You can trace the course of this trickling stream over the rock through such a patch of lichens by the olive-green of the lichens alone.

March 3. 

P. M. —To Fair Haven Hill. 

3 p.m., 24° in shade. 

The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up in the auger-holes and thence down the trunk to the ground, except in one place where the hole was made in the south side of the tree, where it is melted and is flowing a little. Generally, then, when the thermometer is thus low, say below freezing-point, it does not thaw in the auger-holes. 

There is no expanding of buds of any kind, nor early birds, to be seen. 

Nature was thus premature — anticipated her own revolutions — with respect to the sap of trees, the buds (spiraea at least), and birds. The warm spell ended with February 26th. 

The crust of yesterday's snow has been converted by the sun and wind into flakes of thin ice from two or three inches to a foot in diameter, scattered like a mackerel sky over the pastures, as if all the snow had been blown out from beneath. Much of this thin ice is partly opaque and has a glutinous look even, reminding me of frozen glue. Probably it has much dust mixed with it. 

I go along below the north end of the Cliffs. The rocks in the usual place are buttressed with icy columns, for water in almost imperceptible quantity is trickling down the rocks. 

It is interesting to see how the dry black or ash-colored umbilicaria, which get a little moisture when the snow melts and trickles down along a seam or shallow channel of the rock, become relaxed and turn olive-green and enjoy their spring, while a few inches on each side of this gutter or depression in the face of the rock they are dry and crisp as ever. Perhaps the greater part of this puny rill is drunk up by the herbage on its brink. 

These are among the consequences of the slight robin snow of yesterday. It is already mostly dissipated, but where a heap still lingers, the sun on the warm face of this cliff leads down a puny trickling rill, moistening the gutters on the steep face of the rocks where patches of umbilicaria lichens grow, of rank growth, but now thirsty and dry as bones and hornets' nests, dry as shells, which crackle under your feet. 

The more fortunate of these, which stand by the moistened seams or gutters of the rock, luxuriate in the grateful moisture — as in their spring. Their rigid nerves relax, they unbend and droop like limber infancy, and from dry ash and leather-color turn a lively olive-green. 

You can trace the course of this trickling stream over the rock through such a patch of lichens by the olive-green of the lichens alone. Here and there, too, the same moisture refreshes and brightens up the scarlet crowns of some little cockscomb lichen, and when the rill reaches the perpendicular face of the cliff, its constant drip at night builds great organ-pipes of a ringed structure, which run together, buttressing the rock. 

Skating yesterday and to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 3, 1857

The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up . . .See note to February 21, 1857 ("Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's.”)

There is no expanding of buds of any kind, nor early birds, to be seen. Compare March 5, 1852 ("As I sit under their boughs, looking into the sky, I suddenly see the myriad black dots of the expanded buds against the sky. Their sap is flowing.”)

Nature . . . anticipated her own revolutions. . . See April 18, 1852 ("Can I not by expectation affect the revolutions of nature, make a day to bring forth something new?")

Great organ-pipes of a ringed structure, which run together, buttressing the rock. See February 14, 1852 ("icicles . . .hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes . . . "); January 11, 1854 ("Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes . . .”)