The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood

July 3

July 3, 2013

Elder is now in its prime.

Buttercups are almost gone.

Clover is blackened.

The umbelled pyrola, apparently yesterday, as well as the P. rotundifolia and the P. elliptica, or shin-leaf.

The P. secunda, or one-sided pyrola, is already out of bloom.

The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles.

Mountain laurel lingers in the woods still.

The chestnut behind my old house site is fully out, and apparently has been partly so for several days.

There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year.

Smooth sumach just opening and already resounding with bees.

The water-target appears to be in its prime, its flowers rising above the water. Remarkable for the thick jelly on its leaves and stem.

A smaller potamogeton is in flower there, — the small globose white flower. Why is it so often already torn up by the roots?

Poke a day or two in favorable places.

Dogsbane and Jersey tea are among the prevailing flowers now.

The Utricularia vulgaris now yellows low muddy water, as near the Lincoln bound by Walden.

The Vaccinium vacillans a day or two ripe.

Black huckleberries. 

Tansy on the causeway.

The Canada thistle.

The pinweeds have a reddish look, as if in flower. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1853

The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood. See June 7, 1853 ("The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I can not get a fair view of her. "); June 10, 1855 ("Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining, about six feet south west of a white oak") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird

There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year.  See June 3, 1857 (“The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. (?)”);  See also  June 21, 1853 (There are no flowers nor flower-buds on the bass this year, though it was so full last year."");June 30, 1852 ("The bass tree is budded"); July 4, 1853 ("The bass appears now — or a few trees — to have bloomed here and there prematurely.");  July 9, 1857 (“I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year, nor at Conantum.”)  and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

Dogsbane and Jersey tea are among the prevailing flowers now. See June 29, 1853 ("Jersey tea, just beginning.") and note to June 27, 1853 ("The dogsbane is one of the more interesting little flowers") see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Dogsbane and Indian hemp

A very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass.

July 3. 

P. M. — To Hubbard's Grove.

You see in rich moist mowing the yet slender, recurving unexpanded panicles or heads of the red-top (?), mixed with the upright, rigid herd's-grass. Much of it is out in dry places. 

Glyceria fluitans is very abundant in Depot Field Brook. 

Hypericum ellipticum out. 

I noticed the other day, I think the 30th, a large patch of Agrostis scabra in E. Hosmer's meadow, — the firmer ridges, — a very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass.

July 3, 2019
partridge berry

The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent as I walk over it, now that it is so abundantly in bloom, which is agreeable to me, — spotting the ground with its downy-looking white flowers. 

Eleocharis obtusa and acicularis are now apparently in prime at water's edge by Hubbard's Grove bridge path. 

Also Juncus bufonius is very abundant in path there, fresh quite, though some shows seed. Juncus tenuis, though quite fresh, is also as much gone to seed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1859

The yet slender, recurving unexpanded panicles or heads of the red-top. See July 6, 1851 ("The red-topped grass is in its prime, tingeing the fields with red.");  July 13, 1860 ("First we had the June grass reddish-brown, and the sorrel red, of June; now the red-top red of July.)

Hypericum ellipticum out. See 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A large patch of Agrostis scabra a very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass. See July 11, 1860 (" I am interested now by patches of Agrostis scabra. Drooping and waving in the wind a rod or two over amid the red-top and herd's-grass of A.Wheeler's meadow, this grass gives a pale purple sheen to those parts, the most purple impression of any grass.")

Mixed with blue-eyed grass. See June 15, 1851 ("The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven."); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent. See  July 2, 1859 ("Mitchella repens is abundantly out").  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Partridge-berry (Mitchella Repens)

Wth its white flowers

so abundantly in bloom

Mitchella repens

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

interesting purplemixed with blue-eyed grass

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 © 2009-2025

Continuing toward White Mountains in a private carriage with Edward Hoar

July 3.

Continued along in a slight rain through Bedford, crossing to Manchester, and driving by a brook in Hookset just above Pinnacle. Then through Allenstown and Pembroke, with its long street, to Loudon, leaving Concord on the left.

Along the sandy roadside in a pitch pine wood in Loudon, much apparent Calystegia spithamaza in bloom, but I think with reddish flowers. Probably same with my New Bedford plant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1858

My pool in Gowing's Swamp used to be called Duck Pond,

July 3. 

