How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow!

May 12. A glorious day.

 
P. M. —Walked round by Dennis’s and Hollowell place with Alcott. 

It is suddenly very warm. A washing day, with a slight haze accompanying the strong, warm wind. 

I see, in the road beyond Luther Hosmer’s, in different places, two bank swallows which were undoubtedly killed by the four days’ northeast rain we have just had. 

Puffer says he has seen two or three dead sparrows also. The sudden heat compels us to sit in the shade at the bars above Puffer's, whence we hear the first bobolink. 

How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm, — even yesterday before it was fairly over, —as if they had foreseen its end! How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! 

I see a cultivated cherry in bloom, and Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow. 

The river is higher than yesterday, about the same as when highest before this spring, and goes no higher. Thus attains its height the day after the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1856

A glorious day. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

 A washing day, with a slight haze accompanying the strong, warm wind. See May 10, 1857 ("It is a washing day. I love the wind at last."); May 17, 1852 ("Decidedly fair weather at last; a bright, breezy, flowing, washing day."); May 19, 1854 ("A washing day, — a strong rippling wind, and all things bright."); May 22, 1853 ("This is the third windy day following the two days’ rain. A washing day, such as we always have at this season"); May 30, 1852 ("Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day.")

The sudden heat compels us to sit in the shade. See May 17, 1858 (" Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered.”)

We hear the first bobolink. See May 6, 1857 ("While at work I hear the bobolink.”);  May 10, 1853 ("All at once a strain that sounds like old times and recalls a hundred associations. Not at once do I remember that a year has elapsed since I heard it, and then the idea of the bobolink is formed in my mind.”); May 13, 1855 ("As we float down the river through the still and hazy air, enjoying the June-like warmth, . . . the sound of the first bobolink floats to us from over the meadows."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm. See May 7, 1852 ("The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once,");  May 8, 1857 ("Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together.")   May 10, 1858 ("It is remarkable how many new birds have come all at once to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Summer and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. The Birds of May

I see a cultivated cherry in bloom, and Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow. See May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.");  May 10, 1856 ("Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.") 

May 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 12

How suddenly the

birds arrive after the storm –

a glorious day.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The note of the bobolink

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-560512

I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather.

May 10

The third day of rain. The river has again gone over the meadows, which were almost bare. 


P. M. —To Walden in rain. 

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day, as it has rained steadily the last two days. It seems to bloom with or immediately after the bear-berry. 

I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather, for now I see and get near to large birds. Two quails whir away from the old shanty stubble-field, and two turtle doves go of from an apple tree with their clikit. Also at Walden shore a pigeon hawk (or else sharp shinned), with deep-brown back, went off from close at hand. 

I see there, just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda passing into the V. lanceolata, which last also is now in bloom, probably earlier there than in wetter places. May have been as early as the blanda. 

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley, I now see birches, oaks, and pitch and white pines. 

On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow, a shrub, with greenish bark and conspicuous yellow catkins, now in full bloom, apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba, but its leafets or bracts much less advanced and conspicuous. Another on the Walden road. What is it? 

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1856

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day. See May 10, 1855  ("Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen.")

The third day of rain. I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather for now I see and get near to large birds. See April 19, 1852 ("To see the larger and wilder birds, you must go forth in the great storms like this. . . To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth."): May 13, 1852 ("They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walking in the Rain

Just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda. See May 6, 1852 ("The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground . . . by this spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Violets

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley. See April 28, 1856 ("Let me look at the site of some thick pine woods. . .and see what has sprung up.")

 On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow,now in full bloom . . .apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba. See May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."); May 10, 1858 ("For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them");

 May 12, 1855 (" I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. ");May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,"); June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata . . . one of the ochre-flowered . . . willows ."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.  See May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.”); May 7, 1860 ("Canada plum in full bloom, or say in prime. Also common plum in full bloom?");  May 8, 1858 ("Broke off a twig of Prichard's Canada plum in the evening, from which I judge that it may have opened to-day."); May 10, 1855 ("Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs.”); May 12, 1856 ("Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow.”); May 14, 1855 (“Domestic plums open; some maybe yesterday.”)

May 10.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

The third day of rain –

I would gladly walk far in 

this stormy weather.

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-560510

I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle.

March 22

P. M.—To white maples and up Assabet.

The ice of the river is very rapidly softening, still concealed by snow, the upper part becoming homogeneous with the melting snow above it. I sometimes slump into snow and ice six or eight inches, to the harder ice beneath. I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch. 

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? 

The snow now no longer bears you. It has become very coarse-grained under the sun, and I hear it sink around me as I walk. 

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. Probably in equally warm positions they would have begun to flow as early as those red ones which I have tapped. Their buds, and apparently some of the red ones, are visibly swollen. This probably follows directly on the flowing of the sap. In three instances I cut off a twig, and sap flowed  and dropped from the part attached to the tree, but in no case would any sap flow from the part cut off (I mean where I first had cut it), which appears to show that the sap is now running up. I also cut a notch in a branch two inches in diameter, and the upper side of the cut remained dry, while sap flowed from the lower side, but in another instance both sides were wet at once and equally. 

The sap, then, is now generally flowing upward in red and white maples in warm positions. See it flowing from maple twigs which were gnawed off by rabbits in the winter. 

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow. 

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned, though it is all ice and snow around the country over. Do not see any flying, nor before this. 

The woodchoppers, who are cutting the wood at Assabet Spring, now at last go to their work up the middle of the river, but one got in yesterday, one leg the whole length. It is rotted through in many places behind Prichard’s. 

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. It has also oozed out from the twigs, especially those that are a little drooping, and run down a foot or two bathing them sometimes all around, both twigs and buds sometimes, or collected in drops on the under sides of the twigs and all evaporated to molasses, which is, for the most part, as black as blacking or ink, having probably caught the dust, etc., even over all this snow. Yet it is as sweet and thick as molasses, and the twigs and buds look as if blacked and polished. Black drops of this thick, sweet syrup spot the under sides of the twigs. 

No doubt the bees and other insects frequent the maples now. I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. It is as thick as molasses. See a fuzzy gnat on it. It is especially apt to collect about the bases of the twigs, where the stream is delayed. Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. 

I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips. 

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1856

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned . . . Do not see any flying, nor before this. See March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . The perla insects still about ice and water,"); See also March 3, 1860 ("I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 24, 1857 ("I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light..") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring, Perla-like insects appear

[Crows] visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? See 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") See also  March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat?"); March 22, 1855 ("I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare, three weeks ago."); March 4, 1860 ("I saw half a dozen crows on a cake of ice in the middle of the Great Meadows yesterday, evidently looking for some favorite food which is washed on to it, - snails, or cranberries perhaps.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water, and C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow.") See also March 18, 1854 ("The willow catkins this side M. Miles's five eighths of an inch long and show some red. "); March 21, 1855 ("Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least . . .It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.");  March 21, 1859 ("The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. "); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. See March 24, 1856 ("9 A. M. -- Start to get two quarts of white maple sap and home at 11.30").

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. See March 14, 1856 ("[J]ust above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely"); March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap.");  March 16, 1856 ("Going home, slip on the ice, throwing the pail over my head to save myself, and spill all but a pint. So it is lost on the ice of the river. "); March 21, 1856 ("I left home at ten and got back before twelve with two and three quarters pints of sap, in addition to the one and three quarters I found collected.");  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. See  August 15, 1854 ("The locomotive whistle, far southwest, sounds like a bell.”); November 21, 1857 ("I hear, I think, a boy whistling upon the bank above me, but immediately perceive that it is the whistle of the locomotive a mile off in that direction.");  January 4, 1859 ("When it grew late. . . I mistook the distant sound of the locomotive whistle for the hoot of an owl."); Compare December 31, 1853 ("I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road.") April 6, 1853 ("I first heard the fine, peculiarly sharp hum of the honey-bee before I thought of them."); July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers . . . It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles  

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. See March 13, 1859 ("Also I hear, I am pretty sure, the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker.");  March 17, 1858 ("Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far over and through the dry leaves.. . .Now I hear and see him louder and nearer on the top of the long-armed white oak, sitting very upright, as is their wont, as it were calling for some of his kind that may also have arrived.");   March 23, 1859 ("The prolonged loud and shrill cackle, calling the thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It is like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date. Up up up up up up up up up ! ") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

The hum of a bee? – 

perhaps the railroad whistle

on the Lowell line.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I thought I heard the hum of a bee.

