So the tree gets planted!

July 14.

P. M. — To Muhlenbergii Brook. 

Anthony Wright found a lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th in E. Hubbard's meadow by ash tree, — two nests, probably one a second brood. 

Nasturtium hispidum (?), apparently three or four days. 

See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside. 

Bass out about two days at Island. 

There is a pyrus twenty feet high with small fruit at Assabet Spring. 

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook, some days. 

Saw apparently my little ruby(?)-crested wren(?) on the weeds there. 

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. 

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. 

Ceratophyllum with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. 

While drinking at Assabet Spring in woods, noticed a cherry-stone on the bottom. A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. So the tree gets planted!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1856

Bass out about two days at Island. See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars"); July 18, 1854 ("We have very few bass trees in Concord, but walk near them at this season and they will be betrayed, though several rods off, by the wonderful susurrus of the bees, etc., which their flowers attract.") Compre July 3, 1853 ("There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year."); June 3, 1857 ("The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Basswood

Saw apparently my little ruby-crested wren on the weeds there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

 ("

While drinking at Assabet Spring. See May 2, 1855 ("Open the Assabet spring."); July 12, 1857 ("I drink at every cooler spring in my walk these afternoons."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Assabet Spring

A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. See September 1, 1860 ("See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it. . . .The bird is bribed with the pericarp to take the stone with it and do this little service for Nature. Thus a bird's wing is added to the cherry-stone which was wingless, and it does not wait for winds to transport it."); also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that ... those [seeds] the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds") and  August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them.").

I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle.

March 22.

P. M.—To white maples and up Assabet.

The ice of the river is very rapidly softening, still concealed by snow, the upper part becoming homogeneous with the melting snow above it. I sometimes slump into snow and ice six or eight inches, to the harder ice beneath. I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch. 

Many tracks of crows in snow along the edge of the open water against Merrick’s at Island. They thus visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? 

The snow now no longer bears you. It has become very coarse-grained under the sun, and I hear it sink around me as I walk. 

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. Probably in equally warm positions they would have begun to flow as early as those red ones which I have tapped. Their buds, and apparently some of the red ones, are visibly swollen. This probably follows directly on the flowing of the sap. In three instances I cut off a twig, and sap flowed  and dropped from the part attached to the tree, but in no case would any sap flow from the part cut off (I mean where I first had cut it), which appears to show that the sap is now running up. I also cut a notch in a branch two inches in diameter, and the upper side of the cut remained dry, while sap flowed from the lower side, but in another instance both sides were wet at once and equally. 

The sap, then, is now generally flowing upward in red and white maples in warm positions. See it flowing from maple twigs which were gnawed off by rabbits in the winter. 

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow. 

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned, though it is all ice and snow around the country over. Do not see any flying, nor before this. 

The woodchoppers, who are cutting the wood at Assabet Spring, now at last go to their work up the middle of the river, but one got in yesterday, one leg the whole length. It is rotted through in many places behind Prichard’s. 

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. It has also oozed out from the twigs, especially those that are a little drooping, and run down a foot or two bathing them sometimes all around, both twigs and buds sometimes, or collected in drops on the under sides of the twigs and all evaporated to molasses, which is, for the most part, as black as blacking or ink, having probably caught the dust, etc., even over all this snow. Yet it is as sweet and thick as molasses, and the twigs and buds look as if blacked and polished. Black drops of this thick, sweet syrup spot the under sides of the twigs. 

No doubt the bees and‘other insects frequent the maples now. I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. It is as thick as molasses. See a fuzzy gnat on it. It is especially apt to collect about the bases of the twigs, where the stream is delayed. Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. 

I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips. 

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1856

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned . . . Do not see any flying, nor before this. See March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . The perla insects still about ice and water,"); See also March 3, 1860 ("I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 24, 1857 ("I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light..") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active

[Crows] visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? See March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat?"); March 22, 1855 ("I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare, three weeks ago.")

