in Thoreau’s Journal:

I go to observe the lilies….The pontederia is in its prime alive with butterflies yellow & others––I see its tall blue spikes reflected beneath the edge of the pads on each side––pointing down to a heaven beneath as well as above–

Photo: July 17, 2013 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch. But handsomer much is Asclepias pulchra, or water silkweed. The thin green bark of this last, and indeed of the other, is so strong that a man cannot break a small strip of it by pulling. It contains a mass of fine silken fibres, arranged side by side like the strings of a fiddle-bow, and may be bent short without weakening it.

Photo: July 16, 2016 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Again I am attracted by the Clam shell reach of the river running E & W—as seen from Hubbard’s fields—now beginning to be smoothed as in the fall— First next the meadows is the broad dark green rank of pickerel weeds &c &c (Polygonum &c) then the light reflecting edging of pads—& then the smooth still cloud reflecting water.  My thoughts are driven inward—even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still smooth water— There is an inwardness even in the mosquitoes hum—while I am picking blueberries in the dank wood.

Photo: July 15, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Awake to a day of gentle rain––very much needed—none to speak of for nearly a month methinks. The cooler & stiller day has a valuable effect on my spirits….It holds up from time & then a fine misty rain falls. It lies on the fine reddish tops of some grasses thick & whitish like morning cobwebs. The stillness is very soothing. This is a summer rain. The earth is being bedewed. There is no storm or violence to it.  Health is a sound relation to nature.

July 14, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

One who walks the woods and hills daily, expecting to see the first berry that turns, will be surprised at last to find them ripe and thick before he is aware of it, ripened, he cannot tell how long before, in some more favorable situation. It is impossible to say what day—almost what week––the huckleberries begin to be ripe, unless you are acquainted with, and daily visit, every huckleberry bush in the town, at least every place where they grow.

Photo: July 13, 2019 near Beede Falls, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Red lilies in prime, single upright fiery flowers, their throats how splendidly and variously spotted, hardly two of quite the same hue and not two spotted alike––leopard-spotted––averaging a foot or more in height amid the huckleberry and lamb kill, etc, in the moist, meadowy pasture.

Photo: July 12, 2016 along Millbridge Road, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The large orange lily with sword-shaped leaves, strayed from cultivation, by the roadside beyond the stone bridge.

Photo: July 11, 2020 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The berries of the Vaccinium vacillans are very abundant and large this year on Fair Haven, where I am now. Indeed these and huckleberries and blackberries are very abundant in this part of the town.

Photo: July 10, 2008 along the Beebe River, Sandwich, NH

Nature does her best to feed man. The traveller need not go out of the road to get as many as he wants; every bush and vine teems with palatable fruit. Man for once stands in such relation to Nature as the animals that pluck and eat as they go. The fields and hills are a table constantly spread.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

“The flower opens, and lo! another year.” [ancient Chinese saying]

There is something sublime in the fact that some of the oldest written sentences should thus celebrate the coming in of spring. How many times have the flowers opened and a new year begun! Hardly a more cheering sentence could have come down to us. How old is spring, a phenomenon still so fresh! Do we perceive any decay in Nature? How much evidence is contained in this short and simple sentence respecting the former inhabitants of this globe! It is a sentence to be inscribed on vessels of porcelain, suggesting that so many years had gone before, in observation as fit then as now.

Photo: July 9, 2015 on the forest service road to Lower Hall Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The loudest sound that burdens here the breeze

Is the wood’s whisper; ’t is, when we choose to list,

Audible sound, and when we list not,

It is calm profound. Tongues were provided

But to vex the ear with superficial thoughts.

When deeper thoughts upswell, the jarring discord

Of harsh speech is hushed, and senses seem

As little as may be to share the ecstasy.

Photo: July 8, 2018 on Millbridge Rd, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of the flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds….With a certain wariness, but not without a slight shudder at the danger oftentimes, I perceive how near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, as a case at court, and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, to permit idle rumors, tales, incidents, even of an insignificant kind, to intrude upon what should be the sacred ground of the thoughts…

Photo: July 7, 2022 at Lost Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The grass & in the fields and meadows is not so fresh & fair as it was a fortnight ago––it is drier & riper & ready for the mowers –– Now June is past. June is the month for grass & flowers  ––  Now grass is turning to hay & flowers to fruits. Already I gather ripe blueberries on the hills. 

Photo: July 6, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Photo: July 5, 2015 along Millbridge Road, Sandwich, NH

The progress of the season is indescribable…Perhaps the sound of the locust expresses the season as well as anything. The farmers say the abundance of the grass depends on wet in June. I might make a separate season of those days when the locust is heard. That is our torrid zone.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The fresher breeze which accompanies the dawn rustles the oaks and birches, and the earth respires calmly with the creaking of crickets. Some hazel leaf stirs gently, as if anxious not to awake the day too abruptly, while the time is hastening to the distinct line between darkness and light.

Photo: July 4, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The last sunrise I witnessed seems to outshine the splendor of all preceding ones, and I was convinced that it behoved man to dawn as freshly, and with equal promise and steadiness advance into the career of life, with as lofty and serene a countenance to move onward through his midday to a yet fairer and more promising setting….

We will have a dawn––and noon––and serene sunset in ourselves.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am not taken up, like Moses, upon a mountain to learn the law, but lifted up in my seat here, in the warm sunshine and genial light.

Photo: July 2, 2008 near Beede Falls, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the production of this—which is stereotyped in the poet’s life—is what he has become through his work…

Photo: July 1, 2019 along the Sandwich Notch Road, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, NH

Let not the artist expect that his true work will stand in any prince’s gallery.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one’s native place, for instance. She is most significant to a lover.

A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. If I have no friend, what is Nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How different is day from day! Yesterday the air was filled with a thick fog-like haze, so that the sun did not once shine with ardor, but everything was so tempered under this thin veil that it was a luxury merely to be outdoors, —you were less out for it. The shadows of the apple trees even early in the afternoon were remarkably distinct. The landscape wore a classical smoothness. Every object was as in [a] picture with a glass over it. I saw some hills on this side the river, looking from Conantum, on which, the grass being of a yellow tinge, though the sun did not shine out on them, they had the appearance of being shone upon peculiarly. It was merely an unusual yellow tint of the grass. 

Photo: June 29, 2015 at Cook Intervale, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The rubus odoratus purple flowering raspberry in gardens––

Photo: June 28, 2023 along the Sandwich Notch Road, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, NH