As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look..

September 10

As I watch the groves on the meadow opposite our house, I see how differently they look at different hours of the day, i. e. in different lights, when the sun shines on them variously. In the morning, perchance, they seem one blended mass of light green. In the afternoon, distinct trees appear, separated by heavy shadows, and in some places I can see quite through the grove.

3 P M. - To the Cliffs and the Grape Cliff beyond.

Hardhack and meadow-sweet are now all dry.

I see the smoke of burning brush in the west horizon this dry and sultry afternoon, and wish to look off from some hill. It is a kind of work the farmer cannot do without discovery. Sometimes I smell these smokes several miles off, and by the odor know it is not a burning building, but withered leaves and the rubbish of the woods and swamp.

As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look.

The boiling spring is almost completely dry. Nothing flows (I mean without the shed), but there are many hornets and yellow wasps apparently buzzing and circling about in jealousy of one another, either drinking the stagnant water, which is the most accessible this dry parching day, or it may be collecting something from the slime, - I think the former.

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I see some signs of the approaching fall of the white pine. On some trees the old leaves are already somewhat reddish, though not enough to give the trees a parti-colored look, and they come off easily on being touched, - the old leaves on the lower part of the twigs.

Some farmers are sowing their winter rye? I see the fields smoothly rolled. (I hear the locust still.) I see others plowing steep rocky and bushy fields, apparently for the same purpose.

How beautiful the sproutland (burnt plain) seen from the Cliff! No more cheering and inspiring sight than a young wood springing up thus over a large tract, when you look down on it, the light green of the maples shaded off into the darker oaks, and here and there a maple blushes quite red, enlivening the scene yet more.

Surely this earth is fit to be inhabited, and many enterprises may be undertaken with hope where so many young plants are pushing up.

In the spring I burned over a hundred acres till the earth was sere and black, and by midsummer this space was clad in a fresher and more luxuriant green than the surrounding even.

Shall man then despair? Is he not a sprout-land too, after never so many searings and witherings? If you witness growth and luxuriance, it is all the same as if you grew luxuriantly.

I see three smokes in Stow. One sends up dark volumes of wreathed smoke, as if from the mouth of Erebus. It is remarkable what effects so thin and subtile a substance as smoke produces, even at a distance, -- dark and heavy and powerful as rocks at a distance.

The woodbine is red on the rocks.

The poke is a very rich and striking plant. Some which stand under the Cliffs quite dazzled me with their now purple stems gracefully drooping each way, their rich, somewhat yellowish, purple-veined leaves, their bright purple racemes, -- peduncles, and pedicels, and calyx-like petals from which the birds have picked the berries (these racemes, with their petals now turned to purple, are more brilliant than anything of the kind), -- flower-buds, flowers, ripe berries and dark purple ones, and calyx-like petals which have lost their fruit, all on the same plant.

I love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the richest color. I love to press these berries between my fingers and see their rich purple wine staining my hand. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year. It speaks to my blood.

Every part of it is flower, such is its superfluity of color, -- a feast of color. That is the richest flower which most abounds in color. What need to taste the fruit, to drink the wine, to him who can thus taste and drink with his eyes? Its boughs, gracefully drooping, offering repasts to the birds. It is cardinal in its rank, as in its color.

Nature here is full of blood and heat and luxuriance. What a triumph it appears in Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, -- as if this were enough for a summer.

The downy seeds of the groundsel are taking their flight here. The calyx has dismissed them and quite curled back, having done its part.

Lespedeza sessiliflora, or reticulated lespedeza on the Cliffs now out of bloom.

At the Grape Cliff, the few bright-red leaves of the tupelo contrast with the polished green ones. The tupelos with drooping branches.

The grape-vines overrunning and bending down the maples form little arching bowers over the meadow, five or six feet in diameter, like parasols held over the ladies of the harem, in the East.

Cuscuta Americana, or dodder, in blossom still.

The Desmodium paniculatum of De Candolle and Gray (Hedysarum paniculatum of Linnaeus and Bigelow), tick-trefoil, with still one blossom, by the path-side up from the meadow.  The rhomboidal joints of its loments adhere to my clothes. One of an interesting family that thus disperse themselves.

