A Book of the Seasons: November 6 (noticing buds now, and winter birds)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

November 6

These little sparrows

drift about in the air now

before the first snows.

November 6, 1853

Long spearhead-shaped buds

of  Viburnum Lentago – 

the end of forked twigs.

 November 6, 1853

Remarkable how

little we attend to what

passes before us.

November 6, 1853

The gooseberry leaves 

being wet are a still more 

brilliant scarlet. 

November 6, 1855

Bent almost double

Brooks Clark coming homeward with

his axe in his hand.

November 6, 1857

November 6, 2016

November 6, 2018

November 6, 2021

It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear, and ground frozen so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to force down a stake in plowed ground. November 6, 1854

A great many rainy or mizzling days the last fortnight, yet not much rain.  November 6, 1855

Very warm but rather cloudy weather, after rain in the night. Wind southwest. Thermometer on north of the house 70° at 12 M. Indian summer. November 6, 1857

Yesterday was a still and cloudy day. This is another rainy day. November 6, 1858

On the whole, we have had a good deal of fair weather the last three months. November 6, 1858

Was that a fish hawk I saw flying over the Assabet, or a goshawk? White beneath, with slender wings. November 6, 1854

It is surprising how little most of us are contented to know about the sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows. These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late, have flitted before me so many falls and springs, yet they have been strangers to me. I have not inquired whence they came or whither they were going, or what their habits are. November 6, 1853

It is remarkable how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way. November 6, 1853

Some horse-chestnuts are still thickly leaved and yellow, not withered.  November 6, 1858

The gooseberry leaves at the end of the currant row, being wet, are a still more brilliant scarlet.  November 6, 1855

Pennyroyal has a long time stood withered and dark, blackish brown, in the fields, yet scented. November 6, 1855

The witch-hazel spray is peculiar and interesting, with little knubs at short intervals, zig zag, crinkle-crankle. How happens it? Did the leaves grow so close? The bud is long against the stem, with a neck to it.  November 6, 1853

The fever bush has small roundish buds, two or three commonly together, probably the blossom-buds.  November 6, 1853

The alternate cornel, small, very dark reddish buds, on forking, smooth, slender twigs at long intervals.  November 6, 1853

The panicled andromeda, minute pointed red buds, hugging the curving stems. November 6, 1853

The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together.  November 6, 1853

The red maple buds, showing three or more sets of scales.  November 6, 1853

The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.  November 6, 1853

The four-sided, long spear-head-shaped buds of the Viburnum Lentago, at the end of forked twigs, probably blossom-buds, with minute leaf-buds lower on sides of twigs.  November 6, 1853

The river is quite low, . . . lower than before, this year. Yet there is more water in the mill-streams; the mill-wheels are supplied now which were stationary in the summer. November 6, 1859

A mizzling rain from the east drives me home from my walk. November 6, 1855

I can hardly resist the inclination to collect driftwood, to collect a great load of various kinds, which will sink my boat low in the water, and paddle or sail slowly home with it. November 6, 1855

In the dusk on my return, I saw Brooks Clark coming homeward, with his axe in his hand and both hands behind his back, being bent almost double. He said he was over eighty. November 6, 1857

I guessed at Goodwin’s age on the 1st. He is hale and stout and looks younger than he is, and I took care to set him high enough. I guessed he was fifty-five, and he said that if he lived two or three months longer he would be fifty-six. November 6, 1858

Minott is a very pleasing figure in nature. He improves every scenery, — he and his comrades . . . If he gets into a pond hole he disturbs it no more than a water-spirit for me. November 6, 1857

C. thinks that he saw bats last evening. November 6, 1859

 *****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago  (nannyberry)

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs

A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau  by Henry Thoreau Winter Birds

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau  by Henry Thoreau The Tree Sparrow

*****

April 17, 1852 ("What is that large hawk with a pure white belly and slender long black wings (a goshawk?) [Or fish hawk] which I see sailing over the Cliffs , – a pair of them looking for prey")

April 24, 1854 ("Saw a very large hawk, slaty above and white beneath, low over river. Was it not a goshawk?")

