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
Meadows this season
are more ruffled the waves look
quite angry and black.
A gull of pure white
outline simple and wave-like
two curves in the air.
A field of ice drifts
and forms a shining white wall
against the eastern shore.
Inhale with pleasure
the wholesome cold air over
now sparkling water.
Before leaves put forth
or thrushes and warblers come --
empty silent woods.
Painted turtles in
the sun a phoebe is heard
over the water
March 29, 2016
It is a surprising and memorable and, I may add, valuable experience to be lost in the woods, especially at night . . . not till we are completely lost or turned round, - for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,- do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature . . . In fact, not till we are lost do we begin to realize where we are, and the infinite extent of our relations. March 29, 1853
Coldest night. Pump freezes so as to require thawing. See two marsh hawks, white on rump. A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air. How simple and wave-like its outline, two curves, - all wing - like a birch scale. Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open. Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun. A hen-hawk, - two - circling over Cliffs. March 29, 1854
Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two . . . Walden is more than half open, Goose Pond only a little about the shores, and Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river . . . looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air like a draught of cold water . . . I feel an impulse, also, already, to jump into the half-melted pond . . . A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments. March 29, 1855
March 29, 2016
Another cold day. Scarcely melts at all. Water skimmed over in chamber, with fire. March 29, 1856
Walden open, say to-day, though there is still a little ice in the deep southern bay and a very narrow edging along the southern shore. Cross through the woods to my boat under Fair Haven Hill. How empty and silent the woods now, before leaves have put forth or thrushes and warblers are come! Deserted halls, floored with dry leaves, where scarcely an insect stirs as yet. March 29, 1857
Hear a phoebe early in the morning over the street. Considerable frost this morning, and some ice formed on the river. The white maple stamens are very apparent now on one tree, though they do not project beyond the buds . . . Nearly as warm and pleasant as yesterday. I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. By a pool southeast of Nathan Barrett's, see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a rod . . . The narrow edges of the ditches are almost paved in some places with their black and muddy backs. They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water . . . March 29, 1858
March 29, 2019
Walden is first clear after to-day. March 29, 1859
Calm, warmer, and pleasant at once. March 29, 1860
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue Waters in Spring
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 29
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt29march
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