November 7, 1853 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The sun now rises far southward.  I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves & the pines—the former appear to get more than their share—  How soon the sun gets above the hills—as if he would accomplish his whole diurnal journey in a few hours at this rate—but it is a long way around & these are nothing to the hill of heaven. Whether we are idle or industrious the sun is constantly traveling through the sky—consuming arc after arc of this great circle at this same rapid pace.

Photo: November 7, 2019: Mt. Dinsmore from Cook Farm Interval, Sandwich, New Hampshire

November 6, 1854 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Surveying on Colburn Place — It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear–& ground frozen so that it is difficult if not impossible to force down a stake in plowed ground.

Photo: November 6, 2019 along Dinsmore Pond Road, Sandwich, New Hampshire

November 5, 1860 in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected.

November 5, 2014 on the Sandwich Notch Road, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It was quite a discovery when I first came upon this brawling mountain stream in Concord woods. Rising out of an obscure meadow in the woods, for some fifty or sixty rods of its course it is a brawling mountain stream in our quiet Concord woods, as much obstructed by rocks – rocks out of all proportion to its tiny stream – as a brook can well be. And the rocks are bared throughout the wood on either side, as if a torrent had anciently swept through here; so unlike the after character of the stream. Who would have thought that, on tracing it up from where it empties into the larger Mill Brook in the open peat meadows, it would conduct him to such a headlong and impetuous youth. Perchance it should be called a “force”. It suggests what various moods may attach to the same character. Ah, if I but knew that some minds which flow so muddily in the lowland portion of their course, when they cross the highways, tumbled thus impetuously and musically, mixed themselves with the air in foam, but a little way back in the woods! that these dark and muddy pools, where only the pout and the leech are to be found, issued from pure trout streams higher up! that the man’s thoughts ever flowed as sparkling mountain water, that trout there loved to glance through his dimples, where the witch-hazel hangs over his stream!

November 4, 2018 at the Red Hill River Conservation Area, Sandwich, New Hampshire

November 3, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The landscape from Fair Haven Hill looks Novemberry—bare gray limbs & twigs in the swamps & where many young (or shrub) oaks have lost their leaves—You hear the rustling of oak & walnut leaves in the air. There is a ripple on the river from the cool northerly wind—the plants are sere. It is the month of withered oak leaves.

Photo: November 3, 2018 on Dinsmore Pond Rd, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her? Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.

Photo: November 2, 2023 at Mead Base, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is a bright, clear, warm November day. I feel blessed. I love my life. I warm toward all nature. The woods are now much more open than when I last observed them; the leaves have fallen, and they let in light, and I see the sky through them as through a crow’s wing in every direction.

Photo: November 1, 2016 on the Buzzell Ridge, Sandwich, New Hampshire

October 31, 1858 in Thoreau’s Journal:

It costs me nothing for a gardener— The falling leaves all over the forest are protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen & you will have garden enough—without deepening the soil of your yard. We have only to elevate our view a little to see the whole forest as a garden—

Photo: October 31, 2015 near Barville Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still.

What with the rains & frosts & winds the leaves have fairly fallen now— You may say the fall has ended. Those which still hang on the trees are withered & dry —  I am surprised at the change since last Sunday — Looking at the distant woods I perceive that there is no yellow nor scarlet there now— They are (except the evergreens) a mere dull dry red— The autumnal tints are gone.   What life remains is merely at the foot of the leafstalk.  The woods have for the most part acquired their winter aspect— And coarse rustling light colored withered grasses skirt the river & the woodside— This is November— The landscape prepared for winter without snow— When the forest & fields put on their sober winter hue. We begin to look more to the sunset for color & variety.

Now now is the time to look at the buds the swamp pink—some yellowish, some mixed with thin oblong seed-vessels red—&c.  The larger red maple buds have now 2 sets of scales—3 in each. The water Andromeda is still green— Along the Depot Brook the great heads of A. Puniceus stand dry & fuzzy & singularly white (—like the golden rods & other asters—) but some quite low are still green & in flower

The prevalence of this light dry Color perhaps characterizes November—that of whitening withered grass—of the fuzzy gray goldenrods—harmonizing with the cold sunlight—and that of the leaves which still hang on deciduous trees.

Photo: October 30, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying or vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me. I buy no lot in the cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated with a poem and an auction, paying so much for a choice. Here is room enough for me.

Photo: October 29, 2018 near Dinsmore Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, which lulls the few and silent birds to sleep, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree is a harp which resounds all night, though some have but a few leaves left to flutter and hum. From the Cliffs, the river and pond are exactly the color of the sky. Though the latter is slightly veiled with a thin mist, the outline of the peninsula in it is quite distinct. Even the distant fields across the river are seen to be russet by moonlight as by day, and the young pines near by are green. The ground in the woods is light with fallen leaves. There is a certain tameness or civilization in the rounded lobe of the white oak leaf, very different from the wild, pointed black and red oak leaves, and in its uses and qualities the former is nearer to man. Those trees are comparatively wild whose bark alone is extensively used by man. Returning through Abiel Wheeler’s hillside field toward the railroad, I see the springing mullein leaves more distinct than by day. Their leaves are remarkably warm to my hand, compared with the earth or a stone. I should be glad to make my bed of them some time.

