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 first pleasant days
of spring come out like a squirrel
and go in again.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1855
Did I not see crows flying northeasterly yesterday toward night? See March 5, 1854 (“See crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks . . .”)
called the striped squirrel spring -- In which we go listening for the blue bird, but hear him not.")
The striped squirrel spring:
We listen for the bluebird
but we hear him not.
***
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
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