The meadow-haying season.

August 5. 

August 5, 2013

By boat to Coreopsis Bend. 

A general fog in the morning, dispersed by 8 o'clock. At first the air still and water smooth, afterward a little breeze from time to time, — judging from my sail, from the north-northeast. 

A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass in the Wheeler meadow.

Methinks the river's bank is now in its most interesting condition, most verdurous and florid consisting of light rounded masses of verdure and bloom, and the river, slightly raised by the late rains, takes all rawness from the brim. Now, then, the river's brim is in perfection, after the mikania is in bloom and before the pontederia and pads and the willows are too much imbrowned, and the meadows all shorn.

But already very many pontederia leaves and pads have turned brown or black. The fall, in fact, begins with the first heats of July. Skunk-cabbage, hellebores, convallarias, pontederias, pads, etc., appear to usher it in.  

It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter.

I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion or resting in the shade, while the boys are turning the grass to the sun. I passed as many as sixty or a hundred men thus at work to-day. They stick up a twig with the leaves on, on the river's brink, as a guide for the mowers, that they may not exceed the owner's bounds. I hear their scythes cronching the coarse weeds by the river's brink as I row near. The horse or oxen stand near at hand in the shade on the firm land, waiting to draw home a load anon. I see a platoon of three or four mowers, one behind the other, diagonally advancing with regular sweeps across the broad meadow and ever and anon standing to whet their scythes. Or else, having made several bouts, they are resting in the shade on the edge of the firm land. In one place I see one sturdy mower stretched on the ground amid his oxen in the shade of an oak, trying to sleep; or I see one wending far inland with a jug to some well-known spring.

Though yesterday was rainy, the air to-day is filled with a blue haze.

Near Lee's (returning), see a large bittern, pursued by small birds, alight on the shorn meadow near the pickerel-weeds, but, though I row to the spot, he effectually conceals himself.

Now Lee and his men are returning to their meadow-haying after dinner, and stop at the well under the black oak in the field. I too repair to the well when they are gone, and taste the flavor of black strap on the bucket's edge. 

As I return down-stream, I see the haymakers now raking with hand or horse rakes into long rows or loading, one on the load placing it and treading it down, while others fork it up to him; and others are gleaning with rakes after the forkers. All farmers are anxious to get their meadow-hay as soon as possible for fear the river will rise.

I see very few whorled or common utricularias, but the purple ones are exceedingly abundant on both sides the river, apparently from one end to the other. The broad pad field on the southwest side of Fair Haven is distinctly purpled with them. Their color is peculiarly high for a water plant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 5, 1854

A general fog in the morning. See July 18, 1852 ("Now the fogs have begun, in midsummer and mid-haying time"); July 22, 1851 ("The season of morning fogs has arrived."); August 1, 1856 ("We have a dense fog every night, which lifts itself but a short distance during the day."); August 8, 1852 ("Awoke into a rosy fog. I was enveloped by the skirts of Aurora.")

A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season. See August 5, 1858 ("This forenoon there were no hayers in the meadow, but before we returned we saw many at work.") See also August 6, 1854 ("We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow."); August 6, 1855 ("Meadow-haying on all hands.”); August 6, 1858 ("We pass haymakers in every meadow,") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Long declivity from midsummer to winter. See July 28, 1854 (“The long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year.”); August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill.“).

August 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 5

Mowers and rakers

bending to their manly work

with graceful motion.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The meadow-haying 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

tinyurl.com/540805

Now begins the year's dark green early afternoon (The seasons of the day, the year . . . a life.)

August 23

August 23, 2013

Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that it begins in the spring, the dewy dawn of the year, with a silvery hoary downiness, changing to a yellowish or light green, — the saffron-robed morn, — then to a pure, spotless, glossy green with light under sides reflecting the light, — the forenoon, — and now the dark green, or early afternoon, when shadows begin to increase, and next it will turn yellow or red, — the sunset sky, — and finally sere brown and black, when the night of the year sets in.

I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year. Perhaps after middle age man ceases to be interested in the morning and in the spring.

Poke stems are now ripe. I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of Lee's Cliff, where they have ripened early. 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. It excites me to behold it. What a success is its! What maturity it arrives at, ripening from leaf to root! 

