August has been a month of berries and melons, small fruits.

September  2. 

P. M. – To Walden.

The seringo, too, has long been silent like other birds.

The red prinos berries ripe in sunny places.

Rose hips begin to be handsome.

Small flocks of pigeons are seen these days. Distinguished from doves by their sharper wings and bodies.

August has been a month of berries and melons, small fruits.

First in the descent from summer's culminating-point.

There is a stillness in nature for want of singing birds, commenced a month or more ago; only the crickets’ louder creak to supply their place.

I have not heard a bullfrog this long time.

The small cornel, or bunch-berry, is in bloom now (!!) near the pond.

What great tuft-like masses the cow-wheat makes now in sprout-lands! 

As I look over the pond now from the eastern shore, I am obliged to employ both my hands to defend my eyes against the reflected as well as the true sun, for they appear equally bright; and between my hands I look over the smooth and glassy surface of the lake.

The skaters make the finest imaginable sparkle.

Otherwise it is literally as smooth as glass, except where a fish leaps into the air or a swallow dips beneath its surface.

Sometimes a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there is a bright flash where it emerges and another where it strikes the water.

A slight haze at this season makes the shore-line so much the more indistinct.

Looking across the pond from the Peak toward Fair Haven, which I seem to see, all the earth beyond appears insulated and floated, even by this small sheet of water, the heavens being seen reflected, as it were beneath it, so that it looks thin.

The scenery of this small pond is humble though very beautiful, and does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it, or lived by its shore.

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

August has been a month of berries and melons. See August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich. Green corn now, and melons have begun. That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen.");August 12, 1854 ("It takes all the heat of the year to produce these yellow flowers. It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year when they begin to prevail, — when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen and early apples and peaches. It is already the yellowing year.")

First in the descent from summer's culminating-point. See June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration."); July 5, 1852 ("We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity.") July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter"); July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn."); July 24, 1852 ("When the first crop of grass is off, and the aftermath springs, the year has passed its culmination."); July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!");; July 28, 1854 ("Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — . . . and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year"); August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter."); August 6, 1852 ("Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming."); August 6, 1852 ("Has not the year grown old ? . . . It is the signs of the fall that affect us most. It is hard to live in the summer content with it."); August 7, 1854 ("There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished. It is the glistening autumnal side of summer."); August 7, 1854 (" Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen?") August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill.") August 19, 1851("Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”); August 23, 1858 ("There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter."); August 28, 1858 ("When. . . I see these bright leaves strewing the moist ground . . .I am reminded that I have crossed the summit ridge of the year and have begun to descend the other slope."

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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

The air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal.

September 2. 

P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

The pontederia leaves are now decidedly brown or brownish, and this may be the effect of frost, since we have had some considerable in low places. Perhaps they occupy particularly cold places. 

The farmer is obliged to hide his melon-patch in the midst of his corn or potatoes, far away. I sometimes stumble on it as I am going across lots. I see one to day where the watermelons are intermixed with carrots in a carrot-bed, and so concealed by the general resemblance of leaf, etc., at a little distance. 

Going along Clamshell Hill, I look over the meadows. Now, after the first rain raising the river, the first assault on the summer's sluggishness, the air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal, and the meadows and low grounds, which, of course, have been shorn, acquire a fresh yellowish green as in the spring. This is another phase of the second spring, of which the peeping of hylas by and by is another. 

I once did some surveying for a man who remarked, but not till the job was done, that he did not know when he should pay me. I did not pay much heed to this, though it was unusual, supposing that he meant to pay me some time or other. But after a while he sent to me a quart of red huckleberries, and this I thought was ominous and he distinguished me altogether too much by this gift, since I was not his particular friend. I saw it was the first installment, which would go a great way toward being the last. In course of years he paid a part of the debt in money, and that is the last I have heard of it. 

The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. 

At Ledum Swamp the frosts have now touched the Polygonum Careyi pretty extensively, the leaves and stem, leaving the red spikes; also some erechthites and poke and the tenderest high blueberry shoots, their tips (from where the bushes were cut down). But the Woodwardia Virginica is not touched. (Vide back, August 23d.) 

Poke berries begin at Corner Spring.

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

Now, after the first rain raising the river, the first assault on the summer's sluggishness, the air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal. See September 2, 1854 ("Bathe at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably"); September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness”); September 11, 1853 ("Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. . . .The air has got an autumnal coolness which it will not get rid of again.")