The oak-ball of dirty drab now.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1851

How differently they look at different hours of the day. See February 5, 1852 ("The trunks and branches of the trees are of different colors at different times and in different lights and weathers, - in sun, rain, and in the night.”); February 9, 1852 ("Objects do not twice present exactly the same appearance. The air changes from hour to hour of every day. It paints and glasses everything. It is a new glass placed over the picture every hour")

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I see some signs of the approaching fall of the white pine. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

As I go through the woods, I see that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal look. September 6, 1854 ("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered);   September 12, 1858("Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

The grape-vines overrunning and bending down the maples form little arching bowers over the meadow. See September 8, 1854 (" Sometimes I crawl under low and thick bowers, where they have run over the alders only four or five feet high, and see the grapes hanging from a hollow hemisphere of leaves over my head. At other times I see them dark-purple or black against the silvery undersides of the leaves, high overhead where they have run over birches or maples, and either climb or pull them down to pluck them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Grape

The Desmodium paniculatum . . . tick-trefoil, with still one blossom, by the path-side up from the meadow. See August 7, 1856 ("At Blackberry Steep, apparently an early broad-leafed variety of Desmodium paniculatum, two or three days. This and similar plants are common there and may almost name the place . . . All these plants seem to love a dry open hillside, a steep one. Are rarely upright, but spreading, wand-like."); September 29, 1856 ("I can hardly clamber along the grape cliff now with out getting my clothes covered with desmodium ticks, — there especially the rotundifolium and paniculatum. Though you were running for your life, they would have time to catch and cling to your clothes . . .How surely the desmodium, growing on some rough cliff-side, or the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller, brute or human, that will transport their seeds on his coat! ")

'

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. (All the year is a spring.)

 October 9.

October 9, 2023

Heard two screech owls in the night.

Boiled a quart of acorns for breakfast, but found them not so palatable as raw, having acquired a bitterish taste, per chance from being boiled with the shells and skins; yet one would soon get accustomed to this.

The sound of foxhounds in the woods, heard now, at 9 A. M., in the village, reminds me of mild winter mornings.

2 P. M. - To Conantum.

In the maple woods the ground is strewn with new fallen leaves.

I hear the green locust again on the alders of the causeway, but he is turned a straw-color. The warm weather has revived them.

All the acorns on the same tree are not equally sweet. They appear to dry sweet.

From Conantum I see them getting hay from the meadow below the Cliffs. It must have been quite dry when cut.

The black ash has lost its leaves, and the white here is dry and brownish yellow, not having turned mulberry.

I see half a dozen snakes in this walk, green and striped (one very young striped one), who appear to be out enjoying the sun. They appear to make the most of the last warm days of the year.

The hills and plain on the opposite side of the river are covered with deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks.

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow.

***

October 9, 2023

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground.

It is an extremely interesting plant, — October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very earliest spring. Its blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid all these signs of autumn, falling leaves and frost, that the life of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched.

It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other.

I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. 

While its leaves fall, its 

blossoms spring. The autumn, then, 

is indeed a spring.

All the year is a spring.

I see two blackbirds high overhead, going south, but I am going north in my thought with these hazel blossoms.  It is a faery place.

This is a part of the immortality of the soul.

When I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects to extract honey from its flowers, – that perchance they yielded no honey, – I saw a bee upon it. How important, then, to the bees this late-blossoming plant!

October 9, 2023

***

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion.

The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground.

As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring.

I see a large sucker rise to the surface of the river.

I hear the crickets singing loudly in the walls as they have not done (so loudly) for some weeks, while the sun is going down shorn of his rays by the haze.

There is a thick bed of leaves in the road under Hubbard's elms.

This reminds me of Cato, as if the ancients made more use of nature.
He says, “ Stramenta si deerunt, frondem iligneam legito, eam substernito ovibus bubusque.” (If litter is wanting, gather the leaves of the holm oak and strew them under your sheep and oxen.) In another place he says, “Circum vias ulmos serito, et partim populos, uti frondem ovibus et bubus habeas.” 

I suppose they were getting that dry meadow grass for litter. There is little or no use made by us of the leaves of trees, not even for beds, unless it be sometimes to rake them up in the woods and cast into hog-pens or compost-heaps.

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed.

H. D, Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1851

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! "); October 13, 1859 ("I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom "); October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare"); October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects. See Bernd Heinrich, “Thermoregulation in Winter Moths.” Sci. Am 277: 73–83 (1987. ); Anderson & Hill (2002)("Given the morphology of H. virginiana flowers, the exposed glistening staminodes where a thin film of nectar is produced, the small exposed floral parts, the sugar ratio, and documented visits to some of the flowers open in late September or early October, small bees are also potential pollinators") and The Pollination Puzzle of American Witch Hazel (December 2020)

Heard two screech owls in the night. See September 9, 1859 ("Within a week I think I have heard screech owls at evening from over the river once or twice."); October 28, 1855 ("As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. . . . So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand. "); November 24, 1858 ("I hear a screech owl in Wheeler’s wood by the railroad, and I heard one a few evenings ago at home") and note to September 23, 1855 ("I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl

Deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); November 25, 1858 ("Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground. "); November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner."); December 1. 1856 ("The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields . . .The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch.")

