I walk where in ordinary times I cannot go.

August 22

August 22, 2019

The haze, accompanied by much wind, is so thick this forenoon that the sun is obscured as by a cloud. I see no rays of sunlight.  

P. M. — To Great Meadows on foot along bank into Bedford meadows; thence to Beck Stow's and Gowing's Swamp.

Walking may be a science, so far as the direction of a walk is concerned. I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go. There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case. 

This is a prairial walk. I go along the river and meadows from the first, crossing the Red Bridge road to the Battle-Ground. In the 'Mill Brook, behind Jones's, am attracted by one of those handsome high-colored masses of fibrous pink roots of the willow in the water. It is three or four feet long, five or six inches wide, and four or five inches thick, — long parallel roots nearly as big as a crow-quill, with in numerable short fibres on all sides, all forming a dense mass of a singular bright-pink color. 

There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut. 

Am surprised to hear a phoebe's pewet pewee and see it. 

I perceive a dead mole in the path half-way down the meadow. 

At the lower end of these meadows, between the river and the firm land, are a number of shallow muddy pools or pond-holes, in which, even in this dry season, there is considerable water left. In these shallow muddy pools, but a few inches deep and few feet in diameter, I am surprised to observe the undulations produced by pretty large fishes endeavoring to conceal themselves. In one little muddy basin where there is hardly a quart of water, caught half a dozen little breams and pickerel, only an inch long, as perfectly distinct as full grown, and in another place, where there is little else than mud left, breams two or three inches long still alive. In many dry hollows are dozens of small breams, pickerel, and pouts, quite dead and dry. Hundreds, if not thousands, of fishes have here perished on account of the drought. 

See a blue heron — apparently a young bird, of a brownish blue — fly up from one of these pools, and a stake-driver from another, and also see their great tracks on the mud, and the feathers they had shed, — some of the long, narrow white neck-feathers of the heron. The tracks of the heron are about six inches long. Here is a rare chance for the herons to transfix the imprisoned fish. It is a wonder that any have escaped. 

To these remote shallow and muddy pools, usually surrounded by reeds and sedge, far amid the wet meadows, — to these, then, the blue heron resorts for its food. Here, too, is an abundance of the yellow lily, on whose seeds they are said to feed. There, too, are the paths of muskrats. 

There are now hopping all over this meadow small Rana palustris, and also some more beautifully spotted halecina or shad frogs. 

There is a pretty strong wind from the north-northwest. The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile. The low blue haze around the distant edge of the meadow looks even like a low fog at a sufficient distance. 

I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew. It is wonderful that in all this drought it has not evaporated. Arum berries ripe. High blueberries pretty thick, but now much wilted and shrivelled. 

Thus the drought serves the herons, etc., confining their prey within narrower limits, and doubtless they are well acquainted with suitable retired pools far in the marshes to go a-fishing in. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1854

Walking may be a science, so far as the direction of a walk is concerned. See July 2, 1854 ("There is a cool wind from the east, which makes it cool walking that way while it is melting hot walking westward. "); October 20, 1858 ("There is one advantage in walking eastward these afternoons, at least, that in returning you may have the western sky before you" ). See also note to December 18, 1856 ("stepping westward seems to be / a kind of heavenly destiny.”); Walking (“Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.”)

I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go. See August 21, 2019 ("There is quite a drought, and I can walk almost anywhere over these meadows without wetting my feet . . . It is like the summer of '54.")

Hundreds, if not thousands, of fishes have here perished on account of the drought. See August 21, 1859 ("The water having dried up, I see many small fishes — pouts and pickerel and bream — left dead and dying. In one place there were fifty or one hundred pouts from four to five inches long with a few breams, all dead and dry.")

I perceive a dead mole in the path. See July 12, 1856 (“A short-tailed shrew dead after the rain.. I have found them thus three or four times before”); July 31, 1856 ("Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path.")

There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut. Compare August 24, 1858 ("They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Now hopping all over this meadow small Rana palustris, and also some more beautifully spotted halecina or shad frogs. See June 29, 1852 ("The Rana halecina, shad frog, is our handsomest frog, bronze striped, with brown spots, edged and inter mixed with bright green"); September 26, 1859 ("I hear a frog or two, either palusiris or halecina, croak and work faintly, as in spring, along the side of the river")

The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile. See August 25, 1854 ("I think I never saw the haze so thick as now, at 11 A.M., looking from my attic window.")

