Our thoughts begin to prepare for winter.

October 15

The first snow is falling in large flakes, filling the air and obscuring the distant woods and houses, as if the inhabitants above were emptying their pillow-cases. The ground begins to whiten, and our thoughts begin to prepare for winter. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 15, 1852

See October 20, 1857 ("There is a very strong northwest wind, Novemberish and cool, raising waves on the river and admonishing to prepare for winter."); October 27, 1851 ("This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow, quite unexpectedly, . . . The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. The cold numbs my fingers. Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.");

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

The first snow falling –

large flakes begin to whiten

our thoughts for winter.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Our thoughts begin to prepare for winter. 

 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-521015

Signs of the season.

October 14.

That coarse yellowish fungus is very common in the paths in woods of late, for a month, often picked by birds, often decayed, often mashed by the foot like a piece of pumpkin, defiling and yellowing the grass, as if a liquor (or dust) distilled from them. 

The pines are now two-colored, green and yellow, — the latter just below the ends of the boughs. 

The woods have lost so many leaves they begin to look bare, — maples, poplars, etc., chestnuts. Flowers are fast disappearing. Winter may be anticipated. 

But few crickets are heard. Jays and chickadees are oftener heard in the fall than in summer. 

It is apparently the Eriophorum Virginicum, Virginian cotton-grass, now nodding or waving with its white woolly heads over the greenish andromeda and amid the red isolated blueberry bushes in Beck Stow's Swamp. A thousand white woolly heads, one to two inches in diameter, suggesting winter. 

The lower or older leaves of the andromeda begin to redden. This plant forms extensive solid beds with a definite surface, level or undulating, like a moss bed. Not, like the huckleberry, irregular and independent each of the other, but regular and in community, as if covered by a film.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 14, 1852

The pines are now two-colored, green and yellow. See October 14, 1857 ("They are regularly parti-colored. The last year's leaves, about a foot beneath the extremities of the twigs on all sides, now changed and ready to fall, have their period of brightness as well as broader leaves. They are a clear yellow, contrasting with the fresh and liquid green of the terminal plumes, or this year's leaves. These two quite distinct colors are thus regularly and equally distributed over the whole tree. You have the warmth of the yellow and the coolness of the green.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The lower or older leaves of the andromeda begin to redden. See October 7, 1857 ("I see some panicled andromeda dark red or crimson."); October 24, 1852 ("The andromeda is already browned, has a grayish-brown speckled look."); October 23, 1858 ("Panicled andromeda reddish-brown and half fallen. ); October 23, 1858 ("I detect but few Andromeda Polifolia and Kalmia glauca leaves turned a light red or scarlet."); November 3, 1858 ("The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this."); November 17, 1859 (“How fair and memorable this prospect when you stand opposite to the sun, these November afternoons, and look over the red andromeda swamp”) See also February 17, 1854 (" In these swamps, then, you have three kinds of andromeda. The main swamp is crowded with high blueberry, panicled andromeda, prinos, swamp-pink, 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.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

A peaceful landscape

October 13

It is a clear, warm, rather Indian-summer day, and they are gathering the apples in the orchard. The warmth is more required, and we welcome and appreciate it all. The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks.

Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows. Crowded together at a distance they look like smoke. 

This is a sudden and important change. The autumnal tints have already lost their brightness. It lasts but a day or two.

Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season, framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills. The water or lake, from however distant a point seen, is always the center of the landscape. Birches, hickories, aspens, in the distance, are like small flames on the hillsides about the pond.

Fair Haven lies more open and can be seen from more distant points than any of our ponds. The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple. Far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke. There is no disturbing sound.

How peaceful great nature!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 13, 1852

It is a clear, warm, rather Indian-summer day . . . The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks See October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer. . . The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards, and the very Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers"); See also A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

Crowded together at a distance [maples]look like smoke. See October 13, 1855 ("The maples now stand like smoke along the meadows"); October 13, 1857 ("Maple fires are burnt out generally, and they have fairly begun to fall and look smoky in the swamps.") 

