If you get on to a rock in the river, rock the boat.

July 18. 

One tells me that he stopped at Stedman Buttrick's on the 10th, and found him sitting under a cherry tree ringing a bell, in order to keep the birds off! 

If you get on to a rock in the river, rock the boat, while you keep steadily pushing, and thus there will be moments when the boat does not rest on the rock at all, and you will rapidly get it off. 

The river is getting low, so that the entrances to musquash-holes in the bank are revealed and often laid bare, with fresh green rushes or flags, etc., in them. 

Nathan Hosmer remembers that when the two new stone piers at Hunt's Bridge were built, about 1820, one Nutting went under water to place the stones, and he was surprised to see how long he would remain under about this business.

Nothing has got built without labor. Past generations have spent their blood and strength for us. They have cleared the land, built roads , etc., for us. In all fields men have laid down their lives for us. Men are industrious as ants. 

I find myself very heavy-headed these days. It occurs to me that probably in different states of what we call health, even in morbid states, we are peculiarly fitted for certain investigations, — we are the better able to deal with certain phenomena.

N. Barrett says that he has formerly cut six cocks of hay on his bar.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1859

If you get on to a rock in the river, rock the boat, and you will rapidly get it off. Compare August 8, 1859 ("Rice has had a little experience once in pushing a canal-boat up Concord River. Says this was the way they used to get the boat off a rock when by chance it had got on to one. If it had run quite on, so that the rock was partly under the main bottom of the boat, they let the boat swing round to one side and placed a stout stake underneath, a little aslant, with one end on the bottom of the river and the other ready to catch the bows of the boat, and while one held it, perhaps, the other pushed the boat round again with all his force, and so drove it on to the stake and lifted it up above the rock, and so it floated off.")

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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 © 2009-2021

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.")

Very warm to-day; rainy in forenoon. Settle a boundary dispute.

November 9. 

Surveying for Stedman Buttrick and Mr. Gordon. 

Jacob Farmer says that he remembers well a particular bound (which is the subject of dispute between the above two men) from this circumstance: He, a boy, was sent, as the representative of his mother, to witness the placing of the bounds to her lot, and he remembers that, when they had fixed the stake and stones, old Mr. Nathan Barrett asked him if he had a knife about him, upon which he pulled out his knife and gave it to him. Mr. Barrett cut a birch switch and trimmed it in the presence of young Farmer, and then called out, “Boy, here's your knife,” but as the boy saw that he was going to strike him when he reached his hand for the knife, he dodged into a bush which alone received the blow. And Mr. Barrett said that if it had not been for that, he would have got a blow which would have made him remember that bound as long as he lived, and explained to him that that was his design in striking him. He had before told his mother that since she could not go to the woods to see what bounds were set to her lot, she had better send Jacob as a representative of the family. 

This made Farmer the important witness in this case. He first, some years ago, saw Buttrick trimming up the trees, and told him he was on Gordon's land and pointed out this as the bound between them. 

One of the company to-day told of George Melvin once directing Jonas Melvin, for a joke, to go to the widow Hildreth's lot (along which we were measuring) and gather the chestnuts. They were probably both working there. He accordingly took the oxen and cart and some ladders and another hired man, and they worked all day and got half a bushel.

Mr. Farmer tells me that one Sunday he went to his barn, having nothing to do, and thought he would watch the swallows, republican swallows. The old bird was feeding her young, and he sat within fifteen feet, overlooking them. There were five young, and he was curious to know how each received its share; and as often as the bird came with a fly, the one at the door (or opening) took it, and then they all hitched round one notch, so that a new one was presented at the door, who received the next fly; and this was the invariable order, the same one never receiving two flies in succession. 

At last the old bird brought a very small fly, and the young one that swallowed it did not desert his ground but waited to receive the next, but when the bird came with another, of the usual size, she commenced a loud and long scolding at the little one, till it resigned its place, and the next in succession received the fly. 

Bigelow, the tavern-keeper, once, wrote C., put up this advertisement in the streets of Concord, “All those who are in favor of the universal salvation of mankind, are requested to meet at the school-house (?) next Saturday evening (?), to choose officers.” 

Very warm to-day; rainy in forenoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1857

postscript 11/13/57:

My assistants and company in surveying on the 9th were, Gordon and Buttrick, the principals in the dispute; Jacob Farmer, the principal witness; George Buttrick, son of Stedman; and French, son-in-law of Gordon. 

I had the most to do with Gordon, who came after me. He was quite eloquent at our house on the subject of two neighbors disputing at his time of life about a ‘ seemed really to have a very good heart; thought that the main thing in this life was to keep up friendly relations; and as he rode along, would quote Scrip ture in a low tone, and put his whole soul into some half-whispered expression which I could not hear, but nevertheless nodded assent to. He thought it was too bad that he should have spent his seventy-third birthday settling that dispute in the woods. Apparently did not know it till afterwards. 

