is burnt yellow and is quite dusty. This, with the sultry air, the parched fields, and the languid inhabitants, marks the season. See July 13, 1860 ("For a week past. . the season has had a more advanced look, from the reddening, imbrowning, or yellowing, and ripening of many grasses")

Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark . . .See July 7, 1851 (". . .the heavy shadows of the elms covering the ground with their rich tracery . . . like chandeliers of darkness.")

I sometimes awake in the night and think of friendship and its possibilities. . . See June 11, 1855 ("What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant

July 13. 

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land. 

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. 

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant along walls, to be strung on herd's-grass, but not much flavor to them; honest and wholesome. See where the mowers have plucked them. Gather the large black and blackening ones. No drought has shrivelled them this year. 

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. Reminds me somewhat of a peetweet, and also of the squeak of a rabbit, but much louder and sharper. And all is still. 

Hubbard's meadow — or I will call it early meadow-aster, some days, now rather slender and small- bushed. Drosera longifolia and also rotundifolia, some time. Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. 

Have noticed bright-red geranium and pyrus leaves a week or more. 

In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. Then one after another got up and went to feeding, straggling into the midst of the field. With a chattering appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects, the cow still eating along and almost hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined by two or three more birds. 

An abundance of spurry in the half-grown oats adjoining, apparently some time out. 

Yellow lily, how long? 

Am surprised to see an Aster laevis, out a day or two, in road on sandy bank. Goldfinches twitter over. Hydrocotyle, some time. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1856

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. See June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near")  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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

Provincetown Harbor.

July 13.

About $33,000 has been appropriated for the protection of Provincetown Harbor. Northeast winds the strongest. 

Caught a box tortoise. It appeared to have been feeding on insects, - their wing-cases, etc., in its droppings, - also leaves. 

No undertow on the bars because the shore is flat.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1855

A Book of the Seasons: July 13 (heat, drought, berries, hay, White Mountains, Provincetown)

 The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

July 13

One who walks the woods and hills daily, expecting to see the first berry that turns, will be surprised at last to find them ripe and thick before he is aware of it. 

July 13, 1852

Hayers rest at noon

and resume after sunset.

The Haymaker’s moon.

July 13, 1851

A journal -- a book

that shall contain a record

of your ecstasy.

July 13, 1852

The elms with denser

foliage begin to hang

dark against the mist.

  July 13, 1857

Awake in the night

thinking of friendship and its

possibilities.

July 13, 1857

July 13, 2020

Ninety-five degrees, more or less; and we have had no rain. July 13, 1852

In the midst of July heat and drought. The season is trivial as noon. July 13, 1854

The vernal freshness of June is passed. July 13, 1860

First we had the June grass reddish-brown, and the sorrel red, of June; now the red-top red of July. July 13, 1860. 

For a week past - and looking very closely, for a fortnight or more - the season has had a more advanced look, from the reddening, imbrowning, or yellowing, and ripening of many grasses, so the fields and hillsides present a less liquid green than they did. July 13, 1860. 

Very hot weather. . . . I make haste home, expecting a thunder-shower, which we need, but it goes by. July 13, 1857

I hear the hot-weather and noonday birds, -- red eye, tanager, wood pewee, etc. Plants are curled and withered. July 13, 1854.   

I hear, 4 P.M., a pigeon woodpecker on a dead pine near by, uttering a harsh and scolding scream, spying me. July 13, 1851.  

The chewink jingles on the tops of the bushes, and the [field] sparrow, the vireo, and oven-bird at a distance. July 13, 1851. 

And now the wood thrush surpasses them all. July 13, 1851.  

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. July 13, 1856 

Each day now I scare up woodcocks by shady springs and swamps.   July 13, 1852  

See the indigo-bird still, chirping anxiously on the bushes in that sprout-land beyond the red huckleberry. July 13, 1857

Huckleberries, both blue and black . . . in the greater abundance, and must have been ripe several days. July 13, 1852

If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin. July 13, 1854

It is impossible to say what day — almost what week — the huckleberries begin to be ripe, unless you are acquainted with, and daily visit, every huckleberry bush in the town, at least every place where they grow. July 13, 1852

One who walks the woods and hills daily, expecting to see the first berry that turns, will be surprised at last to find them ripe and thick before he is aware of it. July 13, 1852

The dark-purple amelanchier are the sweetest berries I have tasted yet. July 13, 1852 . 