The autumnal tints have already lost their brightness. It lasts but a day or two. See October 13, 1857 ("Those most brilliant days, then, so far as the autumnal tints are concerned, are over."); See also October 6, 1858 ("Now, methinks, the autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. "); October 23, 1852 (" By the end of the month the leaves will either have fallen or besered and turned brown by the frosts for the most part . . .October has been the month of autumnal tints ")

Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season, framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills. See October 3, 1858 ("Looking all around Fair Haven Pond yesterday, where the maples were glowing amid the evergreens, my eyes invariably rested on a particular small maple of the purest and intensest scarlet. ") October 22, 1857 (" Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple. See October 20,1852 (“I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them.”); September 22, 1854 (“[A]s the sun is preparing to dip below the horizon, the thin haze in the atmosphere north and south along the west horizon reflects a purple tinge and bathes the mountains with the same, like a bloom on fruits.”) A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

How peaceful great nature! See September 20, 1852 ("The peaceful pond! . . .How distinctly each thing in nature is marked!"); January 9, 1853 ("How innocent are Nature's purposes!")

October 11. See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 13

Always the center –

the pond is now framed with the

autumn-tinted woods.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A peaceful landscape

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 © 2009-2022

P. M.— To Cliffs.

Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows, where, crowded together, at a distance they look like smoke.

This is a sudden and important change, produced mainly, I suppose, by the rain of Sunday, 10th.

The autumnal tints have commonly already lost their brightness.

It lasts but a day or two.

Corn-spurry and spotted polygonum and polygala.

Fair Haven Pond, methinks, never looks so handsome as at this season.

It is a sufficiently clear and warm, rather Indian-summer day, and they are gathering the apples in the orchard.

The warmth is more required, and we welcome and appreciate it all.

The shrub oak plain is now a deep red, with grayish, withered, apparently white oak leaves intermixed.

The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks.

Birches, hickories, aspens, etc., in the distance, are like innumerable small flames on the hillsides about the pond.

The pond is now most beautifully framed with the autumn-tinted woods and hills.

The water or lake, from however distant a point seen, is always the centre of the landscape.

Fair Haven lies more open and can be seen from more distant points than any of our ponds.

The air is singularly fine-grained; the sward looks short and firm.

The mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly impurpled.

Seeming to lie up more.

How peaceful great nature! There is no disturbing sound, but far amid the western hills there rises a pure white smoke in constant volumes.

That handsome kind of sedge ( ?) which lasts through the winter must be the Scirpus Eriophorum, red cotton- grass of Bigelow, and wool-grass (under bulrush and club-rush) of Gray.

A new carpet of pine leaves.

October 12

Paddled on Walden. A rippled surface. Scared up ducks. Saw them first far over the surface, just risen, – two smaller, white-bellied, one larger, black. 

They circled round as usual, and the first went off, but the black one went round and round and over the pond five or six times at a considerable height and distance, when I thought several times he had gone to the river, and at length settled down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile into a distant part of the pond which I had left free; but what beside safety these ducks get by sailing in the middle of Walden I don't know. 

That black rolling-pin with wings, circling round you half a mile off for a quarter of an hour, at that height, from which he sees the river and Fair Haven all the while, from which he sees so many things  while I see almost him alone. Their wings set so far back. They are not handsome, but wild. 

October 12, 2022

A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. The forest is laying down her carpet for the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1852

That black rolling-pin with wings. See March 18, 1855 ("Meanwhile a small dark-colored duck, all neck and wings, a winged rolling-pin, went over,--perhaps a teal."); April 15, 1855 ("We scare up but few ducks — some apparently black, which quacked—and some small rolling-pins, probably teal.")

A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. See October 13, 1855 ("A thick carpet of white pine needles lies now lightly, half an inch or more in thickness, above the dark-reddish ones of last year."); October 16, 1855 ("How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground! quite like a carpet.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall ("There is a season when pine leaves are yellow, and when they are fallen.")

October 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 12

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A new carpet of pine leaves

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

Oct. 12. I am struck by the superfluity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints. Can it be because there is less vapor? The delicacy of the stratification in the white sand by the railroad, where they have been getting out sand for the brick-yards, the delicate stratification of this great globe like the leaves of the choicest volume just shut on a lady's table. The piled-up history! I am struck by the slow and delicate process by which the globe was formed.