April 29, 1853 ("At Natural History Rooms in Boston . . . The American goshawk is slate above, gray beneath; the young spotted dark and white beneath, and brown above.  Fish hawk, white beneath.")

August 26, 1859 ("Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again.")
September 24, 1855 ("It would be a triumph to get all my winter’s wood thus . . . I derive a separate and peculiar pleasure from every stick that I find. Each has its history, of which I am reminded when I come to burn it, and under what circumstances I found it.")

September 25, 1857 ("Brought home my first boat-load of wood.")
October 23, 1852 ("The pennyroyal stands brown and sere, though fragrant still, on the shelves of the Cliff.")
October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”) 
November 1, 1851 ("At this season there are stranger sparrows or finches about.")
November 2, 1852 ("Slate-colored snowbirds (?) with a faint note.")
November 2, 1853 ("What are those sparrows in loose flocks which I have seen two or three weeks . . . whitish over and beneath the eye, and some white observed in tail when they fly? . . . Can they be the grass-bird? They resemble it in marking. They are much larger than the tree sparrows. Methinks it is a very common fall bird.")

November 2, 1853 ("The witch-hazel appears to be nearly out of bloom, most of the flowers withering or frost-bitten.")

November 2, 1853 ("Among the buds, etc., etc., to be noticed now, remember the alder and birch catkins, so large and conspicuous, — on the alder, pretty red catkins dangling in bunches of three or four.")

November 3, 1861 ("All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye, and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most.")

November 4, 1852 ("Saw witch-hazels out of bloom, some still fresh.")

November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”)
November 4, 1855 (" See some large flocks of F. hyemalis, which fly with a clear but faint chinking chirp, and from time to time you hear quite a strain, half warbled, from them. They rise in a body from the ground and fly to the trees as you approach. There are a few tree sparrows with them. These and one small soaring hawk are all the birds I see.")

November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it.”)
November 4, 1858 ("On the 1st, when I stood on Poplar Hill, I saw a man . . . took out my glass, and beheld Goodwin, the one-eyed Ajax, in his short blue frock, short and square-bodied, as broad as for his height he can afford to be.")
November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare . . . To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

November 5, 1853 ("I heard some pleasant notes from tree sparrows on the willows as I paddled by.")

November 5, 1854 ("I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.")

November 7, 1853 ("I have to walk with my hands in my pockets. The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morning, in the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil.")
November 7, 1855 (" I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain.”)
November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon; my walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather.")
November 8, 1857 ("How silently and unobserved by most do these changes take place!")

November 15, 1853 ("The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease. Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms.")
November 19, 1855 (" A cold, gray day, once spitting snow. Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night.")
December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring,")
December 6, 1856 ("Our eyes go searching along the stems for what is most vivacious and characteristic, the concentrated summer gone into winter quarters.")
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.")

November 6, 2015

September 6 <<<<<<<<<  November 6  >>>>>>>> January 6

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 6

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

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.")

A Book of the Seasons: November 5 (muskrat cabins, Indian summer, November flowers, evergreen ferns, fewer birds, last fall foliage, conspicuous buds)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

November 5

Some pleasant notes from

tree sparrows on the willows 

as I paddle by. 

November 5, 1853

I see in flocks and 

hear sing now by wood-sides the 

fox-colored sparrow.

November 5, 1854

I see shepherd’s-purse,

hedge-mustard, and red clover – 

November flowers.

November 5, 1855

It is worth the while 

to walk in swamps now, to bathe 

your eyes with greenness. 

November 5, 1857

Earliest to leaf –

aspen, willow, white maple – 

last to lose their leaves. 

November 5, 1858

And so thick a haze

that I could see but little 

way down the harbor. 