May I mature as perfectly, root and branch, as the poke! It is a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries. Be blown on by all the winds. 

Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season's influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your especial use. 

For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. "Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. 

Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1853

The perfect correspondence of a day and the year. See August 19, 1853 (“The day is an epitome of the year.”)

Live in each season as it passes. See April 24 1859 (Find your eternity in each moment)

Seasons of life. See July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); October 7, 1851 (There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- as between one period of your life and another); November 14, 1853. (October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.); January 30, 1854 (We are not to suppose that there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars…)

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. See December 16, 1853 (Would you be well, see that you are attuned to each mood of nature); July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature). See also Walden (" Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.").



The blackness of the
foliage between me and
the light reminds me

it begins in spring,
the dewy dawn of the year,
silver downiness,

the saffron-robed morn,
a yellowish or light green,--
then pure glossy green

undersides reflect
the light, — the forenoon -- and now
early afternoon,

the dark green shadows
begin to increase, and next
it will turn yellow

or red, — the sunset --
finally black when the night
of the year sets in.

Now begins the year's

dark green early afternoon

when shadows increase.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The year's

dark green early 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-530823

The dew reflects moonlight.

October. 28

Sunset from the Poplar Hill. A warm, moist afternoon. The clouds lift in the west, — indeed the horizon is now clear all around.

October 28, 2019

Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. The air is filled with a remarkably vaporous haze. The shadows of the trees on the river's edge stretch straight a quarter of a mile into the level russet Great Meadows. 

The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown. 

8 p.m.— To Cliffs.

After whatever revolutions in my moods and experiences, when I come forth at evening, as if from years of confinement to the house, I see the few stars which make the constellation of the Lesser Bear in the same relative position, - the everlasting geometry of the stars. 

The moon beginning to wane. It is a quite warm but moist night. The dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight like glow-worms.

That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow.

The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree resounds all night, though some have but a few leaves left to flutter and hum.

Four months of the green leaf make all our summer, if I reckon from June 1st to October 1st, the growing season, and methinks there are about four months when the ground is white with snow. That would leave two months for spring and two for autumn. October the month of ripe or painted leaves; November the month of withered leaves and bare twigs and limbs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1852

Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. See October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light;"); See also October 21 1857 ("I see, this cool and grayish evening, that peculiar yellow light in the east, from the sun at little before its setting. It has just come out beneath a great cold slate-colored cloud that occupies most of the western sky, as smaller ones the eastern, and now its rays, slanting over the hill in whose shadow I float, fall on the eastern trees and hills with a thin, yellow light"); October 22, 1852 ("We have to-night a bright warm sunset after a cool gray afternoon, lighting up the green pines at the northeast end of the pond"); October 22, 1854 ("t was a beautiful evening, and a clear amber sunset lit up all the eastern shores"); October 27, 1858 ("We have a cool, white sunset, Novemberish, and no redness to warm our thoughts."); October 31, 1858 ("Looking off just before sunset, when all other trees visible for miles around are reddish or green, I distinguish my new acquaintance by its yellow color"); and also August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset."); November 14, 1853 ("October is the month of painted leaves, . . .it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. . . .This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”)

The sun setting red

in haze at the same time as

the full moon rises.

October 8, 1851

The mountains distinct –

the sunset sky white and cold

now as I come home.

October 17, 1857

A bright warm sunset

after a gray afternoon

lights up every leaf.

October 22, 1852

October is the

red sunset sky, November

the later twilight. 

October 24, 1858

That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow. See January 24, 1852 ("And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night.”)

October the month of ripe or painted leaves. See August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.”); November 14, 1853 (“October . . . is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky.”)

The boys are gathering walnuts. See October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts."); 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 dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight. See Dogen ("The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.. . .. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.") and May 13, 1860 ("Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself."); June 11, 1851 ("The woodland paths are never seen to such advantage as in a moonlight night . . . Hardly two nights are alike. I now descend round the corner of the grain-field . . .and find myself in a colder, damp and misty atmosphere, with much dew on the grass. There is something creative and primal in the cool mist. . . .I seem to be nearer to the origin of things."); June 16, 1840 ("The river down which we glided for that long afternoon was like a clear drop of dew with the heavens and the landscape reflected in it.")

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