A Season for Muskrat-cabins (the tree sparrow comes from the north)

November 5.


P. M. -- To Hubbard Bathing-Place for shrubs.

Most of the muskrat-cabins were lately covered by the flood, but now that it has gone down in a great measure, leaving the cranberries stranded amid the wreck of rushes, reeds, grass, etc., I notice that they have not been washed away or much injured, as a heap of manure would have been, they are so artificially constructed.

Moreover, for the most part they are protected, as well as concealed, by the button-bushes, willows, or weeds about them.

What exactly are they for?

This is not their breeding season.

I think that they are merely an artificial bank, an air-chamber near the water, houses of refuge.

But why do they need them more at this season than in the summer, it may be asked.

Perhaps they are constructed just before the rise of the water in the fall and winter, so that they may not have to swim so far as the flood would require in order to eat their clams.

I heard some pleasant notes from tree sparrows on the willows as I paddled by.

The buds of the rhodora are among the more conspicuous now, and yet more its seed-vessels, many if not most of which are not yet dry, but purplish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1853

Most of the muskrat-cabins were lately covered by the flood, but I notice that they have not been washed away or much injured they are so artificially constructed. What exactly are they for? so that they may not have to swim so far as the flood would require in order to eat their clams? See September 20, 1855 ("Open a new and pretty sizable muskrat-house with no hollow yet made in it. "); September 26, 1857 ("I see musquash-houses"); October 15, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses appear now for the most part to be finished. Some, it is true, are still rising. They line the river all the way. "); October 16, 1859 ("I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores . .So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia and flags.") October 18, 1852 ("A few muskrat houses are going up abrupt and precipitous on one side sloped on the other I distinguish the dark moist layer of weeds deposited last night on what had dried in the sun."): November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either"); November 4, 1855 ("Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather."); November 7, 1855 ("Opened a muskrat-house nearly two feet high, but there was no hollow to it. Apparently they do not form that part yet."); November 11, 1855 ("The bricks of which the muskrat builds his house are little masses or wads of the dead weedy rubbish on the muddy bottom, which it probably takes up with its mouth. It consists of various kinds of weeds, now agglutinated together by the slime and dried confervae threads, utricularia, hornwort, etc., — a streaming, tuft-like wad. The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off.”); November 15, 1859 ("I see several musquash-cabins off Hubbard Shore distinctly outlined as usual in the November light."); ;November 16, 1852 ("Muskrat-houses completed. Interesting objects looking down a river-reach at this season, and our river should not be represented without one or two of these cones. They are quite conspicuous half a mile distant, and are of too much importance to be omitted in the river landscape."); December 3, 1853 ("I see that muskrats have not only erected cabins, but, since the river rose, have in some places dug galleries a rod into the bank,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

I  heard some pleasant notes from tree sparrows on the willows as I paddled by. See November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. . . .To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

Sat at the end of Long Wharf.

November 5.

In Boston. — The first Indian-summer day, after an unusually cold October. 

November 5, 2020

Sat at the end of Long Wharf for coolness, but it was very warm, with scarcely a breath of wind, and so thick a haze that I could see but little way down the harbor.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1859

The first Indian-summer day, See November 1, 2015 ("A beautiful Indian-summer day, the most remarkable hitherto and equal to any of the kind. "); November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. and probably warmer at two.");November 6, 1857 ("Thermometer on north of the house 70° at 12 M. Indian summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Sat at the end of Long Wharf . See December 25, 1853 ("When I go to Boston, I go naturally straight through the city down to the end of Long Wharf and look off")

I hear one cricket this louring day.

November 5. 

November 5, 2018

Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The river has risen somewhat, on account of rain yesterday and the 30th. So it was lowest the 30th. That great fleet of leaves of the 21st October is now sunk to the bottom, near the shore, and are flatted out there, paving it thickly, and but few recently fallen are to be seen on the water; and in the woods the leaves do not lie up so crisp since the rain.

Saw Stewart shoot a Carolina rail, which was standing on the side of a musquash-cabin off Prichard’s, within two rods of him. This has no black throat and is probably the female. 

The large shallow cups of the red oak acorns look like some buttons I have seen which had lost their core. 

The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. It is apparently in the height of its color there now, or, if more exposed, perhaps it would have been on the 1st of November. This makes it the latest tree to change. The leaves are drooping, like the C. sericea, while those of some sprouts at its base are horizontal. Some incline to crimson. 

A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. Judging from the two aspens, this tree, and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves. 

Little dippers were seen yesterday. 

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. 

Water milkweed has been discounting some days, with its small upright pods. 