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560322

How unwearied Nature is, spreading her seeds.

March 2

Has snowed three or four inches —very damp snow — in the night; stops about 9 A. M. This will probably help carry off the old snow, so solid and deep. 

P. M. —Walking up the river by Prichard's, was surprised to see, on the snow over the river, a great many seeds and scales of birches, though the snow had so recently fallen, there had been but little wind, and it was already spring. There was one seed or scale to a square foot, yet the nearest birches were, about fifteen of them, along the wall thirty rods east.

As I advanced toward them, the seeds became thicker and thicker, till they quite discolored the snow half a dozen rods distant, while east of the birches there was not one. The birches appear not to have lost a quarter of their seeds yet. 

As I went home up the river, I saw some of the seeds forty rods off, and perhaps, in a more favorable direction, I might have found them much further. 

It suggested how unwearied Nature is, spreading her seeds. Even the spring does not find her unprovided with birch, aye, and alder and pine seed. A great proportion of the seed that was carried to a distance lodged in the hollow over the river, and when the river breaks up will be carried far away, to distant shores and meadows.

The opening in the river at Merrick’s is now increased to ten feet in width in some places. 

I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 2, 1856

How unwearied Nature is, spreading her seeds. See November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."); December 4, 1854("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow"); January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it") and note to  February 27, 1856 ("I see many birch scales, freshly blown over the snow. They are falling all winter.") See also November 10, 1854 ("Nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet.");  April 3, 1855 ("Nature does nothing suddenl"); February 15, 1859 ("So measured and deliberate is Nature always.")

The opening in the river at Merrick’s. See January 19, 1856 (“The only open place in the river between Hunt’s Bridge and the railroad bridge is a small space against Merrick’s pasture just below the Rock”); January 24, 1856 (“You may walk anywhere on the river now. Even the open space against Merrick’s, below the Rock, has been closed again . . .”); January 26, 1856 (“[The river is not open], excepting the small space against Merrick’s below the Rock (now closed), since January 7th, when it closed at the Hubbard Bath, or nearly three weeks, —a long time, methinks, for it to be frozen so solidly”); February 3, 1856 (River still tight at Merrick’s); February 22, 1856 ([T]he river is still perfectly closed (as it has been for many weeks), both against Merrick’s and in the Assabet, excepting directly under this upper stone bridge and probably at mouth of Loring’s Brook. I am surprised that the warm weather within ten days has not caused the river to open at Merrick’s, but it was too thick to be melted); February 27, 1856 ("Am surprised to see how the ice lasts on the river. It but just begins to be open for a foot or two at Merrick’s, and you see the motion of the stream. It has been tight even there (and of course everywhere else on the main stream, and on North Branch except at Loring’s Brook and under stone bridge) since January 25 . . . That is, we may say that the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.)"

I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year. See April 30, 1855 ("I hear from far the scream of a hawk circling over the Holden woods and swamp . . .  there is a nest there."); March 2, 1855 ("Two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the sky.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  the Hawks of March

March 2.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 2

Unwearied Nature 

spreading her seeds far away

to distant shores.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  How unwearied Nature is,

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-0302

On the migration of swallows.

August 5. 

4 A. M. — On river to see swallows. They are all gone; yet Fay saw them there last night after we passed. Probably they started very early. 

I asked Minott if he ever saw swallows migrating, not telling him what I had seen, and he said that he used to get up and go out to mow very early in the morning on his meadow, as early as he could see to strike, and once, at that hour, hearing a noise, he looked up and could just distinguish high overhead fifty thousand swallows. He thought it was in the latter part of August. 

What I saw is like what White says of the swallows, in the autumn, roosting “every night in the osier beds of the aits” of the river Thames; and his editor, Jesse, says, “Swallows in countless numbers still assemble every autumn on the willows growing on the aits of the river Thames.” And Jardine, in his notes to Wilson, says that a clergyman of Rotherham describes in an anonymous pamphlet their assembling (in the words of the pamphlet) “at the willow ground, on the banks of the canal, preparatory to their migration,” early in September, 1815, daily increasing in numbers until there were tens of thousands. 