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow. See October 19, 1856 ("The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff");  October 23, 1852 ("The white pines have shed their leaves, making a yellow carpet on the grass, but the pitch pines are yet parti-colored.")

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown"); October 13, 1859 (" I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

 The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. See October 9, 1852 ("Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.") See also June 23, 1851 ("P. argentea, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom.")

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground. See October 5, 1857 ("Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter"); March 3, 1859 ("Channing tells me he has met with a sassafras tree in New Bedford woods, which, according to a string which he put round it, is eleven and three quarters feet in circumference at about three feet from the ground.") See also September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. See October 8, 1856 ("A song sparrow utters a full strain"); October 26, 1855 ("The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe. . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. . . .I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems"); August 26, 1856 ("I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed."); October 5, 1857 ("There is a great abundance of poke [on Eb Hubbard's hill]. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.")

The witch-hazel here

is in full blossom on this

magical hillside.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Witch hazel in bloom

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/HDT511009

The chestnuts on Pine Hill in blossom.

July 19.


P. M.--R. W. E.'s cliff.


Phytolacca decandra, poke, in blossom.

The Cerasus pumila ripe.

The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom reveals the rounded tops of the trees; separates them, and makes a richer and more varied scene.


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

The Cerasus pumila ripe. See July 28, 1856 ("Sand cherry ripe. The fruit droops in umble-like clusters, two to four peduncles together, on each side the axil of a branchlet or a leaf.") See also May 22, 1855 ("Cerasus pumila in full bloom.")

The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom. See July 14, 1860 ("Perceive now the light-colored tops of chestnuts in bloom.") See also October 19, 1855 ("To Pine Hill for chestnuts."); October 20, 1852 (“Picking chestnuts on Pine Hill."); October 22, 1852 ("Looking over the forest on Pine Hill, I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sunshine and which are the yellow chestnut-tops."); October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts."); October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders."); October 24, 1857 ("I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. ")

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

A warm and bright October afternoon.

October  5

October 5, 2024

[Begins now ten days of perfect Indian summer without rain; 

and the eleventh and twelfth days equally warm, though rainy.] 

October 5, 2019

P. M. – To Yellow Birch Swamp. 

I go by the river and Hunt's Bridge. A warm and bright October afternoon. 

One man is making a gutter, to be prepared for rains, in his piece recently laid down in Merrick's pasture, where the grass is just springing up. 

I see many haws still green and hard, though their leaves are mostly fallen. Do they ever turn red and edible? Their leaves are a very dull reddish cast. 

The surface of the river sparkles in this air here and there. 

I see in most orchards the apples in heaps under the trees, and ladders slanted against their twiggy masses. 

The earth shines now as much as, or more than, ever in spring, especially the bare and somewhat faded fields, pastures, stubble, etc. The light is reflected as from a ripe surface, no longer absorbed to secure maturity. 

I go north by Jarvis's lane from the old pump-maker's house. 

There is not that profusion and consequent confusion of events which belongs to a summer's walk. There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. The cawing of a crow, the scream of a jay. 

The latter seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. The jay's voice resounds through the vacancies occasioned by fallen maple leaves.

The mulberry [or ash] was perhaps the first tree that was conspicuously turned after the maples. Many maples are still quite green; so that their gala-day will be prolonged. 

I see some hickories now a crisped mass of imbrowned yellow, green in the recesses, sere brown on the prominences, though the eye does not commonly thus discriminate. 

The smooth sumach is very important for its mass of clear red or crimson. Some of it is now a very dark crimson. 

In the old Carlisle road I see a great many pitch pine twigs or plumes, cast down, evidently, by squirrels, — but for what? 

Many are now gathering barberries. 

Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter. There are seven or eight within two rods. Leaves curled, but not changed. 

See a red squirrel cast down a chestnut bur. 

The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring. 

The yellow birch is somewhat yellowed. 

See a cherry-bird. 

Many robins feeding on poke berries on Eb Hubbard's hill. 

There is a great abundance of poke there. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple. 

