I think of the trees

Sometimes I think of the trees in the forest
each rooted in its own spot there to live it’s life

in winter awaiting the flow of the sap
to unfold an array of leaves

none of which is in the shade
always reaching higher

then flowers nuts and seeds
and the sprouts carpeting the forest floor

and in the fall leaves
rustling underfoot making new soil

branches overhead
brattling in the breeze

fractal patterns against the sky
I sometimes think of the trees.

Zphx 20190221

CAN YOU IMAGINE? For example, what the trees do not only in lightning storms or the watery dark of a summer night or under the white nets of winter but now, and now, and now-whenever we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine they just stand there looking the way they look when we're looking; surely you can't imagine they don't dance, from the root up, wishing to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly more shade-surely you can't imagine they just stand there loving every minute of it; the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings of the years slowly and without a sound thickening, and nothing different unless the wind, and then only in its own mood, comes to visit, surely you can't imagine patience, and happiness, like that. ~ Mary Oliver 

Trees, the naked trees, stopped

in their tracks, so peaceful

talking together.

~ Hayden Carruth

A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

Suddenly black dots in the sky – expanded buds – their sap is flowing. March 5, 1852

It is worth the while 

to know that there is all this 

sugar in our woods

March 21, 1856

February 21.  Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. It runs freely. The earliest sap I made to flow last year was March 14th . . .The river for some days has been open and its sap visibly flowing, like the maple.  February 21, 1857 

February 23.   I have seen signs of the spring . . . I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple.  February 23, 1857

March 2.  The red maple sap flows freely, and probably has for several days. March 2, 1860 

March 3.  The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up in the auger-holes. March 3, 1857

March 4.  I see where a maple has been wounded the sap is flowing out. Now, then, is the time to make sugar.  March 4, 1852

March 5.  As I sit under the red maples at white bridge, I suddenly see the myriad black dots of their expanded buds against the sky. Their sap is flowing.   March 5, 1852

March 7.   To-day, as also three or four days ago, I saw a clear drop of maple sap on a broken red maple twig, which tasted very sweet.   March 7, 1855 

March 14.  Just 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 14, 1856

March 15. Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap. March 15, 1856 

March 16. 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. When the river breaks up, it will go down the Concord into the Merrimack, and down the Merrimack into the sea. March 16, 1856

March 20. Cutting a maple for a bridge over Lily Brook, I was rejoiced to see the sap falling in large, clear drops from the wound. March 20,1853

March 20. The sap of red maples in low and warm positions now generally flows, but not in high and exposed ones . . . Set a pail before coming here to catch red maple sap, at Trillium Wood. I am now looking after elder and sumach for spouts.  Got my smooth sumach on the south side of Nawshawtuct. I know of no shrubs hereabout except elders and the sumachs which have a suitable pith and wood for such a purpose. March 20, 1856

March 21. I see red maple sap oozing out and wetting the young trees where there is no obvious wound. March 21, 1855

March 21.  It is worth the while to know that there is all this sugar in our woods . . . 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 . . . One maple, standing immediately north of a thick white pine, scarcely flowed at all, while a smaller, farther in the wood, ran pretty well. The south side of a tree bleeds first in spring. March 21, 1856

March 22. 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. 
March 22, 1856

March 22.  The phenomena of an average March . . . Vegetation fairly begins, – conferva and mosses, grass and carex, etc., — and gradually many early herbaceous plants start, and noticed radical leaves; Stellaria media and shepherd's-purse bloom; maple and buttonwood sap (6th) flow; spiræas start, cladonias flush, and bæomyces handsome; willow catkins become silvery, aspens downy; osiers, etc., look bright, white maple and elm buds expand and open, oak woods thin- leaved; alder and hazel catkins become relaxed and elongated. March 22, 1860

March  24.   It is too cold to think of those signs of spring which I find recorded under this date last year. The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places. Alder catkins loosened, and also white maple buds loosened.   March 24, 1855

*****

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau:

• I Have Seen Signs of the Spring
• cowslip in sheltered places
• white maple buds loosened

and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• I begin to think that my wood will last
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• Skunks Active
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The New Warmth of the Sun
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-sap

A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

 It is a spring phenomenon . . .

When you see the sparkling stream from melting snow in the ruts,

know that then is to be seen this braid of the spring.

February 21, 1860

The note of the first bluebird in the air 

answers to the purling rill of melted snow beneath.

March 18, 1858

February 9.  And the brightness of the morning is increased tenfold by the sun reflected from broad sheets of rain and melted snow water. The sun is reflected from a hundred rippling sluices of snow-water finding its level in the fields. February 9, 1854

February 16.  I hear the eaves running before I come out, and our thermometer at 2 P. M. is 38°. The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts; the cocks crow more than usual in barns; my greatcoat is an incumbrance. February 16, 1856

February 21. I see now, in the ruts in sand on hills in the road, those interesting ripples which I only notice to advantage in very shallow running water, a phenomenon almost, as it were, confined to melted snow running in ruts in the road in a thaw, especially in the spring.  It is a spring phenomenon.  The water, meeting with some slight obstacle, ever and anon appears to shoot across diagonally to the opposite side, while ripples from the opposite side intersect the former, producing countless regular and sparkling diamond-shaped ripples.   If you hold your head low and look along up such a stream in a right light, it is seen to have a regularly braided surface, tress-like, preserving its figures as if it were solid, though the stream is seen pulsing high through the middle ripples in the thread of the stream. 

The ripples are as rectilinear as ice-crystals. 

When you see the sparkling stream 

from melting snow in the ruts, 

know that then is to be seen 

this braid of the spring. 