I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew. It is wonderful that in all this drought it has not evaporated. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); September 11, 1851 ("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them . . . Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

Arum berries ripe. See August 22, 1852.("The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds."); August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows."); September 1, 1859 ("The scarlet fruit of the arum spots the swamp floor."); September 2, 1853 (" The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground.”); September 28, 1856 ("The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. A large cluster is two and a half inches long by two wide and rather flattish. . . . These singular vermilion-colored berries, about a hundred of them, surmount a purple bag on a peduncle six or eight inches long.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Arum Berries

Thus the drought serves the herons. See August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."); August 21, 1859 ("The blue herons must find it easy to get their living now. Are they not more common on our river such years as this?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Blue Heron

I find at length a

pitcher-plant with last night's dew

in all this drought. 

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

Trillium berries bright-red.

Trillium berries bright red.

August 21

P. M. — To Conantum via Hubbard Bath. 

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again, yet not so warm as in July. 

A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. The same that lingered so late on the Assabet.

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. 

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. 

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. 

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore, which the mowers omitted.

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. 

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color.  Trillium berries bright-red.  The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely.

Now, say, is hazelnut time.  

I see robins in small flocks and pigeon woodpeckers with them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1854

The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again.  See August 14, 1854 ("I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, as yet for a fortnight, though we have had no rain here."); September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; say an average summer warmth, yet not so warm as it has been. It makes me the more surprised that only that day and a half of rain should have made it so very cold when I last bathed here."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort."); September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark -colored, diving amid the pads. See September 9, 1858 ("At length the walker who sits meditating on a distant bank sees the little dipper sail out from amid the weeds and busily dive for its food along their edge. Yet ordinary eyes might range up and down the river all day and never detect its small black head above the water."); December 26, 1853 ("A small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail. It dove and swam a few rods under water, and, when on the surface, kept turning round and round warily and nodding its head the while.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. See August 7, 1853 (""I see the leaves of the two smallest johnsworts reddening. The common johnswort is quite abundant this year and still yellows the fields.): August 31, 1853 ("Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. See note to July 25, 1853 ("Cerasus Virginiana, — choke-cherry, — just ripe.");  August 15, 1852 ("The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side.); August 25, 1854 (Choke-berries are very abundant there, but mostly dried black.")

In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 19, 1854 ("There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.") August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); September 11, 1851("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?") See also November 15, 1857 ("The water is frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants."); November 16, 1852 (" At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf"); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen,.") and see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

Which the mowers omitted. See August 5, 1854 ("A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season.");  August 22, 1854 ("There are three or four haymakers still at work in the Great Meadows, though but very few acres are left uncut") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week or more. See August 21, 1852 ("Young turkeys are straying in the grass which is alive with grasshoppers."); August 21, 1853 ("Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden."); September 4, 1856 ("The crackling flight of grasshoppers. The grass also is all alive with them, and they trouble me by getting into my shoes, which are loose, and obliging me to empty them occasionally")

Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. See September 4, 1856 ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible."); September 4, 1859 ("See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long."); September 6, 1852 ("The “doubly compound racemed panicles” of the spikenard berries, varnish-colored berries, or color of varnished mahogany.")

Trillium berries bright red. See August 19, 1852 ("The trillium berries, six-sided, one inch in diameter, like varnished and stained cherry wood, glossy red, crystalline and ingrained, concealed under its green leaves in shady swamps."); August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.”); September 1, 1851("The fruit of the trilliums is very handsome.. . .a dense crowded cluster of many ovoid berries turning from green to scarlet or bright brick color.")

The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely. See September 24, 1859 ("Fever-bush berries are scarlet now, and also green. They have a more spicy taste than any of our berries, carrying us in thought to the spice islands. Taste like lemon-peel.")

Now, say, is hazelnut time. See August 8, 1852 ("The squirrels are now devouring the hazelnuts fast."); August 13, 1854 ("Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown.);  August 18, 1852 ("Hazelnuts; methinks it is time to gather them if you would anticipate the squirrels."); August 24, 1858 ("Squirrels have eaten hazelnuts and pitch pine cones for some days. Now and of late we remember hazel bushes, —we become aware of such a fruit-bearing bush. They have their turn, and every clump and hedge seems composed of them."); August 29, 1858 ("I fear it is already too late for me . . . They must have been very busy collecting these nuts and husking them for a fortnight past, climbing to the extremities of the slender twigs. Who witnesses the gathering of the hazelnuts, the hazel harvest? Yet what a busy and important season to the striped squirrel! "); September 3, 1858 ("Notwithstanding the abundance of hazelnuts here, very little account is made of them, and I think it is because pains is not taken to collect them before the squirrels have done so."); September 9, 1859 ("Now for hazelnuts, — where the squirrels have not got them." )