November 5, 1859

In the natural state

when given sufficient time

each tree knows its place.

November 5, 1860

The notes of the jays 

attracted by the acorns –

the only sounds heard. 

November 5, 1860

The cooler weather

heralds our winter with an

arch of northern lights.

November 5, 1860

November 5, 2020

The buds of the rhodora are among the more conspicuous now.  November 5, 1853

Most of the muskrat-cabins were lately covered by the flood, but now that it has gone down in a great measure . . . I notice that they have not been washed away or much injured . . . What exactly are they for? This is not their breeding season . . . why do they need them more at this season than in the summer. November 5, 1853

I heard some pleasant notes from tree sparrows on the willows as I paddled by. November 5, 1853 

I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides. November 5, 1854

The brightness of the foliage generally ceased pretty exactly with October. November 5, 1855

I see the shepherd’s-purse, hedge-mustard, and red clover, — November flowers. November 5, 1855

The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that. That is a mere reflecting surface. It is not the polypody . . . that interests me, but the one that I pass by in my walks a little distance off, when in the right mood . . . Give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you [not] as something independent on you, [but] as it is related to you. The important fact is its effect on me . . .  I care not whether my vision of truth is a waking thought or dream remembered. . . It is the subject of the vision, the truth alone, that concerns me . . . I find that it is not [objects] themselves . . . that concern me; the point of interest is somewhere between me and . . . the objects. November 5, 1857

It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green. November 5, 1857

At this season polypody is in the air. It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. November 5, 1857

Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it, — as those polypodies. The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time.  November 5, 1857

Swamp-pink buds now begin to show. November 5, 1855

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. November 5, 1855

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch . . . A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on.  November 5, 1858 

Judging from the two aspens, this [white maple], and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves. November 5, 1858 

I hear one cricket this louring day . . . It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker. November 5, 1858

The first Indian-summer day, after an unusually cold October . . . very warm, with scarcely a breath of wind, and so thick a haze that I could see but little way down the harbor.  November 5, 1859

This  wood is  a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old. I am struck by the orderly arrangement of the trees, as if each knew its own place. As if in the natural state of things, when sufficient time is given, trees will be found occupying the places most suitable to each. November 5, 1860 

The only sounds I hear are the notes of the jays, attracted by the acorns, and the only animal I see is a red squirrel. November 5, 1860

Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness  Thus our winter is heralded. November 5, 1860

*****  

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Polypody

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

*****  

October 16, 1859 ("I see the new musquash-houses erected, conspicuous on the now nearly leafless shores . . . So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising.") 

October 20, 1860 ("I examine Ebby Hubbard's old oak and pine wood. The trees may be a hundred years old.”)

October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum  . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”)

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.")

October 28, 1857 (“On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them. ”)  

October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds [of ] the swamp-pink, some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed- vessels, red, etc.") 

November 1, 1860 ("A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M. and probably warmer at two.")

November 2, 1851 ("The muskrat-houses are mostly covered by the rise of the river! — not a very unexpected one either"); November 4, 1855 ("Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather.")

November 2, 1853 ("The November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf. I see hedge-mustard very fresh.")

November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ... The trees would average probably between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Such a wood has got to be very rare in this neighborhood.”)  

November 2, 1857 ("My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed.")

November 2, 1858 ("That small poplar seen from Cliffs on the 29th is a P. tremuloides. It makes the impression of a bright and clear yellow at a distance, though it is rather dingy and spotted. It is later, then (this and the Baker Farm one), than any P. grandidentata that I know. ")

November 3, 1852 ("Shepherd's-purse abundant still in gardens.");

November 4, 1851 ("The jays with their scream are at home in the scenery.")

November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets already.”);  

November 4, 1860 ("White birch seed has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun for a week. To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

November 6, 1857 ("Wind southwest. Thermometer on north of the house 70° at 12 M. Indian summer.")

