Topping corn now reveals the yellowing pumpkins. September is at hand.

August 27. 

Saturday. P. M. – To Walden. 

Topping corn now reveals the yellowing pumpkins. 

Dangle-berries very large in shady copses now; seem to love wet weather; have lost their bloom. 

Aster undulatus. 

The decurrent gnaphalium has not long shown yellow. Perhaps I made it blossom a little too early. 

September is at hand; the first month (after the summer heat) with a burr to it, month of early frosts; but December will be tenfold rougher. 

January relents for a season at the time of its thaw, and hence that liquid r in its name.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1853

Topping corn now reveals the yellowing pumpkins.  See August 28, 1859 ("Pumpkins begin to be yellow."); September 4, 1859 ("Topping the corn, which has been going on some days, now reveals the yellow and yellowing pumpkins. This is a genuine New England scene. The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits."); September 18, 1858 ("The earth is yellowing in the September sun.")

The flowers I see at present are autumn flowers..

August 28. 

P. M. — To Walden.

A cool day; wind northwest. Need a half -thick coat. Thus gradually we withdraw into winter quarters. It is a clear, flashing air, and the shorn fields now look bright and yellowish and cool, tinkled and twittered over by bobolinks, goldfinches, sparrows, etc. 

You feel the less inclined to bathing this weather, and bathe from principle, when boys, who bathe for fun, omit it. 

Thick fogs these mornings. We have had little or no dog-days this year, it has been so dry.

Pumpkins begin to be yellow. 

White cornel berries mostly fallen. 

The arrowhead is still a common flower and an important one. I see some very handsome ones in Cardinal Ditch, whose corollas are an inch and a half in diameter. The greater part, however, have gone to seed. 

The flowers I see at present are autumn flowers, such as have risen above the stubble in shorn fields since it was cut, whose tops have commonly been clipped by the scythe or the cow; or the late flowers, as asters and goldenrods, which grow in neglected fields and along ditches and hedgerows. 

The rhexia in Ebby Hubbard's field is considerably past prime, and it is its reddish chalices which show most at a distance now. I should have looked ten days ago. Still it is handsome with its large yellow anthers against clear purple petals. It grows there in large patches with hardhack. 

I hear that some of the villagers were aroused from their sleep before light by the groans or bellowings of a bullock which an unskillful butcher was slaughtering at the slaughter-house. What morning or Memnonian music was that to ring through the quiet village ? What did that clarion sing of? What a comment on our village life! Song of the dying bullock! But no doubt those who heard it inquired, as usual, of the butcher the next day, "What have you got to-day?" "Sirloin, good beefsteak, rattleran," etc. 

I saw a month or more ago where pine-needles which had fallen (old ones) stood erect on low leaves of the forest floor, having stuck in, or passed through, them. They stuck up as a fork which falls from the table. Yet you would not think that they fell with sufficient force. 

The fruit of the sweet-gale is yellowing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1859


Thick fogs these mornings. See July 22, 1851 ("The season of morning fogs has arrived. A great crescent over the course of the river, the fog retreats, and I do not see how it is dissipated, leaving this slight, thin vapor to curl over the surface of the still, dark water, still as glass. These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog."); August 7, 1860 ("If we awake into a fog it does not occur to us that the inhabitants of a neighboring town may have none)

White cornel berries mostly fallen. See August 28, 1856 ("The panicled cornel berries are whitening, but already mostly fallen."); August 28, 1852 ("The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly.")

The rhexia in Ebby Hubbard's field is considerably past prime, and it is its reddish chalices which show most at a distance now.Still it is handsome with its large yellow anthers against clear purple petals. See.August 27, 1856 (“The rhexia greets me in bright patches on meadow banks.”); September 14, 1851 (" The chalices of the Rhexia Virginica, deer-grass or meadow beauty, are literally little reddish chalices now, though many still have petals, little cream pitchers. "); October 2, 1856 (“The scarlet leaves and stem of the rhexia, some time out of flower, makes almost as bright a patch in the meadow now as the flowers did,”) See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rhexia Virginica (meadow-beauty)

August 28. See A Book of the Seasons, August 28

A clear flashing air –

 shorn fields bright and yellowish –

bobolinks, goldfinch.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  eautumn flowers.

