A Book of the Seasons: March 31

March 31

Migrating sparrows 

all bear messages 

that concern my life — 

the sparrow 

cheeps and 

flits and sings

adequately

to the great design 

of the universe

but man does not

understand 

its language —

he is not 

at one with nature. 

March 31, 1852 

Distant mountain top
as blue to the memory
as now to the eyes.
March 31, 1853

Trust your fine instinct. 

Come very near questioning --

but do not question.

March 31, 1854

A new lease of life
(the change is mainly in us) --
first warm day in Spring.
March 31, 1855

Tops of white maples

nearly a mile off downriver --

last year's lusty shoots.

March 31, 1856

Voice of the peepers
not of the earth earthy as
of the air airy.
March 31, 1857

Earliest butterflies
seem to be born of the leaves
on the forest floor.
March 31, 1858

Dark cloud rises --
windy afternoon ends with
a flurry of rain.
March 31, 1859

Small red butterfly
and the distant note of a
solitary toad.
March 31, 1860

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 © 2009-2018

The scarlet tops of white maples.

March 31.

P. M. — To Peter’s 

I see the scarlet tops of white maples nearly a mile off, down the river, the lusty shoots of last year. Those of the red maple do not show thus. 

I see many little holes in this old and solid snow where leaves have sunk down gradually and pendicularly, eleven or twelve inches,—the hole no larger at the top than at the bottom, nay, often partly closed at top by the drifting, and exactly the form and size of the leaf. It is as if the sun had driven this thin shield like a bullet thus deep into the solid snow. It is remarkable how deep the leaves settle into an old snow like this. 

See a small ant running about over a piece of meadow turf. 

The celandine begins to be conspicuous, springing under Brown’s fence.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 31, 1856

Earth

Rock

Ice

Water

Cloud

Wind

Sun

Stars

Life

What is it called that earth air sun etc is exactly suited to all life -- not just man?

A spring thought walking in woods at dusk after hearing peepers and wood frog for the first time

With the views now opened

Feeling everything is perfect for me

And realizing so it is for every leaf

And every creature in the woods now renewed

Zphx March 31 2016

A Book of the Seasons: March 30

 March 30.

The thin floating ice
turned on its edge by the wind
sparkling in the sun.
March 30, 1854

Man comes out of his
winter quarters this month as
lean as a woodchuck.
March 30, 1855

With silent footsteps
the spring advances in spite
of ice, cold and snow.
March 30, 1856

The spring advances  

In warm recesses in midst

of  snow ice and cold.

March 30, 1856

Crossing the threshold
between winter and summer—
shoes instead of boots.
March 30, 1860

March 30, 2028

 

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 © 2009-2017

How silent are the footsteps of Spring!

March 30.

March 30, 2016

P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven. 

Still cold and blustering. I come out to see the sand and subsoil in the Deep Cut, as I would to see a spring flower, some redness in the cheek of Earth.

These cold days have made the ice of Walden dry and pretty hard again at top. It is just twenty-four inches thick in the middle, about eleven inches of snow ice. It has lost but a trifle on the surface. The inside is quite moist, the clear ice very crystalline and leaky, letting the water up from below, so as to hinder my cutting. It seems to be more porous and brittle than the snow ice. 

I go to Fair Haven via the Andromeda Swamps. The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. There is a little bare ground in and next to the swampy woods at the head of Well Meadow, where the springs and little black rills are flowing. I see already one blade, three or four inches long, of that purple or lake grass, lying flat on some water, between snow—clad banks, — the first leaf with a rich bloom on it. 

How silent are the footsteps of Spring! 

There, too, where there is a fraction of the meadow, two rods over, quite bare, under the bank, in this warm recess at the head of the meadow, though the rest of the meadow is covered with snow a foot or more in depth, I am surprised to see the skunk cabbage, with its great spear-heads open and ready to blossom (i. e. shed pollen in a day or two); and the Caltha palustris bud, which shows yellowish; and the golden saxifrage, green and abundant; also there are many fresh tender leaves of (apparently) the gold thread in open meadow there, all surrounded and hemmed in by snow, which has covered the ground since Christmas and stretches as far as you can see on every side; and there are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw. 

The spring advances in spite of snow and ice, and cold even. 

The ground under the snow has long since felt the influence of the spring sun, whose rays fall at a more favorable angle. The tufts or tussocks next the edge of the snow were crowned with dense phalanxes of stiff spears of the stiff triangularish sedge-grass, five inches high but quite yellow with a very slight greenness at the tip, showing that they pushed up through the snow, which melting, they had not yet acquired color. This is the greatest growth of any plant I have seen. I had not suspected any. 

