Crescents of bright brick red above and amid a maze of ash-colored branches.

May 1

6 P. M. —To Hill. 

I judge that the larch blossomed when the anthers began to be loose and dry and yellow on their edges. Say then the 28th. 

The water on the meadows is rapidly going down. I am now confined to the river for the most part. The water begins to feel as warm or warmer than the air when cool. 

The scrolls of the ferns clothed in wool at Sassafras Shore, five or six inches high. 

Rue Anemone

(Thalictrum thalictroides)

(Originally described as Anemone thalictroides by Linnaeus in 1753 )

Wikipedia

Thalictrum anemonoides well out, probably a day or two, same shore, by the apple trees. 

Viola ovata on southwest side of hill, high up near pines. 

How pleasing that early purple grass in smooth water! Half a dozen long, straight purple blades of different lengths but about equal width, close together and exactly parallel, resting flat on the surface of the water. There is something agreeable in their parallelism and flatness. 

From the hilltop I look over Wheeler’s maple swamp. The maple-tops are now, I should say, a bright brick red. It is the red maple’s reign now, as the peach and the apple will have theirs. Looking over the swamps a quarter of a mile distant, you see dimly defined crescents of bright brick red above and amid a maze of ash-colored branches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1856

I judge that the larch blossomed when the anthers began to be loose and dry and yellow on their edges. Say then the 28th. . . . See April 23, 1855 ("The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen.”) April 24, 1854 ("The larch will apparently blossom in one or two days at least, both its low and broad purple-coned male flowers and its purple-tipped female cones.”); April 25, 1856 ("Larch not yet sheds pollen.”);  April 27, 1856  ("I find none of Monroe’s larch buds shedding pollen, but the anthers look crimson and yellow, and the female flowers are now fully expanded and very pretty, but small. I think it will first scatter pollen to-morrow.”)  April 29, 1855 (“A few of the cones within reach on F. Monroe’s larches shed pollen; say, then, yesterday The crimson female flowers are now handsome but small); April 29, 1856 ("Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers, and they look somewhat withered, as if they had shed a part of their pollen. If so, they began yesterday. ”); April 30, 1857 (“The larch plucked yesterday sheds pollen to-day in house, probably to-day abroad.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Larch in Spring

It is the red maple’s reign now. . .  See April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems."); April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow beyond Peter’s. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents.”)  April 26, 1855 ("The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps. “);May 1, 1855 ("The maples of Potter’s Swamp, seen now nearly half a mile off against the russet or reddish hillside, are a very dull scarlet, like Spanish brown . . .”); May 7, 1854 (A spreading red maple in bloom, seen against a favorable background, as water looking down from a hillside, presenting not a dense mass of color but an open, graceful and ethereal top of light crimson or scarlet . . .”).

Thalictrum anemonoides [rue-anemone] well out, probably a day or two, same shore, by the apple trees. See May 1, 1855 ("Thalictrum anemonoides at Conant Cliff. Did not look for pollen.”). See also April 8, 1859 ("The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigaea, anemone, thalictrum, and — by the first of May — Viola pedata.”); April 27, 1860 (“Thalictrum anemonoides are abundant, maybe two or three days, at Blackberry Steep”); May 5, 1854 (“Thalictrum anemonoides by Brister's Spring on hillside.”); May 5, 1860 (“Anemone and Thalictrum anemonoides are apparently in prime about the 10th of May.”);  May 11, 1854 (“The Thalictrum anemonoides is a perfect and regular white star..”)

How pleasing that early purple grass in smooth water! See April 29, 1855 ("That lake grass — or perhaps I should call it purple grass — is now apparently in perfection on the water.” . . . )

I walk with a peculiar sense of freedom over the snow-covered ice.

January 24

the sun just peeping 

o’er the ridge in the south–east 

while it snows lightly

January 24. 2025

A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though freshness, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, but what I am and aspire to become. 

I knew that a crow had that day plucked the cedar berries and barberries by Flint’s Pond and then flapped silently through the trackless air to Walden, where it dined on fisherman’s bait, though there was no living creature to tell me. 

P. M. -- Up Assabet. 

Even the patches of shining snow-crust between those of dry white surface snow are slightly blue, like ice and water. 

You may walk anywhere on the river now. Even the open space against Merrick’s, below the Rock, has been closed again, and there is only six feet of water there now. I walk with a peculiar sense of freedom over the snow-covered ice, not fearing that I shall break through. 

I have not been able to find any tracks of muskrats this winter. I suspect that they very rarely venture out in winter with their wet coats. 

I see squirrel-tracks about the hemlocks. They are much like rabbits, only the toes , are very distinct. From this they pass into a semicircular figure sometimes. Some of the first are six inches from outside to outside lengthwise with one to two feet of interval. Are these the gray or red? 

A great many hemlock cones have fallen on the snow and rolled down the hill. 

Higher up, against the Wheeler Swamp, I see where many squirrels —perhaps red, for the tracks appear smaller—have fed on the alder cones on the twigs which are low or frozen into the ice, stripping them to the core just as they do the pine cones. 

Here are the tracks of a crow, like those of the 22d, with a long hind toe, nearly two inches. The two feet are also nearly two inches apart. I see where the bird alighted, descending with an impetus and breaking through the slight crust, planting its feet side by side.

How different this partridge-track, with its slight hind toe, open and wide-spread toes on each side, both feet forming one straight line.  The middle toe alternately curved to the right and to the left, and what is apparently the outer toe in each case shorter than the inner one. 