I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note, less creaking than before. 

A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on. 

The common smooth rose leaves are pretty conspicuously yellow yet along the river, and some dull-reddish high blackberry is seen by the roads. Also meadow sweet is observed yet with the rose. 

It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker. 

That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans, is, me thinks, more noticeable now than in summer on the surface of the fuller stream, green and purple. 

Meadow-sweet is a prominent yellow yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1858


Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests See September 7, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail."); September 9, 1858 ("Rice says he saw two meadow-hens when getting his hay in Sudbury some two months ago, and that they breed there. They kept up a peculiar note. My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana."); September 18, 1858 ("Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here."); October 3, 1858 ("One brings me this morning a Carolina rail alive, this year’s bird evidently from its marks. . . . I suspect it may have been hatched here.");October 22, 1858 ("C. tells of hearing after dark the other night frequent raucous notes which were new to him, on the ammannia meadow, in the grass. Were they not meadow-hens? Rice says he saw one within a week."); June 1, 1859 ("Some boys found yesterday, in tussock of sedge amid some flags in a wet place in Cyrus Hosmer's meadow, west of the willow-row, six inches above the water, the nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs."); July 16, 1860 ("Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young, who are meanwhile uttering a very faint, somewhat similar peep")


The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. See October 28, 1858 (“The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen.”)

A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. See October 28, 1858 (“The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees.”) and note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. See November 5, 1855 (“The distant willow-tops are yellowish . . . in the right light. . . ..[B]irches, clear yellow at top”)

I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note. See November 1, 1858 ("I hear in the fields just before sundown a shriller chirping of a few crickets, reminding me that their song is getting thin and will soon be quenched"); November 3, 1858 ("Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans.  See September 3, 1858 (“That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water.”)

November 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 5

I hear one cricket 

more distinct this louring day  – 

and more musical. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I hear one cricket this louring day. 

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/hdt05nov1858

The thing that really concerns me is not there.

November 5. 

P. M. — To the Dam Meadows. 

But little corn is left in the field now, and that looks rather black. There is an abundance of cat-tail in the Dam Meadows. 

Returning, talked with Minott. He told me how he and Harry Hooper used to go to Howard's meadow (Heywood's, by the railroad) when it was flowed and kill fishes through the ice. They would cuft a long stick and go carefully over the ice when it was only a couple of inches thick, and when they saw a fish, strike the ice smartly, cracking it in all directions, right over him, and when he turned his belly, being stunned, would cut him out quickly before he came to. These were little fishes which he called “prods.” He didn’t know much more about them. They were somewhat like a small pout, but had different heads. They got so many once that he told Harry to cut a stick and string them and they'd give them to Zilpha as they went by. He has caught pickerel in the brook there which weighed two or three pounds.

He went to Bateman’s Pond once in the winter to catch minnows with a net through the ice, but didn’t get any. He went—rode—with Oliver Williams first into Acton and then round to this pond on this errand. 

Minott was rather timid. One day early in the winter he had been over to Fair Haven Hill after a fox with John Wyman, but they didn’t get him. The pond was frozen about two inches thick, but you could easily see the water through the ice, and when they came back, Wyman said he was going straight across because it was nearer, but Minott objected. But Wyman told him to follow; it was safe enough. Minott followed half a dozen rods and then decided that he wouldn’t risk it and went back; he’d go ten miles round sooner than cross. “But,” said Minott, “the fellow kept on and I’ll be hanged if he didn’t get safe across.” 

The pitch pines generally have lost their leaves now, and the larches are fast falling. The elms have been bare some time. 

November 4, 2021

 "My thoughts are with the

 polypody a long time after 

my body has passed."

November 2, 1857

Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it, — as those polypodies. The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that. That is a mere reflecting surface. 

It is not the polypody in my pitcher or herbarium, or which I may possibly persuade to grow on a bank in my yard, or which is described in botanies, that interests me, but the one that I pass by in my walks a little distance off, when in the right mood. Its influence is sporadic, wafted through the air to me. Do you imagine its fruit to stick to the back of the leaf all winter? At this season polypody is in the air. 

It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green. 

Start up a snipe feeding in a wet part of the Dam Meadows. 

I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you. The important fact is its effect on me. He thinks that I have no business to see anything else but just what he defines the rainbow to be, but I care not whether my vision of truth is a waking thought or dream remembered, whether it is seen in the light or in the dark. It is the subject of the vision, the truth alone, that concerns me. The philosopher for whom rainbows, etc., can be explained away never saw them. With regard to such objects, I find that it is not they themselves (with which the men of science deal) that concern me; the point of interest is somewhere between me and them (i. e. the objects). . . . 