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water, and C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow.") See also March 18, 1854 ("The willow catkins this side M. Miles's five eighths of an inch long and show some red. "); March 21, 1855 ("Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least . . .It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.");  March 21, 1859 ("The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. "); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. See January 4, 1859("When it grew late. . . I mistook the distant sound of the locomotive whistle for the hoot of an owl."); November 21, 1857 ("I hear, I think, a boy whistling upon the bank above me, but immediately perceive that it is the whistle of the locomotive a mile off in that direction.") Compare December 31, 1853 ("I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles

The hum of a bee?

Perhaps the railroad whistle

on the Lowell line.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I thought I heard the hum of a bee.

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/hdt-560322

An otter trail

February 20.

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday. It came out to the river through the low declivities, making a uniform broad hollow trail there without any mark of its feet. On reaching the river, it had come along under the bank, from time to time looking into the crevices where it might get under the ice there, sometimes ascending the bank and sliding back. 

Commonly seven to nine or ten inches wide, and tracks of feet twenty to twenty-four apart; but sometimes there was no track of the feet for twenty-five feet, frequently for six; in the last case swelled in the outline. 

Having come down as far as opposite the great white on the hill, it returned on its track and entered a hole under the ice at Assabet Spring, from which it has not issued.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 20, 1856

See  March 6, 1856 ("On the rock this side the Leaning Hemlocks, is the track of an otter.”);April 6, 1855 ("it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen."); February 20, 1855 (among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare.”); February 4, 1855 ("See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock”); January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him”).

Tracks in fresh snow.

February 9.

February 9, 2020

How much the northwest wind prevails in the winter! Almost all our storms come from that quarter, and the ridges of snow-drifts run that way. 

If the Indians placed their heaven in the southwest on account of the warmth of the southwest wind, they might have made a stern winter god of the northwest wind. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 3.30 P. M., thermometer 30°. 

This and yesterday comparatively warm weather. Half an inch of snow fell this forenoon, but now it has cleared up. 

I see a few squirrel-tracks, but no mice-tracks, for no night has intervened since the snow. 

It is only where the river washes a wooded bank that I see mice or even squirrel tracks; elsewhere only where dogs and foxes have traversed it. For example, there are no tracks on the side of the river against Hosmer’s and Emerson’s land, though many alders, etc., there, but many tracks commonly on the opposite wooded side. 

In the swamp west of Pigeon Rock, I see where the rabbits have bitten off the swamp white oak sprouts, where they have sprung up tender, looking like poplar, from stocks broken by the ice last winter. 

I hear a phoebe note from a chickadee. 

See a pensile nest eighteen feet high, within a lichen clad red maple on the edge of the Assabet Spring or Pink Azalea Swamp. It looks very much like a bunch of the lichens dangling, and I was not sure it was not till I climb up to it. 

Without, it is chiefly the coarse greenish lichens of the maple, bound with coarse bits of bark and perhaps bleached milkweed bark (?) and brown cocoon silk, and within, a thin lining of pine needles, hemlock twigs, and the like. Is it a yellow throat vireo’s? 

It is not shaped like the red-eye’s, on a side twig to one of the limbs and about a foot from the end of the twig.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1856

Half an inch of snow fell this forenoon, but now it has cleared up. See February 9, 1851 ("Now we do not think of autumn when we look on this snow. That earth is effectually buried. It is midwinter."); February 9, 1855 ("A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level"); February 9, 1858 (" Begins to snow at noon, and about one inch falls, whitening the ground.")

I hear a phoebe note from a chickadee. See February 9, 1854 ("I heard one wiry phe-be.") See also  January 9, 1858 ("Some chickadees come flitting close to me, and one utters its spring note, phe-be, for which I feel under obligations to him."); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day. “); March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee,”); March 10, 1852 ("Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  February 9

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 ©  2009-2023

Alll the fields and meadows are covered deep with snow

January 3.

Snows again. About two inches have fallen in the night, but it turns to a fine mist. It was a damp snow.

P. M. —— To Hill.

The snow turned to a fine mist or mizzling, through which I see a little blue in the snow, lurking in the ruts.

