Warm and pleasant weather, I even listen for the first bluebird.

February 22

Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. 

February 22, 2015

The water has so far gone down that I get over the Hunt Bridge causeway by going half a dozen rods on the wall in one place. This water must have moved two or three hundred cartloads of sand to the side of the road. This damage would be avoided by raising the road. 

J. Farmer showed me an ermine weasel he caught in a trap three or four weeks ago. They are not very common about his barns. All white but the tip of the tail; two conspicuous canine teeth in each jaw. He says their track is like that of the mink: as if they had only two legs. They go on the jump. Sometimes make a third mark. 

He had seen a partridge drum standing on a wall. Said it stood very upright and produced the sound by striking its wings together behind its back, as a cock often does, but did not strike the wall nor its body. This he is sure of, and declares that he is mistaken who affirms the contrary, though it were Audubon himself. 

Wilson says he “begins to strike with his stiffened wings” while standing on a log, but does not say what he strikes, though one would infer it was either the log or his body. Peabody says he beats his body with his wings.

You see fresh upright green radical leaves of some plants —the dock, probably water dock, for one — in and about water now the snow is gone there, as if they had grown all winter. 

The sun goes down to-night under clouds, - a round red orb, - and I am surprised to see that its light, falling on my book and the wall, is a beautiful purple, like the poke stem or perhaps some kinds of wine.

Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber. I have one which was gnawed off by squirrels, apparently of full size, but which does not open. Why should they thus open in the chamber or else where? I suppose that under the influence of heat or dryness the upper side of each scale expands while the lower contracts, or perhaps only the one expands or the other contracts. I notice that the upper side is a lighter, almost cinnamon, color, the lower a dark (pitchy ?) red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 22, 1855

 The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. See February 21, 1855 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, A Sunny Nook in Spring

 I even listen for the first bluebird. See February 9, 1854 ("It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in"); February 18, 1857 ("I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird.”); February 27, 1861 ("It occurs to me that I have just heard a bluebird"); March 7, 1854 ("Heard the first bluebird"); March 10, 1852 ("I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together"); March 19, 1855 (“ I hear my first bluebird”).  See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Listening for the Bluebird

Farmer showed me an ermine weasel . . . .All white but the tip of the tail See February 21, 1855 ("How plain, wholesome, and earthy are the colors of quadrupeds generally! . . . The white of the polar bear, ermine weasel, etc., answers to the snow; . . .There are few or no bluish animals. ")

He had seen a partridge drum . . . by striking its wings together behind its back. See April 19, 1860 ("You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.");  April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate."); April 29, 1857 ("C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A beautiful purple, like the poke stem or perhaps some kinds of wine. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe . . . Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn . . .  I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems");  February 13, 1860 ("The principal charm of a winter walk over ice is perhaps the peculiar and pure colors exhibited . . . there is the purple of the snow in drifts or on hills, of the mountains, and clouds at evening.")

Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season. See February 27, 1853 ("The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season."). See also February 28, 1858 (" I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch pine in a field, evidently gnawed off by a squirrel, but not opened."); February 28, 1860 ("I take up a handsomely spread (or blossomed) pitch pine cone, but I find that a squirrel has begun to strip it first, having gnawed off a few of the scales at the base. The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base."); March 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pitch Pine in Winter

Raw westerly wind

but deliciously warm now

in sheltered places.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  I even listen for the first bluebird.

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

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