I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. I see him running by fits and starts along a chestnut bough toward me. His head looks disproportionately large for his body, like a bulldog's, perhaps because he has his chaps full of nuts. He chirrups and vibrates his tail, holds himself in, and scratches along a foot as if it were a mile. He finds noise and activity for both of us. It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous. He can hardly keep it up till I am gone, however, but takes out his nut and tastes it in the midst of his agitation. “See there, see there,” says he, “who's that? O dear, what shall I do?” and makes believe run off, but doesn’t get along an inch, – lets it all pass off by flashes through his tail, while he clings to the bark as if he were holding in a race-horse. He gets down the trunk at last on to a projecting knot, head downward, within a rod of you, and chirrups and chatters louder than ever. Tries to work himself into a fright. The hind part of his body is urging the forward part along, snapping the tail over it like a whip-lash, but the fore part, for the most part, clings fast to the bark with desperate energy. 

Squirr, “to throw with a jerk,” seems to have quite as much to do with the name as the Greek skia oura, shadow and tail. 

The lower limbs of trees often incline downwards as if from sympathy with the roots; the upper tend upwards with the leading stem. 

I found on the 4th, at Conantum, a half-bushel of barberries on one clump about four feet in diameter at base, falling over in wreaths on every side. I filled my basket, standing behind it without being seen by other pickers only a dozen rods off. Some great clumps on Melvin's preserve, no doubt, have many more on them. 

I hear nowadays again the small woodpecker's sharp, shrill note from high on the trees. . . . 

It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here, lasted through the summer in that latitude, as the peeping of hylodes and blossoming of some flowers that long since withered here were there still freshly in bloom, in that fresher and cooler atmosphere, — the calla for instance. To say nothing of the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall. Just as a river which here freezes only a certain distance from the shore, follow it further north, is found to be completely bridged over. The toads, too, as I have said, rang at this season. What is summer where Indian corn will not ripen?

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

There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. See October 5, 1851("The nights now are very still, for there is hardly any noise of birds or of insects")

Many are now gathering barberries. See September 16. 1857 ("Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season."); September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”); September 19, 1856 (“Gather just half a bushel of barberries on hill in less than two hours, or three pecks to-day and yesterday in less than three hours. It is singular that I have so few, if any, competitors.”); September 24, 1859 ("A great many have improved this first fair day to come a-barberrying to the Easterbrooks fields."); September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”); September 28, 1859 ("Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time"); September 29, 1854 ("Now is the time to gather barberries"); October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Common Barberry

I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. See September 28, 1851 ("I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays"); December 1, 1857 ("I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree."); March 30, 1859 ("Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

The jay seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. Compare  October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance."). See September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 21, 1859 ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent"): October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.”); October 11, 1856 (“In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him.”);  October 20, 1856  ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter. . .we hear the jay again more frequently,"); November 3, 1858 ("The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves,. . .It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

There are few flowers

birds, insects or fruits now, and 

hence what does occur –

affects us as more simple 

and significant. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A warm and bright October afternoon. 

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-571005 

Scarlet berry season.

September 28. 

P. M. — To old mill-site behind Ponkawtasset.

Black or purplish-black

poke berries hanging around

the bright-purple stems.

(poison)

Poke berries in the sprout-land east of the red huckleberry still fresh and abundant, perhaps a little past prime. I never saw so many. The plants stand close together, and their drooping racemes three to five inches long, of black or purplish-black berries , almost crowd one another, hanging around the bright-purple, now for the most part bare, stems.

I hear some birds about, but see none feeding on the berries. I could soon gather bushels there. 

The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. A large cluster is two and a half inches long by two wide and rather flattish. One, which has ripened prematurely, the stalk being withered and drooping, resembles a very short thick ear of scarlet corn. This might well enough be called snake-corn. These singular vermilion-colored berries, about a hundred of them, surmount a purple bag on a peduncle six or eight inches long. 

It is one of the most remarkable and dazzling, if not the handsomest, fruits we have. These were by violet wood-sorrel wall. 

How many fruits are scarlet now! — barberries, prinos, etc.

A flock of vireo-like, somewhat yellowish birds, very neat, white beneath and olive above, in garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1856


Poke, arum ... See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe. . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn.");  August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows."); September 2, 1853 (" The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion .”); September 3, 1853  ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man."); September 27, 1852 ("The arum berries are now in perfection, cone-shaped spikes an inch and a half long, of scarlet or vermilion- colored, irregular, somewhat pear-shaped berries springing from a purplish core.")

How many fruits are scarlet now! See September 28, 1851 ("The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos,") See also August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.")

Warm and pleasant weather, I even listen for the first bluebird.

February 22

Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. 

February 22, 2015

The water has so far gone down that I get over the Hunt Bridge causeway by going half a dozen rods on the wall in one place. This water must have moved two or three hundred cartloads of sand to the side of the road. This damage would be avoided by raising the road. 

J. Farmer showed me an ermine weasel he caught in a trap three or four weeks ago. They are not very common about his barns. All white but the tip of the tail; two conspicuous canine teeth in each jaw. He says their track is like that of the mink: as if they had only two legs. They go on the jump. Sometimes make a third mark. 