The meadows acquire a fresh yellowish green as in the spring. This is another phase of the second spring, of which the peeping of hylas by and by is another. See  August 4, 1853("The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring."); August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring."); September 14, 1852 ("The grass is very green after the rains, like a second spring,"); October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena re mind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds.")

But after a while he sent to me a quart of red huckleberries, and this I thought was ominous.See January 25, 1858 ("I am amused to see what airs men take upon themselves when they have money to pay me.")

The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom. See August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”)

The Woodwardia Virginica is not touched. See September 6, 1858 ("At Ledum Pool edge, I find the Woodwardia Virginica fern, its fruit mostly turned deep reddish-brown")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.

September 25. 

A smart white frost last night, which has killed the sweet potato vines and melons. 

P. M. — Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. 

The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? 

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age. 

There is a very red osier-like cornel on the shore by the stone-heaps. 

Edward Hoar says he found last year Datum Stramomlum in their garden. Add it, then, to our plants. 

In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above. 

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. 

Melvin says he has found the pigeon hawk’s nest here (distinct from partridge hawk’s); also that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also says the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1858

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. See  August 29, 1858  ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen.")

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. See October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint."); also September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.");  September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side"); September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); ; September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Melvin says that he sometimes sees the large yellow-legs here. 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")

Bathing at Flint's pond.

August 31, 2017

August 31.

Monday. P. M. — To Flint's Pond.

An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton's old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit? 

Our first muskmelon to-day. 

Lycopodium complanatum out, how long? 

I have seen for several days amphicarpaea with perfectly white flowers, in dense clusters. 

At Flint's Pond I wade along the edge eight or ten rods to the wharf rock, carrying my shoes and stockings. 

Am surprised to see on the bottom and washing up on to the shore many little farinaceous roots or tubers like very small potatoes, in strings. I see these at every step for more than a dozen rods and thought they must have been washed up from deeper waters. 

Examining very closely, I trace one long string through the sandy soil to the root of a ground-nut which grew on the edge of the bank, and afterwards see many more, whose tuberous roots lying in the sand are washed bare, the pond being unusually high. 

I could gather quarts of them. I pick up one string floating loose, about eighteen inches long, with as usual a little greenness and vitality at one end, which has thirteen nuts on it about the size of a walnut or smaller. I never saw so many ground-nuts before, and this makes on me the impression of an unusual fertility.

Bathing there, I see a small potamogeton, very common there, wholly immersed and without floating leaves, which rises erect from the sandy bottom in curving rows four or five feet long. On digging I find it to rise from a subterranean shoot which is larger than any part above ground. It may be one I have, whose floating leaves the high water has destroyed or prevented. The leaves of it have small bits of that fresh-water sponge, so strong-scented, on them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1857

Many little farinaceous roots or tubers like very small potatoes, in strings. See August 16 1852 (“Apios tuberosa, ground-nut, a day or two.”)

An abundance of fine high blackberries . . . now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit? See August 10, 1853 ("August, royal and rich . . .It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe . . ."); August 15, 1852 ("The swamp blackberry begins."); August 17, 1853 ("The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have.”); August 22, 1852 ("Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?"); August 23, 1856 ("Now for high blackberries, though the low are gone.” ); August 27, 1857 ("Detected a, to me, new kind of high blackberry on the edge of the cliff beyond Conant's wall . . ."); August 28, 1856 (“low blackberries done, high blackberries still to be had.”); August 31, 1858 (“High blackberries are abundant in Britton’s field. . . . The berries still not more than half black or ripe, keeping fresh in the shade. ”)  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

Old Sam Nutting used to pinch off the first leaves of his melon

July 18. 

Minott says that old Sam Nutting used to pinch off the first leaves of his melon vines as soon as they had three or four leaves, because they only attracted the bugs, and he was quite successful. 

George Bradford says he finds in Salem striped maple and Sambucus pubens. He (and Tuckerman?) found the Utricularia resupinata once in Plymouth, and it seems to correspond with mine at Well Meadow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1857

The Utricularia resupinata ...in Plymouth ... seems to correspond with mine at Well Meadow. See July 18, 1856 ("You see almost everywhere on the muddy river bottom . . . the Utricularia vulgaris, with its black or green bladders, and the two lesser utricularias in many places."): July 18, 1853 ("Three utricularias and perhaps the horned also common now. ")


George Bradford says he finds in Salem striped maple and Sambucus pubens. See June 16, 1856 (To Found in the Purgatory [in Sutton] the panicled elder(Sambucus pubens), partly gone to ribbed seed, but some in flower, new to me;... moose-wood or striped maple..."); September 5, 1856 ("About one mile from West Fitchburg depot, westward, I saw the panicled elderberries on the railroad but just beginning to redden, though it is said to ripen long before this.")

