in Thoreau’s Journal:

Has been a great flight of blue-winged teal this season. 

The soapwort gentian the flower of the river banks now.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The small scull cap & cress & the mullein still in bloom. I see pigeon woodpeckers oftener now with their light rears. Birches & elms begin to turn yellow—& ferns are quite yellow or brown in many places. I see many tall clustered bluish asters by the brooks like the A undulatus. The blue stemmed golden rod is abundant bright & in its prime. The maples begin to be ripe. How beautiful when a whole maple on the edge of a swamp is like one great scarlet fruit—full of ripe juices— A sign of the ripening—every leaf from lowest limb to topmost spire— is a-glow. The woodbine is red too & its berries are blueing. The flattened black berries of the cucumber root—with the triangular bases of its leaves tinged red beneath as a sort of cup for them.

My red ball fungus blossoms in the path in the midst of its jelly. As I was walking through the maple swamp by the Corner spring I was surprised to see apples on the ground—and at first supposed that some body had dropped them, but looking up I detected a wild apple tree, as tall and slender as the young maples and not more than 5 inches in diameter at the ground. This had blossomed & borne fruit this year— The apples were quite mellow & of a very agreeable flavor—they they had a rusty scraperish look—and I filled my pockets with them. The squirrels had found them out before me. It is an agreeable surprise to find in the midst of a swamp so large and edible a fruit as an apple. Of late we have much cloudy weather without rain. Are not liable to showers as in summer—but may have a storm. The lentago berries appear to drop off before or as soon as they turn. There are few left on the bushes. Many that I bring home will turn in a single night. The sassafras leaves are red. The huckleberry bushes begin to redden. The white actaea berries still hang on—or their red pedicels remain. 

My friend is he who can make a good guess at me.  — hit me on the wing.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

How distinctly each thing in nature is marked, as the day by a little yellow sunlight, so that the sluggard cannot mistake it.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:  

It is the season of agricultural fairs. 

If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:  

How perfectly each plant has its turn!  ––as if the seasons revolved for it alone.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The pond is like the sky with a border of whitish clouds in the horizon.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I love to see anything that implies a simpler mode of life and greater nearness to the earth.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning the first frost—

September 13, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Asters various shades of blue and especially the smaller kinds of dense flowering white ones are more than ever—by the roadsides….The golden glow of autumn concentrated—more golden than the sun….The earth wears different colors or liveries at different seasons.

If I come by at this season a golden blaze will salute me here from a thousand suns.  How earnestly & rapidly each creature—each flower is fulfilling its part while its day lasts!  Nature never lost a day—nor a moment — As the planet in its orbit & around its axis—so do the seasons— —so does time revolve with a rapidity inconceivable.

September 13, 1859

I remember my earliest going a-graping.  (It was a wonder we ever hit upon the ripe season.)

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Round-leaved cornel berries nearly all fallen.

September 12, 1851

A man should feed his sense with the best that the land affords.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Red choke-berry ripe; how long?

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Cardinal-flower, nearly done.

September 9, 2018:  Photo

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Going into the low sprout-land north of the Sam Wheeler orchard, where is a potato-field in new ground, I see the effects of the frost of the last two or three nights. The ferns and tall erechthites showing its pappus are dropping and blackened or imbrowned on all sides, also Eupatorium pubescens, tender young Rhus glabra, etc., and the air is full of the rank, sour smell of freshly withering vegetation. It is a great change produced in one frosty night. What a sudden period put to the reign of summer! 

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Grapes ripe….for some days….

Do I perceive the shadows lengthen already?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Some hours seem not to be occasion for anything, unless for great resolves to draw breath and repose in, so religiously do we postpone all action therein. We do not straight go about to execute our thrilling purpose, but shut our doors behind us, and saunter with prepared mind, as if the half were already done.

September 7, 1852 in Thoreau’s Journal:

[on Mt. Monadnock, NH]  

Though this vegetation was humble—yet it was very productive of fruit. In one little hollow between the rocks grew—blue berries—chokeberries—bunch berries— —red cherries—wild currents (ribes prostratum with the berry the odor of skunk cabbage—but a not quite disagreeable wild flavor) a few raspberries still—holly-berries—mt cranberries (Vaccinium vitis idaea) all close together.  The little soil on the summit between the rocks was covered with the Potentilla tridentata now out of bloom—the prevailing plant at the extreme summit.  Mt ash berries also.  Descending toward Troy a little after 1 Pm plucked the Trillium Erythrocarpum with the large red berry (painted Trillium).

 in Thoreau’s Journal: 

The country begins to have a dry and flavid  look, —corn fields & grass fields &c—& when winds blow a slight rustling is heard.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The fragrance of a grape-vine branch, with ripe grapes on it, which I have brought home, fills the whole house. This fragrance is exceedingly rich, surpassing the flavor of any grape.

in Thoreau’s Journal:  

1 AM.  Moon waning.  To Conantum— A warm night.  A thin coat sufficient.  I hear an apple fall.  Meet a man going to market thus early.  There are no mists to diversity the night—its features are very simple. I hear no whippoorwill or other bird—  See no fire flies— Saw a whippoorwill? flutter across the road. Hear the dumping sound of frogs on the river meadow, and occasionally a kind of croak as from a bittern there. It is very dewy & I bring home much mud on my shoes. This is a peculiarity of night—its dews—water resuming its reign. Return before dawn— Morning & evening are more attractive than midnight.

I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts, or what is due to the influence of the moon, from the current distractions & fluctuations. The winds which the sun has aroused go down at evening, and the lunar influence may then perchance be detected.

Of late I have not heard the wood-thrush.