Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts.

October 5. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Hill and over the pastures westward. 

Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. Do they not rather belong to such children of nature than to those who have merely bought them with their money? There are few apples for them this year, however, and it is too early for walnuts (too late for hazelnuts). The grapes are generally gone, and their vines partly bare and yellowed, though without frost. 

I amuse myself on the hilltop with pulling to pieces and letting fly the now withered and dry pasture thistle tops. They have a much coarser pappus than the milkweeds. I am surprised, amid these perfectly withered and bleached thistles, to see one just freshly in flower. 

The autumnal dandelion is now comparatively scarce there. 

In the huckleberry pasture, by the fence of old barn boards, I notice many little pale-brown dome-shaped (puckered to a centre beneath) puff-balls, which emit their dust. When you pinch them, a smoke-like brown dust (snuff-colored) issues from the orifice at their top, just like smoke from a chimney. It is so fine and light that it rises into the air and is wafted away like smoke. They are low Oriental domes or mosques. Sometimes crowded together in nests, like a collection of humble cottages on the moor, in the coal pit or Numidian style; for there is suggested some humble hearth beneath, from which this smoke comes up, as it were the homes of slugs and crickets. 

They please me not a little by their resemblance to rude dome-shaped, turf-built cottages on the plain, wherein some humble but everlasting life is lived. Amid the low and withering grass or the stubble there they are gathered, and their smoke ascends between the legs of the herds and the traveller. I imagine a hearth and pot, and some snug but humble family passing its Sunday evening beneath each one. Some, when you press them harder, emit clear water — the relics of rain or dew — along with the dust, which last, how ever, has no affinity for it, but is quite dry and smoke like. 

I locate there at once all that is simple and admirable in human life. There is no virtue which their roofs exclude. I imagine with what contentment and faith I could come home to them at evening. I see some not yet ripe, still entire and rounded at top. When I break them open, they are found to be quite soggy, of a stringy white consistency, almost cream-like, riper and yellowish at top, where they will burst by and by. Many have holes eaten into them. On one I find a slug feeding, with a little hole beneath him, and a cricket has eaten out the whole inside of another in which he is housed. This before they are turned to dust. Large chocolate-colored ones have long since burst and are spread out wide like a shallow dish. 

Crickets are seen now moving slowly about in the paths, often with their heads only concealed in a burrow, as if looking out for winter quarters. I saw, on my return, a dozen crickets of various sizes gathered on an apple paring which I had dropped in the path when I came along. 

The sweet-briar rose hips are very handsome now, but these hips do not deserve to be coupled with haws as articles of food, even in extremities. They are very dry, hard, seedy, and unpalatable. I see some fresh-grown callitriche in some clear well-filled leafy pools which are commonly dry at this season.

The singular long pointed reddish bulbs in the axils of the Lysimachia stricta are one of the signs of the season, cool and late. 

It is well to find your employment and amusement in simple and homely things. These wear best and yield most. I think I would rather watch the motions of these cows in their pasture for a day, which I now see all headed one way and slowly advancing, — watch them and project their course carefully on a chart, and report all their behavior faithfully, — than wander to Europe or Asia and watch other motions there; for it is only ourselves that we report in either case, and perchance we shall report a more restless and worthless self in the latter case than in the first.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1856

Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. See October 23, 1857 ("Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries, calls the soapwort gentian “blue vengeance,” mistaking the word. A masculine wild eyed woman of the fields. Somebody has her daguerreotype..")

Long pointed reddish bulbs in the axils of the Lysimachia stricta are one of the signs of the season . . . October 16, 1853 ("The Lysimachia stricta, with its long bulb-lets in the axils, how green and fresh by the shore of the pond!")

These cows in their pasture . . . which I now see all headed one way and slowly advancing. See July 5, 1853 ("Such a habit have cows in a pasture of moving forward while feeding."); September 27, 1851 ("The cows have been turned on to the meadow, but they gradually desert it, all feeding one way.")

Seen from my window

September 28

R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them. 

September 28, 2014

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.

Sweet-briar hips ripe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1854

R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall. See September 28, 1851 ("The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled.")  See also September 29, 1857 ("Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves."); October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish."); October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet. See September 30, 1854 (“I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.”)

Sweet-briar hips ripe. See October 5, 1856 ("The sweet-briar rose hips are very handsome now, but . . . are very dry, hard, seedy, and unpalatable.")

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

The sassafras trees

are now a bright orange scarlet

seen from my window.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Seen from my window

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-540928

The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet

May 16.

The air is sweet with fragrance.  

There are many insects now. I hear a hummingbird about the columbines. 

Methinks the columbine here is more remarkable for growing out of the seams of the rocks than the saxifrage, and perhaps better deserves the latter name. It is now in its prime, ornamental for nature's rockwork. 

Avesong May 14, 2023

It is a beautiful sight to see large clusters of splendid scarlet and yellow flowers growing out of a seam in the side of this gray cliff. 

