The birds are eager to sing, as the flowers to bloom.

April 4. 

Wednesday morning. 

Lodged at Sanborn's last night after his rescue, he being away. 

It is warmer, an April-like morning after two colder and windy days, threatening a moist or more or less showery day, which followed. 

The birds sing quite numerously at sunrise about the villages, - robins, tree sparrows, and methinks I heard the purple finch. The birds are eager to sing, as the flowers to bloom, after raw weather has held them in check.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1860

The birds sing quite numerously at sunrise about the villages. See April 4, 1855 ("A fine morning, still and bright, with smooth water and singing of song and tree sparrows and some blackbirds. "). See also March 12, 1854 ("All these birds do their warbling especially in the still, sunny hour after sunrise, as rivers twinkle at their sources"); April 1, 1854 ("The birds sing this warm, showery day after a fortnight's cold with a universal burst and flood of melody."); April 2, 1852 (“The air is full of the notes of birds, - song sparrows, red-wings, robins (singing a strain), bluebirds, - and I hear also a lark, - as if all the earth had burst forth into song.”); April 15, 1859 ("We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them.  . . . Whether a man's work be hard or easy, whether he be happy or unhappy, a bird is appointed to sing to a man while he is at his work. ");  April 16, 1855 ("The robins, etc., blackbirds, song sparrows sing now on all hands just before sunrise, perhaps quite as generally as at any season.")

Sunset from the mountain-top.

October 19. 

October 19, 2017 6:09PM

Mr. Sanborn tells me that he looked off from Wachusett last night, and that he saw the shadow of the mountain gradually extend itself eastward not only over the earth but finally on to the sky in the horizon. Thought it extended as much as two diameters of the moon on to the sky, in a small cone. This was like the spectre of the Brocken. 

Harris says the crickets produce their shrilling by shuffling their wing-covers together lengthwise. I should have said it was sidewise, or transversely to the insect's length, as I looked down on it. 

You may see these crickets now everywhere in the ruts, as in the cross-road from the Turnpike to the Great Road, creeping along, or oftenest three or four together, absorbed in feeding on, i. e. sucking the juices of, a crushed companion. 

There are two broad ruts made by ox-carts loaded with muck, and a cricket has been crushed or wounded every four or five, feet in each. It is one long slaughter-house. But as often as a cart goes by, the survivors each time return quickly to their seemingly luscious feast. At least two kinds there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 19, 1857

The shadow of the mountain gradually extend itself eastward not only over the earth but finally on to the sky in the horizon.See October 20, 1854 ("Soon after sunrise I saw the pyramidal shadow of the mountain reaching quite across the State"); see also October 19, 1856 ("I see Wachusett. How little unevenness and elevation is required for Nature's effects!"); October 19, 1854 ("With a glass you can see vessels in Boston Harbor from the summit.....")

The Walden Pond Society.

April 16. 

At Concord. 

Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely, though not before I left Concord. 

Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler. 

Last night was very cold, and some ditches are frozen this morning. 

This is Fast-Day. I think if you should tap all the trees in a large birch swamp, you would make a stream large enough to turn a mill. 

About a month ago, at the post-office, Abel Brooks, who is pretty deaf, sidling up to me, observed in a loud voice which all could hear, 

“Let me see, your society is pretty large, ain’t it ?” 

“Oh, yes, large enough,” said I, not knowing what he meant.  

“There ’s Stewart belongs to it, and Collier, he's one of them, and Emerson, and my boarder ” (Pulsifer), “and Channing, I believe, I think he goes there.” 

“You mean the walkers; don’t you?” 

“Ye-es, I call you the Society. All go to the woods; don’t you ?” 

“Do you miss any of your wood?” I asked. 

“No, I hain’t worried any yet. I believe you ’re a pretty clever set, as good as the average,” etc., etc.