 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

No such gust since spring.

September 28. 

September 28, 2017

I planted six seeds sent from the Patent Office and labelled, I think, “Poitrine jaune grosse” (large yellow pumpkin (or squash?)). Two came up, and one bore a squash which weighs 123 1/2 lbs. the other bore four,    1 weighing  72 3/4
                 2d    “          54 
                 3d    “          37 3/4
                4th    “          21 3/4
                                  309 3/4

Who would have believed that there was 310 pounds of poitrine jaune grosse in that corner of our garden? Yet that little seed found it. Other seeds would find something else every year for successive ages, until the crop more than filled our whole garden; which suggests that the various fruits are the product of the same elements differently combined, and those elements are in continual revolution around the globe. This poitrine found here the air of France, and measurably its soil too.

Looking down from Nawshawtuct this afternoon, the white maples on the Assabet and below have a singular light glaucous look, almost hoary, as if curled and showing the under sides of the leaves, and they contrast with the fresh green pines and hemlocks.

The swamp white oaks present some of the same crisped whitish appearance. 

I see that E. Wood has sent a couple of Irishmen, with axe and bush-whack, to cut off the natural hedges of sumach, Roxbury waxwork, grapes, etc., which have sprung up by the walls on this hill farm, in order that his cows may get a little more green. And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botanist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer's wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman, a hireling just arrived on these shores, who was never there before, — and, we trust, will never be let loose there again, – who knows not whether he is hacking at the upas tree or the Tree of Knowledge, with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. What is trespassing? This Hessian, the day after he was landed, was whirled twenty miles into the interior to do this deed of vandalism on our favorite hedge. I would as soon admit a living mud turtle into my herbarium. 

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. 

Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which filled the air with dust from the road, shook the houses, and caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1857

They have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! . . . If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. See  October 16, 1860 (" I have come up here this afternoon to see the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, . . .To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here.. . .He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen.");

No such gust since spring. See September 28 1852 ("What have these high and roaring winds to do with the fall?")

September 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 28

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Scarlet berry season.

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

Fall flowers and a fetid fungus.

October 16.

October 16.

Ground all white with frost. 

P. M. — To chestnuts, down Turnpike. 

I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, i. e. a few of them: hedge-mustard, mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow, some Aster Tradescanti, and some red clover.  

Polygonum orientate was finished by yesterday's frost. There was plenty of the front-rank polygonum freshly open along river on the 13th. Perhaps the frosts have nipped it. 

I saw a farmer busily collecting his pumpkins on the 14th, — Abel Brooks, — rambling over his corn-fields and bringing the pumpkins out to the sides on the path, on the side of the field, where he can load them. The ground was so stiff on the 15th, in the morning, that some could not dig potatoes. 

Bent is now making haste to gather his apples. I. Wright, too, is collecting some choice barrels of golden russets. Many times he turns it over before he leaves out a specked one. A poor story if the farmer cannot get rich, for everything he has is salable, even every load of mud on his farm. 

At the Everett meadow a large flock of mewing and lisping goldfinches, with but little yellow, pass over the Turnpike. 

Many chestnut burs are now open, yet a stone will not jar down many nuts yet. Burs which were quite green on the 8th are now all brown and dry, and the prickles come off in your hand when you touch them, yet the nuts do not readily drop out. Many nuts have fallen within two or three days, but many squirrels have been busily picking them up. 

