The chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.

August 1

August 1, 2020

I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.

Is it the Galium circæzans which I have seen so long on Heywood Peak and elsewhere, with four broad leaves, low and branched? Put it early in June.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1853

I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.  See August 17, 1858 ("Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season."); ); October 5, 1858 ("I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”); October 7, 1860 ("Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis )


Is it the Galium circæzans which I have seen so long on Heywood Peak, with four broad leaves, low and branched? See July 22, 1852 ("Galium circæzans, wild liquorice, in Baker Farm Swamp"); August 24, 1857 ("The Galium circæzans leaves taste very much like licorice and, according to B., produce a great flow of water, also make you perspire and are good for a cold.")

Heard my night-warbler on a solitary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak.

June 19.

June 19, 2020

P. M. – To Flint ’ s Pond.

I see large patches of blue - eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window.

The pine woods at Thrush Alley emit that hot dry scent, reminding me even of days when I used to go a-blackberrying.

The air is full of the hum of invisible insects, and I hear a locust. Perhaps this sound indicates the time to put on a thin coat.

But the wood thrush sings as usual far in the wood.

A blue jay and a tanager come dashing into the pine under which I stand. The first flies directly away, screaming with suspicion or disgust, but the latter, more innocent, remains.

The cuckoo is heard, too, in the depths of the wood.

Heard my night-warbler on a solitary white pine in the Heywood Clearing by the Peak. Discovered it at last, looking like a small piece of black bark curving partly over the limb. No fork to its tail. It appeared black beneath; was very shy, not bigger than a yellowbird, and very slender.

In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush, five or six inches high, between the green stems of three or four golden rods, made of dried grass or fibres of bark, with dry oak leaves attached loosely, making the whole nine or ten inches wide, to deceive the eye. Two blue eggs. Like an accidental heap. Who taught it to do thus?

Lobelia Dortmanna, a day or two at most.

No grass balls yet.

That fine-rooted green plant on bottom sends up stems with black heads three or four inches. Do they become white?

Every one who has waded about the shores of a pond must have been surprised to find how much warmer the water was close to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than a little further out.

I think I saw a young crow now fully grown.

Returned by Smith’s Hill and the Saw Mill Brook.

Got quite a parcel of strawberries on the hill.

The hellebore leaves by the brook are already half turned yellow. Plucked one blue early blueberry.

The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival.

At this season we apprehend no long storm, only showers with or without thunder.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1853

Heard my night-warbler. Discovered it at last. See June 19, 1858 ("I do not hear the night-warbler so often as a few weeks ago. Birds generally do not sing so tumultuously.")  See also  May 17, 1858 ("Just after hearing my night-warbler I see two birds on a tree. ...[One perhaps golden-crowned thrush. ]”); May 19, 1858 (“Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low."); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”). and  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird . Note Thoreau;s night-warbler  is likely the oven-bird making its flight call. According to Emerson the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” 

In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush. See June 19, 1858 (“Boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground. ”) and note to June 23, 1858 ("That rather low wood along the path which runs parallel with the shore of Flint's Pond, behind the rock, is evidently a favorite place for veery-nests. I have seen three there.")

I think I saw a young crow now fully grown. See.July 7, 1860 ("I see a flock of some twenty-five crows. Probably the young are just grown."); July 10, 1854 ("Crows are more noisy, probably anxious about young.")

The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. See June 9, 1855 ("I think I have hardly heard a bobolink for a week or ten days.");June 15, 1852 ("The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare.") and note to July 7, 1859 ("The note of the bobolink has begun to sound rare?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields.

November 9. 

It is remarkable that the only deciduous trees in the town which now make any show with their living leaves are: (1) scarlet oaks, perhaps only one (2) Populus tremuliformis, one (3) dogwood, (the small white birch i.e. young trees) spangles hardly deserved to be named), weeping willows, Salix alba, silvery abele, poplars (Italian), some apples, some horse chestnuts, rarely wild pear trees, some English cherries (orange or yellow),—the first three alone being indigenous, to eight foreign. 

