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.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
On this mild spring day
my life partakes of bluebirds
and infinity.
How memorable
a calm and warm day amid
cold blustering ones.
March 15, 1860
March 15, 2014
This afternoon I throw off my outside coat . . . A mild spring day . . . The air is full of bluebirds . . .The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is happy whose work takes him outdoors . . . I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life partakes of infinity. The air is as deep as our natures. March 15, 1852
To-day the weather is severely and remarkably cold . . . I have not taken a more blustering walk this past winter than this afternoon . . . The coldness of the air blown from the icy northwest prevails over the heat of the sun. 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. March 15, 1853
Pleasant morning, unexpectedly . . . Here on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis, mingled with song sparrows and tree sparrows . . . I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water. March 15, 1854
.
Foul weather all day, -- at first a fine snow, and finally rain. Now, at 9 P. M., a clear sky. And so the storm which began evening of 13th ends. March 15, 1855
Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap. March 15, 1856
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 . . . An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. March 15, 1857
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 . . . By his zigzag course he bewilders the eye, and avoids capture perhaps. March 15, 1857
Rainy day and southerly wind. I come home in the evening through a very heavy rain after two brilliant rainbows at sunset, the first of the year. March 15. 1859
I see to-day in two places, in mud and in snow, what I have no doubt is the track of the woodchuck that has lately been out, with peculiarly spread toes like a little hand. March 15, 1860
Our cold and blustering days this month, thus far, have averaged about 40°. Here is the first fair, and at the same time calm and warm, day . . .The temperature has been as high on three days this month. . . and yet this has seemed the warmest and most summer-like . . .How admirable in our memory lies a calm warm day amid a series of cold and blustering ones! March 15, 1860
As Walden opens eight days earlier than I have known it, so this frog croaks about as much earlier. Many large fuzzy gnats and other insects in air. March 15, 1860
better now, perhaps, than ever they will again. March 15, 1860
March 15, 2023
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring sounds. Woodpeckers Tapping
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Hen Hawk
See also Signs of the Spring:
- Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
- Listening for the bluebird
- The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
- Ripples made by Fishes
- Greening Grasses and Sedges
- the new warmth of the sun
- woodpeckers tapping
- March is famous for its winds
- Red Maple Sap Flows
- the Hawks of March
*****
March 8, 1853 ( Saw two or three hawks sailing.")
March 8, 1857 ("Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season.")
March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings; it echoes peculiarly in the air of a spring morning.”)
March 12, 1856 (" If the present cold should continue uninterrupted a thousand years would not the pond become solid?");
March 13, 1857 ("This month has been windy and cold, a succession of snows one or two inches deep, soon going off, the spring birds all driven off.")
March 13, 1855 ("I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.")
March 14, 1858 (I see a Fringilla hyemalis . . . They are now getting back earlier than our permanent summer residents.")
Over the water
I hear loud hollow tapping
of a woodpecker.
March 16, 1855 ("I see several diverging and converging trails of undoubtedly a woodchuck, or several, which must have come out at least as early as the 13th. The track is about one and three quarters inches wide by two long, the five toes very distinct and much spread, and is somewhat hand-like.")
March 16, 1856 (''The red maple sap is now about an inch deep in a quart pail, nearly all caught since morning.")
March 17, 1854 ("A remarkably warm day for the season; too warm while surveying without my great coat")
March 17, 1857 ("No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring,")
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.")
March 17, 1857 ("This morning it is fair, and I hear the note of the woodpecker on the elms (that early note) and the bluebird again. Launch my boat.")
March 17, 1858 ("Hear the first bluebird. A remarkably warm and pleasant day . . .The air is full of bluebirds. I hear them far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in the tree-tops, though I do not distinctly see them . . . four species of birds have all come in one day, no doubt to almost all parts of the town. ")
March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”)
March 18, 1856 (“Two little water-bugs . . . here they are, in the first open and smooth water, governed by the altitude of the sun.")
March 15, 2023
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 15
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 © 2009-2024
tinyurl.com/HDT15March
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