A-chestnutting with four ladies.

January 10. 

Went a-chestnutting this afternoon to Smith's wood-lot near the Turnpike. 

Carried four ladies. I raked. We got six and a half quarts, the ground being bare and the leaves not frozen. 

The fourth remarkably mild day. 

I found thirty-five chestnuts in a little pile under the end of a stick under the leaves, near — within a foot of — what I should call a gallery of a meadow mouse. These galleries were quite common as I raked. 

There was no nest nor apparent cavity about this store. Aunt M. found another with sixteen in it.

Many chestnuts are still in the burs on the ground. 

Aunt found a twig which had apparently fallen prematurely, with eight small burs, all within the compass of its five or six inches, and all but one full of nuts. 

The galleries above named were evidently permanent and not made by one trip.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 10, 1853


Went a-chestnutting this afternoon carried four ladies.See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.): August 4, 1856 ("Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat."); September 25, 1858 ("Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.").

Aunt found a twig with eight small burs, and all but one full of nuts. See October 18, 1856  ("Within this thick prickly bur the nuts are about as safe until they are quite mature, as a porcupine behind its spines."); October 24, 1857 ("To Smith's chestnut grove. . . . I get a couple of quarts of chestnuts by patiently brushing the thick beds of leaves aside with my hand in successive concentric circles till I reach the trunk; . . .It is best to reduce it to a system. Of course you will shake the tree first, if there are any on it. The nuts lie commonly two or three together, as they fell. . . .As I go stooping and brushing the leaves aside by the hour, I am not thinking of chestnuts merely, but I find myself humming a thought of more significance."); December 27, 1852 ("Found chestnuts quite plenty to-day."); December 31, 1852("I was this afternoon gathering chestnuts at Saw Mill Brook. I have within a few weeks spent some hours thus, scraping away the leaves with my hands and feet over some square rods, and have at least learned how chestnuts are planted and new forests raised."); January 25, 1853 ("I still pick chestnuts.")

January 10. 

See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 10

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 © 2009-2022

Half an hour standing perfectly still to hear the frogs croak.

March 27.

Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore. Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound nor take their eyes off me, - were plainly affected by curiosity. 

Dark brown and some, perhaps, dark green, about two inches long; had their noses and eyes out when they croaked. If described at all, must be either young of Rana pipiens or the R. palustris.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , March 27, 1853

March 28. My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which however I did not promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard through the partition shouting to my Aunt Jane, who is deaf, "Think of it! He stood half an hour to-day to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn't read the life of Chalmers."

See also April 8, 1852: "To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, and see dimples on the surface, which I suppose that they make, for when I approach they are silent and the dimples are no longer seen."

May 9, 1860:  “We sit by the shore of Goose Pond. … After sitting there a little while, I count noses of twenty frogs. It is a still, cloudy, thoughtful day.”

And July 17, 1854: "I watch them [white lillies] for an hour and a half."