And of shrubs, there are Jersey tea, gooseberry, two kinds of rose, perhaps sweet-fern, meadow-sweet, and high blackberry; also the lilac, quince, buckthorn, broom, privet, hawthorn, and barberry, well leaved. The very few leaves on sallows, Viburnum nudum, high blueberry, and perhaps Cornus sericea, do not deserve to be named, and hardly the five above. I have not seen the bayberry or beach plums. And add, perhaps, a few other shrubs. Sweet-briar pretty (?) well leaved. (Is it foreign ?) Or of shrubs, seven foreign to about six native, and the last much the least noticeable and much the thinnest-leaved. 

There are a very few living yellow leaves on young Wild cherries yet, but these are not nearly so much to be named as the birch spangles.

The newspaper tells me that Uncannunuc was white with snow for a short time on the morning of the 7th. Thus steadily but unobserved the winter steals down from the north, till from our highest hills we can discern its vanguard. Next week, perchance, our own hills will be white. 

Little did we think how near the winter was. It is as if a scout had brought in word that an enemy were approaching in force only a day’s march distant. Manchester was the spy this time, which has a camp at the base of that hill. We had not thought seriously of winter; we dwelt in fancied security yet. 

P. M. —— To Great Fields and Walden. 

The scarlet oak by Agricultural Ground (and no doubt generally) is falling fast, and has been for some days, and they have now generally grown dull—before the leaves have lost their color. Other oaks may be said [to] have assumed their true November aspect; i. e., the larger ones are about bare. Only the latest black oaks are leafy, and they just withered. 

The trees on the hill just north of Alcott’s land, which I saw yesterday so distinctly from Ponkawtasset, and thought were either larches or aspens, prove to be larches. On a hill like this it seems they are later to change and brighter now than those in the Abel Heywood swamp, which are brownish-yellow. The first-named larches were quite as distinct amid the pines seen a mile off as near at hand. 

Oak sprouts — white and black, at least —- are a deeper and darker red than the trees. Here is a white oak sprout, for example, far brighter red than any tree of the kind I ever saw. I do not find that black oaks get to be quite scarlet or red at all, yet the very young and sprouts often are, and are hard to distinguish from the scarlet oak. 

Garfield shot a hen-hawk just as I came up on the hillside in front of his house. He has killed three within two years about his house, and they have killed two hens for him. They will fly off with a hen. In this case the hen was merely knocked over. I was surprised to find that this bird had not a red tail, and guessed it must be a young one. I brought it home and found that it was so, the same which Wilson called “ Falco leverianus, American Buzzard or White-breasted Hawk,” it differed so much from the old. There [was] little if any rufous brown about this bird. It had a white breast and prettily barred (with blackish or dark-brown) white tail-coverts; was generally dark-brown with white spots above. He says that he killed the others also at this season, and that they were marked like this. They were all young birds, then, and hence so bold or inexperienced, perhaps. They take his hens from between the house and the barn. When the hawk comes, all the hens and roosters run for the barn.

 I see catnep turned at top to a crimson purple. 

As I stood upon Heywood’s Peak, I observed in the very middle of the pond, which was smooth and reflected the sky there, what at first I took to be a sheet of very thin, dark ice two yards wide drifting there, the first ice of the season, which had formed by the shore in the morning, but immediately I considered that it was too early and warm for that. Then I wondered for a moment what dark film could be floating out there on the pure and unruffled lake. To be sure, it was not a very conspicuous object, and most would not have noticed it! But, suspecting what it was, I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes continually coming to the surface there together. It was exactly analogous to the dark rippled patches on the sea made by the menhaden as seen from Cape Cod. Why have I never observed the like in the river? In this respect, also, Walden is a small ocean. 

November 9, 2024

We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.