And where does your Eastern stuff go to? Whose houses does it build? It has built Bangor, and what is the precise value of Bangor, omitting the lumber on its wharves? Western stuff is good enough for me. I think that this craving a better material than we deserve, and wasting what we get, is the secret of bankruptcy. And what is it, after all, but lumber? I do not wish to see any more poor men in rich houses. I would rather see one rich man in a poor house. No more cripples on stilts. . . . 

For a man to pride himself on this kind of wealth, as if it enriched him, is as ridiculous as if one struggling in the ocean with a bag of gold on his back should gasp out, “I am worth a hundred thousand dollars!” I see his ineffectual struggles just as plainly, and what it is that sinks him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1857

The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green. See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time. See November 2, 1857 (“My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed. ”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Polypody

Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing . . .  for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that. See September 13, 1852 ("I must walk more with free senses. I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking. . . .. Go not to the object; let it come to you.”); August 7, 1853 ("The objects I behold correspond to my mood.“); May 6, 1854 ("There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective.”);  February 20, 1857 ("If I were to discover that a certain kind of stone by the pond-shore was affected, say partially disintegrated, by a particular natural sound, as of a bird or insect, I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other."); April 15, 1859 ("We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them . . . Whether a man's work be hard or easy, whether he be happy or unhappy, a bird is appointed to sing to a man while he is at his work.")

November 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 5

It is worth the while 

to walk in swamps now – to bathe 

your eyes with greenness.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The thing that really concerns me is not there

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-571105

The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October

November 5

P. M. --  To foot of Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard’s Grove.

I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. 

Crossing the Depot Field Brook, I observe the downy, fuzzy globular tops of the Aster puniceus. They are slightly tinged with yellow, compared with the hoary gray of the goldenrod. 

The distant willow-tops are yellowish like them in the right light.

At Hubbard’s Crossing I see a large male hen-harrier skimming over the meadow, its deep slate somewhat sprinkled or mixed with black; perhaps young. It flaps a little and then sails straight forward, so low it must rise at every fence. But I perceive that it follows the windings of the meadow over many fences.

Walk through Potter’s Swamp.

The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October. The still bright leaves which I see as I walk along the river edge of this swamp are birches, clear yellow at top; high blueberry, some very bright scarlet red still; some sallows; Viburnum nudum, fresh dark red; alder sprouts, large green leaves. 

Swamp-pink buds now begin to show.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1855

A large male hen-harrier skimming over the meadow. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. See November 2, 1852 ("Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias"); November 2, 1853 ("The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. I see hedge-mustard very fresh."); November 3, 1852 ("Shepherd's-purse abundant still in gardens."); November 10, 1858 ("Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost."); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.."); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc., etc."); December 7, 1852 ("The shepherd's-purse is in full bloom.")

Birches, clear yellow at top. See November 5, 1858 ("The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch.") See also  October 28, 1854 ("Birches . . . are still in many places yellow.”); October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,"); October 26, 1857 ("Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches.”); October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.")

Swamp-pink buds now begin to show. See October 12, 1851 ("The swamp-pink buds begin to show");

October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds [of ] the swamp-pink, some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed-vessels, red, etc."); November 8, 1857 ("The swamp-pink's large yellowish buds, too, are conspicuous now."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

I see shepherd’s-purse, 

hedge-mustard, and red clover 

— November flowers.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November flowers

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 ©  2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-18551105

A Book of the Seasons: November 5 (muskrat cabins, Indian summer, November flowers, evergreen ferns, fewer birds, last fall foliage, conspicuous buds)

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

November 5

Some pleasant notes from

tree sparrows on the willows 

as I paddle by. 

November 5, 1853

I see in flocks and 

hear sing now by wood-sides the 

fox-colored sparrow.

November 5, 1854

I see shepherd’s-purse,

hedge-mustard, and red clover – 

November flowers.

November 5, 1855

It is worth the while 

to walk in swamps now, to bathe 

your eyes with greenness. 

November 5, 1857

Earliest to leaf –

aspen, willow, white maple – 

last to lose their leaves. 

November 5, 1858

And so thick a haze

that I could see but little 

way down the harbor. 

November 5, 1859

In the natural state

when given sufficient time

each tree knows its place.

November 5, 1860

The notes of the jays 

attracted by the acorns –

the only sounds heard. 

November 5, 1860

The cooler weather

heralds our winter with an

arch of northern lights.