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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 frost last night

September 21. 

September 21, 2014

The first frost in our yard last night, the grass white and stiff in the morning. The muskmelon vines are now blackened in the sun. The forenoon is cold, and I have a fire, but it is a fine clear day, as I find when I come forth to walk in the afternoon. 

A fine-grained air, seething or shimmering as I look over the fields, reminds me of the Indian summer that is to come. Do not these days always succeed the first frosty mornings?

The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, and within the woods many oak, e.g. scarlet and black and chestnut, and other leaves begin to show their colors. 

With this bright, clear, but rather cool air the bright yellow of the autumnal dandelion is in harmony and the heads of the dilapidated goldenrods. 

The gentian is already frost-bitten almost as soon as it is open. 

Those pretty little white oak acorn stars of three rays are now quite common on the ground. 

Lobelia Dortmanna still out at Flint’s Pond. 

The pond is low near the bathing-rock. 

I hear many jays since the frosts began. The nuthatch is common in woods and on street. Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1854

The first frost in our 

yard last night the grass white and 

stiff in the morning.

See September 7, 1857 ("Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather; such weather as we have not had for a long time, a new experience, which arouses a corresponding breeze in us."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first - in these respects- decidedly autumnal evening") ;  September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 15, 1851 ("Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost . . .  the potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost."); September 15, 1859 ("This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines."); September 16, 1854 ("There have been a few slight frosts in some places. "); September 18, 1854 ("I see the potatoes all black with frosts that have occurred within a night or two in Moore’s Swamp."); September 20, 1851 ("On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. . . .All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched.") ;September 20, 1855 ("First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves.."); 

 September 22.

These bracing fine days

when frosts come to ripen the

year, the days, like fruit.

September 22, 1854

September 23.

The summer concludes

with the crisis of first frosts.

The end of berries.

September 23, 1854

September 26, 1858 ("Another smart frost, making dry walking amid the stiffened grass in the morning. "); September 28, 1860 ("This morning we had a very severe frost, the first to kill our vines, etc., in garden; what you may call a black frost, - making things look black. Also ice under pump."); September 29, 1860 ("Another hard frost and a very cold day."): September 30, 1860 ("Frost and ice."); October 1, 1852 ("A severer frost last night");. October 1, 1860 (“Remarkable frost and ice this morning; quite a wintry prospect. The leaves of trees stiff and white.”); October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively"); October 6, 1856 ("I notice the effects of some frost this morning in garden. Some pumpkin vines drooping and black. ");  October 6, 1858 ("Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight"); .October 10, 1857 ("Certainly these are .the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this."); October 11, 1857 ("Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and other leaves strew the water, and it is almost a leaf harvest."); October 11, 1859 ("There was a very severe frost this morning (ground stiffened)"); October 12, 1859 ("There are now apparently very few ferns left . . . This morning's frost will nearly finish them . . . We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage.  . . This phenomenon begins with the very earliest frost (as this year August 17th), which kills some ferns and other most sensitive plants; and so gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November."); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools,; October 15, 1853 ("Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise."); ; October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . . Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen.”); October 16, 1856 (“Ground all white with frost. ”); October 17, 1856 ("Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect"); October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost"); October 21, 1857 (“First ice that I’ve seen or heard of, a tenth of an inch thick in yard, and the ground is slightly frozen.”); October 21, 1852 ("Apparently some flowers yield to the frosts, others linger here and there till the snow buries them."); October 30, 1853(" A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still . . . What with the rains and frosts and winds, the leaves have fairly fallen now. You may say the fall has ended.")