I can just see a little greening on our bare and dry south bank. In warm recesses and clefts in meadows and rocks in the midst of ice and snow, nay, even under the snow, vegetation commences and steadily advances. 

I find Fair Haven Pond and the river lifted up a foot or more, the result of the long, steady thaw in the sun. The water of the pond and river has run over the meadows, mixing with and partly covering the snow, making it somewhat difficult to get into the river on the east side. On the east side of the pond, the ice next the shore is still frozen to the bottom under water by one edge, while the other slants upward to meet the main body of the ice of the pond. This sort of canal on one or both sides of the river is from a rod to three or four rods wide. This is the most decided step toward breaking up as yet.

But the pond and river are very solid yet. I walk over the pond and down on the middle of the river to the bridge, without seeing an opening. 

See probably a hen-hawk (?) (black tips to wings), sailing low over the low cliff next the river, looking probably for birds. [May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.] 

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. I think that even the hen-hawk is here in winter only as the robin is. 

For twenty-five rods the Corner road is impassable to horses, because of their slumping in the old snow; and a new path has been dug, which a fence shuts off the old. Thus they have served the roads on all sides the town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1856

See probably a hen hawk (?) ... may have been a marsh hawk or harrier. See March 27, 1855 (“See . . . [the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male.] Slate-colored; . . . black tips to wings and white rump.”); March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks (?), white on rump... think I saw a hen-hawk”);  March 6, 1858 ("I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter."); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks[hen-hawks], as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters. . . . An easily recognized figure anywhere.”); March 23, 1859 (“. . .we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk. Note What HDT calls the "marsh hawk/hen harrier" is the northern harrier.   The “hen-hawk” is the red-tailed  hawk. ~ zphx

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. See March 30, 1853 ("Hawks are hunting now. You have not to sit long on the Cliffs before you see one.") 

The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. See February 19, 1856 (" seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level."); March 26, 1857 ("Men will hardly believe me when I tell them of the thickness of snow and ice at this time last year.")

Rob and Eldred cut down trees at both views it really has improved things, the view spectacular but it is a sad day for the trees there is of course a jumble at the base. We survey the upper view around sunset. And somehow in the dark coming to the Moss Trail up the trail we go and then made a trail at the top of it I thought towards our land but when we left the marked area we walked and walked and talked and said she frankly didn't know where we were I got out the compass and we were headed east we found the main  Kendall trail and presently she said I think we should cut through here we come out somewhat south of where we usually do to ascend what I call the Saddletrail and go to sit at the view again. 20160330 Zphx

A Book of the Seasons: March 29.

March 29.

Meadows at this season  

are more ruffled -- the waves look

quite angry and black.

March 29, 1852

That memorable
experience to be lost
in the woods at night.
March 29, 1853

A gull of pure white

outline simple and wave-like

two curves in the air.

Blown up on their edges
thin cakes of ice now and then
glisten in the sun.
March 29, 1854

A field of ice drifts

and forms a shining white wall

against the eastern shore.

Inhale with pleasure

the wholesome cold air over 

now sparkling water.

March29, 1855 

Before leaves put forth
or thrushes and warblers come --
Empty, silent woods.
March 29, 1857

March 29, 2016

I love you like i love the sky.

The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. Their color depends on the position of the beholder in relation to the direction of the wind. There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black. March 29, 1852

It is a surprising and memorable and, I may add, valuable experience to be lost in the woods, especially at night . . . not till we are completely lost or turned round, - for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,- do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature . . . In fact, not till we are lost do we begin to realize where we are, and the infinite extent of our relations.  March 29, 1853

Coldest night. Pump freezes so as to require thawing. See two marsh hawks, white on rump. A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air. How simple and wave-like its outline, two curves, - all wing - like a birch scale. Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open. Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun. A hen-hawk, - two - circling over Cliffs. March 29, 1854

Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two . . .Walden is more than half open, Goose Pond only a little about the shores, and Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river . . .  looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air like a draught of cold water . . .  I feel an impulse, also, already, to jump into the half-melted pond . . .  A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments. March 29, 1855

March 29, 2016

Another cold day. Scarcely melts at all. Water skimmed over in chamber, with fire. March 29, 1856

 

Walden open, say to-day, though there is still a little ice in the deep southern bay and a very narrow edging along the southern shore. Cross through the woods to my boat under Fair Haven Hill. How empty and silent the woods now, before leaves have put forth or thrushes and warblers are come! Deserted halls, floored with dry leaves, where scarcely an insect stirs as yet. March 29, 1857

Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street. Considerable frost this morning, and some ice formed on the river. The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds . . . Nearly as warm and pleasant as yesterday. I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. By a pool southeast of Nathan Barrett's, see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a ro. . . . The narrow edges of the ditches are almost paved in some places with their black and muddy backs. They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water . . . March 29, 1858

March 29, 2019

Walden is first clear after to-day.  March 29, 1859

Calm, warmer, and pleasant at once. March 29, 1860

 

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

Another cold day.

