The most springlike sight I have seen.

March 14

Quite warm. Thermometer 46°. 

3 P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The ice formed the fore part of this week, as that at Merrick’s noticed on the 12th, and heard of else where in the Mill Brook, appears to have been chiefly snow ice, though no snow fell. It was apparently blown into the water during those extremely cold nights and assisted its freezing. So that it is a question whether the river would have closed again at Merrick’s on the night of the 10th and 11th, notwithstanding the intense cold, if the snow had not been blown into it,—a question, I say, because the snow was blown into it. 

I think it remarkable that, cold as it was, I should not have supposed from my sensations that it was nearly so cold as the thermometer indicated. 

Tapped several white maples with my knife, but find no sap flowing; but, just above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely. Where the sap had dried on the bark, shining and sticky, it tasted quite sweet. 

Yet Anthony Wright tells me that he attempted to trim some apple trees on the 11th, but was obliged to give up, it was so cold. They were frozen solid. 

This is the only one of eight or ten white and red maples that flows. I do not see why it should be. 

March 14, 2016
camel’s hump

As I return by the old Merrick Bath Place, on the river,—for I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river, — the setting sun falls on the osier row toward the road and attracts my attention. They certainly look brighter now and from this point than I have noticed them before this year, — greenish and yellowish below and reddish above, — and I fancy the sap fast flowing in their pores. 

Yet I think that on a close inspection I should find no change. 

Nevertheless, it is, on the whole, perhaps the most springlike sight I have seen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 14, 1856

The ice formed the forepart of this week, as that at Merrick’s. . .appears to have been chiefly snow ice, See March 12, 1856 ("The last four cold days have closed the river again against Merrick’s, and probably the few other small places which may have opened in the town . . . which had not frozen before this winter.");   March 16, 1856 ("These few rather warmer days have made a little impression on the river . . . it is still thick enough."): March 20, 1856 ("Considering how solid and thick the river was a week ago, I am surprised to find how cautious I have grown about crossing it in many places now.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

One red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. See March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap.”) See also March 7, 1855 ("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.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river. See  March 22, 1856 ("I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch."); March 24, 1856 ("Go everywhere on the North Branch — it is all solid Yet last year I paddled my boat to Fair Haven Pond on the 19th of March!"); April 2, 1856.(" I returned down the middle of the river to near the Hubbard Bridge without seeing any opening. "); April 3, 1856 ("The river is now generally and rapidly breaking up . . . It is now generally open about the town");  April 7, 1856 ("Launched my boat.")

The setting sun falls on the osier row . . . They certainly look brighter now . . .than I have noticed them before this year . . . Yet I think that on a close inspection I should find no change. See  March 16, 1856 ("There is, at any rate, such a phenomenon as the willows shining in the spring sun, however it is to be accounted for. ); See also March 10, 1853 ("It must be that the willow twigs, both the yellow and green, are brighter-colored than before. I cannot be deceived."); January 26, 1859 ("When I came down to the river and looked off to Merrick’s pasture, the osiers there shone as brightly as in spring, showing that their brightness depends on the sun and air rather than the season."); March 20, 1859 ("I am aware that the sun has come out of a cloud first by seeing it lighting up the osiers.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and Early Spring

March 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 14

A most springlike sight –

the osier looking bright

in the setting sun. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The most springlike sight I have seen.

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 ©  2009-2026

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