Photo: October 28, 2018: East Rattlesnake/Squam Lake from Doublehead Mt., Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning I awoke and found it snowing and the ground covered with snow….

Photo: October 27, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, which lulls the few and silent birds to sleep, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree is a harp which resounds all night, though some have but a few leaves left to flutter and hum. From the Cliffs, the river and pond are exactly the color of the sky. Though the latter is slightly veiled with a thin mist, the outline of the peninsula in it is quite distinct. Even the distant fields across the river are seen to be russet by moonlight as by day, and the young pines near by are green. The ground in the woods is light with fallen leaves. There is a certain tameness or civilization in the rounded lobe of the white oak leaf, very different from the wild, pointed black and red oak leaves, and in its uses and qualities the former is nearer to man. Those trees are comparatively wild whose bark alone is extensively used by man. Returning through Abiel Wheeler’s hillside field toward the railroad, I see the springing mullein leaves more distinct than by day. Their leaves are remarkably warm to my hand, compared with the earth or a stone. I should be glad to make my bed of them some time.

Photo: October 26, 2018 Mt. Israel from Cook Interval, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Near the end of causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting….It apparently bursts its pods after rain especially (as yesterday’s), opening on the underside away from succeeding rains.  Half a dozen seeds or more, attached by the tips of their silks to the core of the pod, will be blown about there a long time before a strong puff launches them away, and in the meanwhile they are expanding and drying their silk.

Photo: October 25, 2014 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The autumnal tints grow gradually darker and duller, but not less rich to my eye. And now a hillside near the river exhibits the darkest, crispy reds and browns of every hue, all agreeably blended. At the foot, next the meadow, stands a front rank of smoke-like maples bare of leaves, intermixed with yellow birches. Higher up, red oaks of various shades of dull red, with yellowish, perhaps black oaks intermixed, and walnuts, now brown, and near the hilltop, or rising above the rest, perhaps a still yellowish oak, and here and there amid the red or in the foreground on the meadow, dull ashy salmon-coloured white oaks large and small, all these contrasting with the clear liquid, sempiternal green of pines.

Photo: October 24, 2021: Beede Hill over Dinsmore Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

October 23, 1851 in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is never too late to learn.

Photo: October 23, 2010 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

October 22, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:

To Walden

Ebby Hubbards oaks now turned a sober & warm red & yellow have a very rich crisped & curled took—especially against the green pines—  This is when the ripe high colored leaves have begun to curl & wither—then they have a warm & harmonious tint. First they are ripened by the progress of the year & the character of each appears in distinct colors. Then come the severe frosts & dulling the brilliancy of most—produces a harmony of warm brown—or red & yellow tinges through out the forest.— Something like marbling & paining over it—making one shade run into another.  The forest is more rug-like…

In consequence of the above winds—& clouds—we have tonight a bright warm sunset  (to me on the water) after a cool gray afternoon—lighting up the green pines at the NE end of the pond—every yellow leaf of birch or aspen or hickory is doubly bright—& looking over the forest on Pine Hill I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sun-shine and which are the yellow chestnut tops.  Thus both the spring & autumn tints or aspect of the woods reminds me of the sunshine.  The first has never so good a setting and foreground as seen from the middle of a lake rising from the water’s edge— The waters edge makes the best frame for the picture & natural boundary to the forest.

Photo: October 22, 2017: Squam Lake and Red Hill from Coolidge Farm Road, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This is a remarkable feature in the landscape now—the abundance of dead weeds.  The frosts have done it.  Winter comes on gradually. The red maples have lost their leaves before the rock maple which is now loosing its leaves at top first. All the country over the frosts have come & sered the tenderer herbs along all brook sides—  How unobserved this change until it has taken place.

Photo: October 21, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The clouds have lifted in the NW and I see the mts in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here––with a tinge of purple on them––a cold but memorable and glorious outline. This is an advantage of mts in the horizon––they show you the fair weather from the midst of foul. The small red sol. seal berries spot the ground here & there amid the dry leaves––The witch hazel is bare of all but flowers.

Many a man––when I tell him that I have been on to a mt asks if I took a glass with me. No doubt, I could have seen further with a glass and particular objects more distinctly—could have counted more meeting-houses; but this has nothing to do with the peculiar beauty & grandeur of the view which an elevated position affords. It was not to see a few particular objects as if they were near at hand as I had been accustomed to see them, that I ascended the mt—but to see an infinite variety far & near in their relation to each other thus reduced to a single picture.

Photo: October 20, 2020, meadow near the headwaters of the Bearcamp River, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The trees repay the earth with interest from what they have taken from it.

Photo: October 19, 2014: An access road to Barville Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire