People do not remember so great a flood.

April 23.

The water has risen one and a half inches at six this morning since last night. It is now, then, eight and a half inches above the iron truss, i. e. the horizontal part of it. There is absolutely no passing, in carriages or otherwise, over Hubbard's and the Red Bridge roads, and over none of the bridges for foot- travellers. Throughout this part of the country most people do not remember so great a flood, but, judging from some accounts, it was probably as high here thirty-five years ago. 

The willow catkins have made but little progress for a week. They have suffered from the cold rain and wind, and are partly blasted. 

It is a pleasant sight, among the pleasantest, at this season, to see the at first reddish anthers of the sterile catkins of our earliest willow bursting forth on their upper sides like rays of sunshine from amidst the downy fog, turning a more and more lively yellow as the pollen appears, – like a flash of sulphur. It is like the sun bursting out of a downy cloud or mists.

I hear this morning, in the pine woods above the railroad bridge, for the first time, that delicious cool-sounding wetter-wetter-wetter-wetter-wet’ from that small bird (pine warbler ?) in the tops of the pines. I associate it with the cool, moist, evergreen spring woods. 

The wood pewee [?} on an elm sings now peer-r-weet peer-r-weet, peer-wee’. It is not the simple peer-r-wet peer-r-wee' that I heard at first. Will it not change next to that more tender strain? 

Vegetation starts when the earth's axis is sufficiently inclined; i. e. it follows the sun. Insects and all the smaller animals (as well as many larger) follow vegetation. The fishes, the small fry, start probably for this reason; worms come out of the trees; buffaloes finally seek new pastures; water-bugs appear on the water, etc., etc. Next, the large fish and fish hawks, etc., follow the small fry; flycatchers follow the insects and worms. (The granivorous birds, who can depend on the supplies of dry seeds of last year, are to some extent independent of the seasons, and can remain through the winter or come early in the spring, and they furnish food for a few birds of prey at that season.) Indians follow the buffaloes; trout, suckers, etc., follow the water-bugs, etc.; reptiles follow vegetation, insects, and worms; birds of prey, the fly- catchers, etc. Man follows all, and all follow the sun.

The greater or less abundance of food determines migrations. If the buds are deceived and suffer from frost, then are the birds. The great necessary of life for the brute creation is food; next, perhaps, shelter, i.e. a suitable climate; thirdly, perhaps, security from foes.

The storm may be said to have fairly ended last night. I observed yesterday that it was drier in most fields, pastures, and even meadows that were not reached by the flood, immediately after this remarkable fall of water than at the beginning. The condition of the fields has been steadily improving for walkers. I think one reason is that there was some frost in the ground which the rain melted, so that the ground soaked up the water. But no doubt it goes to prove dryness of our sandy soil and absence of springs. 

At 6 P. M. the water has fallen an inch and a half.

Heard the pigeon woodpecker today, that long-continued unmusical note, somewhat like a robin's, heard afar, yet pleasant to hear because associated with a more advanced stage of the season. 

Saw the Fringilla hyemalis to-day, lingering still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1852

The water has risen one and a half inches at six this morning since last night.  See April 22, 1852 ("This makes five stormy days. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday . . . The water at 6 P. M. is one and a half inches higher than in the morning , i.e. seven inches above the iron truss.") See also April 22, 1856 ("These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize the season."); April 22, 1857 ("The river higher than before and rising."); April 22, 1859 ("This afternoon there is an east wind, and a rain-storm accordingly beginning, the eighth of the kind with this wind."); April 22, 1861 ("It was high water again about a week ago.")

People do not remember so great a flood, but, judging from some accounts, it was probably as high here thirty-five years ago. See August 25, 1856 ("I was suggesting yesterday, as I have often before, that the town should provide a stone monument to be placed in the river . . . to record each high or low stage of the water. Now, when we have a remarkable freshet, we cannot tell surely whether it is higher than the one thirty or sixty years ago or not. ")

The at first reddish anthers of the sterile catkins of our earliest willow bursting forth on their upper sides like rays of sunshine See April 12, 1852 ("Saw the first blossoms (bright-yellow stamens or pistils) on the willow catkins to-day . . . The yellow blossom appears first on one side of the ament and is the most of bright and sunny color the spring has shown, the most decidedly flower-like that I have seen. . . It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow, the color of the sun."); April 16, 1852 ("That large early swamp (?) willow catkin (the sterile blossom) opens on one side like a tinge of golden sunlight, the yellow anthers bursting through the down that invests the scales.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding 

In the pine woods above the railroad bridge, for the first time, that delicious cool-sounding wetter-wetter-wetter-wetter-wet’ from that small bird. See April 11, 1856 ("And hear in the old place, the pitch pine grove on the bank by the river, the pleasant ringing note of the pine warbler. Its a-che, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vitter vitter, vet rings through the open pine grove very rapidly. I also heard it at the old place by the railroad, as I came along. It is remarkable that I have so often heard it first in these two localities"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Will it not change next to that more tender strain?  See note to April 14, 1852 ("I do not hear those peculiar tender die-away notes from the pewee yet. Is it another pewee, or a later note?")

All follow the sun. See September 13, 1852 ("How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! . . . As the planet in its orbit and around its axis, so do the seasons . . . The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay.”);  March 18, 1856 (“Two little water-bugs . . . here they are, in the first open and smooth water, governed by the altitude of the sun.”); April 24, 1854 ("The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile. Each creature awaits with confidence its proper degree of heat"); April 26, 1854 ("The buds start, then the insects, then the birds."); September 18, 1852 ("In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve

Heard the pigeon woodpecker today. See  April 23, 1855 ("Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

April 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 23

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, People do not remember so great a flood

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

Mouse-ear in blossom.

April 22.

Had mouse-ear in blossom for a week. Observed the crowfoot on the Cliffs in abundance, and the saxifrage. 

The wind last Wednesday, April 16th, blew down a hundred pines on Fair Haven Hill. 

Having treated my friend ill, I wished to apologize; but, not meeting him, I made an apology to myself. It is not the invitation which I hear, but which I feel, that I obey.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1851

Had mouse-ear in blossom for a week. See April 6, 1858 ("No mouse-ear there yet"); April 11, 1858 ("Mouse-ear, not yet. "); April 15, 1853 ("Mouse-ear"); April 15, 1860 ("Mouse-ear"); April 29, 1854 ("The mouse-ear is now fairly in blossom in many places. It never looks so pretty as now in an April rain, covered with pearly drops."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

The crowfoot on the Cliffs in abundance, and the saxifrage. See April 13, 1854 ("One or two crowfoots Lee's Cliff, fully out, surprise me like a flame bursting from the russet ground. The saxifrage is pretty common, ahead of the crowfoot now, and its peduncles have shot up."); April 23, 1854 ("Crowfoot is not yet abundant, though it was earlier than saxifrage, which has now gone ahead "); April 30, 1855 ("Crowfoot and saxifrage are now in prime at Lee’s; they yellow and whiten the ground.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis)

Mouse-ear in blossom

the crowfoot in abundance

and the saxifrage.

Oh Forsythia

April 16, 2024

Oh Forsythia!

asteroids tumbling in space

awake in the night.