Buttrick is a rather large man, in more senses than one. His portly body as he stood over the bound was the mark at which I sighted through the woods, rather too wide a one for accuracy. He did not cease to regret for a day or two that I should have had no dinner, but Gordon detained me. Buttrick said that he had a piece of meat cooked and expected me at his house. Thought it too bad in Gordon to make a man go without his dinner, etc. He offered me a glass of gin, or wine, as I chose. Lamented the cutting down of apple orchards and scarcity of cider-mills. 

Told of an orchard in the town of Russell, on the side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay four feet deep (?) against a wall on the lower side, and this the owner cut down. 

Farmer, half a dozen years since, saw Buttrick trimming up the trees there and observed [to] him, “You are on Mr. Gordon's land.” This was the beginning of the trouble. Buttrick adhered to the bounds which Abel Brooks, who sold to him, had pointed out. 

Farmer was sure of the bounds between them, be cause when Jacob Brown's Bateman wood-lot was divided between Mrs. Farmer (his mother) and her sister, the mother of Mrs. Gordon, he had witnessed the setting of the bounds as the representative of his mother, and came near being whipped at this one.

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

December on the Concord: a Mink.

December 2.

Started in boat before 9 A.M. down river to Billerica with W.E.C.  I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before. 

  December 2, 2017

We had to break the ice about the boat-house for some distance. Still no snow. The banks are white with frost. The air is calm, and the water smooth.

Some parts of the meadow are covered with thin ice, through which we row, and the waves we make in the river nibble and crumble its edge, and produce a rustling of the grass and reeds, as if a muskrat were stirring. 

The distant sounds of cars, cocks, hounds, etc., as we glide past N. Barrett's farm, remind me of spring. There is a certain resonance and elasticity in the air that makes the least sound melodious as in spring. It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring. 

There goes a muskrat. He leaves so long a ripple behind that in this light you cannot tell where his body ends, and think him longer than he is. 

Above the bridge on the road from Chelmsford to Bedford we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. 

Not so shy as a muskrat.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 2, 1852

I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up. Ground bare. River open"); December 28, 1852 ("Brought my boat from Walden in rain. No snow on ground.") See also November 26, 1857 ("Got my boat up this afternoon. . . .One end had frozen in.”); November 26, 1858 ("Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual”); November 29, 1860 ("Get up my boat, 7 a. m. Thin ice of the night is floating down the river.”); November 30, 1855 (“Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.”); December 2, 1854 ("Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it."); December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat, which before I had got out and turned up on the bank."); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in."); December 8, 1855 ("Still no snow, — nor ice noticeable. I might have left my boat out till now."); December 10, 1859 ("Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze”); ) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

 The waves we make in the river nibble and crumble its edge, and produce a rustling of the grass and reeds, as if a muskrat were stirring.  See November 14, 1855 ("The motion of my boat sends an undulation to the shore, which rustles the dry sedge half immersed there, as if a tortoise were tumbling through it. ")

There is a certain resonance and elasticity in the air that makes the least sound melodious as in spring. It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring. See December 2, 1859 ("The crowing of cocks and other sounds remind you of spring, such is the state of the air.") See also December 1, 1852 (“The year looks back toward summer, and a summer smile is reflected in her face”)

There goes a muskrat. He leaves so long a ripple behind. See March 28, 1858 ("Sitting on the top of the Cliffs, I look through my glass at the smooth river and see the long forked ripple made by a musquash swimming along over the  meadow.")

Above the bridge . . .we see a mink, slender, black. See November 13, 1855 (“Going over Swamp Bridge Brook at 3 P. M., I saw in the pond by the roadside, a few rods before me, the sun shining bright, a mink swimming . . . It was a rich brown fur . . . not black as it sometimes appears, especially on ice.”);  November 17, 1855 ("Mink seem to be more commonly seen now.”); November 27, 1855 ("A mink skin which he showed me was a darker brown than the one I saw last (he says they changed suddenly to darker about a fortnight since); and the tail was nearly all black.”); April 15, 1858 ("I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT521202

A fresh cool summer morning.

July 2.

It is a fresh, cool summer morning.

That principle which gives the air an azure color is more abundant.

From the road at N. Barrett's, on my way to P. Blood's at 8:30A.M., the Great Meadows have a slight bluish misty tinge; elsewhere a sort of hoary sheen. Miles of waving grass adorning the surface of the earth, inconceivably fine and silvery far away, - light reflects from the grass blades. 

July 2

It takes but little distance to make the hills and even the meadows look blue to-day. 

To-day the milkweed is blossoming.  Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits. Cherries are ripe. Strawberries in the gardens have passed their prime.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 2, 1851