Found amid the sphagnum on the dry bank on the south side of the Turnpike, just below Everett's meadow, a rare and remarkable fungus, such as I have heard of but never seen before. The whole height six and three quarters inches, two thirds of it being buried in the sphagnum. It may be divided into three parts, pileus, stem, and base, — or scrotum, for it is a perfect phallus. 

One of those fungi named impudicus, I think. This is very similar to if not the same with that represented in Loudon's Encyclopedia and called "Phallus impudicus, Stinking Morel, very fetid." In all respects a most disgusting object, yet very suggestive. 

It is hollow from top to bottom, the form of the hollow answering to that of the outside. The color of the outside white excepting the pileus, which is olive-colored and somewhat coarsely corrugated, with an oblong mouth at tip about one eighth of an inch long, or, measuring the white lips, half an inch. This cap is thin and white within, about one and three eighths inches high by one and a half wide. The stem (bare portion) is three inches long (tapering more rapidly than in the drawing), horizontally viewed of an oval form. Longest diameter at base one and a half inches, at top (on edge of pileus) fifteen sixteenths of an inch. Short diameters in both cases about two thirds as much. It is a delicate white cylinder of a finely honeycombed and crispy material about three sixteenths of an inch thick, or more, the whole very straight and regular. The base, or scrotum, is of an irregular bag form, about one inch by two in the extremes, consisting of a thick trembling gelatinous mass surrounding the bottom of the stem and covered with a tough white skin of a darker tint than the stem. The whole plant rather frail and trembling. There was at first a very thin delicate white collar (or volva?) about the base of the stem above the scrotum. 

In all respects a

most disgusting object, yet 

very suggestive. 

It was as offensive to the eye as to the scent, the cap rapidly melting and defiling what it touched with a fetid, olivaceous, semiliquid matter. In an hour or two the plant scented the whole house wherever placed, so that it could not be endured. I was afraid to sleep in my chamber where it had lain until the room had been well ventilated. It smelled like a dead rat in the ceiling, in all the ceilings of the house. 

Pray, what was Nature thinking of when she made this ? She almost puts her self on a level with those who draw in privies. 

The cap had at first a smooth and almost dry surface, of a sort of olive slate-color, but the next day this colored surface all melted out, leaving deep corrugations or gills — rather honeycomb-like cells — with a white bottom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 16, 1856

Burs which were quite green on the 8th are now all brown and dry . . .many squirrels have been busily picking them up. See October 8, 1856 ("A few chestnut burs are open, and have been some days, before they could have felt frost, showing that they would open without it, but a stone will not jar them down, nor a club thrown into the tree yet.. . ."); December 9, 1852 ("The chestnuts are almost as plenty as ever, . . .. There are more this year than the squirrels can consume.. . .")

The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late.

October 6.  

I notice the effects of some frost this morning in garden. Some pumpkin vines drooping and black. 

P. M. — Carried Sophia and Aunt up the Assabet. 

The reflections of the bright-tinted maples very perfect. 

The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen. [This again the 8th. It is an anticipation of spring.]

The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us. 

We are suddenly driven home by a slight thunder-shower!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 6, 1856

Carried Sophia and Aunt up the Assabet.  See October 18, 1853 ("With Sophia boat to Fair Haven, where she makes a sketch.") September 25, 1855 ("Carry Aunt and Sophia a-barberrying to Conantum "); November 14, 1855 ("Up Assabet with Sophia. A clear, bright, warm afternoon.”)

The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods., when so many birds have left us. See September 12, 1858 (“Amid the October woods we hear no funereal bell, but the scream of the jay. ”); September 21, 1859  ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent.”);   September 25, 1851 (" In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native.”);  October 5, 1857 (“ 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.”); October 14, 1852  (Jays and chickadees are oftener heard in the fall than in summer.”); 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, and the chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note”)

Suddenly driven home by a slight thunder-shower! See October 26, 1860 ("Overtaken by a sudden thunder-shower.")

The jay's shrill note more 

distinct of late about the 

edges of the woods.