March 29.

March 29, 2016

Another cold day. Scarcely melts at all. Water skimmed over in chamber, with fire.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1856


Water skimmed over in chamber . . . See March 29, 1854 ("Coldest night. Pump freezes , , ,")

A Book of the Seasons: March 28.

March 28.

Smoky maple swamps

now have a reddish tinge from

their expanding buds.

March 28, 1852

Too cold for birds to sing

and for me to hear,

the bluebird’s warble

comes feeble and 

frozen to my ear.

March 28, 1855

It is a stone fruit,

mind-print of the oldest men.

Each one yields a thought.

March 28, 1859

So I help myself

to live worthily, loving

my life as I should.

March 28, 1859

I help myself live

in proper season, loving

my life as I should.

March 28, 1859

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?  March 28, 1852

As for the singing of birds, — the few that have come to us, — it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear. March 28, 1855

Uncle Charles buried. He was born in February, 1780, the winter of the Great Snow, and he dies in the winter of another great snow,—a life bounded by great snows. March 28, 1856

Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountain, yours to that. For a long time you have appeared further and further off to me. I see that you will at length disappear altogether. For a season my path seems lonely without you. The meadows are like barren ground. The memory of me is steadily passing away from you.  My path grows narrower and steeper, and the night is approaching. March 28, 1856

There is consolation in the fact that a particular evil, which perhaps we suffer, is of a venerable antiquity, for it proves its necessity and that it is part of the order, not disorder, of the universe. When I realize that the mortality of suckers in the spring is as old a phenomenon, perchance, as the race of suckers itself, I contemplate it with serenity and joy even, as one of the signs of spring. Thus they have fallen on fate. And so, many a fisherman is not seen on the shore who the last spring did not fail here. March 28, 1857

On ascending the hill next his home, every man finds that he dwells in a shallow concavity whose sheltering walls are the convex surface of the earth, beyond which he cannot see. March 28, 1858

 I landed on two spots this afternoon and picked up a dozen arrowheads. It is one of the regular pursuits of the spring. As much as sportsmen go in pursuit of ducks, and gunners of musquash, and scholars of rare books, and travellers of adventures, and poets of ideas, and all men of money, I go in search of arrowheads when the proper season comes round again. So I help my self to live worthily, and loving my life as I should . . . Many as I have found, methinks the last one gives me about the same delight that the first did. Some time or other, you would say, it had rained arrowheads, for they lie all over the surface of America . . . It is a stone fruit. Each one yields me a thought . . . It was originally winged for but a short flight, but it still, to my mind's eye, wings its way through the ages, bearing a message from the hand that shot it. Myriads of arrow-points lie sleeping in the skin of the revolving earth, while meteors revolve in space. The footprint, the mind-print of the oldest men. March 28, 1859

If you scan the horizon at this season of the year you are very likely to detect a small flock of dark ducks moving with rapid wing athwart the sky, or see the undulating line of migrating geese against the sky. March 28, 1859

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 © 2009-2020

My path grows narrower and steeper, and the night is approaching.

March 28.

Uncle Charles buried. He was born in February, 1780, the winter of the Great Snow, and he dies in the winter of another great snow,—a life bounded by great snows. 

Cold, and the earth stiff again, after fifteen days of steady warm and, for the most part, sunny days (with out rain), in which the snow and ice have rapidly melted. 

Sam Barrett tells me that a boy caught a crow in his neighborhood the other day in a trap set for mink. Its leg was broken. He brought it home under his arm, and laid it down in a shop, thinking to keep it there alive. It looked up sidewise, as it lay seemingly helpless on the floor, but, the door being open, all at once, to their surprise, it lifted itself on its wings and flitted out and away without the least trouble. Many crows have been caught in mink-traps the past winter, they have been compelled to visit the few openings in brooks, etc., so much for food. 

Barrett has suffered all winter for want of water. 

***

I think to say to my friend, There is but one interval between us. You are on one side of it, I on the other. You know as much about it as I, —how wide, how impassable it is. 

I will endeavor not to blame you. Do not blame me. There is nothing to be said about it. Recognize the truth, and pass over the intervals that are bridged. 

Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountain, yours to that. 

For a long time you have appeared further and further off to me. I see that you will at length disappear altogether. 

