The face of nature lit up by reflections in still, open water.

March 9

P. M.  To Great Meadows.

March 9, 2015

Peter H. says that he saw gulls (?) and sheldrakes about a month ago, when the meadow was flooded. 

I detect the trout minnows not an inch long by their quick motions or quirks, soon concealing themselves. 

The river channel is open, but there is a very thin ice of recent formation over the greater part of the meadows. It is a still, moist, louring day, and the water is smooth. 

Saw several flocks of large grayish and whitish or speckled ducks, I suppose the same that P. calls sheldrakes. They, like ducks commonly, incline to fly in a line about an equal distance apart. I hear the common sort of quacking from them. 

It is pleasant to see them at a distance alight on the water with a slanting flight, launch themselves, and sail along so stately. The pieces of ice, large and small, drifting along, help to conceal them, supply so many objects on the water. 

Water is fast taking place of ice on the river and meadows. In the spaces of still open water I see the reflection of the hills and woods, which for so long I have not seen. It gives expression to the face of nature. Sometimes you see only the top of a distant hill reflected far within the meadow, where a dull-gray field of ice intervenes between the water and the shore. The face of nature is lit up by these reflections in still water in the spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1854

I detect the trout minnows not an inch long by their quick motions or quirks, soon concealing themselves. See March 7, 1855 ("At his bridge over the brook it must have been a trout I saw glance,—rather dark, as big as my finger. "); March 8, 1855. (" I walk these days along the brooks, looking for tortoises and trout, etc.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Ripples made by Fishes

The pieces of ice, large and small, drifting along, help to conceal them. See February 27, 1860 ("I had noticed for some time, far in the middle of the Great Meadows, something dazzlingly white, which I took, of course, to be a small cake of ice on its end, but now that I have climbed the pitch pine hill and can overlook the whole meadow, I see it to be the white breast of a male sheldrake accompanied perhaps by his mate . . .This 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."); March 8, 1853 ("I must be on the lookout now for the gulls and the ducks."); March 16, 1854 (" I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring, Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow

I see the reflection of the hills and woods, which for so long I have not seen. See March 9, 1855 ("I see far more light in the reflected sky in the neighborhood of the sun than I could see in the heavens from my position, and it occurred to me that the reason was that there was reflected to me from the river the view I should have got if I had stood there on the water in a more favorable position. ")  See also March 8, 1853 ("Waters . . . 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.”); March 18, 1854 (“The ice in Fair Haven is more than half melted, and now the woods beyond the pond, reflected in its serene water where there has been opaque ice so long, affect me as they perhaps will not again this year. ”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

March 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 9

The face of nature

lit up by reflections in

still, open water.

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540309

***

A. M.- Clearing up . Water is fast taking place of ice on the river and meadows , and morning and evening we begin to have some smooth water prospects . 

Saw this morning a muskrat sitting “ in a round form on the ice , " or , rather , motionless like the top of a stake or a mass of muck on the edge of the ice . He then dove for a clam , whose shells he left on the ice beside him . 

- 66 Boiled a handful of rock - tripe ( Umbilicaria Muhlen- bergii ) - which Tuckerman says was the favorite Rock - Tripe in Franklin's Journey " —for more than an hour . It produced a black pulp , looking somewhat like boiled tea leaves , and was insipid like rice or starch . The dark water in which it was boiled had a bitter taste and was slightly gelatinous . The pulp was not positively disagreeable to the palate . The account in " The Young Voyageurs " 1 is correct . 

P. M. To Great Meadows . - 3 Peter H. says that he saw gulls ( ? ) and sheldrakes about a month ago , when the meadow was flooded . 

I detect the trout minnows not an inch long by their quick motions or quirks, soon concealing themselves. 

The river channel is open , but there is a very thin ice of recent formation over the greater part of the meadows . 

It is a still , moist , louring day , and the water is smooth . 

Saw several flocks of large grayish and whitish or speckled ducks , I suppose the same that P. calls shel- drakes . They , like ducks commonly , incline to fly in a line about an equal distance apart . I hear the com- mon sort of quacking from them . It is pleasant to see them at a distance alight on the water with a slant- ing flight , launch themselves , and sail along so stately . 

The pieces of ice , large and small , drifting along , help to conceal them , supply so many objects on the water . 

There is this last night's ice on the surface, but the old ice still at the bottom of the meadows. 

In the spaces of still open water I see the reflection of the hills and woods, which for so long I have not seen, and it gives expression to the face of nature. The face of nature is lit up by these reflections in still water in the spring. Sometimes you see only the top of a distant hill reflected far within the meadow, where a dull- gray field of ice intervenes between the water and the shore.