 
I see robins in small flocks. See August 15, 1852 ("Birds fly in flocks"); August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them."); August 27, 1858 ("Robins fly in flocks."); September 18, 1852 ("The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener."); September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping."); October 1, 1853 ("Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about."); October 20, 1857 ("The barberry bushes are now alive with, I should say, thousands of robins feeding on them. They must make a principal part of their food now. ")

And pigeon woodpeckers with them. See September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins with a few flickers, the former keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping.")

August 21. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 21

Small, wary dipper – 

solitary, dark-colored – 

diving midst the pads.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Trillium berries bright-red.

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-540821

The cricket-like note of this little frog ushers in the evening.

August 20

August 20, 1854

Sunday. I hear no trilling of birds early. 5.15 a. m. — To Hill. I hear a gold robin, also faint song of common robin. Wood pewee (fresh); red-wing blackbird with fragmentary trill; bobolinks (the males apparently darker and by themselves); kingbirds; nuthatch heard; yellow-throated vireo, heard and saw, on hickories (have I lately mistaken this for red-eye ?); goldfinch; slate- colored hawk (with white rump and black wing-tips). 

The grape leaves even at this hour, after a dewy night, are still many of them curled upward, showing their light under-sides, and feel somewhat crisped by the drought. This, I think, is one with that permanent standing up of the leaves of many trees at this season. Prinos berries have begun to redden. 

When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. That, if I remember, was about a fortnight ago. The concert is over. The pewees sit still on their perch a long time, returning to the same twig after darting at an insect. The yellow-throated vireo is very restless, darting about. I hear a sound as of green pignuts falling from time to time, and see and hear the chickaree thereabouts!

1 P. M. — Up Assabet by boat to Bath. A warm but breezy day, wind west by south. Water clear and sunny. I see much of my fresh-water sponge just above the Island, attached to the bottom, rocks, or branches under water. In form it reminds me of some cladonia lichens, for it has many branches like a lichen, being a green, porous, spongy substance, with long, slender, pointed fingers or horns, pointed upward or outward, the thickest about half an inch in diameter, and emits a peculiar, penetrating, strong, rank scent like some chemicals. The whole mass per haps eight or ten inches in diameter. When raised to the surface it slowly sinks again. 

The bottom of the south branch is in many places almost covered with the short cut leaves of the sium, — as I call it. On the sandy bottom in midstream (mussel shoals), a dozen rods above the Rock, I notice a small (?) green clam which must be the same with or similar to that which Perkins showed me in Newburyport. It has bright-green rays from the eye (?) on a light-green ground. Found in pure sand. Saw three. The rays show through to the inside. It is handsomer without than the common. 

Some chickadees on the pitch pines over water near the Hemlocks look longer than usual, hanging back downward. 

See a strange bird about size of cedar-bird also on the pitch pine, perhaps greenish-olive above, whitish or ashy beneath, with a yellow vent and a dark line on side-head. 

Saw a wood pewee which had darted after an insect over the water in this position in the air: It often utters a continuous pe-e-e. 

The Polygonum amphibium at Assabet Rock, apparently several days, rising two or more feet above water. In many places I notice oaks stripped by caterpillars nowadays. Saw yesterday one of those great light-green grubs with spots. 

I see to-day many — more than a half-dozen — large wood tortoises on the bottom of the river, — some apparently eight to nine inches long in shell, some with their heads out. Are they particularly attracted to the water at this season? They lie quite still on the bottom.

Off Dodge's Brook, saw a fish lying on its side on the surface, with its head downward, slowly steering toward the shore with an undulating motion of the tail. Found it to be a large sucker which had apparently been struck by a kingfisher, fish hawk, or heron and got away. (The mill is not a-going to-day, Sunday.) It had been seized near the tail, which for three inches was completely flayed and much torn, lacerated, a part of the caudal fin being carried off. It had also received a severe thrust midway its body, which had furrowed its side and turned down a large strip of skin. It was breathing its last when I caught it. It was evidently too powerful for the bird which had struck it.