As I was paddling back at 6 A. M., saw, nearly half a mile off, a blue heron standing erect on the topmost twig of the great buttonwood on the street in front of Mr. Prichard’s house, while perhaps all within were abed and asleep. Little did they think of it, and how they were presided over. He looked at first like a spiring twig against the sky, till you saw him flap his wings. Presently he launched off and flew away over Mrs. Brooks’s house. 

It seems that I used to tie a regular granny’s knot in my shoe-strings, and I learned of myself —rediscovered—to tie a true square knot, or what sailors sometimes call a reef-knot. It needed to be as secure as a reef-knot in any gale, to withstand the wringing and twisting I gave it in my walks. 

The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long. The small white spreading polygala, twenty rods behind Wyman site, some time. Very common this year. 

It is the wet season, and there is a luxuriant dark foliage. Hear a yellow-legs flying over,—phe' phe phe, phe' phe phe. 

8 P. M. — On river to see swallows. 

At this hour the robins fly to high, thick oaks (as this swamp white oak) to roost for the night. 

The wings of the chimney swallows flying near me make a whistling sound like a duck’s. Is not this peculiar among the swallows? They flutter much for want of tail. 

I see martins about. Now many swallows in the twilight, after circling eight feet high, come back two or three hundred feet high and then go down the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  August 5, 1855

Yellow-legs. See May 31, 1854 ( "It acts the part of a telltale." "watchful, but not timid, ... while it stands on the lookout ... wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. ..."); September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow, and away they sail in a flock...").

August 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 5

 

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 © 2009-2021

Sun-sparkles where the river is open.

January 28

See three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard's this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed.

Though somewhat cool, it has been remarkably pleasant to-day, and the sun-sparkles where the river is open are very cheerful to behold.

January 28, 2019

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 28, 1853

See three ducks sailing in the river though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed. See January 29, 1853 (Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday "sheldrakes""); December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day . . .  A black and white duck on it.");  February 1, 1853 ("Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last");  February 3, 1853 ("Saw three ducks in the river."); See also February 27, 1860 ("This [sheldrake] is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of."); March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

The sun-sparkles where the river is open are very cheerful to behold. See February 27, 1852 ("The main river is not yet open but in very few places, but the North Branch, . . .flowing with full tide bordered with ice on either side, sparkles in the clear, cool air . . . If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope?"); March 20, 1853 ("It is glorious to behold the life and joy of this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun . . . It is the contrast between life and death. There is the difference between winter and spring. The bared face of the pond sparkles with joy."); May 24, 1860 ("How perfectly new and fresh the world is seen to be, when we behold a myriad sparkles of brilliant white sunlight on a rippled stream!")

January 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 28

This cold afternoon

three ducks sailing the river –

black with white on wings.

The sun-sparkles where

the river is open so

cheerful to behold.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Sun-sparkles where the river is open.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-530128

P. M. - Up Assabet .

April 29.

April 29, 2012

I stepped ashore behind Prichard's to examine a dead mud turtle, and when I had done, and turned round toward my boat again, behold, it was half-way across the river, blown by the southwest wind! 

The wind had risen after I landed, and perhaps I had given it a slight impulse with my foot when I landed. It lodged against a clump of willows on the other side.

It was remarkable what a bar the river had become to me, being between me and my boat,- how comparatively helpless I was. I have rarely looked at it in that light. 

I was compelled to return up-stream to borrow another boat. When I had borrowed a boat, I came near making the mistake of simply crossing the stream at once and running down the opposite shore; as if I could release my own boat and return on the same side to the borrowed one, return that, and so have got over my difficulties. 

I had to pause a moment and cipher it out in my mind. 

There was no way but to row quite down to my boat, bring it over to this side, row back with the borrowed boat, and return on the bank to my own. It reminded me of the man crossing the bridge with a fox, a goose, and a peck of corn.


By the time I got under weigh again the afternoon was too far spent for a long excursion.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1860

I had to pause a moment and cipher it out in my mind. See May 7, 1854 ("The causeways being flooded, I have to think before I set out on my walk how I shall get back across the river. “)