It is of no use to plow deeper than the soil is, unless you mean to follow up that mode of cultivation persistently, manuring highly and carting on muck at each plowing, — making a soil, in short. Yet many a man likes to tackle mighty themes, like immortality, but in his discourse he turns up nothing but yellow sand, under which what little fertile and available surface soil he may have is quite buried and lost. He should teach frugality rather,— how to postpone the fatal hour,— should plant a crop of beans. He might have raised enough of these to make a deacon of him, though never a preacher. Many a man runs his plow so deep in heavy or stony soil that it sticks fast in the furrow. 

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields, whatever it may be, not be straining as if to reach apples or oranges when he yields only ground-nuts. He should be digging, not soaring. Just as earnest as your life is, so deep is your soil. If strong and deep, you will sow wheat and raise bread of life in it. 

Now the young hen-hawks, full-grown but inexperienced, still white-breasted and brown (not red)-tailed, swoop down after the farmer’s hens, between the barn and the house, often carrying one off in their clutches, and all the rest of the pack half fly, half run, to the barn! Unwarrantably bold, one ventures to stoop before the farmer’s eyes. He clutches in haste his trusty gun, which hangs, ready loaded, on its pegs; he pursues warily to where the marauder sits teetering on a lofty pine, and when he is sailing scornfully away he meets his fate and comes fluttering head forward to earth. 

The exulting farmer hastes to secure his trophy. He treats the proud bird’s body with indignity. He carries it home to show to his wife and children, for the hens were his wife’s special care. He thinks it one of his best shots, full thirteen rods. This gun is “ an all-fired good piece” -- nothing but robin-shot. The body of the victim is ' delivered up to the children and the dog and, like the body of Hector, is dragged so many times round Troy. 

But alas for the youthful hawk, the proud bird of prey, the tenant of the skies! We shall no more see his wave-like outline against a cloud, nor hear his scream from behind one. He saw but a pheasant in the field, the food which nature has provided for him, and stooped to seize it. This was his offense. He, the native of these skies, must make way for those bog-trotters from another land, which never soar. 

The eye that was conversant with sublimity, that looked down on earth from under its sharp projecting brow, is closed; the head that was never made dizzy by any height is brought low; the feet that were not made to walk on earth now lie useless along it. With those trailing claws for grapnels it dragged the lower sky. Those wings which swept the sky must now dust the chimney-corner, perchance. So weaponed, with strong beak and talons, and wings, like a war-steamer, to carry them about. In vain were the brown-spotted eggs laid, in vain were ye cradled in the loftiest pine of the swamp. Where are your father and mother? Will they hear of your early death? before ye had acquired your full plumage, they who nursed and defended ye so faithfully?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , November 9, 1858

We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. . . . cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year. See November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine between you and it, after a raw and louring afternoon near the beginning of winter, is a memorable phenomenon. . . . After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire.");  November 29, 1853 (""Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape. . .I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets

It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields, whatever it may be. See November 16, 1850 ("My Journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only of the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what I love to think of.”); September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart."); March 13, 1853 ("The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body . . . You must get your living by loving."); May 6, 1854 ("Every important worker will report what life there is in him. All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.").

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle.

March 15. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and Walden. 

I see in the ditches in Hubbard’s Close the fine green tips of spires of grass just rising above the surface of the water in one place, as if unwilling to trust itself to the frosty air. Favored by the warmth of the water and sheltered by the banks of the ditch, it has advanced thus far. 

But generally I see only the flaccid and floating frost-bitten tops of grass which apparently started that warm spell in February. The surface of the ditches is spotted with these pale and withered frost-bitten bladelets. 

It was the first green blush, as it were, — nay, it is purple or lake often, and a true blush, —of spring, of that Indian spring we had in February. An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. 

To be present at the instant when the springing grass at the bottoms of ditches lifts its spear above the surface and bathes in the spring air! Many a first faint crop mantling the pools thus early is mown down by the frost before the village suspects that vegetation has reawakened. 

The trout darts away in the puny brook there so swiftly in a zigzag course that commonly I only see the ripple that he makes, in proportion, in this brook only a foot wide, like that made by a steamer in a canal. Or if I catch a glimpse of him before he buries himself in the mud, it is only a dark film without distinct outline. By his zigzag course he bewilders the eye, and avoids capture perhaps. 

