A Book of the Seasons: April 13.

April 13.

April 13, 2019

A driving snow-storm in the night and still raging; five or six inches deep on a level at 7 A. M. All birds are turned into snowbirds. Trees and houses have put on the aspect of winter . . . But it is good now to stay in the house and read and write. We do not now go wandering all abroad and dissipated, but the imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts. I can hear the clock tick as not in pleasant weather. My life is enriched. I love to hear the wind howl. April 13, 1852

But it is good now

to stay in the house and read

to hear the clock tick.

April 13, 1852

Pewee days and April showers. First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice. First shad caught at Haverhill to-day. April 13, 1853

First hear toads -- a loud

ringing sound filling the air

which yet few notice.

April 13, 1853

A fair day, but a cool wind still, from the snow covered country in the northwest. It is, however, pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places. The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer . . . At the same time I hear through the wood the sharp peep of the first hylodes I have chanced to hear. April 13, 1855

Still a cool wind but

pleasant to sit in the sun

in sheltered places.

April 13, 1855

As I go down the railroad causeway, I see a flock of eight or ten bay-wing sparrows flitting along the fence and alighting on an apple tree. There are many robins about also. Do they not incline more to fly in flocks a cold and windy day like this? The snow ice is now all washed and melted off of Walden, down to the dark-green clear ice, which appears to be seven or eight inches thick and is quite hard still. At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still, as from Fair Haven Hill, it is blue as in summer. You can still get on to it from the southerly side, but elsewhere there is a narrow canal, two or three to twelve feet wide, next the shore. It may last four or five days longer, even if the weather is warm. As I go by the Andromeda Ponds, I hear the tut tut of a few croaking frogs, and at Well Meadow I hear once or twice a prolonged stertorous sound, as from river meadows a little later usually, which is undoubtedly made by a different frog from the first. April 13, 1856

 

A 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 © 2009-2019