The most beautiful little flowers yet.

May 24.

The smooth speedwell is in its prime now, whitening the sides of the back road, above the Swamp Bridge and front of Hubbard's. Its sweet little pansy like face looks up on all sides. 

This and the Myosotis laxa are the two most beautiful little flowers yet, if I remember rightly. 

forget-me-nots

May 15, 2022

P. M. —Talked, or tried to talk, with R. W. E. 

Lost my time — nay, almost my identity. He, assuming a false opposition where there was no difference of opinion, talked to the wind — told me what I knew and I lost my time trying to imagine myself somebody else to oppose him.

The wild pink was out day before yesterday.

Silene caroliniana, (wild pink)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1853

Myosotis laxa [small-flowered forget-me-not, one of] the.most beautiful little flowers yet.  See May 17, 1853 (“Myosotis laxa is out a day or two. At first does not run; is short and upright like M. stricta.”); May 21, 1856 (“Myosotis laxa by Turnpike, near Hosmer Spring, may have been out several days; two or three at least.”);  June 5, 1855 (“That very early (or in wintergreen radical leaf) plant by ash is the myosotis laxa, open since the 28th of May, say June 1st.”); June 12, 1852 (“The mouse-ear forget me-not (Myosotis laxa) has now extended its racemes (?) very much, and hangs over the edge of the brook. It is one of the most interesting minute flowers. It is the more beautiful for being small and unpretending, for even flowers must be modest.”)  See also April 29, 1854 ("The mouse-ear is now fairly in blossom in many places. It never looks so pretty as now in an April rain, covered with pearly drops.”);  May 6, 1859 ("I perceive a peculiar fragrance in the air . . . like that of vernal flowers or of expanding buds. The ground is covered with the mouse-ear in full bloom.”);   May 26, 1855 ("Already the mouse-ear down begins to blow in the fields and whiten the grass, together with the bluets”); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa small-flowered forget- me- not)

The wild pink was out day before yesterday. See April 25, 1859 ("This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata"); May 29, 1852 ("Barberry in bloom, wild pinks, and blue-eyed grass."); May 31, 1856 ("Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days"); June 5, 1850 ("The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.”).

Beck Stow's Swamp!

July 17. 

Saturday. 

Cooler weather; a gentle steady rain, not shower; such coolness as rain makes; not sharp and invigorating, exhilarating, as in the spring, but thoughtful, reminding of the fall; still, moist, unoppressive weather, in which corn and potatoes grow; not a vein of the northwest wind or the northeast. The coolness of the west tempered with rain and mist. 

As I walked by the river last evening, I heard no toads. 

A coolness as from an earth covered with vegetation, such as the toad finds in the high grass. A verdurous coolness, not a snowy or icy one, in the shadow of the vapors which the heat makes rise from the earth. Can this be dog-dayish? 

P. M. — A summer rain. 

A gentle steady rain, long a-gathering, without thunder or lightning, — such as we have not, and, methinks, could not have had, earlier than this. 

To Beck Stow's. 

I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow. This weather is rather favorable to thought. On all sides is heard a gentle dripping of the rain on the leaves, yet it is perfectly warm. 

It is a day of comparative leisure to many farmers. Some go to the mill-dam and the shops; some go a-fishing. 

The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out; and the thoroughworts, red and white, begin (?) to show their colors. 

Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields.

Swamp-pink lingers still. 

Roses are not so numerous as they were. Some which I examine now have short, stout hooked thorns and narrow bracts. Is it the Rosa Carolina?

I love to see a clear crystalline water flowing out of a swamp over white sand and decayed wood, spring-like. The year begins to have a husky look or scent in some quarters. I remark the green coats of the hazelnuts, and hear the permanent jay. Some fields are covered now with tufts or clumps of indigo- weed, yellow with blossoms, with a few dead leaves turned black here and there.

Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! When life looks sandy and barren, is reduced to its lowest terms, we have no appetite, and it has no flavor, then let me visit such a swamp as this, deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step, with its open water where the swallows skim and twitter, its meadow and cotton-grass, its dense patches of dwarf andromeda, now brownish-green, with clumps of blue berry bushes, its spruces and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side. 

