The meadows by the railroad appear fresh and tender green.

August  19. 

August 19, 2015

The meadows by the railroad appear to have got an exceedingly fresh and tender green. 

The near meadow is very beautiful now, seen from the railroad through this dog-day haze, which softens its fresh green of so many various shades, blending them harmoniously, — darker and lighter patches of grass and the very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left. It has an indescribable beauty to my eye now, which it could not have in a clear day. 

The haze has the effect both of a wash or varnish and of a harmonizing tint. It destroys the idea of definite distance which distinctness suggests. 

It is as if you had painted a meadow of fresh grass springing up after the mower, — here a dark green, there lighter, and there again the yellowish onoclea, — then washed it over with some gum like a map and tinted the paper of a fine misty blue. This is an effect of the dog-days.

There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.

There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.  Many white birches long since lost the greater part of their leaves, which cover the ground, sere and brown as in autumn. 

So like tinder is everything now that we passed three places within a mile where the old sleepers heaped up by the track had just been set on fire by the engine, — in one place a large pile.  

Flint's Pond has fallen very much since I was here. The shore is so exposed that you can walk round, which I have not known possible for several years, and the outlet is dry. But Walden is not affected by the drought.

Plucked, about 4.30, one bunch of Viburnum nudum berries, all green, with very little pink tinge even. When I got home at 6.30, nine were turned blue, the next morning thirty. It seems that they do not always pass through the deep-pink stage. They are quite sweet to eat, like raisins. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 19, 1854

Fresh green of so many various shades blending . . . harmoniously. See August 19, 1853 ("The different shades of green of different and the same trees . . . melting into one another . . . make a most glorious soft and harmonious picture, only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year”)

The very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left. See August 6, 1854 ("Small light-green sensitive ferns are springing up full of light on the bank.") September 6, 1856 ("The sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl.")

There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain. See August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze”); August 22, 1854 (“The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”); Compare August 19, 1858 ("The dog-day weather is suddenly gone and here is a cool, clear, and elastic air. You may say it is the first day of autumn.")

There is now a remarkable drought.  See July 13, 1854 (“In the midst of July heat and drought.”);  July 14, 1854 (“Awake to day of gentle rain, — very much needed; none to speak of for nearly a month, methinks”); September 10, 1854 ("September 1st and 2d, the thunder-shower of evening of September 6th, and this regular storm are the first fall rains after the long drought.”)

Flint's Pond has fallen very much . . . But Walden is not affected by the drought. See  Walden ("The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. . . . Flint's Pond, a mile eastward . . . sympathize[s] with Walden, and recently attained their greatest height at the same time with the latter.")  and note to December 5, 1852 ("Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is . . . distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond")

One bunch of Viburnum nudum berries, all green, with very little pink tinge even. See August 12, 1854 ("They are a very pretty, irregularly elliptical berry, one side longer than the other, and particularly interesting on account of the mixture of light-green, deep-pink, and dark-purple, and also withered berries, in the same cyme. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum

August 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 19

Fresh and tender green 

of so many shades blending 

harmoniously.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The meadows by the railroad

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-540819

To Bear Hill, Lincoln.

June 27.

June 27.

I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods, a perfect little hen. She spreads her tail into a fan and beats the ground with her wings fearlessly within a few feet of me, to attract my attention while her young disperse; but they keep up a faint, wiry kind of peep, which betrays them, while she mews and squeaks as if giving them directions.

Looking from Bear Hill, I am struck by the yellowish green of meadows, almost like an ingrained sunlight. Perhaps they have that appearance because the fields generally incline now to a reddish-brown green. The freshness of the year in most fields is already past. The tops of the early grass are white, killed by the worm. 