I see under a great many trees, black willow and swamp white oak, the bark scattered over the snow, some pieces six inches long, and above see the hole which a woodpecker has bored. 

The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. I can hardly believe them the same. They have only an ice egg in them now. 

Thus we go about, raised, generally speaking, more than a foot above the summer level. So much higher do we carry our heads in the winter. What a great odds such a little difference makes! When the snow raises us one foot higher than we have been accustomed to walk, we are surprised at our elevation! So we soar. 

I do not find a foot of open water, even, on this North Branch, as far as I go, i.e. to J. Hosmer’s lot. The river has been frozen unusually long and solidly. 

They have been sledding wood along the river for a quarter of a mile in front of Merriam’s and past the mouth of Sam Barrett’s Brook, where it is bare of snow, — hard, glare ice on which there is scarcely a trace of the sled or oxen. They have sledded home a large oak which was cut down on the bank. Yet this is one of the rockiest and swiftest parts of the stream. Where I have so often stemmed the swift current, dodging the rocks, with my paddle, there the heavy, slow paced oxen, with their ponderous squeaking load, have plodded, while the teamster walked musing beside it. 

That Wheeler swamp is a great place for squirrels. I observe many of their tracks along the riverside there. The nests are of leaves, and apparently of the gray species. 

There is much of the water milkweed on the little island just above Dove Rock. It rises above the deep snow there. 

It is remarkable how much the river has been tracked by dogs the week past, not accompanied by their masters. They hunt, perchance, in the night more than is supposed, for I very rarely see one alone by day. 

The river is pretty low and has fallen within a month, for there has been no thaw. The ice has broken and settled around the rocks, which look as if they had burst up through it. Some maple limbs which were early frozen in have been broken and stripped down by this irresistible weight. 

You see where the big dogs have slipped on one or two feet in their haste, sinking to the ice, but, having two more feet, it did not delay them. 

I walk along the sides of the stream, admiring the rich mulberry catkins of the alders, which look almost edible. They attract us because they have so much of spring in them. The clear red osiers, too, along the riverside in front of Merriam’s on Wheeler’s side. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1856



Things well done or said. See March 11, 1859 "There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression,the admirable deed are only partly ours."_)

You may walk anywhere on the river now. See February 5, 1856 ("I have walked much on the river this winter")

I have not been able to find any tracks of muskrats this winter. I suspect that they very rarely venture out in winter with their wet coats. See  January 31, 1856  ("See also the tracks, probably of a muskrat, for a few feet leading from hole to hole just under the bank");  February 6, 1856 ("He [Goodwin] thinks that what I call muskrat-tracks are mink-tracks by the Rock, and that muskrat do not come out at all this weather.  I saw a clamshell opened, and they say minks do not open them (?)"); February 28, 1857 (" I see the track, apparently of a muskrat (?), — about five inches wide with very sharp and distinct trail of tail. . . It is interesting to see how every little rill like this will be haunted by muskrats or minks. Does the mink ever leave a track of its tail?"); January 3, 1860 (“Melvin . . . speaks of the mark of the [muskrat] tail, which is dragged behind them, in the snow, — as if made by a case-knife.”)

 A great many hemlock cones have fallen on the snow and rolled down the hill. SeeDecember 31, 1859 ("There is a great deal of hemlock scales scattered over the recent snow (at the Hemlocks), evidently by birds on the trees, and the wind has blown them south east, — scales, seeds, and cones, — and I see the tracks of small birds that have apparently picked the seeds from the snow also."); January 14, 1857 ("Up Assabet on ice . . . Hemlock seeds are scattered over the snow."); January 20, 1860 ("The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels.") January 31, 1856 ("More hemlock cones also have fallen and rolled down the bank."); February 3, 1856 ("See many seeds of the hemlock on the snow still, and cones which have freshly rolled down the bank"); March 6, 1853 ("The hemlock cones have shed their seeds, but there are some closed yet on the ground."); April 13, 1860 ("Crossbills – male and female. They are very busily eating the seeds of the hemlock, whose cones are strewn on the ground.")

Here are the tracks of a crow, like those of the 22d, with a long hind toe, nearly two inches. See January 22, 1856 ("See the track of a crow,

the toes as usual less spread and the middle one making a more curved furrow in the snow than the partridge as if they moved more unstably . . .The inner toe a little the nearest to the middle one."); February 1, 1856 ("The two inner toes are near together; the middle, more or less curved often."); January 19, 1859 ("The inner toe is commonly close to the middle one. It makes a peculiar curving track (or succession of 'curves), stepping round the planted foot each time with a sweep. You would say that it toed in decidedly and walked feebly. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer . . .They have only an ice egg in them now. See December 24, 1851 (Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.“); December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”);  February 16, 1860 ("Also all the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold.")

When the snow raises us one foot higher than we have been accustomed to walk, we are surprised at our elevation! See February 8, 1852 ("I now walk over fields raised a foot or more above their summer level, and the prospect is altogether new.")

The rich mulberry catkins of the alders, which look almost edible . . . attract us because they have so much of spring in them. See  January 10, 1859 ("The alder is one of the prettiest of trees and shrubs in the winter, it is evidently so full of life, with its conspicuous pretty red catkins dangling from it on all sides.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The clear red osiers, too, along the riverside in front of Merriam’s on Wheeler’s side.  See January 3, 1856 ("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") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

Many hemlock cones 

have fallen on the snow 

and rolled down the hill.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I walk with a peculiar sense of freedom

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