For a season my path seems lonely without you. The meadows are like barren ground. The memory of me is steadily passing away from you. 

My path grows narrower and steeper, and the night is approaching. 

Yet I have faith that. in the definite future, new suns will rise, and new plains expand before me, and I trust that I shall therein encounter pilgrims who bear that same virtue that I recognized in you, who will be that very virtue that was you. I accept the everlasting and salutary law, which was promulgated as much that spring that I first knew you, as this that I seem to lose you. 

My former friends, I visit you as one walks amid the columns of a ruined temple. You belong to an era, a civilization and glory, long past. I recognize still your fair proportions, notwithstanding the convulsions which we have felt, and the weeds and jackals that have sprung up around. 

I come here to be reminded of the past, to read your inscriptions, the hieroglyphics, the sacred writings. 

We are no longer the representatives of our former selves. Love is a thirst that is never slaked. Under the coarsest rind, the sweetest meat. If you would read a friend aright, you must be able to read through some thing thicker and opaquer than horn. If you can read a friend, all languages will be easy to you. 

Enemies publish themselves. They declare war. The friend never declares his love.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1856

Many crows have been caught in mink-traps the past winter, they have been compelled to visit the few openings in brooks for food. See February 6, 1856 ("Goodwin says that he has caught two crows this winter in his traps set in water for mink, and baited with fish. The crows, probably put to it for food and looking along the very few open brooks, attracted by this bait, got their feet into the traps.”); March 10, 1856 ("The pinched crows are feeding in the road to-day in front of the house and alighting on the elms, and blue jays also, as in the middle of the hardest winter, for such is this weather.");. March 12, 1856 ("The crow has been a common bird in our street and about our house the past winter. "); March 20, 1856 ("Perhaps these [Paludina decisa] make part of the food of the crows which visit this brook and whose tracks I now see on the edge, and have all winter. Probably they also pick up some dead frogs"); March 22, 1856 ("Many tracks of crows in snow along the edge of the open water against Merrick’s at Island. They thus visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish?")

See also Farewell, my friend

2017

The man with a trophy wife
admires the view from his
trophy house.
America is great again.

zphz 20160328

A Book of the Seasons: March 27.

March 27.

The hazel is out 

at this cold leafless season 

greeting the spring. 

March 27, 1853

The hazel is fully out. The 23d was perhaps full early to date them. It is in some respects the most interesting flower yet, though so minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it. It is the highest and richest colored yet, - ten or a dozen little rays at the end of the buds which are at the ends and along the sides of the bare stems. Some of the flowers are a light, some a dark crimson. The high color of this minute, unobserved flower, at this cold, leafless, and almost flowerless season! It is a beautiful greeting of the spring, when the catkins are scarcely relaxed and there are no signs of life in the bush. March 27, 1853

 Of our seven indigenous flowers which begin to bloom in March, four, i. e. the two alders, the aspen, and the hazel, are not generally noticed so early, if at all, and most do not observe the flower of a fifth, the maple. The first four are yellowish or reddish brown at a little distance, like the banks and sward moistened by the spring rain. March 27, 1859

The browns are the prevailing shades as yet, as in the withered grass and sedge and the surface of the earth, the withered leaves, and these brown flowers.  March 27, 1859

See my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.  March 27, 1855

Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore. Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound nor take their eyes off me, - were plainly affected by curiosity. March 27, 1853

I see but one tortoise (Emys guttata) in Nut Meadow Brook now; the weather is too raw and gusty. March 27, 1853

As I go up the Assabet, I see two Emys insculpta on the bank in the sun, and one picta. They are all rather sluggish, and I can paddle up and take them up. March 27, 1857

 

See a wood tortoise in the brook. March 27, 1855

Hear a lark in that meadow. Twitters over it on quivering wing and awakes the slumbering life of the meadow. The turtle and frog peep stealthily out and see the first lark go over. March 27, 1857

But now chiefly there comes borne on the breeze the tinkle of the song sparrow along the riverside, and I push out into wind and current.  March 27, 1857

March 27, 2020

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.

  April 7, 1853 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: the Hazel

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata) 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Colors of March-- Brown Season

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 © 2009-2016

The river is now open

March 27.

Uncle Charles died this morning, about midnight, aged seventy-six. 

The frost is now entirely out in some parts of the New Burying-Ground, the sexton tells me, — half-way up the hill which slopes to the south, unless it is bare of snow, he says. 

In our garden, where it chances to be bare, two or more rods from the house, I was able to dig through the slight frost. In another place near by I could not.

The river is now open in reaches of twenty or thirty rods, where the ice has disappeared by melting. 

