A May storm, gentle and warm – Foliage changes several shades darker in the rain seen while still cloudy.

May 19. 

Thunder-showers in the night, and it still storms, with holdings-up. A May storm, gentle and rather warm. 

The days of the golden willow are over for this season; their withered catkins strew the causeways and cover the water and also my boat, which is moored beneath them. 

The locust has grown three inches and is blossom-budded. It may come just after the white ash at least, and before the celtis. 

The weather toward evening still cloudy and some what mizzling. 

The foliage of the young maples, elms, etc., in the street has become, since the rain commenced, several shades darker, changing from its tender and lighter green, as if the electricity of the thunder-storm may have had some effect on it. 

It is best observed while it is still cloudy; almost a bluish, no longer yellowish green, it is peculiarly rich. 

The very grass appears to have undergone a similar change.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1853

The days of the golden willow are over for this season. Compare May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow! These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, and are now haunted by the summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

The locust has grown three inches and is blossom-budded. See June 10, 1853 ("The locust bloom is now perfect, filling the street with its sweetness."); June 7, 1854 ("The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes five inches long, filling the air with their sweetness and resounding with the hum of humble and honey bees"); June 9, 1852 ("The locust in bloom"); June 11, 1856 ("The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet.")

It may come just after the white ash at least, and before the celtis. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom."); May 18, 1853 ("The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day")

A May storm, gentle and rather warm.See May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”);  note to May 18, 1853 ("Perchance a May storm is brewing. This day it has mizzled  . . . Methinks this is common at this season of the tender foliage.")

The very grass appears to have undergone a similar change. Compare May 19, 1860 ("The grass and the tender leaves, refreshed and expanded by the rain, are peculiarly bright and yellowish-green when seen in a favorable light.").

May 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

Foliage changes

several shades darker in the rain

seen while still cloudy.

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 © 2009-2021

Repairing my boat.

March 14.

 P. M. – Repairing my boat. 

High winds, growing colder and colder, ground stiffening again. My ears have not been colder the past winter.

Lowell Fay tells me that he overtook with a boat and killed last July a woodchuck which was crossing the river at Hollowell Place . 

He also says that the blacksmith of Sudbury has two otter skins taken in that town. 

March is rightly famous for its winds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 14, 1853

Repairing my boat. See ; February 24, 1857 ("Get my boat out the cellar."); February 26, 1857 ("Paint the bottom of my boat"); March 3, 1860 ("I should have launched my boat ere this if it had been ready. ");March 8, 1855 ("This morning I got my boat out of the cellar and turned it up in the yard to let the seams open before I calk it."); March 9, 1855 ("Painted the bottom of my boat."); March 15, 1854 ("Paint my boat."); March 16, 1859 ("Launch my boat and sail to Ball's Hill"); March 16, 1860 ("As soon as I can get it painted and dried, I launch my boat and make my first voyage for the year up or down the stream, on that element from which I have been debarred for three months and a half.")

The blacksmith of Sudbury has two otter skins taken in that town. See note to January 21, 1853 ("Otter are very rare here now. I have not heard of any killed here abouts for twenty or thirty years till, within two years, two or three of them.")

I should have launched my boat ere this if it had been ready.

March 3

2 P. M. — 50°; overcast and somewhat rain-threatening; wind southwest.

To Abner Buttrick and Tarbell Hills.

See a flock of large ducks in a line, — maybe black? - over Great Meadows; also a few sheldrakes.

It was pleasant to hear the tinkling of very coarse brash — broken honeycombed dark ice — rattling one piece against another along the northeast shores, to which it has drifted. Scarcely any ice now about river except what rests on the bottom of the meadows, dirty with sediment.

The first song sparrows are very inconspicuous and shy on the brown earth. You hear some weeds rustle, or think you see a mouse run amid the stubble, and then the sparrow flits low away.

When I read Topsell’s account of the ichneumon eating his way out of the crocodile, I think that, though it be not true in fact, it is very true in fancy, and it is no small gift to be able to give it so good a setting-forth. What a pity that our modern naturalists cannot tell their truths with half this zest and spirit!

Nowadays we have rain, and then high wind directly after it.

C. says that Walden began to be hard to get on to the first of March. 

I saw this afternoon a meadow below Flint’s willow row still frozen over (at 3 P. M.), — frozen last night, — and the frozen part corresponded generally to the anchor ice on the bottom, while there was an open canal all around and beyond the edge of the anchor ice; but when I returned two hours later, the wind had broken up and dissipated every vestige of this surface ice; i. e., it was an ice formed last night which it took the whole day with a strong wind to break up in this rather sheltered place.

Our muddiest and wettest walking thus far was the last week of February.

I should have launched my boat ere this if it had been ready.