The trees now in the rain look heavy and rich all day, as commonly at twilight, drooping with the weight of wet leaves. 

That Sericocarjrus conyzoides prevails now, and the entire-leaved erigeron still abounds everywhere. 

The meadows on the Turnpike are white with the meadow-rue now more than ever. They are filled with it many feet high. 

The Lysimachia lanceolata is very common too. All flowers are handsomer in rain. 

Methinks the sweet-briar is done. The hardhack, whose spires are not yet abundant, stands to me for agreeable coarseness. 

Swallows are active throughout this rain. 

Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco. Lappa major, burdock. Amaranthus hybridus, though not yet red. Verbena hastata, blue vervain. Gnaphalium uliginosum by the roadside, cudweed. 

Again methinks I hear the goldfinch, but not for a day or two the bobolink. 

At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. 

The vetch I looked for is mown, but I find it fresh elsewhere. 

The caducous polygala has the odor of checkerberry at its root, and hence I thought the flower had a fugacious, spicy fragrance. Hypericum Canadense. 

The slender bell-flower, galium-like, with a triangular stem in low grounds now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1852

Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of. See July 14, 1853  (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. "); May 24, 1854 ("Wade into Beck Stow's. . . . Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more.") August 30, 1856 ("I get my new experiences still, not at the opera listening to the Swedish Nightingale, but at Beck Stow's Swamp listening to the native wood thrush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  at Beck Stow's Swamp

 I pick raspberries dripping with rain.  See July 15, 1859 ("Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields. See July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them."); July 24, 1853 ("This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

Swallows are active throughout this rain. See A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

Again methinks I hear the goldfinch, but not for a day or two the bobolink See July 7, 1859 ("The note of the bobolink has begun to sound rare?"); July 10, 1854 (" The singing birds at present are: . . .Rural: Song sparrow, seringos, flicker, kingbird, goldfinch, link of bobolink, cherry-bird. "); July 15, 1854 ("The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 15, 1856 ("Bobolinks are heard — their link, link — above and amid the tall rue which now whitens the meadows”);August 6, 1852 (“With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease?”); August 10, 1853 ("the goldfinch sings. . . . . Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink."); August 10, 1854 ("The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”)

At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. See July 16, 1851  ("The prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk.")

Willow gone to seed, its down covers the water – white amid the weeds.

June 15. 

5.30 a. m. — To Island and Hill. 

A young painted tortoise on the surface of the water, as big as a quarter of a dollar, with a reddish or orange sternum. 

I suppose that my skater insect is the hydrometer. 

Found a nest of tortoise eggs, apparently buried last night, which I brought home, ten in all, — one lying wholly on the surface, — and buried in the garden. 

The soil above a dark virgin mould about a stump was unexpectedly hard.

1 P. M. — Up Assabet to Garlic Wall. 

That tall grass opposite the Merrick Swimming-Place is getting up pretty well, and blossoming with a broad and regular spike, for some time. 

June 15, 2024

This is the third afternoon that we have had a rumbling thunder-cloud arise in the east, — not to mention the west, — but all signs have failed hitherto, and I resolve to proceed on my voyage, knowing that I have a tight [roof] in my boat turned up. 

The froth on the alders, andromeda, etc., — not to speak of the aphides, — dirties and apparently spots my clothes, so that it is a serious objection to walking amid these bushes these days. I am covered with this spittle-like froth. 

At the Assabet Spring I must have been near a black and white creeper's nest. It kept up a constant chipping. 

Saw there also, probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings. 

A red oak there has many large twigs drooping withered, apparently weakened by some insect. May it not be the locust of yesterday? 

Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weeds. 

The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place. 

Saw a wood tortoise, about two inches and a half, with a black sternum and the skin, which becomes orange, now ochreous merely, or brown. The little painted tortoise of the morning was red beneath. Both these young tortoises have a distinct dorsal ridge. 

The garlic not in flower yet. 