November 7, 1855 ("Birds are pretty rare now. I hear a few tree sparrows in one place on the trees and bushes near the river, — a clear, chinking chirp and a half-strain,— a jay at a distance; and see a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights.")

November 7, 1857 ("This has been another Indian-summer day. Thermometer 58° at noon.")

November 8, 1857 ("The swamp-pink's large yellowish buds, too, are conspicuous now.")

November 10, 1853 ("There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow.")

November 10, 1858 ("Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.")

November 10, 1858 ("By the 10th of November we conclude with the scarlet oak dulled (and the colors of October generally faded), with a few golden spangles on the white birches and on a lingering Populus tremuliformis.")

November 10, 1860 ("Inches Wood . . .as fine an oak wood as there is in New England.").

November 11, 1855 ("I hear but a tree sparrow and a chickadee this voyage.")

November 16, 1853  ("I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock and various other ferns,")

November 5, 2023

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

September 5 <<<<<<<<<  November 5  >>>>>>>> January 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 5

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

A Book of the Seasons: November 4.

November 4.

The jays with their scream

at home in the scenery

this raw gusty day.

November 4, 1851

A few small hemlocks
remind me of snows to come.
Shelter for the birds.
November 4, 1851

The birch sheds its seed

about the time winter birds
arrive from the north.
November 4, 1860

This raw gusty day

the jays with their scream

at home in the scenery

November 4, 1851

 I hear a tree creak 

sharply like a bird, 

a phoebe.

November 4, 1851

A few small hemlocks 

remind me of snows to come –

shelter for the birds.

November 4, 1851

My thought is a part 

of the meaning of the world,

and hence I use a part

of the world as a symbol

to express my thought.

November 4, 1852.

Must be out-of-doors enough 

to get experience of wholesome reality,

as a ballast to thought and sentiment.

Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

This life in the present.

Let a man have thought 

what he will of Nature in the house,

she will still be novel outdoors.

I keep out of doors 

for the sake of the

mineral, vegetable, and animal in me. 

November 4, 1852.

To Hubbard's Close.

I find no traces of the fringed gentian here,

so that in low meadows

I suspect it does not last very late. 

November 4, 1853

The fertile catkins of the yellow birch

appear to be in the same state with those of the white,

and their scales are also shaped like birds,

but much larger. 

November 4, 1853

The shad-bush buds

have expanded into small 

leaflets already. 

November 4, 1854

The winter is approaching.

The birds are almost all gone.

The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct,

prophetic of winter, 

as I go amid the wild apples.

November 4, 1855

I have failed to find white pine seed this year,

though I began to look for it a month ago.

The cones were fallen and open.

Look the first of September. 

November 4, 1855

I climb Pine Hill just as the sun is setting,

this cool evening.

Sitting with my back to a thick oak sprout

whose leaves still glow with life,

Walden lies an oblong square

endwise to, beneath me.

Its surface is slightly rippled,

and dusky prolonged reflections of trees

extend wholly across its length.

November 4, 1857

Overlooking Walden Pond toward
Waschusett, from Pine Hill
April 28, 1906

But those grand and glorious mountains,

how impossible to remember daily

that they are there,

and to live accordingly!

They are meant to be

a perpetual reminder to us,

pointing out the way.

November 4, 1857

The true sportsman 

can shoot you almost any of his game

 from his windows.

It comes and perches at last on the barrel of his gun;

but the rest of the world never see it with the feathers on.

He will keep himself supplied

 by firing up his chimney.

The geese fly exactly under his zenith,

and honk when they get there.

The fisherman, too, dreams of fish,

till he can almost catch them

in his sink-spout

. November 4, 1858

We cannot see any thing

until we are possessed with the idea of it,

and then we can hardly see anything else

.

In my botanical rambles

I find that first the idea, or image,

of a plant occupies my thoughts,

though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality,

and for some weeks or months

I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously,

and at length I surely see it,

and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine.

This is the history of my finding

a score or more of rare plants which I could name. 