It is somewhat hazy, yet I can just distinguish Monadnock.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 27,1852

I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods. See June 27, 1860 ("See on the open grassy bank and shore, just this side the Hemlocks, a partridge with her little brood."); June 26, 1857(" See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least."); July 1, 1860 (I see young partridges not bigger than robins fly three or four rods. . .”); July 5, 1856 ("Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste into the woods from off the railroad.") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

It is somewhat hazy, yet I can just distinguish Monadnock  Compare  February 21, 1855 ("Could not distinguish Monadnock till the sun shone on it."); March 28, 1858 ("turning my glass toward the mountains, I can see the sun reflected from the rocks on Monadnock, and I know that it would be pleasant to be there too to-day as well as here")

First columbine

May 6.

Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. The first Anemone memorosa, wind-flower or wood anemone, its petals more slightly slightly tinged with purple than the rue-leaved.  See the ferns here at the spring curling up like the proboscis of the sphinx moth. The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground, also, by this spring.

The first columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) to-day, on Conantum.

Shade is grateful, and the walker feels a desire to bathe in some pond or stream for coolness and invigoration.

The willows are now suddenly of a light, fresh, tender yellowish-green. 

A green bittern, a gawky bird. 

As I return over the bridge, shadflies very numerous. Many insects now in the evening sunshine, especially over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1852

The first columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) to-day, on Conantum. See May 1, 1854 ("I think that the columbine cannot be said to have blossomed there [Lee's Cliff] before to-day, — the very earliest.”); April 30, 1855 (" Columbine just out; one anther sheds.");  April 18, 1856 (“Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side.”);  April 19, 1858 (“Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!!”)

The willows are now suddenly of a light, fresh, tender yellowish-green. See May 2, 1859 (" I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly”); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); May 18, 1852 ("This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape "); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.")

On Fair Haven Hill

July 15.

July 15

Looking down on a field of red-top now in full bloom, a quarter of a mile west of this hill, at 2.30 P.M. of this very warm and slightly hazy but not dog-dayish day in a blazing sun I am surprised to see a very distinct white vapor like a low cloud drifting along close over the moist coolness of that dense grass-field.

These cultivated grasses now clothe the earth with rich hues. Field after field, densely packed like the squares of a checker-board, all through and about the villages, paint the earth. 

The rich green of young grain now, of various shades; the flashing blades of corn; the yellowing tops of ripening grain; the dense uniform red of red-top; the purple of the fowl-meadow along the low river-banks; the very dark and shadowy green of herd's-grass as if clouds were always passing over it; the fresh light green where June-grass has been cut; the fresh dark green where clover has been cut; the hard, dark green of pastures; the cheerful yellowish green of the meadows where the sedges prevail, with darker patches and veins of grass in the higher and drier parts. 

Knowing where to look, I can just distinguish with my naked eye the darker green of pipes on the peat meadows two miles from the Hill.

The potato-fields are a very dark green.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1860

The fresh light green where June-grass has been cut. See July 24, 1852 (“There is a short, fresh green on the shorn fields . . . the year has passed its culmination.”); July 24, 1860 ("Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun.”) 

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

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

Sweet scents in the air

June 3.

June 3, 2015

These are the clear breezy days of early June, when the leaves are young and few and the sorrel not yet in its prime.  




The roads now strewn with red maple seed. 

The foliage of deciduous trees is still rather yellow-green than green.

There are various sweet scents in the air now. 

I perceive the meadow fragrance, and, along an arborvitae hedge, a very distinct fragrance like strawberries.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1860

The roads now strewn with red maple seed. See June 2, 1859 ("Red maple seed is partly blown off. Some of it is conspicuously whitish or light-colored on the trees."); June 7, 1860 ("Red maple seed is still in the midst of its fall; is blown far from the trees.")

Sweet scents in the air now. I perceive the meadow fragrance . . . See May 27, 1856 ("perceived the meadow fragrance"): May 27, 1855 ("The meadow fragrance to-day"); June 3, 1854 ("the blossoms of the huckleberries and blueberries impart a sweet scent to the whole hillside.")

