Walk early through the woods to Lincoln to survey.
Winter weather may be said to have begun yesterday. River and ponds all open. Goose Pond skimmed over.
Why have I ever omitted early rising and a morning walk?
As we walked over the Cedar Hill, Mr. Weston asked me if I had ever noticed how the frost formed around a particular weed in the grass, and no other. It was a clear cold morning. We stooped to examine, and I observed, about the base of the larger pin-weed, the frost formed into little flattened trumpets or bells, an inch or more long, with the mouth down about the base of the stem. They were very conspicuous, dotting the grass white. But what was most remarkable was that, though there were plenty of other dead weeds and grasses about, no other species exhibited this phenomenon.
I think it can hardly be because of the form of its top, and that therefore the moisture is collected and condensed and flows down its stem particularly. It may have something to do with the life of the root, which I noticed was putting forth shoots beneath. Perhaps this growth generates heat and so steam. He said that his cows never touched that weed.
I judge from his account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden.
I observed a mouse run down a bush by the pond-side. I approached and found that he had neatly covered over a thrasher or other bird's nest (it was made partly of sticks like a thrasher's), about four or five feet from the ground, and lined it warmly with that common kind of green moss (?) which grows about the base of oaks, but chiefly with a kind [of] vegetable wool, perhaps from the wool-grass. He appeared to be a reddish brown above and cream-colored beneath, and ran swiftly down the stems. I think it must be the Gerbillus Canadensis, or perhaps the Arvicola Emmonsii, or maybe the Arvicola hirsutus, meadow mouse.
Began to snow at noon. This the third snow; the first lasted half an hour on ground; the second, two or three days.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 13, 1852
Why have I ever omitted early rising and a morning walk? See January 10, 1851 ("I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of taking walks daily,"); December 13, 1851 ("It seems an age since I took walks and wrote in my journal."); February 25, 1859 ("Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring.”); Walden (“To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say . . . Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”)
About the base of the larger pin-weed, the frost formed into little flattened trumpets or bells, an inch or more long, with the mouth down about the base of the stem. See November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character."); November 20, 1858 ("The cinnamon-brown of withered pinweeds (how long?) colors whole fields."); November 30, 1856 ("Several inches of snow,. . .. Now see . . .the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust."); December 3, 1856 ("Fewer weeds now rise above the snow. Pinweed (or sarothra) is quite concealed."); December 6, 1856 ("Each pinweed, etc., has melted a little hollow or rough cave in the snow, in which the lower part at least snugly hides. . . . What variety the pinweeds, clear brown seedy plants, give to the fields, which are yet but shallowly covered with snow! . . .Not till the snow comes are the beauty and variety and richness of vegetation ever fully revealed."); December 23, 1859 ("The pinweed — the larger (say thymifolia) — pods open, showing their three pretty leather-brown inner divisions open like a little calyx, a third or half containing still the little hemispherical or else triangular red dish-brown seeds.")
pinweed (GoBotany)
I judge from his account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden. See December 5, 1852 ("Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is . . . distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter"); November 26, 1858 (“Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years. . . ., and what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are. I begin to suspect, therefore, that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers”)
River and ponds all open. Goose Pond skimmed over. See December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.”); December 8, 1853 (" Goose Pond now firmly frozen.”); December 13, 1850 (“The river froze over last night, — skimmed over;”); December 13, 1857 ("[Goose Pond] and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges on the sunny 'sides.’’); December 13, 1859 (“My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it.”); December 27, 1857 ("Goose Pond is not thickly frozen yet . . .in many places water has oozed out and spread over the ice, mixing with the snow and making dark places.”)
He had neatly covered over a bird's nest and lined it warmly with green moss. See February 3, 1856 (“Track some mice to a black willow by riverside, just above spring, against the open swamp; and about three feet high, in apparently an old woodpecker’s hole, was probably the mouse-nest, a double handful, consisting, four ninths, of fine shreds of inner bark, perhaps willow or maple; three ninths, the greenish moss, apparently, of button-bush; two ninths, the gray-slate fur, apparently, of rabbits or mice."); February 18, 1857 Picked up a mouse-nest in the stubble at Hubbard's mountain sumachs, left bare by the melting snow. It is about five inches wide and three or four high, with one, if not two, small round indistinct entrances on the side, . . It is made very firmly and round, far more so than an oven-bird's nest, of the rye and grass stubble which was at hand under the snow, gnawed off to convenient lengths. A very snug and warm nest, where several might have lain very cosily under the snow in the hardest winter. . . . Is it not the nest of a different mouse from the Mus leucopus of the woods?") See also note to October 8, 1853 (“Find a bird's nest converted into a mouse's nest ”)
River and ponds all open. Goose Pond skimmed over. See December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.”); December 8, 1853 (" Goose Pond now firmly frozen.”); December 13, 1850 (“The river froze over last night, — skimmed over;”); December 13, 1857 ("[Goose Pond] and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges on the sunny 'sides.’’); December 13, 1859 (“My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it.”); December 27, 1857 ("Goose Pond is not thickly frozen yet . . .in many places water has oozed out and spread over the ice, mixing with the snow and making dark places.”)
He had neatly covered over a bird's nest and lined it warmly with green moss. See February 3, 1856 (“Track some mice to a black willow by riverside, just above spring, against the open swamp; and about three feet high, in apparently an old woodpecker’s hole, was probably the mouse-nest, a double handful, consisting, four ninths, of fine shreds of inner bark, perhaps willow or maple; three ninths, the greenish moss, apparently, of button-bush; two ninths, the gray-slate fur, apparently, of rabbits or mice."); February 18, 1857 Picked up a mouse-nest in the stubble at Hubbard's mountain sumachs, left bare by the melting snow. It is about five inches wide and three or four high, with one, if not two, small round indistinct entrances on the side, . . It is made very firmly and round, far more so than an oven-bird's nest, of the rye and grass stubble which was at hand under the snow, gnawed off to convenient lengths. A very snug and warm nest, where several might have lain very cosily under the snow in the hardest winter. . . . Is it not the nest of a different mouse from the Mus leucopus of the woods?") See also note to October 8, 1853 (“Find a bird's nest converted into a mouse's nest ”)
Maybe the Arvicola hirsutus, meadow mouse. Compare August 25, 1858 (“The short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta. . . . above, it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse ("Most of Thoreau's observations of wild mice are either the meadow mouse or deer mouse. Thoreau calls the meadow mouse or "short-tailed meadow mouse," Arvicola hirsuta -- now known as Microtus pennsylvanicus, meadow Vole.")
No comments:
Post a Comment