Journal, March 18, 1852:
These slight falls of snow which come and go again so soon when the ground is partly open in the spring are called "the poor man's manure." See March 12, 1857 ("Snowed again last night, as it has done once or twice before within ten days without my recording it, — robin snows, which last but a day or two.")
But this snow has not driven back the birds. See January11 & 12, 1853 ("A "robin snow," as it is called, i. e. a snow which does not drive off the robins")
Journal, March 18,1853:
The ice in Fair Haven is more than half melted. See March 18, 1859 ("Rice saw Fair Haven Pond still covered with ice, though open along the shore, yesterday.") March 19, 1855 ("I am surprised to find that the river has not yet worn through Fair Haven Pond.”); March 22, 1854 ("Fair Haven still covered and frozen anew in part.”); March 22, 1855 ("I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet.”); March 26, 1857 ("Fair Haven is open; may have been open several days; there is only a little ice on the southeast shore.”); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year, or not till April 13 as in '56, or twenty-three days later.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out
This the foreglow of the year, . . .See August, 19, 1853 ("The day is an epitome of the year.”); August 24, 1852 ("The year is but a succession of days, and I see that I could assign some office to each day which, summed up, would be the history of the year."); July 26, 1853 (“This the afternoon of the year.”); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.”)
To-day first I smelled the earth. See note to March 4, 1854 ("I begin to sniff the air and smell the ground.”)
Journal, March 18, 1854:
The white caps of the waves on the flooded meadow, seen from the window, are a rare and exciting spectacle, — such an angry face as our Concord meadows rarely exhibit. See March 29, 1852 (“The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. . . . There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black.”); April 10, 1856 ("Our meadow looks as angry now as it ever can.")
Journal, March 18, 1855:
Very wet and muddy walking, owing to the melting of the snow. See March 16, 1858 ("I walk in muddy fields, hearing the tinkling of new born rills.”)
Journal, March 18, 1856:
. . . a school of little minnows. . . See February 1, 1856 (“Nut Meadow Brook open for some distance in the meadow. . . . Some kind of minnow darts off.”)
Notwithstanding the backwardness of the season . . . governed by the altitude of the sun. . . . See March 15, 1853 ("Notwithstanding this day is so cold that I keep my ears covered, the sidewalks melt in the sun, such is its altitude.”)
Journal, March 18, 1857:
I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two. See March 18, 1852 ("I hear the song sparrow's simple strain, most genuine herald of the spring.”); March 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides.”) See also March 11, 1854 ("On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song sparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from alder to alder. This pleasant morning after three days' rain and mist, they generally forthburst into sprayey song from the low trees along the river. The developing of their song is gradual but sure, like the expanding of a flower. This is the first song I have heard."); March 27, 1857 ("But now chiefly there comes borne on the breeze the tinkle of the song sparrow along the river side”) and Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons: the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia).
[Goodwin] says that when you hear a woodpecker’s rat-tat-tat-tat-tat on a dead tree it is a sign of rain. See March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”); March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings."); March 13, 1855 (“I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.”); March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, woodpeckers tapping
That whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar . . . may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker. See February 18, 1857 ("I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”) March 5, 1859 ("I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it.. . .It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! . . . It is the spring note of the nuthatch"); March 13, 1853 (“But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter.”); March 17, 1857 (“It is only some very early still, warm, and pleasant morning in February or March that I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch
I hear the chill-lill or tchit-a-tchit of the slate-colored sparrow, and see it. See March 15, 1854 (“Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis.”); March 19, 1858 ("Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations."); March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?), and I drive the flocks before me on the railroad causeway as I walk. It has two white feathers in its tail.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)
Journal, March 18, 1858:
The rather warm but strong wind now roars in the wood to wake up the trees, and their sap flows the sooner for it. See March 9, 1852 (“These March winds, which make the woods roar and fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite the sap to flow.”)
When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. See May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape.”). See also note to June 3, 1850 ("The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon.")
Each new year is a surprise to us. . . . a spring landscape as impossible a fortnight ago as the song of birds. See December 29, 1851 (" What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle.")
The sharp tinkle of a song sparrow is heard through it all. See March 18, 1857 ("I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two.”); March 18, 1852 ("I hear the song sparrow's simple strain, most genuine herald of the spring.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)
I have thus found the ledum this winter. See February 4, 1858 (“As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord.”)
Going by the epigaea on Fair Haven Hill, I thought I would follow down the shallow gully through the woods from it, that I might find more or something else. See September 8, 1858 ("It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs, for the reward of activity and energy is that if you do not accomplish the object you had professed to yourself, you do accomplish something else. So, in my botanizing or natural history walks, it commonly turns out that, going for one thing, I get another thing."); March 28, 1858 ("I go by the springs toward the epigaea. It is a fine warm day with a slight haziness. . . .In the sunny epigaea wood I start up two Vanessa Antiopa")
A new locality of the epigaea. See February 7, 1858 (“I am surprised to find the epigaea on this hill, at the northwest corner of C. Hubbard’s (?) lot.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea
Journal, March 18, 1859:
Rice saw Fair Haven Pond still covered with ice, though open along the shore, yesterday. See March 21, 1859 ("Fair Haven Pond is only two thirds open. The east end is frozen still, and the body of the ice has drifted in to shore a rod or two, before the northwest wind, and its edge crumbled against the trees."); March 23, 1859 ("The pond may be said to be open to-day. There is, however, quite a large mass of ice, which has drifted, since the east wind arose yesterday noon, from the east side over to the north of the Island."); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year [1860], or not till April 13 as in '56, or twenty-three days later."); April 4, 1855 ("I am surprised to find Fair Haven Pond not yet fully open. There is a large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt tomorrow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out
Journal, March 18, 1860:
No doubt this flower, too, has learned to expect its winged visitor knocking at its door in the spring. See September 29, 1856 ("How surely . . .the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller. . . that will transport their seeds on his coat."); February 19, 1854 ("The mind of the universe . . ., which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end.”); July 29, 1853 (“The insect that comes after the honey or pollen of a plant is necessary to it and in one sense makes a part of it”)
The spring flower tooexpects a winged visitorknocking at its door.
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