He had seen a partridge drum standing on a wall. Said it stood very upright and produced the sound by striking its wings together behind its back, as a cock often does, but did not strike the wall nor its body. This he is sure of, and declares that he is mistaken who affirms the contrary, though it were Audubon himself. 

Wilson says he “begins to strike with his stiffened wings” while standing on a log, but does not say what he strikes, though one would infer it was either the log or his body. Peabody says he beats his body with his wings.

You see fresh upright green radical leaves of some plants —the dock, probably water dock, for one — in and about water now the snow is gone there, as if they had grown all winter. 

The sun goes down to-night under clouds, - a round red orb, - and I am surprised to see that its light, falling on my book and the wall, is a beautiful purple, like the poke stem or perhaps some kinds of wine.

Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber. I have one which was gnawed off by squirrels, apparently of full size, but which does not open. Why should they thus open in the chamber or else where? I suppose that under the influence of heat or dryness the upper side of each scale expands while the lower contracts, or perhaps only the one expands or the other contracts. I notice that the upper side is a lighter, almost cinnamon, color, the lower a dark (pitchy ?) red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 22, 1855

 The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. See February 21, 1855 ("When I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. A warmth begins to be reflected from the partially dried ground here and there in the sun in sheltered places, very cheering to invalids who have weak lungs, who think they may weather it till summer now.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, A Sunny Nook in Spring

 I even listen for the first bluebird. See February 9, 1854 ("It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in"); February 18, 1857 ("I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird.”); February 27, 1861 ("It occurs to me that I have just heard a bluebird"); March 7, 1854 ("Heard the first bluebird"); March 10, 1852 ("I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together"); March 19, 1855 (“ I hear my first bluebird”).  See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Listening for the Bluebird

Farmer showed me an ermine weasel . . . .All white but the tip of the tail See February 21, 1855 ("How plain, wholesome, and earthy are the colors of quadrupeds generally! . . . The white of the polar bear, ermine weasel, etc., answers to the snow; . . .There are few or no bluish animals. ")

He had seen a partridge drum . . . by striking its wings together behind its back. See April 19, 1860 ("You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.");  April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate."); April 29, 1857 ("C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A beautiful purple, like the poke stem or perhaps some kinds of wine. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe . . . Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn . . .  I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems");  February 13, 1860 ("The principal charm of a winter walk over ice is perhaps the peculiar and pure colors exhibited . . . there is the purple of the snow in drifts or on hills, of the mountains, and clouds at evening.")

Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season. See February 27, 1853 ("The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season."). See also February 28, 1858 (" I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch pine in a field, evidently gnawed off by a squirrel, but not opened."); February 28, 1860 ("I take up a handsomely spread (or blossomed) pitch pine cone, but I find that a squirrel has begun to strip it first, having gnawed off a few of the scales at the base. The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base."); March 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pitch Pine in Winter

Raw westerly wind

but deliciously warm now

in sheltered places.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  I even listen for the first bluebird.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550222

Early raspberries; young oaks

June 30.

June 30, 2014

Jersey tea. 

Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet, but now in some cases appear to be checked and a large bud to have formed. 

Poke, a day or two. 

Small crypta Elatine, apparently some days at least, at Callitriche Pool. 

Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus.The berries are very scarce, light red, semitransparent, showing the seed, — a few (six to ten) large shining grains and rather acid. 

Lobelia spicata, to-morrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 30, 1854

Jersey tea. See June 29, 1853 ("Jersey tea, just beginning.")

Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet, but now in some cases appear to be checked and formed a large bud. See May 26, 1854 ("Some young red oaks have already grown eighteen inches, i. e. within a fortnight, before their leaves have two-thirds expanded. They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, as if,. . .  now burst forth like a stream which has been dammed. They are properly called shoots.”); May 25, 1853 ("Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature,. . .")

Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus. See May 21, 1856 ("Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook”); June 7, 1857 ("Rubus triflorus still in bloom");   June 25, 1854 ("A raspberry on sand by railroad, ripe."); July 6, 1857 (“Rubus triflorus well ripe.”); July 2, 1851("Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits”); July 11, 1857 ("I see more berries than usual of the Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp.. . .They are dark shining red and, when ripe, of a very agreeable flavor and somewhat of the raspberry's spirit.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

Lobelia spicata, to-morrow. See July 19, 1856 ("On the under side of a Lobelia spicata leaf, a sort of loose-spun cocoon, about five eighths of an inch long, of golden-brown silk, beneath which silky mist a hundred young spiders swarm")