I observed no Nuphar lutea var. Kalmiana on the Assabet. 

7 p. m. — To Cliff by railroad. 

Cranberry. Prinos Icevigatus, apparently two days.

Methinks the birds sing a little feebler nowadays. The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare. 

The sun has set, or is at least concealed in a low mist. 

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I feel the leaves in the sprout-land oak, hickory, etc., cold and wet to my hand with the heavy dew that is falling. They look dry, but when I rub them with my hand, they show moist or wet at once. Probably I thus spread minute drops of dew or mist on their surface. It cannot be the warmth of my hand, for when I breathe on them it has no effect. 

I see one or two early blueberries prematurely turning. 

The Amelanchier Botryapium berries are already reddened two thirds over, and are somewhat palatable and soft, — some of them, — not fairly ripe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1854

A young painted tortoise . . . as big as a quarter of a dollar. See April 21, 1855 ("Saw a painted turtle not two inches in diameter. This must be more than one year old."); April 24, 1856 ("A young Emys picta, one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. I think it must have been hatched year before last. "); August 28, 1856 ("I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th, and find a young turtle partly out of his shell . . . The upper shell is fifteen sixteenths of an inch plus by thirteen sixteenths. He is already wonderfully strong and precocious."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Found a nest of tortoise eggs. . . which I brought home . . . and buried in the garden. See September 9, 1854 ("This morning I find a little hole, three quarters of an inch or an inch over, above my small tortoise eggs, and find a young tortoise coming out (apparently in the rainy night) just beneath. It is the Sternotherus odoratus"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)

This is the third afternoon that we have had a rumbling thunder-cloud arise in the east. . . I resolve to proceed on my voyage, knowing that I have a tight [roof] in my boat turned up. See June 13, 1854 (''I hear the muttering of thunder and see a dark cloud in the west-southwest horizon; am uncertain how far up-stream I shall get. An opposite cloud rises fast in the east-northeast, and now the lightning crinkles and I hear the heavy thunder. "); June 16, 1854 (" Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us."). See also June 14, 1855 (" It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. "); June 15, 1860 ("A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack. ");June 16, 1860  (" Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go past on each side")

My skater insect. See March 25, 1858 ("Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch"); March 29, 1853 (“Tried several times to catch a skater. Got my hand close to him; grasped at him as quick as possible; was sure I had got him this time; let the water run out between my fingers; hoped I had not crushed him; opened my hand; and lo! he was not there. I never succeeded in catching one.”); September 1, 1852 ("the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun."); October 11, 1852 ("I could detect the progress of a water-bug over the smooth surface in almost any part of the pond, for they furrow the water slightly,. . . but the skaters slide over it without producing a perceptible ripple. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and Skaters (Hydrometridae)

Saw probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings. See May 24, 1854 ("In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint.”); May 20, 1856 ("I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty |tchea "); May 23, 1857 (“The chestnut-sided warbler . . .appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively and rather long, about as the summer yellowbird, but not in two bars; tse tse tse \ te tsah tsah tsah \ te sak yer se is the rhythm.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chestnut-sided Warbler

Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weed.   See  June 10, 1853 ("The fuzzy seeds or down of the black (?) willows is filling the air over the river and, falling on the water, covers the surface.");   June 29, 1857  (""The river is now whitened with the down of the black willow, and I am surprised to see a minute plant abundantly springing from its midst and greening it,. . ., — like grass growing in cotton in a tumbler."); July 9, 1857 ("There is now but little black willow down left on the trees. . . . I think I see how this tree is propagated by its seeds." )See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place. June 19, 1852 ("Is not this the carnival of the year when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom the last stage before blueberries come?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

Methinks the birds sing a little feebler nowadays. See June 25, 1854 (“Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter.”)

The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare. See May 12, 1856 ("How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! "); June 19, 1853 ("The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival.") A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

I see one or two early blueberries prematurely turning. The Amelanchier Botryapium berries are already red. See May 17, 1853 (“The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming.”); May 30, 1854 (" I see now green high blueberries, and gooseberries in Hubbard's Close, as well as shad-bush berries and strawberries. "); June 7, 1854 ("I am surprised at the size of green berries. It is but a step from flowers to fruit.")

