Sunday, April 18, 2010

Bricking up a new well


Cold, and still a strong wind. 46 at 2 P. M. 

The Salix discolor peels well; also the aspen (early) has begun to peel. 

As i go by the site of Staples' new barn on the Kettle place, I see that they have just dug a well and are bricking it up. 

Melvin, with a bundle of apple scions in his hand, is sitting close by looking over into the well from time to time. Humphrey Buttrick is at the bottom, bricking up the well.

Melvin says he has heard snipe some days, but thinks them scarce. Clark, who had been mining lately in California and who dug the well, is passing down bricks to Buttrick. Clark has heard a partridge drum.

Melvin says he fears that, the water being so low, the snipes would be overtaken by it and their nests broken up when it rose. He says Josh Haynes told him that he found woodcock's nest, and afterward he sailed over the nest in a boat, an yet, when the water went down, the bird went on and hatched the eggs.

I see that they have dug twenty four feet through  sand and have some four feet of water in the well.

Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom.  

I find that the side-hill just below the Dutch house is more loose and sandy than half a dozen years ago, and I attribute it to the hens wallowing in the earth and dusting themselves, and also pecking the grass and preventing its growing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1860

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