February 21, 1860

February 23.   I have seen signs of the spring.  February 23, 1857

March 4. The snow is melting on the rocks; the water trickles down in shining streams; the mosses look bright; the first awakening of vegetation at the root of the saxifrage. An oasis in the snow. March 4, 1852

March 8.  A spring sheen on the snow. The melting snow, running and sparkling down-hill in the ruts, was quite springlike. The snow pure white, but full of water and dissolving through the heat of the sun.   March 8, 1853

March 9.  A true spring day, not a cloud in the sky. The earth shines, its icy armor reflecting the sun, and the rills of melting snow in the ruts shine, too, and water, where exposed in the right light on the river, is a remarkably living blue, just as the osiers appear brighter.  Yet it is cool and raw and very windy. March 9, 1859

March 25.  To speak of the general phenomena of March: . . . The 4th is very wet and dirty walking; melted snow fills the gutters, and as you ascend the hills, you see bright braided streams of it rippling down in the ruts. It glances and shines like burnished silver. March 25, 1860

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I Have Seen Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)
• My greatcoat on my arm
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• the new warmth of the sun 
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• Skunks Active
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The Crowing of Cocks, the Cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The new warmth of the sun 
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• the Osier in Winter and early Spring
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The anxious peep of the early robin
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

The sun reflected from

a hundred rippling sluices –

melted snow-water

February 9, 1854

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Braided ripples of melting 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 ©  2009-2023

tinyurl.com/HDTrut

A Book of the Seasons: February 21 (news of spring, new life in Nature beginning to awake, signs of spring)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

 February 21

Snow on the mountains

now a silver rim to this

basin of the world.

February 21, 1855

Chickadee passes

the news through all the forest –

spring is approaching.

February 21, 1855

Sheltered from the wind

I feel new life in Nature –

season’s warmer sun.

February 21, 1855

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

It has now got to be such weather that after a cold morning it is colder in the house, — or we feel colder, — than outdoors, by noon, and are surprised that it is no colder when we come out. February 21, 1854

The snow has just ceased falling — about two inches deep, in the woods, upon the old and on bare ground. February 21, 1854

There is scarcely a track of any animal yet to be seen. You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness. February 21, 1854

The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.  February 21, 1854

We now notice the snow on the mountains, because on the remote rim of the horizon its whiteness contrasts with the russet and darker hues of our bare fields. February 21, 1855

I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them . . . A silver edging to this basin of the world. February 21, 1855

Thermometer forty-six and snow rapidly melting. It melts first and fastest where the snow is so thin that it feels the heat reflected from the ground beneath. February 21, 1860

I see now, in the ruts in sand on hills in the road, those interesting ripples which I only notice to advantage in very shallow running water, a phenomenon almost, as it were, confined to melted snow running in ruts in the road in a thaw, especially in the spring. February 21, 1860

When you see the sparkling stream from melting snow in the ruts, know that then is to be seen this braid of the spring. February 21, 1860

When the leaves on the forest floor are dried, and begin to rustle under such a sun and wind as these . . .

When I perceive this dryness under my feet . . .

I realize what was incredible to me before, that there is a new life in Nature beginning to awake, that her halls are being swept and prepared for a new occupant. February 21, 1855

It is whispered through all the aisles of the forest that another spring is approaching. February 21, 1855

The wood mouse listens at the mouth of his burrow, and the chickadee passes the news along.  February 21, 1855

I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, February 21, 1855 

I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. February 21, 1855

Can it be true, as is said, that geese have gone over Boston, probably yesterday? It is in the newspapers. February 21, 1855

Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. February 21, 1857

The river for some days has been open and its sap visibly flowing, like the maple. February 21, 1857

A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone which had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer, and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone, has become a broad, rounded, open one, -- has, in fact, expanded with the regularity of a flower's petals into a conical flower of rigid scales, and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate-winged seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. February 27, 1853

The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.  February 27, 1853

February 21, 2020

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, When the ice turns green

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: 

Braided ripples of melting snow

 Red Maple Sap Flows

 Change in the Air

  the spring note of the chickadee

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

*****

December 21, 1852 ("You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature.")
February 12, 1854 ("I am not aware till I come out how pleasant a day it is. It was very cold this morning, and I have been putting on wood in vain to warm my chamber, and lo! I come forth, and am surprised to find it warm and pleasant.”)
February 16, 1856 ("I hear the eaves running before I come out, and our thermometer at 2 P. M. is 38°. The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts.")

February 17, 1857 ("Thermometer at 1 p.m., 60°. The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats, and even boats.")
February 18, 1857 ("I hear that geese went over Cambridge last night.")

February 19, 1852 ("The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. ")

February 20, 1855 ("I see from my window the bright blue water here and there between the ice and on the meadow.")

February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring. . . .. I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple.")
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 ?"
March 3, 1857 ("The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up in the auger-holes .")
March 8, 1853 ("The melting snow, running and sparkling down-hill in the ruts, was quite springlike.")
March 9, 1859 ("A true spring day, not a cloud in the sky. The earth shines, its icy armor reflecting the sun, and the rills of melting snow in the ruts shine, too.")

April 4, 1852 ("I see the snow lying thick on the south side of the Peterboro Hills, . . .probably the dividing line at present between the bare ground and the snow-clad ground stretching three thousand miles to the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie and the Icy Sea.")
April 4, 1855 ("In the northwestern horizon, my eye rests on a range of snow-covered mountains, glistening in the sun.")

February 21, 2020

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

  February 20 <<<<< February 21  >>>>>  February 22 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 21

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 ©  2009-2023

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky