The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
The now red and yellow pads of the yellow lily beginning to shoot up from the bottom of the pools and ditches – for there they yield to the first impulses of the heat and feel not the chilling blasts of March. This evening a little snow falls. The weather about these days is cold and wintry again.
We are affected like the earth, and yield to the elemental tenderness; winter breaks up within us; the frost is coming out of me, and I am heaved like the road; accumulated masses of ice and snow dissolve, and thoughts like a freshet pour down unwonted channels.
River skimmed over at Willow Bay last night. Think I should find ducks cornered up by the ice; they get behind this hill for shelter. Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads on their backs, motionless, and thin ice formed about them.
Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least. This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March, perhaps earlier. It appears to be a very gradual expansion, which begins in the warm days of winter. It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.
I left home at ten and got back before twelve with two and three quarters pints of sap, in addition to the one and three quarters I found collected.
I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on. From the evening of March 18th to this, the evening of the 21st, we have had uninterrupted strong wind, — till the evening of the 19th very strong south west wind, then and since northwest, — three days of strong wind.
This evening snow falls.
The weather these days is cold
and wintry again.
We are affected like the earth, and yield to the elemental tenderness; winter breaks up within us; the frost is coming out of me, and I am heaved like the road; accumulated masses of ice and snow dissolve, and thoughts like a freshet pour down unwonted channels.
Frost comes out of me,
thoughts like a freshet pour down
unwonted channels.
River skimmed over at Willow Bay last night. Think I should find ducks cornered up by the ice; they get behind this hill for shelter. Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads on their backs, motionless, and thin ice formed about them.
Thirty ducks asleep
with heads on backs, motionless –
ice forms about them.
Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least. This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March, perhaps earlier. It appears to be a very gradual expansion, which begins in the warm days of winter. It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.
Early willow and
aspen catkins are very
conspicuous now.
I left home at ten and got back before twelve with two and three quarters pints of sap, in addition to the one and three quarters I found collected.
It is worth the while
to know that there is all this
sugar in our woods.
Warm rain, April-like, the first of the season. . . This first spring rain is very agreeable. I love to hear the pattering of the drops on my umbrella, and I love also the wet scent of the umbrella.
This first spring rain I
love to hear the pattering
on my umbrella.
March 21, 1858
I hear the pleasant phebe note of the chickadee. It is, methinks, the most of a wilderness note of any yet. It is peculiarly interesting that this, which is one of our winter birds also, should have a note with which to welcome the spring.
Interesting that
this winter bird has a note
to welcome the spring.
March 21, 1858
Everywhere for several days the alder catkins have dangled long and loose, the most alive apparently of any tree. They seem to welcome the water which half covers them.The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood.
The alder catkins
dangle long and loose, the most
alive of any tree.
March 21, 1859
I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on. From the evening of March 18th to this, the evening of the 21st, we have had uninterrupted strong wind, — till the evening of the 19th very strong south west wind, then and since northwest, — three days of strong wind.
Pine cones in the path
fallen in the late strong winds –
others still hold on.
March 21, 1859
March 21, 2024
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 21A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt21March
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