As usual at this date and earlier, there are a few square rods of green grass tufts at Brister’s springs, like a green fire under the pines and alders, and in one place an apparent growth of golden saxifrage. 

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. 

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. 

By Thrush Alley, where they have been cutting more wood this winter, I see one of those beetles made of an oak excrescence, such as I have heard of, left by the chopper. 

The whole is a little over four feet long. The head nine or ten inches and the handle about three and a half feet, but all one piece. It was apparently of a young tree, or perhaps a limb, about four inches in diameter with a regular excrescence about it still, eight or nine inches in diameter. This head had been smoothed or trimmed and made more regular by the axe, cut off rather square at the end, and the lower part cut down to a handle of convenient size. And thus the chopper had made in a few moments in the woods a really efficient implement, with his axe only, out of some of the very wood he wished to split. 

A natural beetle. There was no danger that the handle would come off or the head crack. It needed no ringing. And thus he saved the head of his axe.

We are singularly pleased and contented when a mere excrescence is thus converted into a convenient implement. Who was it, what satyr, that invented this rustic beetle? It was shaped:     

An indispensable piece of woodcraft.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1857

An early dawn and premature blush of spring, at which I was not present. See March 17, 1857 ("No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before. . . .I thus detect the first approach of spring by finding here and there its scouts and vanguard which have been slain by the rear-guard of retreating winter.")

At Heywood’s Peak, I start partridges from the perfectly bare hillside. Such the spots they frequent at this season. See March 23, 1856 (" Almost the whole of the steep hillside on the north of Walden is now bare and dry and warm, though fenced in with ice and snow. It has attracted partridges, four of which whir away on my approach.")

I cross one of the bays of Walden, and might the middle. See March 14, 1860 (" I am surprised to find Walden open. No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if melted a million years."); April 18, 1856 ("Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, owing to the rain of yesterday and evening. I have observed its breaking up of different years commencing in ’45, and the average date has been April 4th.")

The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also.

March 23

P. M. — To Walden. 

The sugar maple sap flows, and for aught I know is as early as the red. 

I think I may say that the snow has been not less than a foot deep on a level in open land until to-day, since January 6th, about eleven weeks. It probably begins to be less, about this date. The bare ground begins to appear where the snow is worn in the street. It has been steadily melting since March 13th, the thermometer rising daily to 40 and 45 at noon, but no rain. 

The east side of the Deep Cut is nearly bare, as is the railroad itself, and, on the driest parts of the sandy slope, I go looking for Cicindela, -- to see it run or fly amid the sere blackberry vines, -- some life which the warmth of the dry sand under the spring sun has called forth; but I see none. 

I am reassured and reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheritances which are inalienable, when I feel the warmth reflected from this sunny bank, and see the yellow sand and the reddish subsoil, and hear some dried leaves rustle and the trickling of melting snow in some sluiceway. 

The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also. How many springs I have had this same experience! I am encouraged, for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself.  

The first places which I observe to be bare now, though the snow is generally so deep still, are the steep hillsides facing the south, as the side of the Cut (though it looks not south exactly) and the slope of Heywood’s Peak toward the pond, also under some trees in a meadow (there is less snow there on account of eddy, and apparently the tree absorbs heat), or a ridge in the same place. 

Almost the whole of the steep hillside on the north of Walden is now bare and dry and warm, though fenced in with ice and snow. It has attracted partridges, four of which whir away on my approach.

There the early sedge is exposed, and, looking closer, I observe that it has been sheared off close down, when green, far and wide, and the fallen withered tops are little handfuls of hay by their sides, which have been covered by the snow and sometimes look as if they had served as nests for the mice, —for their green droppings are left in them abundantly, yet not such plain nests as in the grainfield last spring, — probably the Mus leucopus, — and the Wintergreen and the sere pennyroyal still retain some fragrance. 