Vaccinium vacillans on Bare Hill ripe enough to pick, now considerably in advance of huckleberries; sweeter than last and grow in dense clusters. July 13, 1854

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant. July 13, 1856

The northern wild red cherry of the woods is ripe, handsome, bright red, but scarcely edible. July 13, 1852

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries pretty thick there, and one lass is picking them with a dipper tied to her girdle. July 13, 1857

The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. July 13, 1857

This might be called the Haymaker's Moon, for I perceive that when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening. July 13, 1851 

It here cleared up at sunset, after two days’ rain, and we had a fine view of the mountains, repaying us for our journey and wetting, Mt. Washington being some thirteen miles distant southeasterly. July 13, 1858

July 13, 2020

*****

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:

 Wood Sorrel

 July Moonlight

The Blueberries

 Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry 

The American Woodcock 

The American Redstart

The Wood Thrush

 the Chewink (Rufous-sided Towhee; 

 The Field Sparrow 

The Oven-bird

 The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

 the Eastern Wood-Pewee; 

the Scarlet Tanager

Haymaking

  July

*****

A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy.See September 2, 1851 ("We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto. . . . Expression is the act of the whole man. . .. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.”); May 6, 1854 ("Every important worker will report what life there is in him. All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.”).

I sometimes awake in the night and think of friendship and its possibilities. . . See June 11, 1855 ("What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me.")

The vernal freshness of June is passed. . . .If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin. See July 7, 1852 ("And now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds.");  July 6, 1851 ("June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past.  . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits.")

July 13, 2019

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

July 12 < <<<<<  July 13  >>>>> July 14

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/HDT13JULY

When berries begin

July 13.

July 13, 2013

To Bare Hill, Lincoln, by railroad.

In the midst of July heat and drought. The season is trivial as noon. 

I hear the hot-weather and noonday birds, -- red eye, tanager, wood pewee, etc. Plants are curled and withered. The leaves dry, ripe like the berries.

Vaccinium vacillans on Bare Hill ripe enough to pick, now considerably in advance of huckleberries; sweeter than last and grow in dense clusters. 

The V. Pennsylvanicum is soft and rather thin and tasteless, mountain and spring like, with its fine light-blue bloom, very handsome, simple and ambrosial. This vacillans is more earthy, like solid food. 

Many of the huckleberries here on the hilltop have dried black and shrivelled before ripening.

If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin. 

Scent the bruised leaves of the fragrant goldenrod along the Lincoln road now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1854

In the midst of July heat and drought. See July 13, 1857 ("The grass by the roadside is burnt yellow and is quite dusty. This, with the sultry air, the parched fields, and the languid inhabitants, marks the season."); July 13, 1852 ("The weather has been remarkably warm for a week or ten days, the thermometer at ninety-five degrees, more or less; and we have had no rain.")

If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin. See July 7, 1852 ("And now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds."); July 6, 1851 ("June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past. . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits.").

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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

Haymaker's Moon

July 13.

The evergreen is very handsome in the woods now, rising somewhat spirally in a round tower of five or six stories, surmounted by a long bud.

Looking across the river to Conantum from the open plains, I think how the history of the hills would read, since they have been pastured by cows, if every plowing and mowing and sowing and chopping were recorded. 

These plains are covered with shrub oaks, birches, aspens, hickories, mingled with sweet-fern and brakes and huckleberry bushes and epilobium, now in bloom, and much fine grass. The hellebore by the brooksides has now fallen over, though it is not broken off.

I hear, 4 P.M., a pigeon woodpecker on a dead pine near by, uttering a harsh and scolding scream, spying me. The chewink jingles on the tops of the bushes, and the [field] sparrow, the vireo, and oven-bird at a distance. A robin sings, superior to all; a barking dog has started something on the opposite side of the river; and now the wood thrush surpasses them all.

The cows now repose and chew the cud under the shadow of a tree, or crop the grass in the shade along the side of the woods, and when you approach to observe them they mind you just enough.

The sweet-scented life-everlasting is budded.

This might be called the Haymaker's Moon, for I perceive that when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 13, 1851

The haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening. See July 13, 1857 ("The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. ")

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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