The first pleasant days of Spring

March 7

March 7, 2025

A raw east wind and rather cloudy. 

Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago. 

Did I not see crows flying northeasterly yesterday toward night? 

The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle. 

Saw, about a hemlock stump on the hillside north of the largest Andromeda Pond, very abundant droppings of some kind of mice, on that common green moss (forming a firm bed about an inch high, like little pines, surmounted by a fine red stem with a green point, in all three quarters of an inch high), which they had fed on to a great extent, evidently when it was covered with snow, shearing it off level.  They must have fed very extensively on this moss the past winter. 

It is now difficult getting on and off Walden. 

At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss, which apparently has just risen above the surface of the water, tender and compact. 

I see many tadpoles of medium or full size in deep warm ditches in Hubbard’s meadow. They may probably be seen as soon as the ditches are open, thus earlier than frogs. At his bridge over the brook it must have been a trout I saw glance,—rather dark, as big as my finger. 

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. 

The Pyrola secunda is a perfect evergreen. It has lost none of its color or freshness, with its thin ovate finely serrate leaves, revealed now the snow is gone. It is more or less branched. 

Picked up a very handsome white pine cone some six and a half inches long by two and three eighths near base and two near apex, perfectly blossomed. It is a very rich and wholesome brown color, of various shades as you turn it in your hand, —a light ashy or gray brown, somewhat like unpainted wood. as you look down on it, or as if the lighter brown were covered with a gray lichen, seeing only those parts of the scales always exposed, —with a few darker streaks or marks and a drop of pitch at the point of each scale. Within, the scales are a dark brown above (i.e. as it hangs) and a light brown beneath, Very distinctly being marked beneath by the same darker brown, down the centre and near the apex somewhat anchor wise. 

We were walking along the sunny hillside on the south of Fair Haven Pond (on the 4th), which the choppers had just laid bare, when, in a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The striped squirrel spring: We listen for the bluebird but we hear him not.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1855

Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago. See  March 4, 1860 ("I see a bush of the early willow . . . whose catkins are conspicuous thirty rods off . . . The bush at this distance had quite a silvery look."); March 21, 1855 ("This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March . . . It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Did I not see crows flying northeasterly yesterday toward night? See March 2, 1860 ("See thirty or more crows come flying in the usual irregular zigzag manner in the strong wind, from over M. Miles’s, going northeast, — the first migration of them, — without cawing. "); March 5, 1854 (“See crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks.”);   March 5, 1859 ("I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. This is apparently their spring movement.")

The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle. See note to March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still, half a dozen rods off. It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.") 

Abundant droppings of some kind of mice, on that common green moss. See  March 14, 1855 ("At one of the holes under the stump of March 7th, caught a Mus leucopus (deer mouse). So this was the kind, undoubtedly, that fed on the moss, ")  See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss. See March 4, 1859 (" I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light-green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up,   and lie just above the surface of the water. They are scattered about in the old decayed trough. (And there are still more and larger at Brister's Spring.) They are like little rugs or mats and are very obviously of fresh growth, such a green as has not been dulled by winter, a very fresh and living, perhaps slightly glaucous, green. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Mosses Bright Green

I see many tadpoles of medium or full size in deep warm ditches in Hubbard’s meadow. They may probably be seen . . . earlier than frogs. See  February 18, 1857  ("When I approached the bank of a ditch this afternoon, I saw a frog diving to the bottom. "): March 7, 1853  ("What is the earliest sign of spring? The motion of worms and insects? The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of buds? . . . –– Or are there earlier signs in the water? - the tortoises, frogs, etc.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Frogs, and Turtles Stirring 

To-day, as also three or four days ago, I saw a clear drop of maple sap on a broken red maple twig. See February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring . . . I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

 Picked up a very handsome white pine cone . . . perfectly blossomed.  See February 25, 1860 (''The white pine cones have been blowing off more or less in every high wind ever since the winter began, and yet perhaps they have not more than half fallen yet.'): March 5, 1860 ("White pine cones half fallen. ");   March 21, 1859 ("I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again. See March 4, 1855 ("May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird...be 

called the striped squirrel spring -- In which we go listening for the blue bird, but hear him not.")

March 7.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  March 7

"The first pleasant days 

of spring come out like a squirrel 

and go in again."

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first pleasant days of 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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550707

***

We had a cold winter, perhaps the coldest February yet. Below zero many mornings. Temperature averages around 7° (?). 50 days without going above freezing, So today is a warm day in the 20s. 

We hike without snowshoes to the double chair via the upper view walking in our old tracks so as not to sink in. It is up to my knees off the trail. Just south of the lower view we hear an owl make, first, that who-cooks-for-you song, and then some strange noises. It is late afternoon. 

At the view I hear chickadees and at the double chair a woodpecker tapping. This is the only bird life but the woods are full of deer. Many many deer beds and tracks -- in fact I use the deer trails to get up Prichard.

Jane shows me where a bobcat has walked in her tracks. 

Coming down we go over the cliff and I have to slide on my heels. Jane is invigorated and we veer off trail past the pink rock. The snow is sugar-like and easy to go downhill sliding in a mini avalanche. We stay out a little longer going around the house clockwise, and come in just before needing a headlamp

Avoiding deep snow

a bobcat walks in her tracks.

I use the deer trails.

March 7, 2015 zphx