As I return on the railroad, at the crossing beyond the shanty, hearing a rustling, I see a striped squirrel amid the sedge on the bare east bank, twenty feet distant. After observing me a few moments, as I stand perfectly still between the rails, he runs straight up to within three feet of me, out of curiosity; then, after a moment’s pause, and looking up to my face, turns back and finally crosses the railroad. All the red is on his rump and hind quarters. When running he carries his tail erect, as he scratched up the snowy bank. 

Now then the steep south hillsides begin to be bare, and the early sedge and sere, but still fragrant, penny royal and rustling leaves are exposed, and you see where the mice have sheared off the sedge and also made nests of its top during the winter. There, too, the partridges resort, and perhaps you hear the bark of a striped squirrel, and see him scratch toward his hole, rustling the leaves. 

For all the inhabitants of nature are attracted by this bare and dry spot, as well as you.

The muskrat-houses were certainly very few and small last summer, and the river has been remarkably low up to this time, while, the previous fall, they were very numerous and large, and in the succeeding winter the river rose remarkably high. So much for the muskrat sign. 

The bare ground just begins to appear in a few spots in the road in middle of the town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1856

I am reassured and reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheritances which are inalienable, when I feel the warmth reflected from this sunny bank,. . . How many springs I have had this same experience! See March 15, 1852 ("This afternoon I throw off my outside coat. A mild spring day. The air is full of bluebirds. The ground almost entirely bare . . .I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life partakes of infinity.")

Hear some dried leaves rustle and the trickling of melting snow. See February 21, 1855 ("When the leaves on the forest floor are dried, and begin to rustle under such a sun and wind as these, . . .I realize what was incredible to me before, that there is a new life in Nature beginning to awake, that . . . another spring is approaching."); March 7, 1859 ("I walk, these first mild spring days, with my coat thrown open, stepping over tinkling rills of melting snow, excited by the sight of the bare ground"); March 18, 1858 ("The note of the first bluebird in the air answers to the purling rill of melted snow beneath."); March 16, 1858 ("The laws, perchance, by which the world was made, and according to which the systems revolve, are seen in full operation in a rill of melted snow")

The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also . . . for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself. See November 10, 1854 ("Nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet."); November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly.")

The eternity

that I detect in Nature

I see in myself.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The eternity I detect in Nature 

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-18560323

A little duck in the middle of the Pond.

April 19

5 A. M. — Up Assabet. 

Warm and still and somewhat cloudy. Am without greatcoat. 

The guns are firing and bells ringing. 

I hear a faint honk and, looking up, see going over the river, within fifty rods, thirty-two geese in the form of a hay-hook, only two in the hook, and they are at least six feet apart. Probably the whole line is twelve rods long. 

At least three hundred have passed over Concord, or rather within the breadth of a mile, this spring (perhaps twice as many); for I have seen or heard of a dozen flocks, and the two I counted had about thirty each. 

Many tortoises have their heads out. The river has fallen a little. Going up the Assabet, two or three tortoises roll down the steep bank with a rustle. One tumbles on its edge and rolls swiftly like a disk cast by a boy, with its back to me, from eight or ten feet into the water. 

I hear no concert of tree sparrows. Hear the tull-lull of the white-throated sparrow in street, and the jingle of the chip-bird. 

This forenoon, sit with open window. Now plowing and planting will begin generally. 

P. M. — To Walden.

Some golden willows will now just peel fairly, though on this one the buds have not started.  (Another sudden change in the wind to northeast and a freshness with some mist from the sea at 3.30 P. M.) These osiers to my eye have only a little more liquid green than a month ago. 

A shad frog on the dry grass. The wild red cherry will begin to leaf to-morrow. 

From Heywood’s Peak I think I see the head of a loon in the pond, thirty-five or forty rods distant. Bringing my glass to bear, it seems sunk very low in the water, — all the neck concealed, — but I can not tell which end was the bill. 

At length I discover that it is the whole body of a little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond. 

It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. 