November 5, 1860

November 5, 2020

The buds of the rhodora are among the more conspicuous now.  November 5, 1853

Most of the muskrat-cabins were lately covered by the flood, but now that it has gone down in a great measure . . . I notice that they have not been washed away or much injured . . . What exactly are they for? This is not their breeding season . . . why do they need them more at this season than in the summer. November 5, 1853

I heard some pleasant notes from tree sparrows on the willows as I paddled by. November 5, 1853 

I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides. November 5, 1854

The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October. November 5, 1855

I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. November 5, 1855

The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that. That is a mere reflecting surface. It is not the polypody . . . that interests me, but the one that I pass by in my walks a little distance off, when in the right mood . . . Give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you [not] as something independent on you, [but] as it is related to you. The important fact is its effect on me . . .  I care not whether my vision of truth is a waking thought or dream remembered. . . It is the subject of the vision, the truth alone, that concerns me . . . I find that it is not [objects] themselves . . . that concern me; the point of interest is somewhere between me and . . . the objects. November 5, 1857

It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green. November 5, 1857

At this season polypody is in the air. It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. November 5, 1857

Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it, — as those polypodies. The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time.  November 5, 1857

Swamp-pink buds now begin to show. November 5, 1855

The still bright leaves which I see as I walk along the river edge of this swamp are birches, clear yellow at top; high blueberry, some very bright scarlet red still; some sallows. November 5, 1855

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch . . . A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on.  November 5, 1858 

Judging from the two aspens, this [white maple], and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves. November 5, 1858 

I hear one cricket this louring day . . . It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker. November 5, 1858

The first Indian-summer day, after an unusually cold October . . . very warm, with scarcely a breath of wind, and so thick a haze that I could see but little way down the harbor.  November 5, 1859

This  wood is  a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old. I am struck by the orderly arrangement of the trees, as if each knew its own place. As if in the natural state of things, when sufficient time is given, trees will be found occupying the places most suitable to each. November 5, 1860 

The only sounds I hear are the notes of the jays, attracted by the acorns, and the only animal I see is a red squirrel. November 5, 1860

Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness  Thus our winter is heralded. November 5, 1860

*****  

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Polypody

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

*****  

October 16, 1859 ("I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores . . . So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising.") 

October 20, 1860 ("I examine Ebby Hubbard's old oak and pine wood. The trees may be a hundred years old.”)

October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum  . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”)

October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.")

October 28, 1857 (“On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them. ”)  

October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds [of ] the swamp-pink, some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed- vessels, red, etc.") 

November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. and probably warmer at two.")

November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either"); November 4, 1855 ("Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather.")

November 2, 1853 ("The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. I see hedge-mustard very fresh.")

November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ... The trees would average probably between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Such a wood has got to be very rare in this neighborhood.”)  

November 2, 1857 ("My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed.")

November 2, 1858 ("That small poplar seen from Cliffs on the 29th is a P. tremuloides. It makes the impression of a bright and clear yellow at a distance, though it is rather dingy and spotted. It is later, then (this and the Baker Farm one), than any P. grandidentata that I know. ")

November 3, 1852 ("Shepherd's-purse abundant still in gardens.");

November 4, 1851 ("The jays with their scream are at home in the scenery.")

November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”);  

November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

November 6, 1857 ("Wind southwest. Thermometer on north of the house 70° at 12 M. Indian summer.")

November 7, 1855 ("Birds are pretty rare now. I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain,— a jay at a distance; and see a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights.")

November 7, 1857 ("This has been another Indian-summer day. Thermometer 58° at noon.")

November 8, 1857 ("The swamp-pink's large yellowish buds, too, are conspicuous now.")

November 10, 1853 ("There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow.")

November 10, 1858 ("Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.")

November 10, 1858 ("By the 10th of November we conclude with the scarlet oak dulled (and the colors of October generally faded), with a few golden spangles on the white birches and on a lingering Populus tremuliformis.")

November 10, 1860 ("Inches Wood . . .as fine an oak wood as there is in New England.").

November 11, 1855 ("I hear but a tree sparrow and a chickadee this voyage.")

November 16, 1853  ("I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock and various other ferns,")

November 5, 2023

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 

September 5 <<<<<<<<<  November 5  >>>>>>>> January 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 5

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 © 2009-2022

I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.

November 5

November 5, 2023

I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1854

I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides. See October 28, 1857 (“On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them.”); November 6, 1853 ("It is surprising how little most of us are contented to know about the sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows .. . how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way.") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

November 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 5

I see in flocks and 

hear sing now by wood-sides the 

fox-colored sparrow.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides

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-54nov05