Paddled on Walden. A rippled surface. Scared up ducks. Saw them first far over the surface, just risen, — two smaller, white-bellied, one larger, black. They circled round as usual, and the first went off, but the black one went round and round and over the pond five or six times at a considerable height and distance, when I thought several times he had gone to the river, and at length settled down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile into a distant part of the pond which I had left free; but what beside safety these ducks get by sailing in the middle of Walden I don't know.2 That black rolling-pin with wings, circling round you half a mile off for a quarter of an hour, at that height, from which he sees the river and Fair Haven all the while, from which he sees so many things, while I see almost him alone. Their wings set so far back. They are not handsome, but wild.

What an ample share of the light of heaven each pond and lake on the surface of the globe enjoys ! No woods are so dark and deep but it is light above the pond. Its window or skylight is as broad as its surface. It lies out patent to the sky. From the mountain-top you may not be able to see out because of the woods, but on the lake you are bathed in light.

 I can discern no skaters nor water-bugs on the sur face of the pond, which is now rippled. Do they, then, glide forth to the middle in calm days only, by short impulses, till they have completely covered it ?

A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. The forest is laying down her carpet for the winter. The elms in the village, losing their leaves, reveal the birds' nests.

 I dug some ground-nuts in the railroad bank with my hands this afternoon, the vine being now dead. They were nearly as large as hen's eggs, six inches or a foot beneath the surface, on the end of a root or strung along on it. I had them roasted and boiled at supper time. The skin came readily off like a potato. Roasted, they have an agreeable taste very much like a potato, though somewhat fibrous in texture. With my eyes shut, I should not know but I was eating a rather soggy potato. Boiled, they were unexpectedly quite dry, and though in this instance a little strong, had a more nutty flavor. With a little salt, a hungry man would make a very palatable meal on them. It would not be easy to find them, especially now that the vines are dead, unless you knew beforehand where they grew.1

Perfect autumn. Walden

October 8


The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect.

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1852

The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect. See October 7, 1852 ("It is perfect autumn. It is the mellowing year"); October 7, 1857 ("I see, some fifty rods off, looking toward the sun, the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill . . . the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted."); October 9, 1853 ("The red maples are now red and also yellow and reddening.")

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water. See  October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd")

Today, October 3, 1852, HDT also records in his Journal the story of the loon diving and dodging him that was to be incorporated into "Walden." See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The wildest sound I ever heard

October 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

Maples by the shore

extending their red banners

over the water.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Perfect autumn. Walden

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-521008

It is perfect autumn.

October 7

Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, as it were; and then, in the village, the warm brownish-yellow elms.

The green pines springing out of huckleberries on the hillsides look as if surrounded by red or vermilion paint. 

I notice the Viola ovata, houstonia, Ranunculus repens, caducous polygala, small scratch-grass polygonum, autumnal dandelion (very abundant, yellowing the low turfy grounds and hills), small bushy white aster, a few goldenrods, Polygonum hydropiperoides and the unknown flowerless bidens, soapwort gentian (now turned dark purple), yarrow, the white erigeron, red clover, hedge-mustard. 

The muskrats have begun to erect their cabins. Thev begin soon after the pontederias are (dead (??). Saw one done. Do they build them in the night? 

Heat and see larks, bluebirds, robins, song sparrows. Also see painted tortoises and shad frogs. 

There must be in abundance of mast this year. I could gather up nearly a bushel of acorns under one white oak, out of their cups, and, I think, quite good to eat. They are earlier to fall than the walnuts. It is encouraging to see a large crop of acorns, though we do not use them. 

The white maples turn yellowish, though some boughs are red. 

I sit on Poplar Hill. It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. The sun comes out of clouds, and lights up and warms the whole scene. It is perfect autumn. 

I see a hundred smokes arising through the yellow elm-tops in the village, where the villagers are preparing for tea. It is the mellowing year. 

The sunshine harmonizes with the imbrowned and fiery foliage.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 7, 1852

Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, See October 7, 1857 ("I see looking toward the sun the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the hill, - a strip of the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted.") See also October 9, 1858 ("The maple swamps begin to look smoky, they are already so bare. Their fires, so faded."); October 10, 1851("Now is the time to enjoy the dry leaves. Now all nature is a dried herb, full of medicinal odors."); October 18, 1855 ("The maple swamps, bare of leaves, here and there about the meadow, look like smoke blown along the edge of the woods."); October 18, 1858 ("I am struck by the magical change which has taken place in the red maple swamps . . . like the smoke that is seen where a blaze is extinguished — desolate gray twigs")

Now is the time to behold . . . in the village, the warm brownish-yellow elms. See` October 6 & 7, 1853 ("Windy. Elms bare.") See also October 9, 1857 ("The elms are now at the height of their change. As I look down our street, which is lined with them, now clothed in their very rich brownish-yellow dress, they remind me of yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had come to the village itself"); October 10, 1853 ("Cooler and windy at sunset, and the elm leaves come down again.”); October 12, 1852 (" The elms in the village, losing their leaves, reveal the birds' nests.”); October 13, 1858 ("The elms are at least half bare."); October 17, 1857 (“A great many more ash trees, elms, etc., are bare now.”)