It sits drifting round a little, but with ever its breast toward the wind, and from time to time it raises its head and looks round to see if it is safe. 

I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw. Floating buoyantly asleep on the middle of Walden Pond. 

Is it not a female of the buffle-headed or spirit duck?

I believed the wings looked blacker when it flew, with some white beneath. It floated like a little casket, and at first I doubted a good while if it possessed life, until I saw it raise its head and look around. It chose a place for its nap exactly equidistant between the two shores there, and, with its breast to the wind, swung round only as much as a vessel held by its anchors in the stream. At length the cars scared it. 

Goodwin caught twenty-five pouts and one shiner at the Walden meadow, but no perch. 

Slippery elm in tumbler to-day; probably to-morrow at Cliffs.

A partridge drums.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 19, 1855

The guns are firing and bells ringing. See April 19, 1852 ("The guns were fired and the bells rung to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of a nation's liberty. ")

At least three hundred have passed over Concord this spring. See April 19, 1852 ("How many there must be, that one or more flocks are seen to go over almost every farm in New England in the spring.”) See also April 8, 1855 (“This evening, about 9 P.M., I hear geese go over, now there in the south, now southeast, now east, now northeast, low over the village, but not seen. The first I have heard.”); April 9, 1855 ("Several flocks of geese went over this morning also. Now, then, the main body are moving. Now first are they generally seen and heard.”); April 17, 1855 ("Geese go over at noon, when warm and sunny. “); Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

A little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond.  See March 21, 1854 ("Look with glass and find more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads in their backs, motionless, and thin ice formed about them."); March 31, 1858 ("I see about a dozen black ducks on Flint's Pond, asleep with their heads in their backs and drifting across the pond before the wind.")

Buffle headed or spirit duck. See January 7, 1853 ("He shows me the spirit duck of the Indians, of which Peabody says the Indians call it by a word meaning spirit, "because of the wonderful quickness with which it disappears at the twang of a bow." "); April 22, 1861 (" [Mann]obtained to-day the buffle-headed duck, diving in the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge. I identify it at sight as my bird seen on Walden. ") See also J J Audubon (The bufflehead, being known in different districts by the names of Spirit Duck, Butter-box, Marrionette, Dipper, and Die-dipper,") Compare December 14, 1854 ("At our old bathing-place on the Assabet, saw two ducks, which at length took to wing. They had large dark heads, dark wings, and clear white breasts. I think they were buffle-headed or spirit ducks. ") December 26, 1853 ("Saw in [Walden] a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, ... It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”); September 27, 1860 ("[The little dipper] has a dark bill and considerable white on the sides of the head or neck, with black between it, no tufts, and no observable white on back or tail.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

Some golden willows will now just peel fairly. See April 19, 1853 ("Willow and bass strip freely."); see also April 9, 1855 ("The golden willow is, methinks, a little livelier green and begins to peel a little"); April 18, 1860 ("The Salix discolor peels well; also the aspen (early) has begun to peel.")

These osiers to my eye have only a little more liquid green than a month ago.  See February 24, 1855 ("You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them"); March 24, 1855 (" I am not sure that the osiers are decidedly brighter yet"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

Another sudden change in the wind to northeast and a freshness with some mist from the sea at 3.30 P. M. See April 18, 1855 ("I see suddenly all the southern horizon . . full of a mist, like a dust, already concealing the Lincoln hills and producing distinct wreaths of vapor, the rest of the horizon being clear. Evidently a sea-turn, — a wind from over the sea, condensing the moisture in our warm atmosphere and putting another aspect on the face of things."); April 29, 1856 (" about 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn. . . .. Your first warning of it may be the seeing a thick mist on all the hills and in the horizon. "); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.")

A partridge drums. See April 19, 1860 ('"You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll."); See also April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life.”). and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau  The Partridge.

April 19, 2015

Little duck asleep

in the middle of the pond –

its head in its back 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A little duck in the middle of the Pond

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550419

Already sparkling blue water

March 29 

Flint’s Pond is entirely open; may have been a day or two. There was only a slight opening about the boat-house on the 21st, and the weather has been very cold ever since. 