The forenoon is cold, and I have a fire, but it is a fine clear day, as I find when I come forth to walk in the afternoon. See September 21, 1857 ("The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.") See also August 29, 1854 ("I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. ")

The autumnal dandelion. See September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

The gentian is already frost-bitten almost as soon as it is open. See September 14, 1856 ("To Hubbard's Close. Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten ?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th. "); October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively."); October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered"); October 17, 1856 ("Many fringed gentians quite fresh yet, though most are faded and withered. I suspect that their very early and sudden fading and withering has nothing, or little, to do with frost after all, for why should so many fresh ones succeed still? My pressed ones have all faded in like manner! !"); October 19, 1852 ("I found the fringed gentian now some what stale and touched by frost,"); October 27, 1855 ("There are many fringed gentians, now considerably frost-bitten, in what was E. Hosmer’s meadow between his dam and the road.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

I hear many jays since the frosts began. See Septemberr 21, 1859 ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent."); See also September 14, 1854 ("This cooler morning methinks the jays are heard more.");  September 25, 1851 ("In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native. Standing on the Cliffs, I see them flitting and screaming from pine to pine beneath, displaying their gaudy blue pinions. ") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher. See September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink (Rufous-sided Towhee)

September 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 21

The first frost last night –

cold but a fine clear day for

an afternoon walk.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frost last night

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-540921

The yellow afternoon of the year.

August 12

To Conantum by boat.  To-day there is an uncommonly strong wind, against which I row, yet in shirt-sleeves, trusting to sail back. It is southwest.

The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally. 

I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds.

August 12, 2013

It takes all the heat of the year to produce these yellow flowers. It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year when they begin to prevail, — when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen and early apples and peaches.  It is already the yellowing year.

Viburnum nudum berries generally green, but some, higher and more exposed, of a deep, fiery pink on one cheek and light green on the other, and a very few dark purple or without bloom, black already. I put a bunch with only two or three black ones in my hat, the rest pink or green. When I got home more than half were turned black, — and ripe !! A singularly sudden chemical change. They are a very pretty, irregularly elliptical berry, one side longer than the other, and particularly interesting on account of the mixture of light-green, deep-pink, and dark-purple, and also withered berries, in the same cyme. 

The wind is autumnal and at length compels me to put on my coat. 

I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively. 

As I look down-stream from southwest to northeast, I see the red under sides of the white lily pads about half exposed, turned up by the wind to [an] angle of 45 ° or more. These hemispherical red shields are so numerous as to produce a striking effect on the eye, as of an endless array of forces with shields advanced; sometimes four or five rods in width. 

Off Holden Woods a baffling counter wind as usual (when I return), but looking up-stream I see the great undulations extending into the calm from above, where the wind blows steadily. 

There are but few haymakers left in the meadows.

The woodbine on rocks in warm and dry places is now more frequently turned, a few leafets bright-scarlet. 

The now quite common goldenrods fully out are what I have called stricta and also the more strict puberula (?). The arguta and odora are not abundant enough to make an impression. The Solidago nemoralis is not yet generally out. 

The common asters now are the patens, dumosus, Radula, and Diplopappus umbellatus. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1854

To Conantum by boat. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.”)\

Strong wind, against which I row, . . . trusting to sail back. See May 28, 1855 ("Yesterday left my boat at the willow opposite this [Conantum] Cliff, the wind northwest. Now it is southeast, and I can sail back.")

The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally. See August 30,1854 ("The Bidens Beckii made the best show, I think, a week ago, though there may be more of them open now."). See also September 14, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii is drowned or dried up, and has given place to the great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii

I see goldfinches nowadays. See  August 9, 1856 ("Does the [goldfinch] always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds."); August 13, 1854 ("I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?)"); August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it."); August 15, 1854 ("On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.") See alss A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

The red under sides of the white lily pads. See June 29, 1852 ("This is one of the aspects of the river now."); June 30, 1859 (" this not a fall phenomenon yet."August 24,1854 (" It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)

It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year . . . when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen . . .It is already the yellowing year. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year."); August 10, 1853 ("That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen. July could not do it."); August 19, 1853 ("The day is an epitome of the year."); August 23, 1853 "I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day – say an August day – and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”); Walden, "Spring" ("The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.")

Viburnum nudum berries generally green. See August 10, 1853 ("What a moist, fertile heat now! I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing."); August 15, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet."); August 24, 1851 ("Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow?"); August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum

The wind is autumnal and at length compels me to put on my coat. See August 6, 1854 ("The sun is quite hot to-day, but the wind is cool and I question if my thin coat will be sufficient. Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. ")

I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively. See August 14, 1854 ("Though yesterday was quite a hot day, I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler."): September 2, 1854 ("Bathe at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably"); September 12, 1854 ("I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

Off Holden Woods a baffling counter wind as usual. See August 6, 1854 ("The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that.")