The muskrats have begun to erect their cabins. See October 16, 1859 ("For thirty years I have annually observed, about this time or earlier, the freshly erected winter lodges of the musquash along the riverside. . . This may not be an annual phenomenon to you. It may not be in the Greenwich almanac or ephemeris, but it has an important place in my Kalendar. So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia and flags."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. See October 4, 1859 ("This is a fine and warm afternoon, Indian-summer like, but we have not had cold enough before it."); October 5, 1857. ("A warm and bright October afternoon."); October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

It is perfect autumn. It is the mellowing year. See October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape."); See also October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

There must be in abundance of mast this year. I could gather up nearly a bushel of acorns under one white oak.  See September 30, 1854 ("Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels.");October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall, also a fair crop of red oak acorns; but not of scarlet and black, very few of them. The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall."); October 13, 1860 ("This is a white oak year . . . I should think that there might be a bushel or two of acorns on and under some single trees."); October 14, 1859 ("The ground is strewn also with red oak acorns now, and, as far as I can discover, acorns of all kinds have fallen.")

October 7. See A Book of the Seasons,,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 7

Indian-summer –

the sun comes out and lights up

the mellowing year.

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, It is perfect autumn.

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-521007

***

We set out intending to go over the far ridge.

We are delayed on our own ridge cutting a log that has been in the way a long time. It is still solid in the core, and once i get it cut in one place, it cant be moved because it is binding on some trees. We cut nearly through one part, but it still binds. Finally Jane cuts through another spot and we can both drag it out of the way. I end up moving the other end off the trail side. We smooth the trail with wood chips.

We bushwack east over the stream and finally reach the main logging road, but keep east to the next road then edge up along the cliff. Here is a big beech blowdown and we have to clear a way up along the cliff edge to the saddle where the red trail starts.

But it is late, and will be dark soon.

We decide to go back down and take the main road up to the north and bushwack over to the double chair.

Jane stops at the wintergreen patch and samples some.

At the top on that sparse ridge we find our separate ways over the rocks down to the west. it is now getting dark. There are lots of blowdowns separating us.

Jane stops and calls me over. 

She is on a log, her headlamp is not working unless she takes it off and squeezes. Meanwhile her glasses are missing. I have a flashlight; she gets out hers. It takes a while, but finally i spot her glasses.

 It is now dark.

I remember the time we were lost in the dark over here. It’s something different now. A feeling of confidence that we know where we are. We have lights yes, but we know where we are.

We head generally toward the double chair, meandering around the blowdowns. We come to the ridge before the ridge and then we are there. Right at the bottom of the trail up to the double chair.

Up we go and it is reassuring to have the reflectors marking the trail. We rest in the chairs. Then down the ridge trail. We pass through our now log-free spot. and end up at the view. Lights twinkling in the Champlain valley.

Now down round  to the junction upper road and home.

Four or four and a half hours.

Deep woods night hike.

October 7, 2012

A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake.

October 3

Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. 

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. 

The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray. 

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 3, 1852

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. See September 30, 1854 ("Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels."); October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns if not for others.")

A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27[,1857]. . .  we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances”); October 8, 1852 ("after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself.”); October 5, 1853 ("The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds like a loon on the pond. How fit”)

The Aster undulates is common and fresh.  Compare October 3, 1857 ("Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now."); See October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path.")

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.  See  October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.") See also  October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 2, 1853 ("The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here, though a week ago last Wednesday they were fully changed at Bangor ") See also November 9, 1850 (" I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen."); See also A Book of the Seasons, byHenry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

October 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 3

A wild sound heard far

suited to the wildest lake –

laughing of a loon.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A wild sound, heard far 

and suited to the wildest lake.

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-521003