The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green!

May 23.

Canada Warbler

(Audubon)

Now on the sunny side of the woods, the sun just bursting forth in the morning after the rain, I get sight for a moment of a large warbler on a young oak, - only the under side, which is a clear bright lemon-yellow, all beneath, with a sort of crescent of black spots on the breast. Is it not the Sylvia pardalina? Methinks it was a rather dark brown above.

Critchicrotches some two or three days; now tender to eat.

How agreeable and surprising the peculiar fragrance of the sweet flag when bruised! That this plant alone should have extracted this odor surely for so many ages each summer from the moist earth!

The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1860

The under side . . . a clear bright lemon-yellow, all beneath, with a sort of crescent of black spots on the breast. See June 4, 1855 ("It is all bright yellow or ochreous orange (?) below except vent, and a dark or black crescent on breast, with a white line about eye. Above it appears a nearly uniform dark blue slate, legs light, bill dark (?), tail long and forked. I think it must be the Canada warbler, seen in ’37.”); May 28, 1860 ("Sylvia pardalina. It is a bright yellow beneath, with a broad black stripe along each side of the throat, becoming longish black marks crescent-wise on the fore part of the breast, leaving a distinct clear bright-yellow throat, and all the rest beneath bright-yellow; a distinct bright-yellow ring around eye; a dark bluish brown apparently all above; yellowish legs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Canada Warbler

Critchicrotches now tender to eat. See May 27, 1852 ("The fruit of the sweet flag is now just fit to eat, and reminds me of childhood, — the critchicrotches. They would help sustain a famished traveller. The inmost tender leaf, also, near the base, is quite palatable, as children know. I love it as well as muskrats (?)."); May 29 1854 (Critchicrotches have been edible some time in some places."); and note to June 12, 1852 ("The critchicrotches are going to seed. I love the sweet-flag as well as the muskrat (?). Its tender inmost leaf is very palatable below.")

The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green! See May 11, 1859 ("Young, or fresh-expanding, oak leaves are very handsome now, showing their colors. It is a leafy mist throughout the forest."); See May 15, 1854 ("The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens. . . . Oak leaves are as big as a mouse's ear.”); May 15, 1860 ("Looking from the Cliffs through the haze, the deciduous trees are a mist of leaflets.”); May 18, 1851 ("The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers");   May 25, 1860 ("Red and white oak leafets handsome now"); May 26, 1857 ("Very interesting now are the red tents of expanding- oak leaves, as you go through sprout-lands, — the crimson velvet of the black oak and the more pinkish white oak. The salmon and pinkish-red canopies or umbrellas of the white oak") 

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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

Color after so much brown.

May 4

May 4, 2015

Looking across the Peninsula toward Ball's Hill, I am struck by the bright blue of the river (a deeper blue than the sky), contrasting with the fresh yellow green of the meadow (coarse sedges just starting), and, between them, a darker or greener green next the edge of the river, especially where that small sand-bar island is (the green of the early rank river-grass). 

This is the first painting or coloring in the meadows. These several colors are as distinct and simple as a child's painting.

I am struck by the amount and variety of color after so much brown

The sun sets red, shorn of its beams.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 4, 1860

The sun sets red, shorn of its beams. See May 5, 1859 ("The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day.”)

Blue of the river 

yellow green of the meadow 

next to greener green 

These several colors 

are as distinct and simple

as a child's painting.

*****

May 4. River three and one fourth inches below summer level. Scales of turtles are coming off (painted turtle). Quite a warm day, — 70 at 6 P. M. 

Currant out a day or two at least, and our first gooseberry a day later.

P. M. – To Great Meadows by boat. I see Haynes with a large string of pickerel, and he says that he caught a larger yesterday. There were none of the brook pickerel in this string. He goes every day, and has good luck. It must be because the river is so low. Fishing, then, has fairly commenced. It is never any better pickerel - fishing than now. 

He has caught three good - sized trout in the river within a day or [ two ]; one would weigh a pound and a half. One above the railroad bridge, and one off Abner Buttrick’s, Saw Mill Brook. He has caught them in the river before, but very rarely. He caught these as he was fishing for pickerel. This, too, may be because the river is low and it is early in the season. 

He says that he uses the Rana halecina for bait; that a pickerel will spit out the yellow legged one. 

Walking over the river meadows to examine the pools and see how much dried up they are, I notice, as usual, the track of the musquash, some five inches wide always, always exactly in the lowest part of the muddy hollows connecting one pool with another, winding as they wind, as if loath to raise itself above the lowest mud. 

At first he swam there, and now, as the water goes down, he follows it steadily, and at length travels on the bare mud, but as low and close to the water as he can get. Thus he first traces the channel of the future brook and river, and deepens it by dragging his belly along it. He lays out and engineers its road. As our roads are said to follow the trail of the cow, so rivers in another period follow the trail of the musquash. 

They are perfect rats to look at, and swim fast against the stream. When I am talking on a high bank I often see one swimming along within half a dozen rods and land openly, as if regardless of us. Probably, being under water at first, he did not hear us. 

When the locomotive was first introduced into Concord, the cows and horses ran in terror to the other sides of their pastures as it passed along, and I suppose that the fishes in the river manifested equal alarm at first; but I notice (to - day, the 11th of May) that a pickerel by Derby’s Bridge, poised in a smooth bay, did not stir perceptibly when the train passed over the neighboring bridge and the locomotive screamed remarkably loud. The fishes have, no doubt, got used to the sound.

 I see a bullfrog under water. Land at the first angle of the Holt. 

Looking across the Peninsula toward Ball’s Hill, I am struck by the bright blue of the river (a deeper blue than the sky), contrasting with the fresh yellow green of the meadow (i. e. of coarse sedges just starting), and, between them, a darker or greener green next the edge of the river, especially where that small sand - bar island is, — the green of that early rank river - grass. 

This is the first painting or coloring in the meadows. These several colors are, as it were, daubed on, as on chinaware, or as distinct and simple as a child’s painted [ sic ]. 

I am struck by the amount and variety of color after so much brown. As I stood there I heard a thumping sound, which I referred to Peter’s, three quarters of a mile off over the meadow. But it was a pigeon woodpecker excavating its nest within a maple within a rod of me. Though I had just landed and made a noise with my boat, he was too busy to hear me, but now he hears my tread, and I see him put out his head and then withdraw it warily and keep still, while I stay there. Pipes (Equisetum limosum) are now generally three to seven inches high, but so brown as yet that I mistook them at a little distance for a dead brown stubble amid the green of springing sedge, and not a fresh growth at all. 

They are at last a very dark green still, if I remember. The river is very low, but I find that the meadows, though bare, are not very dry, except for the season, and I am pretty sure that within two or three years, and at this season, I have seen the pools on the meadows drier when there was more water in the river. · 

The Great Meadows are wet to walk over, after all, and the great pools on them are rather unapproachable, even in india - rubber boots. Apparently it is impossible for the meadows to be so dry at this season, however low the river may be, as they may be at midsummer and later. Their own springs are fuller now. 

A Nuphar advena in one of these pools what you may call out, for it is rather stale, though no pollen is shed. 

What little water there is amid the pipes and sedge is filled and swarming with apparently the larva of some insect, perhaps ephemeræ. They keep up an undulating motion, and have many feathery fringes on the sides.

 I observe fishes close inshore, active and rippling the water when not scared, as if breeding; often their back fins out. 

The sun sets red, shorn of its beams.

 Those little silvery beetles in Ed. Emerson’s aquarium that dash about are evidently the Notonecta, or water boatmen. I believe there is a larger and somewhat similar beetle, which does not swim on its back, called Dytiscus. 

Missouri currant out; how long?