Telling Sanborn of this, he said that, when he first came to town and boarded at Holbrook’s, he asked H. how many religious societies there were in town. H. said that there were three, -- the Unitarian, the Orthodox, and the Walden Pond Society. I asked Sanborm with which Holbrook classed himself. He said he believes that he put himself with the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1857

Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely . . .See April 11, 1856 ("Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds.”)

Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler. See note to April 16 1856 ("I see a pine warbler, . . . Its note is . . .a very rapid and continuous trill or jingle which I remind myself of by wetter wetter wetter wetter wet’, emphasizing the last syllable.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

December 25. 

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. As usual they resemble shells more than anything, sometimes prows of vessels, also the folds of a white napkin or counterpane dropped over a bonneted head. There are no such picturesque snow-drifts as are formed behind loose and open stone walls. 

Already yesterday it had drifted so much, i.e. so much ground was bare, that there were as many carts as sleighs in the streets. 

Just beyond Hubbard's Bridge, on Conant's Brook Meadow, I am surprised to find a tract of ice, some thirty by seven or eight rods, blown quite bare. It shows how unstable the snow is. 

Sanborn got some white spruce and some usnea for Christmas in the swamp. I thought the last would be the most interesting and weird. 

On the north sides of the walls we go over boots and get them full, then let ourselves down into the shell- work on the south side; so beyond the brows of hills.

At Lee's Cliff I pushed aside the snow with my foot and got some fresh green catnip for Min. 

I see the numerous tracks there, too, of foxes, or else hares, that have been running about in the light snow. 

Called at the Conantum House. It grieves me to see these interesting relics, this and the house at the Baker Farm, going to complete ruin. 

Met William Wheeler's shaggy gray terrier, or Indian dog, going home. He got out of the road into the field and went round to avoid us. 

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1856

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. See December 25, 1855 ("Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground.”)

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows.  Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. See January 12, 1852 ("I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard . . . be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, etc., etc.” ); February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”); April 19 1852 ("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. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’); November 12, 1858 ("Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter.")

Kalmia in prime.

May 27. 

May 27, 2016 

I stop at Bristol pond take a picture 

then hear a Baltimore oriole confirmed

 when I see it high in a tree singing. 

~ zphx 

To Kalmia Swamp with Sanborn. 

Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; two stories, i.e. upon an old nest, elevated one foot above the water; eggs with very dark blotches. 

Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. Apparently the oldest-blossomed kalmia the palest. 

Saw probably a deer mouse jumping off by the side of the swamp; short leaps of apparently ten inches.

The pyrus (smooth-leaved) out apparently a day or two. 

See men fishing, one or two, and often perceived the meadow fragrance. 

My three kinds of birch sap have now become more acid, especially the white and canoe birch. The black birch is milder and more agreeable. With sugar it is an agreeable drink. I prefer it to cream-o’-tartar water. This is the real birch wine.

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

Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; . . . eggs with very dark blotches. . . .See June 14, 1855 ("A song sparrow’s nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them."); June 9, 1855 ("A song sparrow’s nest low in Wheeler’s meadow, with five eggs, made of grass lined with hair. ")  See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. . . . See May 26, 1855 ("To my surprise the Kalmia glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early."); January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.").   Note: the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

Saw probably a deer mouse jumping off by the side of the swamp. See  November 15, 1857 ("I saw, sitting nearly erect at the bottom in one corner, a little Mus leucopus, panting with fear and with its large black eyes upon me.")  January 15, 1857 ("So it was so many thousands of years before Gutenberg invented printing with his types, and so it will be so many thousands of years after his types are forgotten, perchance.  The deer mouse will be printing on the snow of Well Meadow to be read by a new race of men. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse (" The common name of "deer mouse" (coined in 1833) is a reference to its  agility. Unlike meadow voles,  deer mice have long legs that allow them to bound like deer.")

Often perceived the meadow fragrance. . . . See May 27, 1855 ("The meadow fragrance to-day.”); May 15,1856 ("Perceive some of that delicious meadow fragrance coming over the railroad causeway.”)

May 27. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 27

A deer mouse jumping 

off by the side of the swamp –

short leaps ten inches.

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