March 28.
Sunday.
A pleasant afternoon; cool wind but warm sun. Snow almost all gone.
The yellow lily leaves are pushing up in the ditch beyond Hubbard's Grove this is not so warm a place as Heywood's meadow under the causeway), hard-rolled and triangular, with a sharp point with which to pierce the mud; green at the tips and yellow below. The leaf is rolled in from both sides to the midrib.
This is, perhaps, to be regarded as the most obvious sign of advancing spring, for the skunk-cabbage may be seen in warm weather in January. The latter is the first conspicuous growth on the surface. It now shows its agreeably variegated, not yet unfolded, leaves in the meadows.
Saw dead frogs, and the mud stirred by a living one, in this ditch, and afterward in Conantum Brook a living frog, the first of the season; also a yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hub bard's Bridge.
Fresh-looking caddis-worm cases in the ditch.
The smoky maple swamps have now got a reddish tinge from their expanding buds.
I have not noticed any new movements among the farmers, unless a little more activity in carting out manure and spreading it on their grass grounds.
Observed a singular circle round the moon to-night between nine and ten, the moon being about half full, or in its first quarter, and the sky pretty clear, a very bright and distinct circle about the moon, and a second, larger circle, less distinct, extending to the east of this, cutting the former and having the moon on its circumference or at least where its circumference would be. The inner circle is very contracted and more distinct on its eastern side, included within the larger, and it appears to shed a luminous mist from all sides.
10.15 P. M. — The geese have just gone over, making a great cackling and awaking people in their beds. They will probably settle in the river. Who knows but they had expected to find the pond open?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1852
A pleasant afternoon; cool wind but warm sun. Snow almost all gone.
The yellow lily leaves are pushing up in the ditch beyond Hubbard's Grove this is not so warm a place as Heywood's meadow under the causeway), hard-rolled and triangular, with a sharp point with which to pierce the mud; green at the tips and yellow below. The leaf is rolled in from both sides to the midrib.
This is, perhaps, to be regarded as the most obvious sign of advancing spring, for the skunk-cabbage may be seen in warm weather in January. The latter is the first conspicuous growth on the surface. It now shows its agreeably variegated, not yet unfolded, leaves in the meadows.
Saw dead frogs, and the mud stirred by a living one, in this ditch, and afterward in Conantum Brook a living frog, the first of the season; also a yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hub bard's Bridge.
Fresh-looking caddis-worm cases in the ditch.
The smoky maple swamps have now got a reddish tinge from their expanding buds.
I have not noticed any new movements among the farmers, unless a little more activity in carting out manure and spreading it on their grass grounds.
Observed a singular circle round the moon to-night between nine and ten, the moon being about half full, or in its first quarter, and the sky pretty clear, a very bright and distinct circle about the moon, and a second, larger circle, less distinct, extending to the east of this, cutting the former and having the moon on its circumference or at least where its circumference would be. The inner circle is very contracted and more distinct on its eastern side, included within the larger, and it appears to shed a luminous mist from all sides.
10.15 P. M. — The geese have just gone over, making a great cackling and awaking people in their beds. They will probably settle in the river. Who knows but they had expected to find the pond open?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1852
In Conantum Brook a living frog, the first of the season. See March 28, 1858 ("Cleaning out the spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill, I find a small frog, apparently a bullfrog, just come forth, which must have wintered in the mud there. ")
The geese have just gone over, making a great cackling and awaking people in their beds. See March 28, 1858 (" After a cloudy morning, a warm and pleasant afternoon. I hear that a few geese were seen this morning."): March 28, 1859 ("A great flock passing over, quite on the other side of us and pretty high up. From time to time one of the company uttered a short note, that peculiarly metallic, clangorous sound. These were in a single undulating line. . .Undoubtedly the geese fly more numerously over rivers which, like ours, flow northeasterly, — are more at home with the water under them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead
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