Geoff Wisner
@geoffwisner.bsky.social
Author of A Basket of Leaves (2007). Editor of African Lives (2013), Thoreau's Wildflowers (2016), Thoreau's Animals (2017), A Year of Birds (2024), and George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries (January 2026!).
It was a pasture, and they were thickly covered with grass and lichens. Perhaps the grass had grown better on the hillocks, and so they had grown while the intermediate spaces had been more trodden by the cows. [Photos American Anthropologist, 1920]
November 13, 2025 at 1:24 PM
It was a pasture, and they were thickly covered with grass and lichens. Perhaps the grass had grown better on the hillocks, and so they had grown while the intermediate spaces had been more trodden by the cows. [Photos American Anthropologist, 1920]
Thoreau, Nov. 13, 1857. I observed on the 7th, between the site of Paul Adams's and Bateman's Pond, in quite open land, some very prominent Indian corn-hills. I should say that they were higher above the intermediate surface than when they were first made. [Map from Estabrook Council website]
November 13, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 13, 1857. I observed on the 7th, between the site of Paul Adams's and Bateman's Pond, in quite open land, some very prominent Indian corn-hills. I should say that they were higher above the intermediate surface than when they were first made. [Map from Estabrook Council website]
Thoreau, Nov. 12, 1851 Write often, write upon a thousand themes, rather than long at a time, not trying to turn too many feeble somersets in the air, and so come down upon your head at last. Antaeus-like, be not long absent from the ground. [Photo Michael Hudson]
November 12, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 12, 1851 Write often, write upon a thousand themes, rather than long at a time, not trying to turn too many feeble somersets in the air, and so come down upon your head at last. Antaeus-like, be not long absent from the ground. [Photo Michael Hudson]
Thoreau, Nov. 11, 1850. I am attracted by a fence made of white pine roots. There is, or rather was, one (for it has been tipped into the gutter this year) on the road to Hubbard's Bridge which I can remember for more than twenty years. [Photo Gail Hamilton]
November 11, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 11, 1850. I am attracted by a fence made of white pine roots. There is, or rather was, one (for it has been tipped into the gutter this year) on the road to Hubbard's Bridge which I can remember for more than twenty years. [Photo Gail Hamilton]
Here's the first of the two sentences: "The village of Qayal, which was a few kilometres from the 'hidden marina,' has been razed."
November 10, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Here's the first of the two sentences: "The village of Qayal, which was a few kilometres from the 'hidden marina,' has been razed."
Thoreau, Nov. 10, 1858. Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis [gray goldenrod] in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers November flowers on hills, above frost.) [Photo UP Native Plants]
November 10, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 10, 1858. Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis [gray goldenrod] in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers November flowers on hills, above frost.) [Photo UP Native Plants]
Yesterday in Van Cortlandt Park.
November 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Yesterday in Van Cortlandt Park.
Thoreau, Sept. 30, 1854. The clear bright-scarlet leaves of the smooth sumach in many places are curled and drooping, hanging straight down, so as to make a funereal impression, reminding me [of] a red sash and a soldier's funeral.
November 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Thoreau, Sept. 30, 1854. The clear bright-scarlet leaves of the smooth sumach in many places are curled and drooping, hanging straight down, so as to make a funereal impression, reminding me [of] a red sash and a soldier's funeral.
Kingfisher in Inwood Hill Park.
November 10, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Kingfisher in Inwood Hill Park.
Thoreau, Nov. 9, 1850. The pitcher-plant, though a little frost-bitten and often cut off by the mower, now stands full of water in the meadows. I never found one that had not an insect in it. [Photo Caleb Catto]
November 9, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 9, 1850. The pitcher-plant, though a little frost-bitten and often cut off by the mower, now stands full of water in the meadows. I never found one that had not an insect in it. [Photo Caleb Catto]
@mta This is the uptown 215 Street stop on the 1 train. No alerts about it.
November 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
@mta This is the uptown 215 Street stop on the 1 train. No alerts about it.
Thoreau, Nov. 8, 1850. When I lived in the woods the wasps came by thousands to my lodge in November, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows and on the walls over my head, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. [Photo Fivespot Green Living]
November 8, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Thoreau, Nov. 8, 1850. When I lived in the woods the wasps came by thousands to my lodge in November, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows and on the walls over my head, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. [Photo Fivespot Green Living]
So Academia turned my anthology of African memoirs into an AI comic. What's the worst that could happen?
November 8, 2025 at 9:07 AM
So Academia turned my anthology of African memoirs into an AI comic. What's the worst that could happen?
Seen through this November sky, these sands are dear to me, worth all the gold of California, suggesting Pactolus, while the Saxonville factory-bell sounds o'er the woods. That sound perchance it is that whets my vision.
November 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Seen through this November sky, these sands are dear to me, worth all the gold of California, suggesting Pactolus, while the Saxonville factory-bell sounds o'er the woods. That sound perchance it is that whets my vision.
I could hardly have told in what part of the world I was, if I had been carried there blindfolded. Yet some features, at least the composition of the soil, were familiar....
November 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I could hardly have told in what part of the world I was, if I had been carried there blindfolded. Yet some features, at least the composition of the soil, were familiar....
[Thoreau visits Wayland and is impressed by Lake Cochituate.]
Nov. 7, 1851. It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, Cochituate. It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected. In some respects unlike New England. [Photo Reddit]
Nov. 7, 1851. It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, Cochituate. It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected. In some respects unlike New England. [Photo Reddit]
November 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM
[Thoreau visits Wayland and is impressed by Lake Cochituate.]
Nov. 7, 1851. It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, Cochituate. It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected. In some respects unlike New England. [Photo Reddit]
Nov. 7, 1851. It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, Cochituate. It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected. In some respects unlike New England. [Photo Reddit]
Thoreau, Nov. 6, 1860. I passed through that chestnut wood in the hollow southeast of Curly-pate. Turning over the wet chestnut leaves in the hollows, looking for nuts, I found a red-backed salamander, between three and four inches long, bluish-gray beneath...
[Art by Will Close]
[Art by Will Close]
November 6, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 6, 1860. I passed through that chestnut wood in the hollow southeast of Curly-pate. Turning over the wet chestnut leaves in the hollows, looking for nuts, I found a red-backed salamander, between three and four inches long, bluish-gray beneath...
[Art by Will Close]
[Art by Will Close]
Perhaps they are constructed just before the rise of the water in the fall and winter, so that they may not have to swim so far as the flood would require in order to eat their clams.
November 5, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Perhaps they are constructed just before the rise of the water in the fall and winter, so that they may not have to swim so far as the flood would require in order to eat their clams.
I think that they are merely an artificial bank, an air-chamber near the water, houses of refuge. But why do they need them more at this season than in the summer, it may be asked.
November 5, 2025 at 2:16 PM
I think that they are merely an artificial bank, an air-chamber near the water, houses of refuge. But why do they need them more at this season than in the summer, it may be asked.
...as a heap of manure would have been, they are so artificially constructed. Moreover, for the most part they are protected, as well as concealed, by the button-bushes, willows, or weeds about them. What exactly are they for? This is not their breeding season. [Photo Tom Koerner]
November 5, 2025 at 2:16 PM
...as a heap of manure would have been, they are so artificially constructed. Moreover, for the most part they are protected, as well as concealed, by the button-bushes, willows, or weeds about them. What exactly are they for? This is not their breeding season. [Photo Tom Koerner]