November 4, 1858

 I notice for the first time

that peculiar blueness of the river

 agitated by the wind

and contrasting with the tawny fields –

a fall phenomenon. 

November 4, 1860

 White birch seed has but recently begun to fall.

I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare.

November 4, 1860

The birch sheds its seed

about the time winter birds

arrive from the north.

November 4, 1860

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 © 2009-2018

It is a dark, almost rainy day; the winter is approaching.

November 4.

November 4, 2015

To Hill by Assabet. 

This forenoon the boys found a little black kitten about a third grown on the Island or Rock, but could not catch it. We supposed that some one had cast it in to drown it. 

This afternoon, as I was paddle by the Island, I see what I think a duck swimming down the river diagonally, to the south shore just below the grassy island, opposite the rock; then I think it two ducks, then a muskrat. 

It passes out of sight round a bend. 

I land and walk alongshore, and find that it is a kitten, which had just got ashore. It is quite wet excepting its back. It swam quite rapidly, the whole length of its back out, but was carried down about as fast by the stream. 

It had probably first crossed from the rock to the grassy island, and then from the lower end of this to the town side of the stream, on which side it may have been attracted by the noise of the town. 

It is rather weak and staggers as it runs, from starvation or cold, being wet, or both. A very pretty little black kitten. 

It is a dark, almost rainy day. Though the river appears to have risen considerably, it is not more than nine or ten inches above the lowest summer level, as I see by the bridge. Yet it brings along a little drift wood. 

Whatever rails or boards have been left by the water’s edge the river silently takes up and carries away. Much small stuff from the pail-factory. 

The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter, as I go amid the wild apples on Nawshawtuct. 

The autumnal dandelion sheltered by this apple-tree trunk is drooping and half closed and shows but half its yellow, this dark, late wet day in the fall.

Gather a bag of wild apples. A great part are decayed now on the ground. The snail slug is still eating them. Some have very fiery crimson spots or eyes on a very white ground. 

From my experience with wild apples I can understand that there may be a reason for a savage preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple.

I remember two old maids to whose house I enjoyed carrying a purchaser to talk about buying their farm in the winter, because they offered us wild apples, though with an unnecessary apology for their wildness.

Return, and go up the main stream.

Larches are now quite yellow, — in the midst of their fall. The river-brink — at a little distance at least — is now all sere and rustling, except a few yellowed sallow leaves, - though beyond in the meadows there is some fresh greenness. 

Cattle seem to stray wider for food than they did. They are turned into the meadows now, where is all the greenness. New fences are erected to take advantage of all the fall feed. 

But the rank herbage of the river’s brink is more tender and has fallen before the frosts. Many new muskrat-houses have been erected this wet weather, and much gnawed root is floating. 

When I look away to the woods, the oaks have a dull, dark red now, without brightness. The willow-tops on causeways have a pale, bleached, silvery, or wool-grass-like look.   

See some large flocks of F. hyemalis, which fly with a clear but faint chinking chirp, and from time to time you hear quite a strain, half warbled, from them. They rise in a body from the ground and fly to the trees as you approach. There are a few tree sparrows with them. These and one small soaring hawk are all the birds I see. 

I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1855

The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter . See   November 4, 1851(“[These little cheerful hemlocks] remind me of winter, the snows which are to come . . .and the chickadees that are to flit and lisp amid them.”) See also  October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen. “);October 11, 1851( The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard.”); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winterish.”); October 15, 1856  (“The chickadees . . .resume their winter ways before the winter comes.”);; November 26, 1859 (“The chickadee is the bird of the wood the most unfailing. When, in a windy, or in any, day, you have penetrated some thick wood like this, you are pretty sure to hear its cheery note therein. At this season it is almost their sole inhabitant.”); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day.”)

It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple. See October 27, 1855 ("It is remarkable that the wild apples which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields and woods, when brought into the house have a harsh and crabbed taste. To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air ")