The aspect of the meadow is sky-blue and dark-blue.

February 27.

 2 P. M. — Thermometer 50.

February 27, 2015

February 27, 2020

To Abner Buttrick' s Hill. 

The river has been breaking up for several days and I now see great cakes lodged against each of the bridges, especially at Hunt's and the North Bridge, where the river flows with the wind. 

For a week or more you could not go to Ball's Hill by the south side of the river. The channel is now open, at least from our neighborhood all the way to Ball's Hill [ Yes , and upward as far as Cardinal Shore, the reach above Hubbard 's Bridge being open; thence it is mackerelled up to the pond], except the masses of ice moving in it; but the ice generally rests on the bottom of the meadows, — such as was there before the water rose, — and the freshet is for the most part covered with a thin ice except where the wind has broke it up. 

The high wind for several days has prevented this water from freezing hard. 

There are many cranberries washed far on to a large cake of ice which stretches across the river at Hunt's Bridge. The wind subsiding leaves them conspicuous on the middle of the cake. 

I noticed yesterday that the skunk-cabbage had not started yet at Well Meadow, and had been considerably frost-bitten. 

Heywood says that when the ground is regularly descending from the north to the railroad, a low fence a quarter of a mile off has been found to answer perfectly; if it slopes upward, it must be very near the road. 

I walk down the river below Flint's on the north side. 

The sudden apparition of this dark-blue water on the surface of the earth is exciting. I must now walk where I can see the most water, as to the most living part of nature. This is the blood of the earth, and we see its blue arteries pulsing with new life now. 

I see, from far over the meadows, white cakes of ice gliding swiftly down the stream, - a novel sight. They are whiter than ever in this spring sun. The abundance of light as reflected from clouds and the snow, etc., etc. is more springlike than anything of late. 

For several days the earth generally has been bare. I see the tawny and brown earth, the fescue- and lichen-clad hills behind Dakin's and A. Buttrick's. 

Among the radical leaves most common, and therefore early-noticed, are the veronica and the thistle, - green in the midst of brown and decayed; and at the bottom of little hollows in pastures, now perhaps nearly covered with ice and water, you see some greener leafets of clover. 

I find myself cut off by that arm of our meadow sea which makes up toward A. Buttrick's. The walker now by the river valley is often compelled to go far round by the water, driven far toward the farmers' door-yards.

I had noticed for some time, far in the middle of the Great Meadows, something dazzlingly white, which I took, of course, to be a small cake of ice on its end, but now that I have climbed the pitch pine hill and can overlook the whole meadow, I see it to be the white breast of a male sheldrake accompanied perhaps by his mate (a darker one). They have settled warily in the very midst of the meadow, where the wind has blown a space of clear water for an acre or two. The aspect of the meadow is sky-blue and dark-blue, the former a thin ice, the latter the spaces of open water which the wind has made, but it is chiefly ice still. Thus, as soon as the river breaks up or begins to break up fairly, and the strong wind widening the cracks makes at length open spaces in the ice of the meadow, this hardy bird appears, and is seen sailing in the first widened crack in the ice, where it can come at the water. 

Instead of a piece of ice I find it to be the breast of the sheldrake, which so reflects the light as to look larger than it is, steadily sailing this way and that with its companion, who is diving from time to time. They have chosen the opening farthest removed from all shores. As I look I see the ice drifting in upon them and contracting their water, till finally they have but a few square rods left, while there are forty or fifty acres near by. This is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of.

C. saw a skater-insect on E. Hubbard's Close brook in woods to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1860

The river has been breaking up for several days . . .  The channel is now open, at least from our neighborhood all the way to Ball's Hill. Compare  February 27, 1856 ( the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.") and February 27, 1852 ("The main river is not yet open but in very few places, but the North Branch, which is so much more rapid, is open near Tarbell's and Harrington's, where I walked to-day, and, flowing with full tide bordered with ice on either side, sparkles in the clear, cool air, This restless and now swollen stream has burst its icy fetters, and as I stand looking up it westward for half a mile, where it winds slightly under a high bank, its surface is lit up here and there with a fine-grained silvery sparkle which makes the river appear something celestial"). See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau,  Ice out

I noticed yesterday that the skunk-cabbage had not started yet at Well Meadow, and had been considerably frost-bitten. See February 13, 1851 ("Saw in a warm, muddy brook in Sudbury, quite open and exposed, the skunk-cabbage spathes above water. The tops of the spathes were frost- bitten, but the fruit sound. There was one partly expanded.The first flower of the season; for it is a flower. I doubt if there is [a] month without its flower. Examined by the botany all its parts, the first flower I have seen. The Ictodes fætidus.");  February 18, 1851 (" See the skunk-cabbage in flower.”); March 18, 1860 (“Skunk-cabbage, now generally and abundantly in bloom all along under Clamshell.”); March 21, 1858 (“The skunk-cabbage at Clamshell is well out, shedding pollen. The date of its flowering is very fluctuating.”); March 26, 1857 (“At Well Meadow Head, am surprised to find the skunk-cabbage in flower, . . .The first croaking frogs, the hyla, the white maple blossoms, the skunk-cabbage, and the alder’s catkins are observed about the same time.”); March 30, 1856 ("I am surprised to see the skunk cabbage, with its great spear-heads open and ready to blossom (i. e. shed pollen in a day or two)"); April 7, 1855 ("The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season.")

White cakes of ice gliding swiftly down the stream are whiter than ever in this spring sun. The abundance of light as reflected from clouds and the snow, etc., etc. is more springlike than anything of late. See March 1, 1855 ("Banks of snow by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling white due to the higher sun.")

The sudden apparition of this dark-blue water on the surface of the earth is exciting. I must now walk where I can see the most water, as to the most living part of nature. See February 12, 1860 ("Where the agitated surface of the river is exposed,[I see] the blue-black water.That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring? How its darkness contrasts with the general lightness of the winter! It has more life in it than any part of the earth's surface. It is where one of the arteries of the earth is palpable, visible. . . .It excites me to see early in the spring that black artery leaping once more through the snow-clad town. All is tumult and life there, not to mention the rails and cranberries that are drifting in it. Where this artery is shallowest, i. e., comes nearest to the surface and runs swiftest, there it shows itself soonest and you may see its pulse beat. These are the wrists, temples, of the earth, where I feel its pulse with my eye. The living waters, not the dead earth. It is as if the dormant earth opened its dark and liquid eye upon us.") Compare March 12, 1854 ("A new feature is being added to the landscape, and that is expanses and reaches of blue water. This great expanse of deep-blue water, deeper than the sky, why does it not blue my soul as of yore? It is hard to soften me now. The time was when this great blue scene would have tinged my spirit more.")

This is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of. See March 1, 1856 ("Singular that this hardy bird should have found this small opening, which I had forgotten, while the ice everywhere else was from one to two feet thick, and the snow sixteen inches on a level. , , , Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

The season is detected by the aspect of the clouds.

March 22.

P. M. – Launch my boat and row downstream.

There is a strong and cool northwest wind. 

Leaving our boat just below N. Barrett's, we walk down the shore. We see many gulls on the very opposite side of the meadow, near the woods. They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are. Being strung along one every rod, they made me think of a fleet in line of battle. 

We go along to the pitch pine hill off Abner Buttrick's, and, finding a sheltered and sunny place, we watch the ducks from it with our glass. There are not only gulls, but about forty black ducks and as many sheldrakes, and, I think, two wood ducks. The gulls appear considerably the largest and make the most show, they are so uniformly light-colored. 

At a distance, as I have said, they look like snowy masses, and even nearer they have a lumpish look, like a mass of cotton, the head being light as well as the breast. They are seen sailing about in the shallow water, or standing motionless on a clod that just rises above the surface, in which position they have a particularly clumsy look; or one or two may be seen slowly wheeling about above the rest. From time to time the whole flock of gulls suddenly rises and begins circling about, and at last they settle down in some new place and order. 

With these were at first associated about forty black ducks, pretty close together, sometimes apparently in close single lines, some looking lumpish like decoys of wood, others standing on the bottom and reminding me of penguins. They were constantly diving with great energy, making the water fly apparently two feet upward in a thick shower. Then away they all go, circling about for ten minutes at least before they can decide where to alight. 

The black heads and white breasts, which may be golden-eyes, for they are evidently paired, male and female, for the most part, —and yet I thought that I saw the red bill of the sheldrake [They are sheldrakes], —these are most incessantly and skillfully plunging and from time to time apparently pursuing each other. They are much more active, whether diving or swimming about, than you expect ducks to be. Now, perchance, they are seen changing their ground, swimming off, perhaps, two by two, in pairs, very steadily and swiftly, without diving. 

I see two of these very far off on a bright-blue bay where the waves are running high. They are two intensely white specks, which yet you might mistake for the foaming crest of waves. Now one disappears, but soon is seen again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, having dived. 

I see those peculiar spring (?) clouds, scattered cumuli with dark level bases. No doubt the season is to be detected by the aspect of the clouds no less than by that of the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1858

Launch my boat and row downstream. See March 16, 1859 ("Launch my boat and sail to Ball's Hill. It is fine clear weather and a strong northwest wind"); March 17, 1857 ("Launch my boat."); March 19, 1855 ("Launch my boat.");March 22, 1854 ("Launch boat and paddle to Fair Haven. Still very cold"); April 19, 1858 ("Spend the day hunting for my boat, which was stolen.")

Forty black ducks, pretty close together, sometimes apparently in close single lines. See March 22, 1854 ("Scare up my flock of black ducks and count forty together.")

Sheldrakes two by two. See March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen"); March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 16, 1854 ("I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them."); March 16, 1860 ("Saw a flock of sheldrakes a hundred rods off, on the Great Meadows, mostly males with a few females, all intent on fishing.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are. See April 15, 1855 ("It is remarkable how much light those white gulls . . . absorb and reflect through that sombre atmosphere, — conspicuous almost as candles in the night."); March 29, 1854 ("A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air.")

A remarkably cold, as well as snowy, January.

January 26. 

When I took the ether my consciousness amounted to this: I put my finger on myself in order to keep the place, otherwise I should never have returned to this world. 

They have cut and sawed off the butt of the great elm at nine and a half feet from the ground, and I counted the annual rings there with the greatest ease and accuracy. Indeed I never saw them so distinct on a large butt. The tree was quite sound there, not the least hollow even at the pith. 

There were one hundred and twenty—seven rings. Supposing the tree to have been five years old when nine and a half feet high, then it was one hundred and thirty-two years old, or came up in the year 1724, just before Lovewell’s Fight. 

There were two centres, fourteen inches apart. There were thirteen distinct rings about each centre, before they united and one ring inclosed both. Then there was a piece of bark,  say six or eight inches long. This was not overgrown but by the twenty—fourth ring. 

These two centres of growth corresponded in position to the two main branches six feet above, and I inferred that when the tree was about eighteen years old, the fork commenced at nine and a half feet from the ground, but as it increased in diameter, it united higher and higher up. 

I remember that the bark was considerably nearer one centre than the other. There was bark in several places completely overgrown and included on the extreme butt end where cut off, having apparently overgrown its own furrows. 

Its diameter, where I counted the rings, was, one way, as near as I could measure in spite of the carf, four feet and three inches; another, four feet and eight inches; and five feet. On the line by which I counted, which was the long way of the tree, it had grown in the first fifty years twenty inches, or two fifths of an inch a year; the last fifty, five and three quarters inches or about one ninth of an inch a year; and there was a space of about five inches between the two, or for the intermediate twenty-seven years.

At this height, it had grown on an average annually nearly twenty-four one-hundredths of an inch from the centre on one side. 

The white or sap wood averaged about two inches thick. The bark was from one to two inches thick, and in the last case I could count from twelve to fifteen distinct rings in it, as if it were regularly shed after that period. 

The court-house elm measured, at six feet from the ground on the west side, twelve feet one and one half inches in circumference. The willow by the Jim Jones house, fourteen feet at about eighteen inches from ground; thirteen feet eight inches, at about six inches from ground; and it bulged out much larger above this. 

P. M. —Walk down the river as far as the south bend behind Abner Buttrick’s. I also know its condition as far as the Hubbard Bridge in the other direction.

There is not a square foot open between these extremes, and, judging from what I know of the river beyond these limits, I may safely say that it is not open (the main stream, I mean) anywhere in the town. (Of the North Branch above the Bath Place, the goose ground, say to the stone bridge, I cannot speak confidently?) The same must have been the case yesterday, since it was colder. Probably the same has been true of the river, excepting the small Space against Merrick’s below the Rock (now closed), since January 7th, when it closed at the Hubbard Bath, or nearly three weeks, —a long time, methinks, for it to be frozen so solidly. 

A sleigh might safely be driven now from Carlisle Bridge to the Sudbury meadows on the river.

Methinks it is a remarkably cold, as well as snowy, January, for we have had good sleighing ever since the 26th of December and no thaw. 

Walk as far as Flint’s Bridge with Abel Hunt, where I take to the river. I tell him I have come to walk on the river as the best place, for the snow has drifted somewhat in the road, while it was converted into ice almost entirely on the river. 

“But,” asks he, “are you not afraid that you will get in?” 

“Oh, no, it will bear a load of wood from one end to the other.” 

"But then there may be some weak places.” 

Yet he is some seventy years old and was born and bred immediately on its banks. Truly one half the world does not know how the other half lives.  

Men have been talking now for a week at the post office about the age of the great elm, as a matter interesting but impossible to be determined. The very choppers and travellers have stood upon its prostrate trunk and speculated upon its age, as if it were a profound mystery. I stooped and read its years to them (127 at nine and a half feet), but they heard me as the wind that once sighed through its branches. They still surmised that it might be two hundred years old, but they never stooped to read the inscription. 

Truly they love darkness rather than light. One said it was probably one hundred and fifty, for he had heard somebody say that for fifty years the elm grew, for fifty it stood still, and for fifty it was dying. (Wonder what portion of his career he stood still!) 

Truly all men are not men of science. They dwell within an integument of prejudice thicker than the bark of the cork tree, but it is valuable chiefly to stop bottles with. Tied to their buoyant prejudices, they keep themselves afloat when honest swimmers sink.

The white maple buds look large, with bursting downy scales as in spring. 

I observe that the crust is strongest over meadows, though the snow is deep there and there is no ice nor water beneath, but in pastures and upland generally I break through. Probably there is more moisture to be frozen in the former places, and the snow is more compact.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 26, 1856

When I took the ether ... See May 12, 1851

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.

October 25.

7 A M To Hubbard s Grove .

The rain is over, the ground swept and washed. There is a high and cold west wind.  Birds fly with difficulty against it.   The brooks and the river are unexpectedly swelled with yesterday’s rain. The river is a very dark blue. The wind roars in the wood.  A maple is blown down.

PM -- Sail down river to the pitch pine hill behind Abner Buttrick's, with a strong northwest wind, and cold. 

The white maples are completely bare. The tall dry grass along the shore rustles in the cold wind. The shores are very naked now. 

I am surprised to see how much the river has risen.

The swamp white oaks in front of N. Barrett's — their leafy tops — look quite silvery at a distance in the sun, very different from near to.  

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 25, 1853

The tall dry grass along the shore rustles in the cold wind. See October 25, 1854 ("[T]he withered reeds on the brink reflected in the water."); October 25, 1855 ("The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore.”)

The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight. See October 25, 1858 (“The silvery sheen of pine—needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles.”) See also October 22, 1851 ("[T]he ground in the pine woods is strewn with the newly fallen needles. "); October 26, 1855 ("The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. “) and
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

Black Fruit

March 16.

2 P. M. — Thermometer 55; wind slight, west by south. To Abner Buttrick's Hill. 

The buttercup radical leaves are many of them now a healthy dark green, as if they had acquired new life. I notice that such are particularly downy, and probably that enables them to endure the cold so well, like mulleins. Those and thistles and shepherd's-purse, etc., have the form of rosettes on the brown ground.

Here is a flock of red-wings. I heard one yesterday, and I see a female among these. How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder! They are not so very shy, but mute when we come near. They cover the apple trees like a black fruit.

The air is full of song sparrows and bluebirds to-day. The minister asked me yesterday: “What birds are they that make these little tinkling sounds? I haven't seen one.” Song sparrows. 

C  saw a green fly yesterday. 

Saw a flock of sheldrakes a hundred rods off, on the Great Meadows, mostly males with a few females, all intent on fishing. They were coasting along a spit of bare ground that showed itself in the middle of the meadow, sometimes the whole twelve apparently in a straight line at nearly equal distances apart, with each its head under water, rapidly coasting along back and forth, and ever and anon one, having caught something, would be pursued by the others.

It is remarkable that they find their finny prey on the middle of the meadow now, and even on the very inmost side, as I afterward saw, though the water is quite low. Of course, as soon as they are seen on the meadows there are fishes there to be caught. I never see them fish thus in the channel. Perhaps the fishes lie up there for warmth already.

I also see two gulls nearly a mile off. One stands still and erect for three quarters of an hour, or till disturbed, on a little bit of floated meadow-crust which rises above the water, — just room for it to stand on, — with its great white breast toward the wind. Then another comes flying past it, and alights on a similar perch, but which does not rise quite to the surface, so that it stands in the water. Thus they will stand for an hour, at least. They are not of handsome form, but look like great wooden images of birds, bluish-slate and white. But when they fly they are quite another creature. 

The grass is covered with gossamer to-day, though I notice no floating flocks. This, then, is a phenomenon of the first warm and calm day after the ground is bare. 

See larks about, though I have heard of them in the winter.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal , March 16, 1860

They cover the apple trees like a black fruit. See March 6, 1854 ("Hear and see the first blackbird, flying east over the Deep Cut, with a tchuck, tchuck, and finally a split whistle."); March 12, 1854 ("This is the blackbird morning. Their sprayey notes and conqueree ring with the song sparrows' jingle all along the river. Thus gradually they acquire confidence to sing."); March 19, 1855 (" I hear at last the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird and, looking up, see him flying high over the river southwesterly in great haste to reach somewhere."); March 22, 1855 ("[T]he blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e from time to time on the top of a willow or elm or maple, but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck.”); April 30, 1855 ("Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling, — all for some purpose; what is it? ”; April 25, 1860 ("I  hear the greatest concerts of blackbirds, – red wings and crow blackbirds nowadays. . .They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed over the top at pretty equal distances.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The Red-Wing Arrives

Saw a flock of sheldrakes a hundred rods off, on the Great Meadows. See March 16, 1854 ("I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them.Watch them at leisure without scaring them, with my glass; observe their free and undisturbed motions. They dive and are gone some time, and come up a rod off. At first I see but one, then, a minute after, three. "); March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . . I think it the goosander or sheldrake. ") See also March 5, 1857 ("I scare up six male sheldrakes, with their black heads, in the Assabet,—the first ducks I have seen"); March 12, 1855 ("Two ducks in river, good size, white beneath with black heads, as they go over."); March 22, 1858 ("We go along to the pitch pine hill off Abner Buttrick's, and, finding a sheltered and sunny place, we watch the ducks from it with our glass. There are not only gulls, but about forty black ducks and as many sheldrakes . . . I see two of these very far off on a bright-blue bay where the waves are running high. They are two intensely white specks, which yet you might mistake for the foaming crest of waves. Now one disappears, but soon is seen again, and then its companion is lost in like manner, having dived.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Thus they will stand for an hour. . . like great wooden images of birds. See March 18, 1855 ("Like a wooden image of a bird he stands there, heavy to look at; head, breast, beneath, and rump pure white; slate-colored wings tipped with black and extending beyond the tail,— the herring gull.")

But when they fly they are quite another creature. See March 29, 1854 ("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."); see also March 22, 1858 ("They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are")