There are but few haymakers left in the meadows. See August 17, 1851 ("The hayer's work is done, but I hear no boasting, no firing of guns nor ringing of bells. He celebrates it by going about the work he had postponed "till after haying"") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

The woodbine on rocks in warm and dry places is now more frequently turned, a few leafets bright-scarlet. See July 28, 1852 ("I observed some leaves of woodbine . . . turned a beautiful bright red, perhaps from heat and drought"): August 11, 1852 ("Woodbine is reddening in some places, and ivy too."); September 9, 1858 ("Woodbine scarlet, like a brilliant scarf on high, wrapped around the stem of a green tree."); September 12, 1851 ("What we call woodbine is the Vitis hederacea, or common creeper, or American ivy.")

The now quite common goldenrods fully out are what I have called stricta and also the more strict puberula. See August 21, 1856 ("the prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula), 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea"); September 11, 1857 (Solidago puberula apparently in prime, with the S. stricta, . . . my old S. stricta (early form) must be S. arguta var. juncea. It is now done."); September 15, 1856 ("Early Solidago stricta (that is, arguta) done.")

The common asters now are the patens, dumosus, Radula See August 12, 1856 ("The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look.”); See also August 21, 1856 ("The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens") and July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open . . . This the afternoon of the year.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

August 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 12.

The Bidens Beckii

yellows the side of the river –

the yellowing year.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The yellow afternoon of the year.

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-540812

Now at last, methinks, the most melting season of this year.

August 12

August 12, 2013

To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies. You now see and hear no red-wings along the river as in spring. 

See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here. 

This and the last day or two very hot. Now at last, methinks, the most melting season of this year, though I think it is hardly last year's bathing time, because the water is higher. There is very little air over the water, and when I dip my head in it for coolness, I do not feel any coolness.

Carry watermelons for drink. What more refreshing and convenient! This richest wine in a convenient cask, and so easily kept cool! No foreign wines could be so grateful. If you would cool a watermelon, do not put it in water, which keeps the heat in, but cut it open and set it in a cellar or in the shade. If you have carriage, carry these green bottles of wine.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1853

To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies. See August 4, 1856 ("Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat.")

See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here. See August 24, 1854 ("See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. "); and note to August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream")

August, royal and rich.

August 10

August 10, 2013

August, royal and rich. Green corn now, and melons have begun. That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen. July could not do it. What a moist, fertile heat now! 

I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing.

The heat is furnace-like while I am climbing the steep hills covered with shrubs on the north of Walden, sweet-fern as high as one's head. The goldfinch sings er, twe, trotter trotter. 

Toadstools, which are now very abundant in the woods since the rain, are of various colors, — some red and shining, some polished white, some regularly brown- spotted, some pink, some light-blue, — buttons.

Find the Arabis Canadensis, or sickle-pod, on Heywood Peak, nearly out of bloom. Never saw it before. New plants spring up where old woods are cut off, having formerly grown here, perchance. Many such rarer plants flourish for a few years in such places before they are smothered.

I have also found here, for example, round-leaved and naked-flowered desmodium and Desmodium loe- vigatum (??) and Gnaphalium decurrens and queria. 

Ranunculus repens

The Ranunculus repens numerously out about Britton's Spring. 

A small red maple there, seven or eight feet high, all turned scarlet.

 It is glorious to see those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe there, bending the bushes in moist, rocky sprout-lands, down amid the strong, bracing scented, tender ferns, which you crush with your feet.

The whorled polygala in the Saw Mill Brook Path, beyond the Desmodium paniculatum, may have been out as long as the caducous. 

Is not that small narrow fern I find on Conantum about rocks ebony spleenwort? Now in fruit. 

The trillium fruit (varnished and stained cherry wood) now ripe. 

Boehmeria in prime, for long time. Cohush berries ripe. 

By Everett's wall beyond Cheney's, small rough sunflowers, six feet high, with many branches and flowers. 

Saw an alder locust this morning. Hear a quail now. Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 10, 1853


August, royal and rich. See August 4, 1851 ("It is now the royal month of August. "); August 18, 1852 ("There is indeed something royal about the month of August”)

I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing.See August 11, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are red."); August 12, 1854 ("Viburnum nudum berries generally green, but some, higher and more exposed, of a deep, fiery pink on one cheek and light green on the other, and a very few dark purple or without bloom, black already."); August 15, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet.") 

Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink. See August 10, 1854 ("The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season.");   August 22, 1853  ("Surprised to hear a very faint bobolink in the air; the link, link, once or twice later.");   August 25, 1852 ("I hear no birds sing these days, only . . . the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare.")

I see again the Aster patens . . . though this has no branches nor minute leaves atop. See July 19, 1854 ("I am surprised to see at Walden a single Aster patens "); July 27, 1853 ("I notice to-day the first purplish aster . . . The afternoon of the year.”); August 8, 1852 ("Aster patens and Aster laevis, both a day or two.") see also August 12, 1856 ("The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look.”)

August 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , August 10

 

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

August 10, 2013

Editing a Life

Awakened by an unpleasant dream.

 I hear the ring of crickets in the dark.

 An owl calls outside the skylight.

Another, closer at the window, returns the call.

  Hoo. Arrr. Hoo Arrrrrr.

I am thankful to have been awakened

 and to live here in the woods

I find I am on top of a book.

I turn on the light --

it is the restored edition

 of A Moveable Feast. 

The Introduction says it is about

damaged memory and lost heart.

 I read, "How good a book is

 should be judged by the man who writes it

by the excellence of the material

 that he eliminates."

Zphx, 20130810

What kind of gift is life unless we have spirits to enjoy it and taste its true flavor?  Have the gods sent us into this world to do chores? HDT 18570810

August 10. I hear a warbling vireo, golden robin, red eye and peawais. 

August, royal and rich. Green corn now. and melons have begun. That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen. July could not do it. What a moist, fertile heat now! I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing. 

Alcott spent the day with me yesterday . Ile spent the day before with Emerson. IIe observed that he had got his wine and now he had come after his venison . Such was the compliment he paid me. The question of a livelihood was troubling him . IIe knew of nothing which be could do for which men would pay him . Ile could not compete with the Irish in cradling grain. His early education had not fitted him for a clerkship . He had offered his services to the Abolition Society, to go about the country and speak for freedom as their agent, but they declined him. This is very much to their discredit ; they should have been forward to secure him. Such a connection ,vith him would confer unexpected dignity on their enterprise. But they cannot tolerate a man who stands by a head above them . They are as bad -Garrison and Phillips, etc. -as the overseers and faculty of Harvard College . They require a man who will train well under than. Consequently they have not in their employ any but small men, - trainers. 

P. M. -To Walden and Saw 'Mill Brook. 

These days are very warm, though not so warm as it was in June. The heat is furnace-like while I am climbing the steep bills covered with shrubs on the north of Walden, through sweet-fern as high as one's head. The goldfinch sings er, twe, trotter trotter. 

I see again the Aster patens (amiplexicaulis of Bigelow), though this has no branches nor minute leaves atop. Yet  it differs from the A . undalatus, not yet out plainly, in that. tbc latter's lower leaves are petioled and hearted, with petioles winged at base. 

Find the Arabis Canadensis,  or sickle-pod, on Heywood Pcak, nearly out of bloom. Never saw it before. New plants spring up where old woods are cut off, having formerly grown here, perchance. Many such rarer plants flourish for a few years in such places before they are smothered. 

I have also found here, for example, round-]caved and naked-flowered desmodium and Desmodium Loevigatum (?) and Guaphalium decurrens and queria. 

Toadstools, which tire now very abundant in the woods since the rain, are of various colors, -- some red and shining, some polished white, some regularly brown-spotted, some pink, some light-blue, -- buttons. 

The ]ian-ancwhis rep ens nuincrously out about Britton's Spring. A small red maple there, seven or eight feet high, all turned .scarlet. It is glorious to sec those great shining high blackberries, now partly ripe there, bending the hushes in moist, rocky ,sprout-lands, down amid the Strong, bracing Scented, tender ferns, which you crush with your feet . '1 'he whorled polvgala in the Saw Mill Brook Path, be vond tlic 1)csm.odi2ern panicnlatnrn, rnav have been out as low, is tl)c caducous. Is not that sni,,11 na.rroxv fern I fill(] oil Conanturn about rocks ebony splecn wort - Nmv in fruit . The trillium fruit (~arr;i,I,tcl a :ld .stained ellcrrr NEood) now ripe. I3oehmcri.e 'ill lrr131W, for lor1rr~ tune. Coliush berries ripe. By I?verett's w;dl heyond Chency's, small rough sunflowers, six feet ldglj, with many bra.nelies and flowers . 

Saw an alder locust this morning. Hear a quail now. Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink .