Sunday, July 18, 2021

A Book of the Seasons: July 18 (midsummer heat, first locust heard, pontederia and the meandering stream, bittern and woodcock, evening dew)




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


July 18, 2012


I first hear the locust sing
so dry and piercing
by the side of the pine woods
in the heat of the day
July 18, 1851

A crisis in the season
like midnight revealed
by bed-curtains shoved aside
a deepened shade
a sultry languid look  --
hot midsummer day.

With midsummer heats
asters and goldenrods now -- 
children of the sun.

This hot afternoon
sheltered in shadow of ferns -- 
woodcock on cool mud.

July 18, 2014

It is a test question affecting the youth of a person, — Have you knowledge of the morning  Do you sympathize with that season of nature? Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside? July 18, 1851 

If the sun rises on you slumbering, if you do not hear the morning cock-crow, if you do not witness the blushes of Aurora, if you are not acquainted with Venus as the morning star, what relation have you to your Creator? July 18, 1851

5 A. M. Whence these fogs and this increase of moisture in the air? The kingbird, song sparrows, and quail are lively. July 18, 1854.  

There are dewy cob webs on the grass; so this is a fit morning for any adventure. It is one of those everlasting mornings, with cobwebs on the grass, which are provided for long enterprises. July 18, 1852

As we push away from Monroe's shore, the robins are singing and the swallows twittering. There is hardly a cloud in the sky. July 18, 1852

The river is now in all its glory, adorned with water-lilies on both sides. Walkers and sailers ordinarily come hither in the afternoon, when the lilies are shut, and so never see the river in its pride. July 18, 1852

We take a bath at Hubbard's Bend. The water seems fresher, as the air, in the morning. July 18, 1852

Again under weigh, we scare up the great bittern amid the pontederia, and, rowing to where he alights, come within three feet of him and scare him up again. He flies sluggishly away plowing the air with the coulter of his breast-bone, and alighting ever higher up the stream. We scare him up many times in the course of an hour. July 18, 1852

Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon. July 18, 1856.  

These meadows, with their meandering stream, through whose weeds it is hard to push a boat, are very wild. The stake-driver and the virescens rise and go off with sluggish flight from time to time July 18, 1853.  

By a natural law a river, instead of flowing straight through its meadows, meanders from side to side and fertilizes this side or that, and adorns its banks with flowers. The river has its active and its passive side, its right and left breast. July 18, 1852

You see almost everywhere on the muddy river bottom . . . the Utricularia vulgaris, with its black or green bladders, and the two lesser utricularias in many places July 18, 1856

Three utricularias and perhaps the horned also common now. July 18, 1853

I do not know why the water should be so remarkably clear and the sun shine through to the bottom of the river, making it so plain.  . . . On all sides, as I float along, the recesses of the water and the bottom are unusually revealed, and I see the fishes and weeds and shells. I look down into the sunny water. July 18, 1854 

We see the sun shining on Fair Haven Hill behind a sun-born cloud, while we are in shadow, -- a misty golden light, yellow, fern-like, with shadows of clouds flitting across its slope, -- and horses in their pasture standing with outstretched necks to watch us; and now they dash up the steep in single file, as if to exhibit their limbs and mettle. July 18, 1852

The Asclepias Cornuti is abundantly visited nowadays by a large orange-brown butterfly with dark spots and with silver spots beneath. Wherever the asclepias grows you see them. July 18, 1860

Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats. Now look out for these children of the sun. July 18, 1854

Where I looked for early spring flowers I do not look for midsummer ones. July 18, 1854

Rhexia, a day or two.  July 18, 1853
 

The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge.  July 18, 1852

Now are the days to go a-berrying. July 18, 1853

As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems. July 18, 1854.  

I first hear the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.  July 18, 1851 

A hot midsummer day with a sultry mistiness in the air and shadows on land and water beginning to have a peculiar distinctness and solidity. July 18, 1854

 The river, smooth and still, with a deepened shade of the elms on it, like midnight suddenly revealed, its bed-curtains shoved aside, has a sultry languid look. July 18, 1854

The atmosphere now imparts a bluish or glaucous tinge to the distant trees. A certain debauched look. This a crisis in the season July 18, 1854


We have very few bass trees in Concord, but walk near them at this season and they will be betrayed, though several rods off, by the wonderful susurrus of the bees, etc., which their flowers attract. It is worth going a long way to hear. I am warned that I am passing one in two instances on the river, —only two I pass, — by this remarkable sound. At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms. They are chiefly humblebees, and the great globose tree is all alive with them. I hear the murmur distinctly fifteen rods off. You will know if you pass within a few rods of a bass tree at this season in any part of the town, by this loud murmur, like a water fall, which proceeds from it. July 18, 1854.  

The pontederias are alive with butterflies.  July 18, 1852

There are thousands of yellow butterflies on the pontederia flowers, July 18, 1853

The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless.  July 18, 1853

The border of pontederia . . .  keeps that side in the meander where the sediment is deposited . . .as I have dotted it, crossing from this side to that as the river meanders


. . . This is the longest line of blue that nature paints with flowers in our fields July 18, 1852

The spikes of flowers are all brought into a dense line, — a heavy line of blue, a foot or more in width, on one or both sides of the river. The pontederias are now in their prime . . .They are very freshly blue. In the sun, when you are looking west, they are of a violaceous blue.  July 18, 1852

When near home, just before sundown, the sun still inconveniently warm, we were surprised to observe on the uppermost point of each pontederia leaf a clear drop of dew already formed. And now we see a slight steam like smoke rising from amidst the pontederias. July 18, 1852

In half an hour the river and the meadows are white with fog, like a frosted cake. As you stand on the bank in the twilight, it suddenly moves up in sprayey clouds, moved by an unfelt wind, and invests you where you stand, its battalions of mists reaching even to the road.  July 18, 1852

Smoke stretched perfectly horizontal for miles over the sea, and, by its direction, warned me of a change in the wind before we felt it.July 18, 1855

Every poet has trembled on the verge of science. July 18, 1852


July 18, 2014

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moods


May 21, 1854 ("Cobwebs on grass, the first I have noticed.. . .These little dewy nets or gauze, a faery's washing spread out in the night, are associated with the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.")
June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes.")
July 13, 1852 ("Each day now I scare up woodcocks by shady springs and swamps.")
July 15, 1857 ("Scare up . . . two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow, which go off with a whistling flight.")
July 15, 1854 (“There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now.”)
July 15, 1854 ("The stems and leaves of various asters and golden-rods, which ere long will reign along the way, begin to be conspicuous.")
July 16, 1851 (“I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias pulchra) by the roadside, a really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored.”) 
July 16, 1854 ("Woodcock by side of Walden in woods.")
July 16, 1854 ("Solidago nemoralis yesterday.")
July 17, 1853( "Rank weeds begin to block up low wood-paths, — goldenrods, asters, etc . . . The Solidago nemoralis (?) in a day or two, - gray goldenrod.")
July 17, 1854 (" I was surprised by the loud humming of bees, etc., etc., in the bass tree; thought it was a wind rising at first. .")
July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”)
July 17, 1856 (“A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust.”)


July 19, 1854 ("The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days.")
July 19, 1851 ("Beyond the bridge there is a goldenrod partially blossomed. . . .Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn.")
July 19, 1851 ("The butterflies have swarmed within these few days, especially about the milkweeds.")
July 19, 1859 ("It is remarkable how the river, while it may be encroaching on the bank on one side, preserves its ordinary breadth by filling up the other side")
July 19, 1860 ("The pontederia is now generally conspicuous and handsome, – a very fresh blue")
July 20, 1860 ("Just after the sun is set I observe the dewdrops on the pontederia leaves. . .it appears to be the only one that collects the dew thus early.")
July 21, 1853 ("Ten minutes before sunset I see large clear dewdrops at the tips, or half an inch below the tips, of the pontederia leaves.")
July 21, 1859 ("The pontederia on the Assabet is a very fresh and clear blue to-day, and in its early prime, — very handsome to see. ")
July 24, 1853 ("Where most I sought for flowers in April and May I do not think to go now.")
July 24, 1851 ("Nature is like a hen panting with open mouth, in the grass, as the morning after a debauch.")
July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open. . . This the afternoon of the year.")
July 27, 1852 ("Woodcocks have been common by the streams and springs in woods for some weeks.")
July 28, 1852 ("Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out.")
July 31, 1856 ("As I make my way amid rank weeds still wet with the dew, the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts, I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.")
August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")

July 18, 2014

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.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 18
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

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Saturday, July 17, 2021

A Book of the Seasons: July 17 (gentle summer rain, berries, st. johns-wort, fringed orchid, devil's needles, goldenrod, goldfinch, bullfrogs)

 


 
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



July 17, 2019

Gentle steady rain
without thunder or lightning  —
the first summer rain.

Flying shore to shore
yellowish devil's-needles
cross their Atlantic.

Distant hum of bees
at sunset from the basswood
in flower at the island.

All around the pond
clean and handsome bullfrogs sit
imperturbable.

I see by moonlight 
bullfrogs lying full length on
the pads where they trump.



July 17, 2016


A summer rain. July 17, 1852

A gentle steady rain, long a-gathering, without thunder or lightning, — such as we have not, and, methinks, could not have had, earlier than this. July 17, 1852

This weather is rather favorable to thought. On all sides is heard a gentle dripping of the rain on the leaves, yet it is perfectly warm. July 17, 1852

I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow. July 17, 1852. 

Going up the hillside, between J. P. Brown's and rough-cast house, am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. How important their acid (as well as currants) this warm weather! July 17, 1856

Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields. July 17, 1852  

Beck Stow's Swamp! . . .deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step, with its open water where the swallows skim and twitter, its meadow and cotton-grass, its dense patches of dwarf andromeda, now brownish-green, with clumps of blueberry bushes, its spruces and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side. July 17, 1852.  

Hypericum Canadense. July 17, 1852

There, too, the Hypericum Sarothra has pushed up abundantly. July 17, 1856

Hypericum corymbosum. July 17, 1857

The trees now in the rain look heavy and rich all day, as commonly at twilight, drooping with the weight of wet leaves. July 17, 1852

Am caught in the rain and take shelter under the thick white pine by Lee's Cliff. July 17, 1857

Swallows are active throughout this rain. July 17, 1852. 

Hear a new note from bank swallows when going over the Hosmer pastures, a sort of screep screep, shrill and like what I have referred to the barn swallow. They are probably out with young. July 17, 1856 

Bathed at Clamshell. See great schools of minnows, apparently shiners, hovering in the clear shallow next the shore. July 17, 1856

The soft sand on the bottom of Walden, as deep as I can wade, feels very warm to my feet, while the water feels cold. July 17, 1860

A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust. July 17, 1856

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. July 17, 1857.  

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond, round and round, and ever and anon darting aside suddenly, probably to seize some prey. July 17, 1853 

Meanwhile large yellowish devil's-needles, coupled, are flying about and repeatedly dipping their tails in the water. July 17, 1854

I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore, from Island to Baker's Farm and back, about a foot above the water, some against a head wind; also yellow butterflies; suggesting that these insects see the distant shore and resolve to visit it  . . . It looks very bold. If devil's-needles cross Fair Haven, then man may cross the Atlantic, July 17, 1854

I see [under Lee's Cliff] an abundance of chimaphila in bloom. It is a beautiful flower, with its naked umbel of crystalline purplish-white flowers, their disks at an angle with the horizon. On its lower side a ring of purple (or crimson) scales at the base of its concave petals, around the large, green, sticky ovary. July 17, 1857

In Conant's meadow just behind Wheeler's, the smaller fringed orchis not quite reached by the mowers. It may have been out four or five days. It is a darker purple for being so exposed. None yet opening in the shade. July 17, 1854.  

Rank weeds begin to block up low wood-paths, — goldenrods, asters, etc. . . .The Solidago nemoralis (?) in a day or two, - gray goldenrod.  July 17, 1853

Again methinks I hear the goldfinch, but not for a day or two the bobolink. July 17, 1852. 

