Open waters; the Rise and Fall of Goose Pond (Ripple Lake)

 

December 27.  Monday.

Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.

Ground bare.

River open.

I took my new boat out.

Countless birches, white pines, etc., have been killed within a year or two about Goose Pond by the high water. The dead birches have broken in two in the middle and fallen over. In some coves where the water is shallow, their wrecks make quite a dense thicket.

Found chestnuts quite plenty to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 27, 1852

See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. . . .A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.  See  December 11, 1854 ("C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th. I find Flint’s frozen to-day."); December 27, 1856 ("Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long southern bay."); December 27, 1857 ("Walden is almost entirely skimmed over. It will probably be completely frozen over to-night.") See also December 17, 1859 ("Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen. Saw in [it] a good-sized black duck, which did not dive while I looked."); December 18, 1858 ("The pond is merely frozen a little about the edges. I see various little fishes lurking under this thin, transparent ice, close up to the edge or shore, especially where the shore is flat and water shoal."); . December 19, 1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night. This is very sudden, for on the evening of the 15th there was not a particle of ice in it. In just three days, then, it has been completely frozen over, and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick,"); December 20, 1858("Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle");December 21, 1854("Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick. It must have frozen, the whole of it, since the snow of the 18th,-— probably the night of the 18th."); December 21, 1855 ("Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.");December 21, 1856("The pond [Walden] is open again in the middle, owing to the rain of yesterday."); December 22, 1853("A slight whitening of snow last evening, the second whitening of the winter, just enough to spoil the skating, now ten days old, on the ponds. Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open; will probably freeze entirely to-night if this weather holds."); December 23, 1845 ("The pond froze over last night entirely for the first time, yet so as not to be safe to walk upon."); December 23, 1850("Walden is frozen, one third of it, though I thought it was all frozen as I stood on the shore on one side only."); December 24, 1853("Walden almost entirely open again."); December 24, 1856("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.); December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night!"); December 24, 1859("There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week "); December 25, 1858("Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open."); December 26, 1850("Walden not yet more than half frozen over."); December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, . . .This being the only pond hereabouts that is open"); December 28, 1856 ("Walden completely frozen over again last night."); December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open,. . .It must be owing to the wind partly.") ;December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. "); December 30, 1855 ("There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined"); December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.”); December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night.")

 I took my new boat out.  See December 2, 1852 ("I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before."); December 2, 1854 ("Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it."); December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat,"); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places"); December 10, 1859 ("Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze."); December 28, 1852 ("Brought my boat from Walden in rain. No snow on ground.") See also December 5, 1856 (" I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating . . . I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

River open. See December 13, 1852 ("River and ponds all open. Goose Pond skimmed over"); December 16, 1850 ("Walden is open still. The river is probably open again."); December 17, 1856 ("The river . . . is frozen over again, and I go along the edge of the meadow under Clamshell and back by Hubbard's Bridge."); December 19, 1854 ("Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before.");  December 20, 1854("The river appears to be frozen everywhere. Where was water last night is a firm bridge of ice this morning. .  . At sundown or before, it begins to belch. It is so cold that only in one place did I see a drop of water flowing out on the ice"); December 20, 1855("It [skating] is pretty good on the meadows, which are somewhat overflown, and the sides of the river, but the greater part of it is open. . . . How placid, like silver or like steel in different lights, the surface of the still, living water between these borders of ice, reflecting the weeds and trees, and now the warm colors of the sunset sky!"); December 21, 1855("I here take to the riverside. The broader places are frozen over, but I do not trust them yet. Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days"); December 25, 1853("Skated to Fair Haven and above.")

Goose Pond high water. See December 5, 1852 ("This great rise of [Walden] pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge, — pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, etc., — and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore"); December 13, 1852 (“I judge from his account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden. “); November 26, 1858 (“Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years. . . ., and what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are. I begin to suspect, therefore, that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers”); Compare August 19, 1854 ("Flint's Pond has fallen very much since I was here. The shore is so exposed that you can walk round, which I have not known possible for several years, and the outlet is dry. But Walden is not affected by the drought.")

Found chestnuts quite plenty to-day. See 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.") See also November 28, 1856 ("To chestnut wood by Turnpike, to see if I could find my comb, probably lost out of my pocket when I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago. Unexpectedly find many chestnuts in the burs which have fallen some time ago. Many are spoiled, but the rest,. . . are softer and sweeter than a month ago, very agreeable to my palate"); December 12, 1856 (“At the wall between Saw Mill Brook Falls and Red Choke-berry Path, . . see where they [squirrels] have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces. I, too, dig many burs out of the snow with my foot”); December 22, 1859 ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left the trunks on the snow."); January 25, 1853 ("I still pick chestnuts.")

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

Wild apples

October 27 

P. M.  A-chestnutting down the Turnpike. 

There are many fringed gentians, now considerably frost-bitten, in what was E. Hosmer’s meadow between his dam and the road. 

It is high time we came a-nutting, for the nuts have nearly all fallen, and you must depend on what you can find on the ground, left by the squirrels, and cannot shake down any more to speak of. 

The trees are nearly all bare of leaves as well as burs. The wind comes cold from the northwest, as if there were snow on the earth in that direction.

Larches are yellowing. 

I try one of the wild apples in my desk, It is remarkable that the wild apples which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields and woods, when brought into the house have a harsh and crabbed taste. As shells and pebbles must be beheld on the sea-shore, so these October fruits must be tasted in a bracing walk amid the somewhat bracing airs of late October. To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air.  

They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, the frosty weather nips your fingers (in November), the wind rattles the bare boughs and rustles the leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around.

Some of those apples might be labelled, “To be eaten in the wind.”

So there is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1855

It is high time we came a-nutting, for the nuts have nearly all fallen, and you must depend on what you can find on the ground, left by the squirrels, and cannot shake down any more to speak of. See note to October 27, 1853 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year?")

I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house. See November 11, 1860 (“Now is the time for wild apples. . . Food for walkers.”)