I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle.

March 15. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and Walden. 

I see in the ditches in Hubbard’s Close the fine green tips of spires of grass just rising above the surface of the water in one place, as if unwilling to trust itself to the frosty air. Favored by the warmth of the water and sheltered by the banks of the ditch, it has advanced thus far. 

But generally I see only the flaccid and floating frost-bitten tops of grass which apparently started that warm spell in February. The surface of the ditches is spotted with these pale and withered frost-bitten bladelets. 

It was the first green blush, as it were, — nay, it is purple or lake often, and a true blush, —of spring, of that Indian spring we had in February. An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. 

To be present at the instant when the springing grass at the bottoms of ditches lifts its spear above the surface and bathes in the spring air! Many a first faint crop mantling the pools thus early is mown down by the frost before the village suspects that vegetation has reawakened. 

The trout darts away in the puny brook there so swiftly in a zigzag course that commonly I only see the ripple that he makes, in proportion, in this brook only a foot wide, like that made by a steamer in a canal. Or if I catch a glimpse of him before he buries himself in the mud, it is only a dark film without distinct outline. By his zigzag course he bewilders the eye, and avoids capture perhaps. 

As usual at this date and earlier, there are a few square rods of green grass tufts at Brister’s springs, like a green fire under the pines and alders, and in one place an apparent growth of golden saxifrage. 

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. 

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. 

By Thrush Alley, where they have been cutting more wood this winter, I see one of those beetles made of an oak excrescence, such as I have heard of, left by the chopper. 

The whole is a little over four feet long. The head nine or ten inches and the handle about three and a half feet, but all one piece. It was apparently of a young tree, or perhaps a limb, about four inches in diameter with a regular excrescence about it still, eight or nine inches in diameter. This head had been smoothed or trimmed and made more regular by the axe, cut off rather square at the end, and the lower part cut down to a handle of convenient size. And thus the chopper had made in a few moments in the woods a really efficient implement, with his axe only, out of some of the very wood he wished to split. 

A natural beetle. There was no danger that the handle would come off or the head crack. It needed no ringing. And thus he saved the head of his axe.

We are singularly pleased and contented when a mere excrescence is thus converted into a convenient implement. Who was it, what satyr, that invented this rustic beetle? It was shaped:     

An indispensable piece of woodcraft.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1857

An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. See March 17, 1857 ("No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before. . . .I thus detect the first approach of spring by finding here and there its scouts and vanguard which have been slain by the rear-guard of retreating winter.")

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. See March 23, 1856 (" Almost the whole of the steep hillside on the north of Walden is now bare and dry and warm, though fenced in with ice and snow. It has attracted partridges, four of which whir away on my approach.")

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. See March 14, 1860 (" I am surprised to find Walden open. No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if melted a million years."); April 18, 1856 ("Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, owing to the rain of yesterday and evening. I have observed its breaking up of different years commencing in ’45, and the average date has been April 4th.")