July 3,  2017

Minott says that old Joe Merriam used to tell of his shooting black ducks in the Dam meadows and what luck he had. One day he had shot a couple of ducks and was bringing them home by the legs, when he came to a ditch. As he had his gun in the other hand, and the ditch was wide, he thought he would toss the ducks over before he jumped, but they had no sooner struck the ground than they picked themselves up and flew away, which discouraged him with respect to duck-shooting. 

M. says that my pool in Gowing's Swamp used to be called Duck Pond, though he does not know of ducks settling there. Perhaps they did anciently. He once fell into a deep hole when going after blueberries in the town (?) swamp beyond his own meadow. He stepped on to some "water-brush" (probably water andromeda), and suddenly sank very deep, spraining his hand, which he put out to save himself. He once killed a black duck in Beck Stow's Swamp, but could not get it on account of the water. Somebody else got a boat and got it. 

Thus the ducks and geese will frequent a swamp where there is considerable water, in the spring. 

Minott was sitting in his shed as usual, while his handsome pullets were perched on the wood within two feet of him, the rain having driven them to this shelter. 

There always were poor and rich as now, — in that first year when our ancestors lived on pumpkins and raccoons, as now when flour is imported from the West.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1857

My pool in Gowing's Swamp. See August 23, 1854 ("I improve the dry weather to examine the middle of Gowing's Swamp. There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter . . .”); May 31, 1857 ("That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb.. . .”)

Minott was sitting in his shed as usual, while his handsome pullets were perched on the wood within two feet of him. See February 20, 1857 ("Minott always sits in the corner behind the door, close to the stove, with commonly the cat by his side, often in his lap. Often he sits with his hat on"); September 30, 1857 ("Talked with Minott, who was sitting, as usual, in his wood-shed. His hen and chickens, finding it cold these nights on the trees behind the house, had begun last night to roost in the shed, and one by one walked or hopped up a ladder within a foot of his shoulder to the loft above. He sits there so much like a fixture that they do not regard him."); August 16, 1858 ("Talked with Minott, who sits in his wood-shed, having, as I notice, several seats there for visitors, —one a block on the sawhorse, another a patchwork mat on a wheelbarrow, etc., etc. His half-grown chickens, which roost overhead, perch on his shoulder or knee.")

A Book of the Seasons: July 3.

July 3.

Jul;y 3, 2019

We will have a dawn 
and noon and serene sunset
in ourselves. 
July 3, 1840

Wintergreen blossom,
pretty little chandelier,
adorns forest floor.
July 3, 1852

July 3, 2017

The oven-bird's nest
with a dome-like top and arched
entrance on one side.
July 3, 1853

The seething river
confined within two borders
gleaming in the sun.
July 3, 1854

Gloriously hot –

what a luxury to bathe now, the 

first of this weather.

July 3, 1854

When I leave the boat
a short time the seats become
intolerably hot.
July 3, 1854

The great snap-turtle 

puts his head out and climbs up 

a rock on the bank.

 July 3, 1856

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 © 2009-2019

An island forms in the river.

July 3. 

P. M. —To Assabet River.  

July 3, 2016

In the main stream, at the Rock, I am surprised to see flags and pads, laying the foundation of an islet in the middle, where I had thought it deep before. Apparently a hummock lifted by ice sunk there in the spring, and this may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river. 

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. 

See a sternothaerus on a small stump two feet over water. I approach and take hold of it, but cannot easily remove it. It appears to be shrunk on, withering away and dying there. It barely moves its head and eyes slightly, and its flippers look very much shrunken, yet it tumbles off after I leave. Apparently a male. 

I notice afterward, on succeeding days, many of them resting thus sluggishly, and find that I can approach and handle them and leave them as I found them. They appear much more sluggish than the other kinds now, though they were active enough in the spring. 

The tortoises improve every rock, and willow slanting over the water, and every floating board and rail. You will see one on the summit of a black willow stump several feet high, and two or more part way up. Some tumble from a height of five or six feet into the water before you. 

Even the great snap-turtle puts his head out and climbs up a rock on the bank with the rest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1856

This may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river.  See February 28, 1855 (“The greater part of those hummocks there are probably, if not certainly, carried by the ice. . . . This is a powerful agent at work.”); February 25, 1851 ("I see from the bridge,. . . what looks like an island directly over the channel. . . .It is the crust of the meadow afloat, . . .another agent employed in the distribution of plants.”)

On the sand between rails in the Deep Cut, 103°

July 3.

4 P. M. —Air out-of-doors generally, 86°. On the sand between rails in the Deep Cut, 103°; Near the surface of Walden, fifteen rods from shore, 80°. Three feet below the surface there, and every where nearer shore (and probably further from it), 78°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1855

July 3, 2015

Air out-of-doors generally, 86°. See July 2, 1855 (“Air over river at Hubbard’s Bath . . . . 88° ”)

I begin to inhabit the planet.

Concord River

July 3.

P. M. — To Hubbard Bridge by boat.

The river and shores, with their pads and weeds, are now in their midsummer and hot-weather condition, now when the upright phalanx of dark-green pontederias have just begun to bloom. The seething river is confined within two burnished borders of pads, gleaming in the sun for a mile.  

When I leave the boat a short time the seats become intolerably hot. 

What a luxury to bathe now! It is gloriously hot, — the first of this weather. I cannot get wet enough. I must let the water soak into me. I begin to inhabit the planet, and see how I may be naturalized at last.

As I return down the river, the sun westering, I admire the silvery light on the tops and extremities of the now densely leaved golden willows and swamp white oaks and maples from the under sides of the leaves. The leaves have so multiplied that you cannot see through the trees; these are solid depths of shade, on the surface of which the light is variously reflected.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1854

What a luxury to bathe now! See July 8, 1854 ("The 4th and 5th were the hot bathing days thus far; thermometer at 98 and 96 respectively. ")See also July 8, 1852 (" I am inclined to think bathing almost one of the necessaries of life,"):July 9, 1852 ("Bathing is an undescribed luxury. To feel the wind blow on your body, the water flow on you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoyment this hot day.“) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

*****

July 3, 2013

It's the night before Fourth of July. I have work and come up late. Jane is ready to go for a walk. It is Muggy and has been raining steadily for two months -- both record months. We walk to the view via the Undercliff Trail over the log that I cut but could not move and bushwhack to the "living room". I slip on some moss and I hope I did not kill it.

It is just past sunset. We sit. The dog sit. We watch the fog and mist rise in the valley below. The sunset changes imperceptibly except in our photos. There is a second sunset and then a pastel sunset.The mosquitoes are bothersome and we decide to hike down. At the lower view through an opening in the trees we can see the Burlington fireworks. In the distance are the Plattsburgh fireworks. The dogs watch the fireworks. Mosquitoes are bothersome and we walk home tired and happy.

We sit. The dogs sit.
We watch the fog and mist rise
in the valley below.
July 3, 2013

zphx

Wintergreen and blueberries.

July 3.The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time. The back side of its petals, "cream colored tinged with purple," which is turned toward the beholder, while the face is toward the earth, is the handsomest. It is a very pretty little chandelier of a flower, fit to adorn the forest floor.

The pickers have quite thinned the crop of early blueberries where Stow cut off winter before last. When the woods on some hillside are cut off, the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum springs up, or grows more luxuriantly, being exposed to light and air, and by the second year its stems are weighed to the ground with clusters of blueberries covered with bloom, and much larger than they commonly grow, also with a livelier taste than usual, as if remembering some primitive mountain-side given up to them anciently. 

I am surprised to see how suddenly, when the sun and air and rain are let in, these bushes, which, in the shade of the forest, scarcely yielded the walker a berry, will suddenly be weighed down with fruit. Such places supply the villagers with the earliest berries for two or three years, or until the rising wood overgrows them and they withdraw into the bosom of Nature again. They flourish during the few years between one forest's fall and another's rise.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1852 

Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa is not American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbent)--which HDT calls “checkerberry.". See  November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)

A Marsh Hawk Nest

July 3.

Looked for the marsh hawk's nest in the Great Meadows. It was in the very midst of the sweet-gale (which is three feet high), occupying an opening only a foot or two across.

We had much difficulty in finding it again, but at last nearly stumbled on to a young hawk.

There was one as big as my fist, resting on the bare, flat nest in the sun, with a great head, staring eyes, and open gaping or panting mouth, grayish-white down as yet.

Another had crawled a foot one side amid the bushes for shade or safety, more than half as large again, with small feathers and a more angry, hawk-like look.

The old birds were gone and saw us not. Their callow young lie panting under the sweet-gale and rose bushes in the swamp, waiting for their parents to fetch them food.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1860

Looked for the marsh hawk’s nest in the Great Meadows.  See June 16, 1860 (“Channing found a marsh hawk's nest on the Great Meadows this afternoon, with three eggs considerably developed.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)