This reminds me of the opossum that lived in the bush outside my dad's window for a month. My dad is a light sleeper and sleeps with the window open in the summer. The opossum liked to scream in the middle of the night when the dogs bothered the neighbor's dogs. My dad got tired of constantly waking up exhausted so he trapped the opossum and set it free a few fields away in hopes the opossum got the hint. It never came back so I guess the opossum got the hint.

This sentence popped out at me. It reminds me a lot of the movie The Polar Express. I have always loved snowy landscapes and become mesmerized with various descriptions of the magical scenery.

Thoreau concedes that the loon has won the little game they played, and in doing so, also mocked Thoreau that he could not beat the loons cunning tricks to get him.

This sentence captures the frustration Thoreau was feeling but also shows how little frustration he truly felt with the loon;s game. He enjoyed observing the loon, watching it dive and mock its predators while also telling its predators "look here I am".

By Thoreau doing all the work by hand and by himself he got to take pride in the aftermath of all his hard work. It reminds me of the story of "The Little Red Hen". Where in the end the Hen takes pride in her work and shares with everyone despite no one else helping.

I know a lot of people who like to garden and grow their own food, it is a way for them to connect to nature and a way for them to be self-reliant. Both of which are themes in Thoreau's works. Antæus was one of the creatures Hercules fought during his Labors. Antæus was a half-giant, so for Thoreau to say that he got his strength like Antæus, planting his beans, being connected to the earth was Thoreau's strongest moment.

Here Thoreau compares the nature of people in a village to animals in the wilderness. You can see how much he admires and values the world and nature.

This one sentence provides the reason as to why Thoreau included the chapter into the book. Getting lost in the woods on his way home should have been easy, he knew the path by heart, but because he was lost in his thoughts, Thoreau wasn't paying attention to where he was going and got lost. When one gets lost in their thoughts, the world vanishes and all that is left is you. When it is just you, you can take all the time in the world to figure out who you are and what you desire in life.

Thoreau, as many others, found that when busy had little time to read to pass the time. Getting lost in books is entertaining and a great way to pass the time.

Thoreau is stating here and in the previous sentence what he considers to be the definition of what it means to be a philosopher. To have the ability to solve life problems through a life of practical simplicity.

Thoreau compares fruit to luxury and wealth throughout these excerpts. Men who grow upwards, focus on the fruit they produce, and strive for wealth and luxury. The others, which Thoreau calls "humble esculents" grow downwards, focusing on their roots. When their roots are perfected, their hard work rewarded, fruit-bearing tops are cut, to hide their wealth from others.

Thoreau raises a point that I have heard many times before by my mother. Success should always be defined by one's own definitions. If you see yourself as successful, then you are for your standards. Thoreau asks why should one person's standards be reliant on the opinion of others?

Thoreau writes that he use to live in a state where he was anxious about the future and noting the passage of time, specifically the moments where the present becomes the past. Thoreau suggests that so many of us spend time in the past and worry about the future that we forget to acknowledge the present, "the meeting of two eternities, the past and future."

I believe that the shutter in this sentence refers to the previous sentences. When reading books, when one reads only the written languages, you see a small part of the sky, the rays of the sun. Once the shutter is removed, you can see the whole sky, you get a better understanding of the message the book is trying to say.

This keeps in line with Thoreau's philosophy of determining what success means to you and to stick to it.

I find it odd to compare a train to a comet, something so mystical and extraterrestrial seems out-of-place for a man-made form of transportation. Perhaps Thoreau was comparing the train to a God in the sense that the train was carrying food, water; the essentials that every person needs to live, and that in providing those things, makes the train a God.

Thoreau mentions this sentence at the end of a paragraph where he talked about how he spent most of his time compared to other men. Thoreau decided what he wished to do, and got them done to his standards; that is what he meant to say; you have to figure out what you want to do, and do it.

Thoreau describes Nature slowly overtaking his house, swallowing it to become unrecognizable as man-made. The point that Thoreau makes is that Nature always adapts; that eventually, Nature will overtake the civilized world.