June 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 15

Willow gone to seed

its down covers the water –

white amid the weeds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Willow gone to seed

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-540615

Storrow Higginson and other boys find nests and eggs of veery, wood thrush and tanager.

June 19. 

June 19, 2018

Saturday. 

I do not hear the night-warbler so often as a few weeks ago. Birds generally do not sing so tumultuously. 

Storrow Higginson and other boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground. 

Also showed me one of five eggs, far advanced, they found there in a nest some fourteen feet high in a slender maple sapling, placed between many upright shoots, many dry leaves outside. It is a slender clear-blue egg, more slender and pointed at the small end than the robin's, and he says the bird was thrush like with a pencilled breast. It is probably the wood thrush. [Saw it the 23d, and it is apparently this bird. It is some ten rods south along path beyond the clearing, opposite a stone turned over.] He saw one or two other similar nests, he thought, not yet completed. 

Also showed me an egg, which answers to the description of the tanager's. Two fresh eggs in small white oak sapling, some four teen feet from ground. They saw a tanager near. [I have one egg. 
Vide 23d.] 

P. M. — To Bateman’s Pond. 

The swamp-pink, apparently not long, and the maple leaved viburnum, a little longer, but quite early. Some of the calla is going to seed. 

See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1858

To Bateman’s Pond. The swamp-pink, apparently not long. See June 20, 1853 ("Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying. On the swamp-pink they are solid."); June 20, 1856 ( ("Swamp-pink out apparently two or three days at Clamshell Ditch"); June 21, 1852 ("The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. "); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?") See also November 5, 1855 ("Swamp-pink buds now begin to show.”); November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 16, 1852 ("The swamp-pink and blueberry buds attract."); December 1, 1852 (“The large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink,"); December 11, 1855 ("The great yellow buds of the swamp-pink"); January 25, 1858 ("The large yellowish buds of the swamp pink."); January 10, 1855 ("The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened. "); January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale."); February 13, 1858 )("How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc."); February 13, 1858 ("The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened.")

Some of the calla is going to seed. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”); June 9, 1857( “The calla is generally past prime and going to seed. I had said to Pratt, "It will be worth the while to look for other rare plants in Calla Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare plant grows there will commonly be others." ”); June 24, 1857 ("Found [in Owl-Nest Swamp] the Calla palustris, out of bloom, and the naumbergia, now in prime, which was hardly begun on the 9th at Bateman Pond Swamp.”); August 29, 1857 ("I find the calla [in Owl-Nest Swamp] going to seed, but still the seed is green.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.")

Also showed me one of five eggs found there in a nest some fourteen feet high in a slender maple sapling. See July 31, 1857 ("Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th (now empty).")

See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday. See June 1, 1853 (“ Eggs in oven- bird's nest. ”); June 7, 1853; (“The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I can not get a fair view of her. She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or partly to protect herself ?”); June 10, 1855; ( Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining, about six feet south west of a white oak which is six rods southwest of the hawk pine.”); June 18, 1854 (“Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches. Each had a worm in its bill, no doubt intended for its young.”); July 3, 1853 (“The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood, under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these, on the ground, is the nest, with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine-needles.”).

How often vegetation is either yellow or red!

February 13.

Last night said to have been a little colder than the night before, and the coldest hitherto.

P. M. – Ride to Cafferty's Swamp.

The greatest breadth of the swamp appears to be northeasterly from Adams's. There is much panicled andromeda in it, some twelve feet high, and, as I count, seventeen years old, with yellowish wood. I saw three tupelos in the swamp, each about one foot in diameter and all within two rods.

In those parts of the swamp where the bushes were not so high but that I could look over them, I observed that the swamp was variously shaded, or painted even, like a rug, with the sober colors running gradually into each other, by the colored recent shoots of various shrubs which grow densely, as the red blueberry, and the yellowish-brown panicled andromeda, and the dark-brown or blackish Prinos verticillatus, and the choke-berry, etc.

Standing on a level with those shrubs, you could see that these colors were only a foot or so deep, according to the length of the shoots. So, too, oftener would the forests appear if we oftener stood above them.

How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc., and to-day I notice yellow-green recent shoots of high blueberry.

Observed a coarse, dense-headed grass in the meadow at Stow's old swamp lot. What did the birds do for horsehair here formerly?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 13, 1858

The red blueberry. See November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”); November 23, 1857 (“You distinguish it by its gray spreading mass; its light-gray bark, rather roughened; its thickish shoots, often crimson; and its plump, roundish red buds.”); November 20, 1857 ("the bright-crimson shoots of high blueberry . . . have a very pretty effect, a crimson vigor to stand above the snow.")

The yellowish-brown panicled andromeda. See November 23, 1857 ("The panicled andromeda is upright, light-gray, with a rather smoother bark, more slender twigs, and small, sharp red buds lying close to the twig."); December 6, 1856 ("The rich brown fruit of the panicled andromeda growing about the swamp, hard, dry, inedible, suitable to the season. The dense panicles of the berries are of a handsome form, made to endure, lasting often over two seasons, only becoming darker and gray")

How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink See December 1, 1852 (“The large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink,"); December 11, 1855 ("The great yellow buds of the swamp-pink, the round red buds of the high blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda"); January 25, 1858 ("The round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink.")

The leaves of the pitcher-plant. See September 28, 1851 ("These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red. No plants are more richly painted and streaked than the inside of the broad lips of these."); November 11, 1858 ("In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

A warm, moist day. A Book of Buds.

January 25. 

Monday. A warm, moist day. Thermometer at 6.30 P.M. at 49°.

What a rich book might be made about buds, including, perhaps, sprouts! — the impregnable, vivacious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs; the birch and oak sprouts, and the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts; the round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink, etc. 

How healthy and vivacious must he be who would treat of these things! 

You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake. You must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand-heap. You must have so good an appetite as this, else you will live in vain. 

The creditor is servant to his debtor, especially if he is about paying his due. I am amused to see what airs men take upon themselves when they have money to pay me. No matter how long they have deferred it, they imagine that they are my benefactors or patrons, and send me word graciously that if I will come to their houses they will pay me, when it is their business to come to me.

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

What a rich book might be made about buds.See January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale."); January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them."); January 10, 1856 ("We are reduced to admire buds, even like the partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice, —the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, the rapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and cracked blueberry. Even a little shining bud which lies sleeping behind its twig and dreaming of spring, perhaps half concealed by ice, is object enough.")

Walking under an apple tree in the little Baker Farm peach orchard,

June 20. 

Friday. A. M. —To Baker Farm with Ricketson.  A very hot day. 

Two Sternotherus odoratus by heap in Sanborn’s garden, one making a hole for its eggs, the rear of its shell partly covered. See a great many of these out to-day on ground and on willows. 

Swamp-pink out apparently two or three days at Clamshell Ditch. Late thalictrum apparently a day or two there. Archangelica apparently two or three days. 

A phoebe nest, second time, with four cream-white eggs. Got one. The second brood in the same nest.

Saw a snap-turtle out in sun on tussock opposite Bittern Cliff. Probably the water was too warm for him. 

They had at Middlesex House, yesterday, snuff flavored with ground or pulverized black birch bark. 

Walking under an apple tree in the little Baker Farm peach orchard, heard an incessant shrill musical twitter or peeping, as from young birds, over my head, and, looking up, saw a hole in an upright dead bough, some fifteen feet from ground. Climbed up and, finding that the shrill twitter came from it, guessed it to be the nest of a downy woodpecker, which proved to be the case, — for it reminded me of the hissing squeak or squeaking hiss of young pigeon woodpeckers, but this was more musical or bird-like.

The bough was about four and a half inches in diameter, and the hole perfectly circular, about an inch and a quarter in diameter. Apparently nests had been in holes above, now broken out, higher up. When I put my fingers in it, the young breathed their shrill twitter louder than ever. Anon the old appeared, and came quite near, while I stood in the tree, keeping up an incessant loud and shrill scolding note, and also after I descended; not to be relieved. 

Potentilla Norvegicea; apparently petals blown away.

Five young phoebes in a nest, apparently upon a swallow nest, in Conant’s old house, just ready to fly. 

Rudbeckia hirta budded.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1856

It reminded me of the hissing squeak or squeaking hiss of young pigeon woodpeckers, but this was more musical or bird-like. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker. See also June 10, 1856 (“In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker

Conant’s old house. . . See February 19, 1855 ("Conant was cutting up an old pear tree which had blown down by his old house on Conantum. This [was] set anciently with reference to a house which stood in the little peach orchard near by.")

June 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

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

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.")

Translucent leaves lit up like cathedral windows

January 10

January 10, 2025

To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again, and they are carting home the mud which was dug out last fall, in great frozen masses.

The twigs of the Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath, project above the ice, the tallest twigs recurved at top, with the leaves standing up on the upper side like teeth of a rake.

Then there is the Andromeda calyculata, its leaves appressed to the twigs, pale-brown beneath, reddish above, with minute whitish dots. As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish.

The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened.

At European Cranberry Swamp, I see great quanities of the seeds of that low three-celled rush or sedge, about the edge of the pool on the ice, black and elliptical, looking like the droppings of mice, so thick in many places that by absorbing the sun’s heat they had melted an inch or more into the ice.

Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 10, 1855

The Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath. See July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon.“)

Beck Stow's. See January 10, 1856  ("I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now") See also July 17, 1852 ("Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! . . . deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step . . . and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish. See April 17, 1852 ("Chancing to turn round, I was surprised to see that all this pond-hole also was filled with the same warm brownish-red-colored andromeda. The fact was I was opposite to the sun, but from every other position I saw only the sun reflected from the surface of the andromeda leaves, which gave the whole a grayish-brown hue tinged with red; but from this position alone I saw, as it were, through the leaves which the opposite sun lit up, giving to the whole this charming warm, what I call Indian, red color, — the mellowest, the ripest, red imbrowned color;. . . that warm, rich red tinge, surpassing cathedral windows”); April 19, 1852 ("These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

The great buds of the swamp-pink. See January 31, 1854 ("I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplar, and the sweet- gale"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

European Cranberry Swamp.[Gowing's Swamp] See August 30, 1856 ("To Vaccinium Oxycoccus Swamp . . . I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, which Emerson says is the common cranberry of the north of Europe.").")

Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual. See November 25, 1860 (“I see a very great collection of crows far and wide on the meadows, evidently gathered by this cold and blustering weather.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

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

The andromeda  –

translucent leaves lit up like

cathedral windows.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Translucent leaves lit up like cathedral windows

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-550110

* * * * * *

We are up to the ridge again it is colder tonight perhaps 14° snow is slippery there are fox and coyote tracks on the way up and we don't stop at the view because of the cold and on the ridge in back we find a bobcat track that follows the trail along our own tracks up the ridge. For the first time this winter we walk on the ice on the pond and a new tree has fallen across the shortcut right above the driveway. Such a remarkable thing to be out in the cold in the woods with the bobcat this is the single thing to remember about today .

A fresh bobcat track

follows the trail up the ridge

along our old tracks.

Zphx20150110

At Gowing's Swamp

February 17.

At Gowing's Swamp I see where someone hunted white rabbits yesterday, and perhaps the day before, with a dog. The hunter has run round and round it on firm ground, while the hare and dog have cut across and circled about amid the blueberry bushes. 

The track of the white rabbit is gigantic compared with that of the gray one. Indeed few of our wild animals make a larger track with their feet alone. Where I now stand, the track of all the feet has an expanse of seven to fifteen inches, — this at intervals of from two to three feet, — and the width at the two fore feet is five inches. There is a considerable but slighter impression of the paw behind each foot.