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. July 17, 1856  

The nighthawk's ripping sound heard overhead suggests a nearness to the earth, as of a low roof echoing back its sounds. July 17, 1860

Returning after ten, by moonlight, see the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump. July 17, 1857

Also the great bullfrogs which sit out on the stones every two or three rods all around the pond are singularly clean and handsome bullfrogs, with fine yellow throats sharply separated from their pickle-green heads by their firmly shut mouths, and with beautiful eyes.  They sit thus imperturbable. July 17, 1860


*****

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood
 A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk
July 17, 2015



May 24, 1854 ("Wade into Beck Stow's . . . Surprised to fin the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more.")
June 11, 1851 I hear the nighthawks uttering their squeaking notes high in the air now at nine o ' clock P. M., and occasionally— what I do not remember to have heard so late — their booming note. It sounds more as if under a cope than by day . . . echoed hollowly to earth , making the low roof of heaven vibrate")
July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”)
July 4, 1853 ("The cotton-grass at Beck Stow's. Is it different from the early one? ")
July 7, 1859 ("The note of the bobolink has begun to sound rare?")
July 8, 1857 ("Chimaphila umbellata, apparently a day or two. ")
July 10, 1855 ("Great devil’s-needles above the bank, apparently catching flies ")
July 10, 1854 (" The singing birds at present are: . . .Rural: Song sparrow, seringos, flicker, kingbird, goldfinch, link of bobolink, cherry-bird. ")
July 12, 1857 ("The Chimaphila umbellata flower-buds make a very pretty umbel, of half a dozen small purple balls surmounted by a green calyx. They contrast prettily with the glossy green leaves.")
July 12, 1857 (Those little minnows, a third or half inch long or more, which I catch when bathing, hovering over open sandy spaces, as here at Clamshell, appear to be little shiners")
July 12, 1859 ("In the evening, the moon being about full, I paddle up the river to see the moonlight and hear the bullfrogs.")
July 14, 1856 ("Bass out about two days at Island.")
July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.")
July 15, 1854 ("The stems and leaves of various asters and golden-rods, which ere long will reign along the way, begin to be conspicuous. ")
July 15, 1854 ("The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall.")
July 15, 1856 ("Bobolinks are heard — their link, link — above and amid the tall rue which now whitens the meadows”)
July 15, 1859 ("Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height.") 
July 16, 1850 ("Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will;. . . Instead of singing birds, the croaking of frogs and the intenser dream of crickets.")
July 16, 1851 ("St.John's-wort, one of the first of yellow flowers, begins to shine along the roadside.")
July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them.")
July 16, 1852 ("The tree resounds with the hum of bees,. . . a sound unlike any other in nature”)
July 16, 1854 ("Solidago nemoralis yesterday. ")
July 16, 1856 ("See several bullfrogs lying fully out on pads at 5 p. m. They trump well these nights. ")

July 18, 1851 ("I first hear the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.”)
July 18, 1852 ("The swallows twitter over head, the locust, we know not where, is z-ing, and the huckleberry-bird is heard on the birches.")
July 18, 1853 ("Now are the days to go a-berrying")
July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.")
July 18, 1854 ("At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms.”)
July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.")
July 19, 1851("Ripe blackberries are multiplying.")
July 19, 1851 ("And beyond the bridge there is a goldenrod partially blossomed. . . .First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us.")
July 19, 1854 ("The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days.")
July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night.")
July 19, 1854 ("The white cotton-grass now (and how long ?) at Beck Stow's")
July 20, 1852 ("It is starlight . . .  And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.")
July 20, 1853 ("This is the midsummer night's moon. . . .we are surprised, looking back from the bank, to see that the water is wholly concealed under a white mist, though it was scarcely perceptible when we were in its midst. The few bullfrogs are the chief music.")
July 21, 1851("I eat these berries as simply and naturally as thoughts come to my mind")
July 21, 1851 ("The small purple orchis, its spikes half opened")
July 21, 1856 ("Low blackberries thick enough to pick in some places, three or four days.")
July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two.")
July 22, 1860 ("First locust heard.")
July 23, 1856 ("See apparently young goldfinches about, very freshly bright golden and black.")
July 23, 1859 ("Low blackberries have begun.")
July 23, 1856 ("Bathing in Walden, I find the water considerably colder at the bottom while I stand up to my chin, but the sandy bottom much warmer to my feet than the water.")
July 24, 1853 ("This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries")
July 24, 1856 ("The small purple fringed orchis, apparently three or four days at least.")
July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out.")
July 26, 1852("The smaller purple fringed orchis has not quite filled out its spike")
July 26, 1853 ("The goldfinch twitters over oftener.")
July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening.")
July 27, 1852 ("That the luxury of walking in the river may be perfect it must be very warm, such as are few days even in July . . . Both water and air must be unusually warm; otherwise we shall feel no impulse to cast ourselves into and remain in the stream.")
July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes")
July 30, 1853 ("A small purple orchis (Platanthera psycodes) . . . If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchis there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow's edge.")
August 5, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, two or three days.")
August 6, 1852 (“With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease?”)
August 10, 1853 ("The goldfinch sings . . .  Of late, and for long time, only the link, link of bobolink.")
August 10, 1854 ("The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”)
August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”);
August 21, 1856 ("nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.")
August 30, 1856 ("I get my new experiences , , , at Beck Stow's Swamp listening to the native wood thrush.") 

July 17, 2016

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.


July 16< <<<<<  July 17 >>>>> July 18

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 17
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



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Thursday, July 15, 2021

A Book of the Seasons: July 15 (berries, grasses, bobolinks, midsummer moods, reflections)

 

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


July 15, 2013


Bobolinks link link
amid the tall rue that now
whitens the meadow.

Thoughts driven inward –
clouds and trees reflected by
the still, smooth water.



July 15, 2019

Vaccinium vacillans berries. July 15, 1857

Gather a few Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum. July 15, 1859

Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height. July 15, 1859 

This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. July 15, 1854'

There is an inwardness even in the mosquitoes' hum, while I am picking blueberries in the dank wood July 15, 1854


Bobolinks are heard — their link, link — above and amid the tall rue which now whitens the meadows. July 15, 1856.

The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall. All these sounds dispose our minds to serenity. July 15, 1854

We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn, and begin to descend the long slope toward winter. July 15, 1854

Cultivated grasses now clothe the earth with rich hues. Looking down on a field of red-top now in full bloom, at 2.30 P.M. 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. Field after field, densely packed like the squares of a checker-board, all through and about the villages, paint the earth. July 15, 1860

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. July 15, 1860  

Scare up a snipe by riverside, which goes off with a dry crack, and afterward two woodcocks in the shady alder marsh at Well Meadow, which go off with a whistling flight. July 15, 1857. 

Checkerberry, a day or two. [American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbent)] July 15, 1856

There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now. July 15, 1854

The stems and leaves of various asters and golden-rods, which ere long will reign along the way, begin to be conspicuous. July 15, 1854

Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods. July 15, 1854

Green grapes and cranberries also remind me of the advancing season. July 15, 1854

My thoughts are driven inward, even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still, smooth water. July 15, 1854

July 15, 2017

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moods
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberry
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch
 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Snipe

*****

July 2, 1851 ("Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits”)
July 6, 1857 (“Rubus triflorus well ripe.”)
July 11, 1857 ("I see more berries than usual of the Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp.. . .They are dark shining red and, when ripe, of a very agreeable flavor and somewhat of the raspberry's spirit.")
July 12, 1851 ("This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn had commenced.")
July 14, 1854 ("The cooler and stiller day has a valuable effect on my spirits.")

July 16, 1852 ("This is a still thoughtful day, the air full of vapors which shade the earth, preparing rain for the morrow. The air is full of sweetness. The tree is full of poetry. ")
July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed.")
July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?")
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 28, 1854 (“Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year.”)


July 15, 2017

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.

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 ©  2009-2022
at No comments:
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That coarse mustard-like branched plant with racemes of small yellow flowers.

 



July 15.

July 15, 2019


Common form of arrowhead.

The Rumex obtusifolius shows its single grain now.

Near Loring's ram that coarse mustard-like branched plant, one or two feet high, with racemes of small yellow flowers, -- perhaps Gray's Nasturtium palustre or Bigelow's Sisymbrium amphibium, -- in seed and in blossom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1853

The Rumex obtusifolius shows its single grain now. See December 31. 1859 ("One of the two large docks, perhaps obtusifolius, commonly holds its seeds now, but they are very ready to fall. ")

That coarse mustard-like branched plant. See June 14, 1854 ("What is that sisymbrium or mustard-like plant at foot of Loring's?")

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
at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,
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