A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: A Sunny Nook in Spring

No mortal is alert enough

 to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

Raw westerly wind –

but deliciously warm now

in sheltered places.

February 22, 1855

April 26, 2013

And so it always is in April

Cold as it is and 

has been for several weeks

in all exposed places

I find it unexpectedly warm

in perfectly sheltered places

where the sun shines.

.

Here cold northwest wind 

separates—distinct from the air 

warmed by the April sun

 

and when I sit in some 

warm and sheltered hollow  

the cold currents drop in—

just as they are seen

to ripple a small lake 

from time to time.

April 8, 1859

February 21.  When I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. A warmth begins to be reflected from the partially dried ground here and there in the sun in sheltered places, very cheering to invalids who have weak lungs, who think they may weather it till summer now.  February 21, 1855

February 22. The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. February 22, 1855

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

March 4.  Seeking a sunny nook on the south side of a wood which keeps off the cold wind, sitting among the maples and the swamp white oaks which are frozen in, I hear the chickadees and the belching of the ice. 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 . . . Crossing the shrub oak plain to the Cliffs, I find a place on the south side of this rocky hill where the snow is melted and the bare gray rock appears, covered with mosses and lichens and beds of oak leaves in the hollows. As I sit an invisible flame and smoke seems to ascend from the leaves, and the sun shines with a genial warmth. 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 4. Though a cold and strong wind, it is very warm in the sun, and we can sit in the sun where sheltered on these rocks with impunity. It is a genial warmth. March 4, 1855

March 8. Stopping in a sunny and sheltered place on a hillock in the woods, — for it is raw in the wind. March 8, 1855

March 8. Nowadays we separate the warmth of the sun from the cold of the wind and observe that the cold does not pervade all places, but being due to strong northwest winds, if we get into some sunny and sheltered nook where they do not penetrate, we quite forget how cold it is elsewhere.  March 8, 1860

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

April 8. Cold as it is, and has been for several weeks, in all exposed places, I find it unexpectedly warm in perfectly sheltered places where the sun shines. And so it always is in April. The cold wind from the northwest seems distinct and separable from the air here warmed by the sun, and when I sit in some warm and sheltered hollow in the woods, I feel the cold currents drop into it from time to time, just as they are seen to ripple a small lake in such a situation from time to time. April 8, 1859

April 13. A fair day, but a cool wind still, from the snow covered country in the northwest. It is, however, pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places. April 13, 1855

*****

April 17. We hear but little music in the world which charms us more than this sound produced by the vibration of an insect's wing and in some still and sunny nook in spring.   April 17, 1852 

April 20. A willow coming out fairly, with honey-bees humming on it, in a warm nook. April 20, 1854

April 26. At this season still we go seeking the sunniest, most sheltered, and warmest place . . . We are in this like snakes that lie out on banks. In sunny and sheltered nooks we are in our best estate. There our thoughts flow and we flourish most. April 26, 1857

By and by we shall seek the shadiest and coolest place. How well adapted we are to our climate! In the winter we sit by fires in the house; in spring and fall, in sunny and sheltered nooks; in the summer, in shady and cool groves, or over water where the breeze circulates. April 26, 1857

What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. It is the northwest wind makes it cold. Out of the wind it is warm. It is not, methinks, the same air at rest in one place and in motion in another, but the cold that is brought by the wind seems not to affect sheltered and sunny nooks. April 26, 1860

May 10. But now at last I do not go seeking the warm, sunny, and sheltered coves; the strong wind is enlivening and agreeable. May 10, 1857

May 22.  I rest in the orchard, doubtful whether to sit in shade or sun.  May 22, 1854

May 22. Is it not summer when we do not go seeking sunny and sheltered places, but also love the wind and shade?  May 22, 1857

October 26. At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides . . .where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat. October 26, 1852

November 18. Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. November 18, 1857 

*****

See also 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 22

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

Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow

Frogs, and Turtles Stirring

Geese Overhead

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)

The Woodchuck Ventures Out

Walking without Gloves

Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Sunny Nook in Spring

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/HDTnook

A sermon on economy of fuel

April 26

April 26, 2015

Riordan's cock follows close after me while spading in the garden, and hens commonly follow the gardener and plowman, just as cowbirds the cattle in a pasture. 

I turn up now in the garden those large leather- colored nymphs. 

P. M. — Up Assabet to White Cedar Swamp. 

See on the water over the meadow, north of the boat's place, twenty rods from the nearest shore and twice as much from the opposite shore, a very large striped snake swimming. It swims with great ease, and lifts its head a foot above the water, darting its tongue at us. 