I brought it home and weighed and measured it. It weighed two pounds and two ounces and was nineteen and a quarter inches long. Above, it was a sort of blue black or slate-color, darkest on the head, with blotches of the same extending down its sides, which were of a reddish golden, passing into white beneath. There were a few small red spots on the sides, just behind the gills. It had what I should call a gibbous head, but no horns; a line of fine mucous pores above and below eye; eyes at least one and a half inches apart; great corrugated ears on the lower lip; fins all dark like the back; nostrils double; opercula not golden; irides golden; scales on lateral line sixty-five (about), those near tail gone with skin. Fin rays, as I counted: pectoral, seventeen; ventral, ten; anal, nine; dorsal, thirteen; caudal, some wanting. 

Looking down on it, it was very broad at base of head, tapering thence gradually to tail. It had a double bladder, nearly six inches long by one inch at widest part. I think it must have been a kingfisher, it was so much lacerated at the tail. 

Now, at 4 p. m., hear a croaking frog near the water's edge, sounding like the faint quacking of a duck with more of the r in it, — something like crack grack grack, rapidly repeated. Though I knew that I must be within three feet of it, as I looked from the boat upon the shore, I could see nothing, but several times I interrupted him and caused him to jump. It is surprising how perfectly they are concealed by their color, even when croaking under one's eyes. 

It was Rana palustris, though I did not see it when it croaked. I after heard them further off, just before sunset, along the edge of the river, and saw that I had often mistaken their note for that of a cricket. So similar are these two earth-sounds. The cricket-like note of this little frog in the meadow ushers in the evening. 

A man tells me to-day that he once saw some black snake's eggs on the surface of a tussock in a meadow just hatching, some hatched. The old one immediately appeared and swallowed all the young. 

Assabet quite low. Those beds of dirty green ostrich-feather potamogetons are much exposed and dry at top. 

I perceive quite a number of furrows of clams in the sand, all leading from the side toward the middle of the river, with the clams at that end. Can they be going down now? They have not moved opposite Hubbard Bath, where they are in middle as well as by shore. Their position in the furrows is on their sharp edges, with what I will call their two eyes forward. 

We had a very little drizzling rain on the 4th, and I think that was the last drop. 

There is so thick a bluish haze these dog-days that single trees half a mile off, seen against it as a light colored background, stand out distinctly a dark mass, — almost black, — as seen against the more distinct blue woods. So, also, when there is less haze, the distinct wooded ridges are revealed one behind another in the horizon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 20, 1854

When the red-eye ceases generally, then I think is a crisis, — the woodland quire is dissolved. See May 27, 1854 ("The red-eye is an indefatigable singer.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red-eyed Vireo

I had often mistaken their note for that of a cricket. See August 22, 1854 ("There are now hopping all over this meadow small Rana palustris, and also some more beautifully spotted halecina or shad frogs."); September 4, 1854 ("Steadily the cricket-like Rana palustris alongshore.") See also September 20, 1855 ("Try to trace by the sound a mole cricket, -- thinking it a frog, — advancing from two sides and looking where our courses intersected, but in vain"); September 27, 1855 "(Yesterday I traced the note of what I have falsely thought the Rana palustris, or cricket frog, to its true source . . . a mole cricket.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pickerel frog (Rana palustris or Lithobates palustris)

Single trees half a mile off ... stand out distinctly a dark mass, — almost black. See August 20, 1853 ("If they are between you and the sun, the trees are more black than green.”), August 20, 1858 ("This weather is a preface to autumn. There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. ") See also Augusr 23, 1853 ("Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that . . . the night of the year sets in.")

August 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 20

When the red-eye ceases

the woodland quire is dissolved. 

The concert is over.

The cricket-like note 

of this little frog ushers 

in the evening. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The cricket-like note of this little frog

"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-540820

The meadows by the railroad appear fresh and tender green.

August  19. 

August 19, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fresh and tender green 

of so many shades blending 

harmoniously.

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540819

A time to visit swamps and meadows

August 18

A great drought now for several weeks.  A good time to visit swamps and meadows. 

We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty. The meadows are covered with spatular sundew. Saw a snipe. 

There are fifteen or twenty haymakers here yet, but almost done. They and their loads loom at a distance. Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand. 

The bobolinks alight on the wool-grass. Do they eat its seeds? 

The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant.

The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 18, 1854

Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand. See August 24, 1858 ("I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work. ")
The bobolinks alight on the wool-grass. See August 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush along this brook is now alive with these birds.”)