Avesong April 24,  2023

The sessile-leaved bellwort, with three or four delicate pale-green leaves with reflexed edges, on a tender-looking stalk, the single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping, neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground, the dry leaves, as if unworthy to face the heavens. It is a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery,  the first of the season, -- growing in a little straggling company, in damp woods or swamps. When you turn up the drooping flower, its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star. 

These faint, fugacious fragrances are pleasing. You are not always quite sure that you perceive any.

The earth reflects the heavens in violets.

I can now pluck a sprig of fresh sweet-briar and feed my senses with that. 

The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 16, 1852

Methinks the columbine here is more remarkable for growing out of the seams of the rocks than the saxifrage, and perhaps better deserves the latter name . . .[ Latin, saxifragus breaking rocks, from saxum rock + frangere to break]. . . See May 12, 1855 ("Under Lee’s Cliff, . . . am surprised to find some pale-yellow columbines. . .")

The sessile-leaved bellwort . . . a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery, the first of the season. See .May 14, 1852 ("The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold"); May 16, 1858 (" The Uvularia perfoliata, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bellworts

The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. See See May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”)

Early cliff dwellers

April 27.

Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals, apparently answered from a distance. It is clear and sonorous heard afar; but I found it quite impossible to tell from which side it came; sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer. 

Heard also a chipping sparrow (F. socialis). 

It has rained a little in the night. The landscape is still dark and wet. The hills look very dank, but I notice that some houses, one yellow one especially, look much better in this light.

On Conantum Cliffs, whose seams dip to the northwest at an angle of 50° and run northeast and  southwest, I find to-day for the first time the early saxifrage (Saxifraga vernalis) in blossom, growing high and dry in the narrow seams, where there is no soil for it but a little green moss.

Early Saxifrage

April 27, 2024

Following thus early after the bare rock, it is one of the first flowers, not only in the spring of the year, but in the spring of the world.  It can take advantage of a perpendicular cliff where the snow cannot lie and fronting the south.

In exactly the same places grows the columbine, now well budded and seven or eight inches high. The higher up the rock and the more sheltered and sunny the location, the earlier they are.

Also the first plantain-leaved everlasting (Gray's Antennaria plantaginifolia) is in blossom in a sheltered place in the grass at the top of the rock. The thimble-berry and the sweet-briar are partly leaved out in the crevices of the rock, and the latter emits its fragrance.

The half-open buds of the saxifrage, showing the white of the petals in a corymb or cyme, on a short stem, surrounded by its new leaves mingled with the purplish tips of the calyx-leaves, is handsomer than when it is fully expanded.

This is a place to look for early blossoms of the saxifrage, columbine, and plantain-leaved everlasting, - the first two especially. The crevices of the rock (cliff) make natural hothouses for them, affording dryness, warmth, and shelter.    

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1852

Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird."  See April 27, 1855 (“The principal singer on this walk, both in wood and field away from town, is the field sparrow.”) See also April 9, 1856 (“Wandering over that high huckleberry pasture, I hear the sweet jingle of the Fringilla juncorum.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow

Heard also a chipping sparrow (F. socialis) See April 27, 1857 (“I hear the prolonged che che che che che, etc., of the chip-bird.”); and note to April 12, 1858 ("Hear the huckleberry-bird and, I think, the Fringilla socialis.”)   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis ).

I find to-day for the first time the early saxifrage . . . following early after the bare rock, it is one of the first flowers, not only in the spring of the year, but in the spring of the world.  See April 3, 1853 ("To my great surprise the saxifrage is in bloom. . . .With what skill it secures moisture and heat, growing commonly in a little bed of moss which keeps it moist, and lying low in some cleft of the rock! The sunniest and most sheltered exposures possible it secures. This faced the southeast, was nearly a foot under the eaves of the rock."); See also April 28, 1852 ("Are not the flowers which appear earliest in the spring the most primitive and simplest?") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis)

In exactly the same places grows the columbine, now well budded and seven or eight inches high. The higher up the rock and the more sheltered and sunny the location, the earlier they are. See March 18, 1853 ("At Conantum Cliff the columbines have started and the saxifrage even, the former as conspicuously as any plant . . . Both these grow there in high and dry chinks in the face of tire cliff, where no soil appears, and the sunnier the exposure the more advanced. Even if a fallen fragment of the rock is so placed as to reflect the heat upon it, it has the start of its neighbors. These plants waste not a day, not a moment, suitable to their development. "); April 1, 1855 (" At the first Conantum Cliff I am surprised to see how much the columbine leaves have grown in a sheltered cleft.");April 7, 1855 ("At Lee’s Cliff I find the radical leaves of the early saxifrage, columbine, and the tower mustard, etc.");April 8, 1854 ("The columbine shows the most spring growth of any plant. ")

April 27 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 27

Early saxifrage

one of the first flowers in

the spring – and  the world.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Early cliff dwellers

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