March 8
10 A. M. Rode to Saxonville with F. Brown to look at a small place for sale, via Wayland. Return by Sudbury. On wheels in snow.
Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus:
the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches by two and a half.
The distant view of the open flooded Sudbury meadows, all dark blue, surrounded by a landscape of white snow, gave an impulse to the dormant sap in my veins. Dark-blue and angry waves, contrasting with the white but melting winter landscape. Ponds, of course, do not yet afford this water prospect; only the flooded meadows.
There is no ice over or near the stream, and the flood has covered or broken up much of the ice on the meadows. The aspect of these waters at sunset, when the air is still, begins to be unspeakably soothing and promising. Waters are at length, and begin to reflect, and, instead of looking into the sky, I look into the placid reflecting water for the signs and promise of the morrow.
These meadows are the most of ocean that I have fairly learned.
Now, when the sap of the trees is probably beginning to flow, the sap of the earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fetters. This is the sap of which I make my sugar after the frosty nights, boiling it down and crystallizing it.
I must be on the lookout now for the gulls and the ducks.
That dark-blue meadowy revelation.
It is as when the sap of the maple bursts forth early and runs down the trunk to the snow.
Saw two or three hawks sailing.
Saw the remains of four cows and a horse that were burned in a barn a month ago. Where the paunch was, a large bag of coarse hay and stalks was seen in the midst of an indistinct circumference of ribs.
Saw some very large willow buds expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of their scales, indistinctly carved or waved with darker lines around them. They look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen.
Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived.
I know of no more pleasing employment than to ride about the country with a companion very early in the spring, looking at farms with a view to purchasing if not paying for them.
Heard the first flies buzz in the sun on the south side of the house.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 8, 1853
Saw the remains of four cows and a horse that were burned in a barn a month ago. Where the paunch was, a large bag of coarse hay and stalks was seen in the midst of an indistinct circumference of ribs.
Saw some very large willow buds expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of their scales, indistinctly carved or waved with darker lines around them. They look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen.
Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived.
I know of no more pleasing employment than to ride about the country with a companion very early in the spring, looking at farms with a view to purchasing if not paying for them.
Heard the first flies buzz in the sun on the south side of the house.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 8, 1853
The heat of the sun. See March 8, 1860 (" Nowadays we separate the warmth of the sun from the cold of the wind and observe that the cold does not pervade all places. "); see also February 23, 1856 ("t is inspiriting to feel the increased heat of the sun reflected from the snow. "); March 4, 1852 (" The sun has got a new power in his rays after all, cold as the weather is. He could not have warmed me so much a month ago.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun
Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. See December 2, 1852 ("Above the bridge . . . we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form"); November 9, 1853 ("We saw a mink swimming in the agitated water close to the shore, east side, above Nut Meadow Brook. It showed the whole top of the back and part of the tail, unlike the muskrat, and did not dive. Stopped a moment when we headed toward it, and held up its head at the end of its long neck toward us, reminding me of pictures of the otter, then turned and swam and ran the other way; dark-brown."); March 26, 1855 ("At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river r; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them."); November 13, 1855 (“Going over Swamp Bridge Brook at 3 P. M., I saw in the pond by the roadside, a few rods before me, the sun shining bright, a mink swimming . . . It was a rich brown fur . . . not black as it sometimes appears, especially on ice.”); April 28, 1857 (“It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink”); April 15, 1858 ("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times."); April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.") See also March 13, 1859 ("Garfield . . . asked if I had seen any mink. I said that I commonly saw two or three in a year. He said that he had not seen one alive for eight or ten years. [but] catch thirty or forty dollars' worth every winter.")
Now, when the sap of the trees is probably beginning to flow, the sap of the earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fetters . . . That dark-blue meadowy revelation. See February 12, 1860 ("That dark-eyed water . . . is it not the first sign of spring?"; )February 27, 1852 (" If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope ?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Bright Blue Water
Saw two or three hawks sailing. See March 8, 1857 ("Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season.") See also March 6, 1858 (" I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter, Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March
Saw some very large willow buds expanded . . . look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen. See March 7, 1855 ("Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago."); March 8, 1860 ("Willow catkins expanding and peeping out a little further every warm day from the very beginning of winter."); March 10, 1853 ("Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
Heard the phebe, or spring note of the chickadee, now, before any spring bird has arrived. See Walden ("On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. "); February 24, 1857 ("A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth. "); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee"); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day."); March 10, 1852 ("Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time.."): March 22, 1855 ("My first distinct spring note (phe-be) of the chickadee.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Spring Note of the Chickadee
Heard the first flies buzz in the sun on the south side of the house. See March 4, 1855 (" It is very warm in the sun. . . The rustle of the dry leaves . . . reminds me of fires in the woods . . . I see a fly on the rock."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Buzzing flies
The distant view of
now dark blue open meadows –
sign of the morrow.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A spring sheen on the snow.
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 © 2009-2026
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-530308
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