The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant. See August 14, 1859 ("The zizania now makes quite a show along the river"); August 24, 1858 ("The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away")

The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields. See August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, 1st, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula); 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.Then there is the odora, 5th, out some time, but not common; and, 6th, the bicolor, just begun in some places."); August 30, 1853 ("The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. ")

The shadow of our shadows, two men in a boat.

August 16.

With Russell* to Fair Haven by boat.  At the steam mill sand-bank is the distinct shadow of our shadows, — first on the water, then the double one on the bank bottom to bottom, one being upside down, — three in all, — one on water, two on land or bushes.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1854

See Walden, The Pond in Winter ("Sometimes, also, when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself, one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other on the trees or hillside.”) and August 31, 1852 ("I observe, on the willows on the east shore, the shadow of my boat and self and oars, upside down”); October 18, 1853 ("Returning late, we see a double shadow of ourselves and boat, one, the true, quite black, the other directly above it and very faint, on the willows and high bank.") and November 1, 1854 ("Sailing past the bank above the railroad, just before a clear sundown, close to the shore on the east side I see a second fainter shadow of the boat, sail, myself, and paddle, etc., directly above and upon the first on the bank. What makes the second? At length I discovered that it was the reflected sun which cast a higher shadow like the true one. As I moved to the west side, the upper shadow rose, grew larger and less perceptible; and at last when I was so near the west shore that I could not see the reflected sun, it disappeared; but then there appeared one upside down in its place!")

August 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 16

* John Lewis Russell, botanist

At steam-mill sand-bank

the shadow of our shadows –

one is upside down.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The shadow of our shadows

"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-540816 

Getting lost

August 15.

Walk all day with Channing, northwest into Acton and Carlisle. 

A dog-day, comfortably cloudy and cool as well as still. 

The river meadows, where no mowing, have a yellowish and autumnal look.  

I see large flocks of bobolinks on the Union Turnpike. 

Ford the Assabet at the bathing-place. 

Panicled cornel berries on College Road. 

Many of the trees in Barrett's orchard on Annursnack touch the ground all around, weighed down with fruit.

Cross from top of Annursnack to top of Strawberry Hill.  The locomotive whistle, far southwest, sounds like a bell. 

From Strawberry Hill we steer northeast toward the east point of a wood in the direction of Hutchinson's, perhaps two miles off.

Before starting on this walk I had studied the map to discover a new walk, and decided to go through a large wooded tract west and northwest of the Paul Dudley house, where there was no road, there at last to strike east across the head of Spencer Brook Meadow, perhaps to the old Carlisle road.

A mile and a half northeast of Strawberry Hill, keeping on through a somewhat swampy upland, we fall  into a path, which Channing preferring, though it leads us through woods widely out of our course westward. 

I soon correct it, and, descending through swampy land, at length see through the trees and bushes into a small meadow completely surrounded by woods, in which is a man haying only eight or ten rods off. 

Soon after, we follow an indistinct path through a dense birch wood, leading quite out of our course, westward.

At length, when I endeavor to correct my course by compass, it points so that I lose my faith in it, and we continue to go out of our way, till we come out on a side-hill immediately overlooking a stream and mill and several houses and a small mill-pond. 

We are completely lost, and see not one familiar object. 

At length see steeples which we think Westford, but the monument proves it Acton. Take their bearings, calculate a new course, and pursue it at first east-northeast, then east, and finally southeast, along rocky hillsides covered with weeds, where the fall seems further advanced than in Concord, with more autumnal colors, through dense oak woods and scrub oak, across a road or two, over some pastures, through a swamp or two, where the cinnamon fern is as high as our heads.   

After travelling about five miles, for the most part in woods, without knowing where we are, we come out on a hill from which we see, far to the south, the open valley at head of Spencer Brook.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1854

A large flocks of bobolinks... See August 15, 1852 ("I see a dense, compact flock of bobolinks going off in the air over a field. They cover the rails and alders, and go rustling off with a brassy, tinkling note as I approach, revealing their yellow breasts and bellies. This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.")

Cross from top of Annursnack to top of Strawberry Hill.  See September 6, 1851  ("From Strawberry Hill the first, but a very slight, glimpse of Nagog Pond by standing up on the wall. That is enough to relate of a hill, methinks, that its elevation gives you the first sight of some distant lake.")

We are completely lost, . See March 29, 1853 ("It is a surprising and memorable and, I may add, valuable experience to be lost in the woods, especially at night")

August 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Just after sunrise and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 15

Far in the southwest

the locomotive whistle

sounds like a bell.

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