In the river meadows and on the (perhaps moist) sides of the hill, how common and conspicuous the brown spear-heads of the hardhack, above the snow, and looking black by contrast with it!

Just beyond the Assabet Spring I see where a squirrel, gray or red, dug through the snow last night in search of acorns. I know it was last night, for it was while the last snow was falling, and the tracks are partly filled by it.

This squirrel has burrowed to the ground in many places within a few yards, probing the leaves for acorns in various directions, making a short burrow under the snow, sometimes passing under the snow a yard and coming out at another place; for, though it is somewhat hardened on the surface by the nightly freezing and the hail, it is still quite soft and light beneath next the earth, and a squirrel or mouse can burrow very fast indeed there. I am surprised to find how easily I can pass my hand through it there. In many places it has dropped the leaves, etc., about the mouth of the hole. (The whole snow about ten inches deep.)

I see where it sat in a young oak and ate an acorn, dropping the shells on the snow beneath, for there is no track to the shells, but only to the base of the oak. How independently they live, not alarmed, though the snow be two feet deep!

Now, when all the fields and meadows are covered deep with snow, the warm-colored shoots of osiers, red and yellow, rising above it, remind me of flames.

It is astonishing how far a merely well-dressed and good-looking man may go without being challenged by any sentinel. What is called good society will bid high for such. The man whom the State has raised to high office, like that of governor, for instance, from some, it may be, honest but less respected calling, cannot return to his former humble but profitable pursuits, his old customers will be so shy of him. His ex-honorableness-ship stands seriously in his way, whether he is a lawyer or a shopkeeper. He can’t get ex-honorated. So he becomes a sort of State pauper, an object of charity on its hands, which the State is bound in honor to see through and provide still with offices of similar respectability, that he may not come to want.

A man who has been President becomes the Ex-President, and can’t travel or stay at home anywhere but men will persist in paying respect to his ex-ship. It is cruel as to remember his deeds so long. When his time is out, why can’t they let the poor fellow go?

H. D Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1856

January 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 3

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 ©  2009-2023

The young aspens are the first of indigenous trees conspicuously leafed.

May 2.

May 2,, 1855

P. M. — By boat up Assabet. 

Quince begins to leaf, and pear; perhaps some of last earlier. 

Aspen leaves of young trees —or twenty to twenty-five feet high—an inch long suddenly; say yesterday began; not till the 11th last year. Leafing, then, is differently affected by the season from flowering. The leafing is apparently comparatively earlier this year than the flowering. The young aspens are the first of indigenous trees conspicuously leafed.

Diervilla, say began to leaf with viburnums. 

Amelanchier Botryapium yesterday leafed. 

That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf, —for the first seem to be bracts, — two to seven or eight feet high, very slender and curving. Apparently has three or four lanceolate toothed bracts at base of petioled catkin; male three quarters and female one inch long; scales black and silky-haired; ovary oblong-oval, stalked, downy, with a small yellowish gland not so long as its stalk. See leaf by and by. 

Saw many crow blackbirds day before yesterday. 

Vigorous look the little spots of triangular sedge (?) springing up on the river-banks, five or six inches high, yellowish below, glaucous and hoary atop, straight and rigid. 

Many clamshells have round brassy-colored spots as big as a fourpence. Found one opened by rats last winter, almost entirely the color of tarnished brass within. 

Open the Assabet spring. 

The anemone is well named, for see now the nemorosa, amid the fallen brush and leaves, trembling in the wind, so fragile. 

Hellebore seems a little later than the cabbage. 

Was that a harrier seen at first skimming low then seating and circling, with a broad whiteness on the wings beneath?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1855

Aspen are the first trees to leaf.  . . .  See May 2, 1859 (" I am surprised by the tender yellowish green of the aspen leaf just expanded suddenly, even like a fire, seen in the sun, against the dark-brown twigs of the wood, though these leafets are yet but thinly dispersed. It is very enlivening."); May 17, 1860    ("Standing in the meadow near the early aspen at the island, I hear the first fluttering of leaves, - a peculiar sound, at first unaccountable to me.") See also  A Book of Seasons,   Aspens.