Birch lice.

September 9. 

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground under the wild pear tree on Pedrick's land; some ripe, many more on tree. 

September 9, 2023

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey to-day, says that, when they dug the cellar of Stacy's shop, he saw where they cut through (with the spade) birches six inches in diameter, on which the Mill-Dam had been built; also that Nathan Hosmer, Sr., since dead, told him that he had cut meadow-grass between the bakehouse and the Middlesex Hotel. 

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1853

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground. See August 29, 1852 ("The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall"); September 3, 1859 ("A strong wind, which blows down much fruit. R. W. E. sits surrounded by choice windfall pears."); September 3, 1860 ("See on the two pear trees by the Boze cellar ripe pears, some ripe several days . . . one was quite sweet and good")

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches. See May 21, 1852 ("The latter [birches] are covered with green lice, which cover me."): May 30, 1855 ("Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. "); August 11, 1854 ("Green lice on birches."); August 13, 1852 ("There are green lice now on the birches, but I notice no cotton on them."); September 27, 1852 ("Green lice are still on the birches. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice.")

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey. See October 20, 1857 ("Wesson is so gouty that he rarely comes out-of-doors, and is a spectacle in the street; but he loves to tell his old stories still! "); November 25, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouse"); November 27, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says . . .that the little dipper is not a coot. . - but he appears not to know a coot”)

Lightning here this evening and an aurora in form of a segment of a circle.

May 19. 

Up to about the 14th of May I watched the progress of the season very closely, — though not so carefully the earliest birds, – but since that date, both from poor health and multiplicity of objects, I have noted little but what fell under my observation. 

May 19, 2019

The pear trees are in bloom before the apples. 

The cherries appear to have been blasted by the winter.

 

The lilac has begun to blossom. 

There was the first lightning we have noticed this year, last Sunday evening, and a thunder-storm in Walpole, N. H.  

Lightning here this evening and an aurora in form of a segment of a circle.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1852

The first lightning we have noticed this year. See May 9, 1859 ("The first thunder this afternoon."); May 10, 1857(" A sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first."); May 11, 1854 (“I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night”); May 16, 1853 ("People stand at their doors in the warm evening, listening to the muttering of distant thunder and watching the forked lightning, now descending to the earth, now ascending to the clouds. This the first really warm day and thunder-shower"); May 20, 1856 ("So now is Nature’s grandest voice heard, and her sharpest flashes seen."); May 29, 1857 ("A first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind.")

An aurora in form of a segment of a circle. See May 10, 1852 ("There is an aurora borealis to-night.");  June 16, 1852 ("There are northern lights, shooting high up withal.");July 12, 1852 ("As I sit on the river-bank beyond the ash tree there is an aurora, a low arc of a circle, in the north.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

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

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

Windfalls

September 3. 

A strong wind, which blows down much fruit. R. W. E. sits surrounded by choice windfall pears.

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


See August 29, 1852 ("The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall"); September 13, 1852 ("Yesterday, it rained all day, with considerable wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls"); September 17, 1858 ("The orchards are strewn with windfalls, mostly quite green. ") See also September 3, 1860 ("See on the two pear trees by the Boze cellar ripe pears, some ripe several days  . . . one was quite sweet and good")