A snake thus met with on the water appears far more monstrous, not to say awful and venomous, than on the land. It is always something startling and memorable to meet with a serpent in the midst of a broad water, careering over it. But why had this one taken to the water? Is it possible that snakes ever hibernate in meadows which are subject to be overflown?

This one when we approached swam toward the boat, apparently to rest on it, and when I put out my paddle, at once coiled itself partly around it and allowed itself to be taken on board. It did not hang down from the paddle like a dead snake, but stiffened and curved its body in a loose coil about it.

This snake was two feet and eleven inches long; the tail alone, seven and a quarter. There [were] one hundred and forty-five large abdominal plates, besides the three smaller under the head, and sixty-five pairs of caudal scales. The central stripe on the back was not bright-yellow, as Storer describes, but a pale brown or clay-color; only the more indistinct lateral stripes were a greenish yellow, the broad dark-brown stripes being between; beneath greenish. Beneath the tail in centre, a dark, somewhat greenish line. 

This snake was killed about 2 p. m.; i. e., the head was perfectly killed then; yet the posterior half of the body was apparently quite alive and would curl strongly around the hand at 7 p. m. It had been hanging on a tree in the meanwhile.

I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.

I see a great many beetles, etc., floating and struggling on the flood.

We sit on the shore at Wheeler's fence, opposite Merriam's. At this season still we go seeking the sunniest, most sheltered, and warmest place. C. says this is the warmest place he has been in this year.

We are in this like snakes that lie out on banks. In sunny and sheltered nooks we are in our best estate. There our thoughts flow and we flourish most. 

By and by we shall seek the shadiest and coolest place. How well adapted we are to our climate! In the winter we sit by fires in the house; in spring and fall, in sunny and sheltered nooks; in the summer, in shady and cool groves, or over water where the breeze circulates. Thus the average temperature of the year just suits us. Generally, whether in summer or winter, we are not sensible either of heat or cold. 

A great part of our troubles are literally domestic or originate in the house and from living indoors. I could write an essay to be entitled "Out of Doors," — undertake a crusade against houses. What a different thing Christianity preached to the house-bred and to a party who lived out of doors! 

Also a sermon is needed on economy of fuel. 

What right has my neighbor to burn ten cords of wood, when I burn only one? Thus robbing our half-naked town of this precious covering. Is he so much colder than I? It is expensive to maintain him in our midst. If some earn the salt of their porridge, are we certain that they earn the fuel of their kitchen and parlor? One man makes a little of the driftwood of the river or of the dead and refuse (unmarketable!) [wood] of the forest suffice, and Nature rejoices in him.

Another, Herod-like, requires ten cords of the best of young white oak or hickory, and he is commonly esteemed a virtuous man. He who burns the most wood on his hearth is the least warmed by the sight of it growing. Leave the trim wood-lots to widows and orphan girls. Let men tread gently through nature. Let us religiously burn stumps and worship in groves, while Christian vandals lay waste the forest temples to build miles of meeting-houses and horse-sheds and feed their box stoves. 

The white cedar is apparently just out. The higher up the tree, the earlier. 

Towed home an oak log some eighteen feet long and more than a foot through, with a birch withe around it and another birch fastened to that.

Father says he saw a boy with a snapping turtle yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 26, 1857

I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one. Compare May 28, 1854 ("The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species.”) and April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore . . . ”)

At this season still we go seeking the sunniest, most sheltered, and warmest place . . .Compare October 26, 1852 ("At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides . . .where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat.")

One man makes a little of the driftwood of the river . . . Another . . .requires ten cords of the best of young white oak or hickory . . .See March 18, 1857 ("While Emerson sits writing [in] his study this still, overcast, moist day, Goodwin is paddling up the still, dark river. Emerson burns twenty-five cords of wood and fourteen tons of coal; Goodwin perhaps a cord and a half, much of which he picks out of the river.")

Up Assabet to White Cedar Swamp. . . .The white cedar is apparently just out. See April 26, 1856 ("The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow."); April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another.”); April 24, 1855 ("The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich . . . [Its pollen] is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon.”); April 23, 1855 ("The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow."); April 24, 1854 ("Up Assabet, and thence to Cedar Swamp. . . The white cedar female blossoms are open.")  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

Father says he saw a boy with a snapping turtle yesterday. See April 26, 1859 ("Rice says that he saw a large mud turtle in the river . . . Thinks they come out about the first of April. ") See also April 1, 1858   ("At Hemlock Brook  . . . I see on the wet mud a little snapping turtle evidently hatched last year. "):  April 24, 1856 ("Warren Miles at his new mill tells me that he found a mud turtle of middling size in his brook there last Monday, or the 21st ."); April 25, 1856 ("Warren Miles had caught three more snapping turtles since yesterday, at his mill ")