March 29, 2016

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. 

There is washed up on the shore of Flint’s some pretty little whorls of the radical leaves of the Lobelia Dortmanna, with its white root-fibres. 

As I stand on Heywood’s Peak, 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, contrasting it in my memory with the wind of summer, which I do not thus eagerly swallow. This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me, and I swallow it with eagerness as a panacea. I feel an impulse, also, already, to jump into the half-melted pond. This cold wind is refreshing to my palate, as the warm air of summer is not, methinks. I love to stand there and be blown on as much as a horse in July. 

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.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1855

Flint’s Pond is entirely open.See March 21, 1853 (" I am surprised to find Flint's Pond not more than half broken up."); March 21, 1855 ("There is no opening in Flint’s Pond except a very little around the boat-house.”); March 23, 1853 (“The ice went out . . . of Flint's Pond day before yesterday, I have no doubt”); April 1, 1852 (" I am surprised to find Flint's Pond frozen still, which should have been open a week ago.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice Out

Walden is more than half open. 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. See March 29, 1859 ("Walden is first clear after to-day.”) and note to March 29, 1857 ("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.") See also  March 31, 1855 ("We feel as if we had obtained a new lease of life . . . Looking from the Cliffs I see that Walden is open to-day first.")

Sparkling blue water. See March 2, 1860 (“he great phenomenon these days is the sparkling blue water, — a richer blue than the sky ever is. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bright Blue Water

A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond . . ., forming a shining white wall of its fragments. See March 29, 1854 ("Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun.")

March 29. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 29

Sparkling blue water

Walden more than half open –

inhale the cold air.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Already sparkling blue water

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550329

The top of Pine Hill wears its October aspect – effect of the drought.

August 27

August 27, 2023

From Heywood's Peak I am surprised to see the top of Pine Hill wearing its October aspect, — yellow with changed maples and here and there faintly blushing with changed red maples. This is the effect of the drought. 

As I go up Pine Hill, gather the shrivelled Vaccinium vacillans berries, many as hard as if dried on a pan. They are very sweet and good, and not wormy like huckleberries. Far more abundant in this state than usual, owing to the drought. 

As I stand there, I think I hear a rising wind rustling the tops of the woods, and, turning, see what I think is the rear of a large flock of pigeons.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1854

.
The top of Pine Hill wearing its October aspect.  See October 22, 1852 ("Looking over the forest on Pine Hill, I can hardly tell which trees are lit up by the sunshine and which are the yellow chestnut-tops")

Blushing with changed red maples. See August 27, 1852 ("The leaves of some young maples in the water about the pond are now quite scarlet, running into dark purple-red.”)

As I go up Pine Hill, gather the shrivelled Vaccinium vacillans . . . very sweet and good. See July 13, 1854 ("In the midst of July heat and drought.. . .Vaccinium vacillans on Bare Hill ripe enough to pick, now considerably in advance of huckleberries; sweeter than last and grow in dense clusters . . . This vacillans is more earthy, like solid food"): July 29, 1858 ("The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not."); July 29, 1859 ("Vaccinium vacillans begin to be pretty thick and some huckleberries.") July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”);August 4, 1854 ("On this hill (Smith's) the bushes are black with huckleberries. ...Now in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans inter mixed."); August 4. 1856 ("Still denser bunches and clusters of V. vacillans, of various varieties, firm and sweet, solid food"); August 28, 1856 ("Huckleberries are about given up"); September 1, 1859 ("Vacciniums, now past prime and drying up,"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blueberries

I think I hear a rising wind rustling the tops of the woods, and, turning, see what I think is the rear of a large flock of pigeons. See August 17, 1858 ("C. saw pigeons to-day."); September 2, 1852 ("Small flocks of pigeons are seen these days."): September 13, 1858 ("A small dense flock of wild pigeons dashes by over the side of the hill. ") and note to September 15, 1859 ("Dense flocks of pigeons hurry-skurry over the hill.")

August 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 27

The top of Pine Hill 

wears its October aspect – 

effect of the drought.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The top of Pine Hill  wears its October aspect.

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-540827

A fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist...

Sunset, June 16, 2014

June 16.  As the sun went down last night, round and red in a damp misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the same manner, though there is no dense fog.

.                   

Sunrise June 16, 2014

Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us.  

The warmer, or at least drier, weather has now prevailed about a fortnight. Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams. There have been showers all around us, but nothing to mention here yet. 

Panicled cornel well out on Heywood Peak. 

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog.  

There is a fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist.

June 16, 2014

The Rosa nitida grows along the edge of the ditches, the half-open flowers showing the deepest rosy tints, so glowing that they make an evening or twilight of the surrounding afternoon, seeming to stand in the shade or twilight. Already the bright petals of yesterday's flowers are thickly strewn along on the black mud at the bottom of the ditch. 

• The R. nitida, the earlier (?), with its narrow shiny leaves and prickly stem and its moderate-sized rose pink petals. 
• The R. lucida, with its broader and duller leaves, but larger and perhaps deeper-colored and more purple petals, perhaps yet higher scented, and its great yellow centre of stamens. 
• The smaller, lighter, but perhaps more delicately tinted R. rubiginosa. 

One and all drop their petals the second day. I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber.

Add to these the white lily (just begun), also the swamp-pink, and probably morning-glory, and the great orchis, and mountain laurel (now in prime), and perhaps we must say that the fairest flowers are now to be found. 

It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. 

Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1854

Thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us. See June 15, 1860 ("A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack."); June 16, 1860 (" Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go past on each side")

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog. See June 23, 1854 ("There has been a foggy haze, dog-day-like, for perhaps ten days"); See also April 30, 1856 ("Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes . . . and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn

I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber. See June 23, 1852 ("I take the wild rose buds to my chamber and put them in a pitcher of water, and they will open there the next day, and a single flower will perfume a room ;and then, after a day, the petals drop off, and new buds open."); June 15, 1853 ("I bring home the[wild rose] buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

 It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. See June 9, 1854 ("Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days.Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded.A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp . . .I think that no other but myself in Concord annually finds it. . . . It lifts its delicate spike amid the hellebore and ferns in the deep shade of the swamp. "); June 19, 1852 (" The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 21, 1852 (" The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The purple fringed orchids

My chamber where I read and write, all day. See H Daniel Peck, Thoreau's Morning Work (noting that Thoreau "'set aside regular intervals, usually in the morning, for [the Journal's] composition, and typically wrote several days' entries at a sitting, working from notes that he accumulated during his [after-noon] walks' of the previous several days") See also  July 23, 1851 (" If I should reverse the usual, — go forth and saunter in the fields all the forenoon, then sit down in my chamber in the afternoon, which it is so unusual for me to do,-it would be like a new season to me, and the novelty of it (would) inspire me. . . .Is the literary man to live always or chiefly sitting in a chamber through which nature enters by a window only? What is the use of the summer? . . . I expand more surely in my chamber, as far as expression goes . . . but here outdoors is the place to store up influences.")

Note. Today HDT extends his comments on the extradition of Anthony Burns:

But what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both rulers and ruled are without principle? The remembrance of the baseness of politicians spoils my walks. My thoughts are murder to the State; I endeavor in vain to observe nature; my thoughts involuntarily go plotting against the State. I trust that all just men will conspire.

We have used up all our inherited freedom . . . It is not an era of repose. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them . . . Why will men be such fools as to trust to lawyers for a moral reform? I do not believe that there is a judge in this country prepared to decide by the principle that a law is immoral and therefore of no force.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854 and "Slavery in Massachusetts,"

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

Thus it is methinks

with thunder-clouds in the east –

they do not reach us.

It is eight days since 

I plucked the great orchis still 

fresh in my pitcher.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A fine ripple and sparkle on the Pond

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

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540616