The mice-tracks are very amusing. It is surprising how numerous they are, and yet I rarely ever see one. They must be nocturnal in their habits. Any tussocky ground is scored with them. I see, too, where they have run over the ice in the swamp, there is a mere sugaring of snow on it, ever trying to make an entrance to get beneath it. 

You see deep and distinct channels in the snow in some places, as if a whole colony had long travelled to and fro in them, a highway, a well-known trail, — but suddenly they will come to an end; and yet they have not dived beneath the surface, for you see where the single traveller who did it all has nimbly hopped along as if suddenly scared, making but a slight impression, squirrel like, on the snow. The squirrel also, though rarely, will make a channel for a short distance.

 

These mice tracks are of various sizes, and sometimes, when they are large and they have taken long and regular hops nine or ten inches apart in a straight line, they look at a little distance like a fox-track. 

I suspect that the mice sometimes build their nests in bushes from the foundation, for, in the swamp-hole on the new road, where I found two mice-nests last fall, I find one begun with a very few twigs and some moss, close by where the others were, at the same height and also on prinos bushes, - plainly the work of mice wholly. 

In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore. In these swamps, then, you have three kinds of andromeda. The main swamp is crowded with high blueberry, panicled andromeda, prinos, swamp-pink, etc., etc., and then in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. 

These are pleasing gardens.

In the early part of winter there was no walking on the snow, but after January, perhaps, when the snow-banks had settled and their surfaces, many times thawed and frozen, become indurated, in fact, you could walk on the snow-crust pretty well.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1854

The open part of Gowing's Swamp. See August 23, 1854 (I improve the dry weather to examine the middle of Gowing's Swamp. There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter . . .”); May 31, 1857 ("That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb.. . .”); January 30 1858 ("The pool, where there is nothing but water and sphagnum to be seen and where you cannot go in the summer, is about two rods long and one and a half wide")

The track of the white rabbit. See February 3, 1856 ("You may now observe plainly the habit of the rabbits to run in paths about the swamps.")

The mice-tracks are very amusing. It is surprising how numerous they are, and yet I rarely ever see one. They must be nocturnal. See January 31, 1856 ("Perhaps the tracks of the mice are the most amusing of any, they take such various forms and, though small, are so distinct. . . .The tracks of the mice suggest extensive hopping in the night and going a-gadding. They commence and terminate in the most insignificant little holes by the side of a twig or tuft, and occasionally they give us the type of their tails very distinctly, even sidewise to the course on a bank-side.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

In the swamp-hole on the new road, where I found two mice-nests last fall, I find one begun with a very few twigs and some moss, close by where the others were. See October 8, 1853 ("Find a bird's nest converted into a mouse's nest in the prinos swamp, while surveying on the new Bedford road to-day, topped over with moss, and a hole on one side, like a squirrel-nest."); February 3, 1856 ("Track some mice to a black willow by riverside, just above spring, against the open swamp; and about three feet high, in apparently an old woodpecker’s hole, was probably the mouse-nest") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore. See November 23, 1857 ("This swamp appears not to have had any natural outlet, though an artificial one has been dug. The same is perhaps the case with the C. Miles Swamp. And is it so with Beck Stow's These three are the only places where I have found the Andromeda Polifolia.")

In the early part of winter there was no walking on the snow, but after January. . . you could walk on the snow-crust pretty well. See January 27, 1860 ("After the January thaw we have more or less of crusted snow, i. e. more consolidated and crispy. When the thermometer is not above 32 this snow for the most part bears"); February 8, 1852 ("Night before last, our first rain for a long time; this afternoon, the first crust to walk on. It is pleasant to walk over the fields raised a foot or more above their summer level, and the prospect is altogether new."); February 13, 1856 (" A very firm and thick, uneven crust, on which I go in any direction across the fields, stepping over the fences."); February 19, 1855 ("Rufus Hosmer says that in the year 1820 there was so smooth and strong an icy crust on a very deep snow that you could skate everywhere over the fields and for the most part over the fences.")

February 17. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 17

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  At Gowing's Swamp

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

 tinyurl.com/hdt-540217