Elijah Wood, Senior, about seventy, tells me he does not remember that the river was ever frozen so long, nor that so much snow lay on the ground so long. People do not remember when there was so much old snow on the ground at this date.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 27, 1856

The river is now open in reaches of twenty or thirty rods, where the ice has disappeared by melting. Elijah Wood does not remember that the river was ever frozen so long. See March 20, 1856 ("The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half"); March 24, 1856 ("Go everywhere on the North Branch — it is all solid Yet last year I paddled my boat to Fair Haven Pond on the 19th of March! "); April 2, 1856.(" I returned down the middle of the river to near the Hubbard Bridge without seeing any opening. "); April 7, 1856 ("Launched my boat, through three rods of ice on the riverside, . . . . Surprised to find the river not broken up just above [Hubbard] bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice. . "); April 8, 1856 (" the pond and river still frozen over for the most part as far down as Cardinal Shore. "). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons: Ice out

A Book of the Seasons: March 26.

March 26.

Light reflected from 

mountain-ridges in shaded 

portions of the moon. 

March 26, 1857

Withered tawny grass
now brightly lit by the sun –
fore-glow of the year. 
March 26, 1860

Shadows of ripples

passing over yellow sand

in a sunny brook.

March 26, 1860

The yellow sands of

a lonely brook – the shadows

of rippling water.

 March 26, 1860

A mackerel sky
of pine boughs sunny above
and shaded beneath.
March 26, 1860

March 26, 2018

I lay down on the fine, dry sedge in the sun, in the deep and sheltered hollow a little further on, and when I had lain there ten or fifteen minutes, I heard one fine, faint peep from over the windy ridge between the hollow in which I lay and the swamp, which at first I referred to a bird, and looked round at the bushes which crowned the brim of this hollow to find it, but ere long a regularly but faintly repeated phe-phe-phe-phe revealed the Hylodes Pickeringii. It was like the light reflected from the mountain-ridges within the shaded portions of the moon, forerunner and herald of the spring.  March 26, 1857

One of the most interesting sights this afternoon is the color of the yellow sand in the sun at the bottom of Nut Meadow and Second Division Brooks. The yellow sands of a lonely brook seen through the rippling water, with the shadows of the ripples like films passing over it. March 26, 1860 

The yellow sands of 

a lonely brook seen through 

the rippling water.

By degrees you pass from heaven to earth up the trunk of the white pine. See the flash of its boughs reflecting the sun, each light or sunny above and shaded beneath, even like the clouds with their dark bases, a sort of mackerel sky of pine boughs. March 26, 1860

The brown season extends from about the 6th of March ordinarily into April.The first part of it, when the frost is rapidly coming out and transient snows are melting, the surface of the earth is saturated with moisture. The latter part is dry, the whitish-tawny pastures being parded with brown and green mosses (that commonest one) and pale-brown lecheas, which mottle it very pleasingly. This dry whitish-tawny or drab color of the fields — withered grass lit by the sun — is the color of a teamster’s coat. March 26, 1860

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.

  April 7, 1853 

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 © 2009-2017

So many purposes left unaccomplished.

March 26.

March 26, 2016

To Cambridge. 

They are just beginning to use wheels in Concord, but only in the middle of the town, where the snow is at length worn and melted down to bare ground in the middle of the road, from two to ten feet wide. Sleighs are far the most common, even here. 

In Cambridge there is no sleighing. For the most part, the middle of the road from Porter’s to the College is bare and even dusty for twenty to thirty feet in width. The College Yard is one half bare. So, if they have had more snow than we, as some say: it has melted much faster.

There is also less in the towns between us and Cambridge than in Concord. The snow lies longer on the low, level plain surrounded by hills in which Concord is situated. I am struck by the more wintry aspect — almost entirely uninterrupted snow-fields — on coming into Concord in the cars. 

I am sometimes affected by the consideration that a man may spend the whole of his life after boyhood in accomplishing a particular design; as if he were put to a special and petty use, without taking time to look around him and appreciate the phenomenon of his existence. If so many purposes are thus necessarily left unaccomplished, perhaps unthought of, we are reminded of the transient interest we have in this life. 

Our interest in our country, in the spread of liberty, etc., strong and, as it were, innate as it is, cannot be as transient as our present existence here. It cannot be that all those patriots who die in the midst of their career have no further connection with the career of their country.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 26, 1856

They are just beginning to use wheels in Concord. See March 25, 1860 ("When March arrives, a tolerably calm, clear, sunny, spring like day, the snow is so far gone that sleighing ends and our compassion is excited by the sight of horses laboriously dragging wheeled vehicles through mud and water and slosh. We shall no longer hear the jingling of sleigh bells.")