The last skating was on Walden the 26th February. The next day it was soft. Sleighing ended February 22d, and there had not been much a long time before.

I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 3, 1860

Topsell’s account of the ichneumon eating his way out of the crocodile. See Topsell’s The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents (1658). According to Strabo ( 64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD) : " The ichneumons. . . lie in wait for the crocodiles, when the latter are basking in the sun with their mouths open; they then drop into their jaws, and eating through their intestines and belly, issue out of the dead body."^[4]

The first song sparrows are very inconspicuous and shy on the brown earth. See March 2, 1860 ("Looking up a narrow ditch in a meadow, I see a modest brown bird flit along it furtively, — the first song sparrow, -"); March 10, 1852 (" See a sparrow, perhaps a song sparrow, flitting amid the young oaks where the ground is covered with snow.") See also note to February 24, 1857 ("I am surprised to hear the strain of a song sparrow from the riverside. ") and A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

C. says that Walden began to be hard to get on to the first of March. See. Walden, Chapter 17 (Spring) ("This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. It commonly opens about the first of April," [In Thoreau’s records, ice out occurred as early as March 15 and as late as April 18]); March 7, 1855 ("It is now difficult getting on and off Walden.");  March 11, 1856 ("Cut a hole in the ice in the middle of Walden. It is just 24 1/4 inches thick,"); March 11, 1861 ("C. says that Walden is almost entirely open to-day, so that the lines on my map would not strike any ice, but that there is ice in the deep cove. It will be open then the 12th or 13th. This is earlier than I ever knew it to open.");… Walden, Chapter 17 (Spring) (".On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. . . .. One year I went across the middle only five days before it disappeared entirely.");  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") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

I should have launched my boat ere this if it had been ready. See February 24, 1857 ("Get my boat out the cellar."); February 26, 1857  ("Paint the bottom of my boat"); March 8, 1855 ("This morning I got my boat out of the cellar and turned it up in the yard to let the seams open before I calk it."); March 9, 1855("Painted the bottom of my boat.");  March 15, 1854 ("Paint my boat."); March 16, 1859 ("Launch my boat and sail to Ball's Hill"); March 16, 1860 ("As soon as I can get it painted and dried, I launch my boat and make my first voyage for the year up or down the stream, on that element from which I have been debarred for three months and a half.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon. See February 22, 1856 ("I see those slender grayish-winged insects creeping with closed wings over the snow-clad ice, — Perla (?) on all parts of  the river. Have seen none before, this winter. ") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring, Perla-like insects appear . See also  March 3, 1855 ("I see a dirty-white miller fluttering about over the winter-rye patch next to Hubbard’s Grove  and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

March 3.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau March 3

Some weeds rustle,

a mouse amid the stubble? –

  

The first song sparrow

inconspicuous and shy

amid the stubble.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I should have launched my boat ere this 

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

Refuge from a shower.

July 22. 

July 22, 2018

The nest of the marsh hawk is empty. It has probably flown. 

C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. A thunderbolt fell close by. A mole ran under the boat. The wind canted round as usual (is not this owing to the circular manner of storms?) more easterly, and compelled us to turn the boat over. 

Left a little too soon, but enjoyed a splendid rainbow for half an hour.

July 22, 2018

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1858

C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. See June 14, 1855 (“It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. But we have as good a roof as they. It is very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble”)

A splendid rainbow for half an hour. See April 18, 1855 ("Am overtaken by a sudden sun-shower, after which a rainbow.”); August 17, 1858 (“Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us.”)

July 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 22

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

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.")

The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin.

March 19   P. M. —To Hill and Grackle Swamp. Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat afternoon. 

These spring impressions (as of the apparent waking up of the meadow described day before yesterday) are not repeated the same year, at least not with the same force, for the next day the same phenomenon does not surprise us. Our appetite has lost its edge.

The other day the face of the meadow wore a peculiar appearance, as if it were beginning to wake up under the influence of the southwest wind and the warm sun, but it cannot again this year present precisely that appearance to me. I have taken a step forward to a new position and must see something else. You perceive, and are affected by, changes too subtle to be described. 

I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air. I am behind the Hemlocks. It is their wings which are most conspicuous, when they are in the sun. Their bodies are comparatively small and black, and they have two mourning plumes in their fronts. Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water. They people a portion of the otherwise vacant air, being apparently fond of the sunshine, in which they'are most conspicuous. Sometimes a globular swarm two feet or more in diameter, suggesting how genial and habitable the air is become. 

I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound. 

I hear a steady sigh of the wind, rising and swelling into a roar, in the pines, which seems to tell of a long, warm rain to come. 

I see a white pine which has borne fruit in its ninth year. The cones, four in number, which are seven eighths of an inch long, have stems about two and a half inches long!— not yet curving down; so the stem probably does not grow any more. 

Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp, admiring the mosses; those bright-yellow hypnums (?), like sunlight on decaying logs, and jungermannia, like sea-mosses ready spread. 

Hear the phebe note of a chickadee. 

In the swamp, see grackles, four or five, with the light ring about eye, — their bead eyes. They utter only those ineffectual split notes, no conqueree. 

Might I not call that Hemlock Brook? and the source of it Horse-skull Meadow? 

Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations. 

By the river, see distinctly red-wings and hear their conqueree. They are not associated with grackles. They are an age before their cousins, have attained to clearness and liquidity. They are officers, epauletted; the others are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, while the grackle's is ragged and split. 

It is a fine evening, as I stand on the bridge. The waters are quite smooth; very little ice to be seen. The red-wing and song sparrow are singing, and a flock of tree sparrows is pleasantly warbling. 

A new era has come. The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin; they come together. 

One or two boys are out trying their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the sun, and as often as one turns his boat round on the smooth surface, the setting sun is reflected from its side. 

I feel reproach when I have spoken with levity, when I have made a jest, of my own existence. The makers have thus secured seriousness and respect for their work in our very organization. The most serious events have their ludicrous aspect, such as death; but we cannot excuse ourselves when we have taken this view of them only. It is pardonable when we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, making them stepping-stones to something higher.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 19, 1858

March 19,  2018

Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat afternoon. See March 19, 1855 ("A fine clear and warm day for the season. Launch my boat.");  March 20, 1853 ("(Yesterday I forgot to say I painted my boat.")); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air.  See March 20, 1858 ("It cheers me more to behold the swarms of gnats which have revived in the spring sun."); March 20, 1860 ("I observed on the 18th a swarm of those larger tipulidæ, or fuzzy gnats . . . This afternoon, in the sprinkling rain, I see a very small swarm of the same kind dancing in like manner . . . These gyrate in the air as water-bugs on the water. ") March 25, 1859 ("I thought the other day, How we enjoy a warm and pleasant day at this season! We dance like gnats in the sun. ") See alao A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound.  See March 20, 1856 ("For two or three days I have heard the gobbling of turkeys, the first spring sound") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The gobbling of turkeys

In the swamp, see grackles . . . They utter only those ineffectual split notes.   March 8, 1860 ("I suspect that I have seen only grackles as yet. ");  March 13, 1859 ("Probably grackles have been seen some days. I think I saw them on the 11th?");  March 29, 1853 (" It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring: the grackle arrives

Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time have heard this note. See March 18, 1857 ("I hear the chill-lill or tchit-a-tchit of the slate-colored sparrow, and see it."); March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?). . . It has two white feathers in its tail."); March 20, 1855 ("At my landing I hear the F. hyemalis,”); TMarch 20, 1858  ("The note of the F. hyemalis, or chill-lill, is a jingle, with also a shorter and drier crackling or shuffling chip as it flits by.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward

The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin. See March 19, 1853 ("His first note may be a chuck, but his second is a rich gurgle or warble."); March 19, 1855 ("I hear at last the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird and, looking up, see him flying high over the river southwesterly in great haste to reach somewhere."); March 16, 1860 ("How handsome as they go by in a checker, each with a bright-scarlet shoulder! "); March 17, 1858 ("Now I hear . . . the tchuck tchuck of a blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. So it is a red-wing?"); March 18, 1857 ("And now from far southward coming on through the air, the chattering of blackbirds, —probably red-wings, for I hear an imperfect conqueree.");  March 22, 1855 ("The blackbirds already sing o-gurgle ee-e-e from time to time on the top of a willow or elm or maple, but oftener a sharp, shrill whistle or a tchuck.”);  April 9, 1856 ("The red-wing’s o’gurgle-ee-e is in singular harmony with the sound and impression of the lapsing stream or the smooth, swelling flood beneath his perch. He gives expression to the flood.");  April 12, 1859 ("The red-wings generally sit on the black willows and the swamp white oaks and maples by the water, and sing o-gurgle-ee this evening, as if glad to see the river's brink appearing again and smooth waters also.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, The Red-wing Arrives

Red-wing's gurgle-ee 

heard when smooth waters begin –

they come together. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin.

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-580319

Paint the bottom of my boat

February 26. 

Cold and windy. The river fast going down.

 
Paint the bottom of my boat. 

What an accursed land, methinks unfit for the habitation of man, where the wild animals are monkeys! 

I saw Mrs. Brooks's spiraeas to-day grown half an inch (!!), whose starting I heard of on the 18th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 26, 1857

Paint the bottom of my boat. See March 9, 1855 (“Painted the bottom of my boat. ”); March 15, 1854 (“Paint my boat. ”) ; March 16, 1860 (“As soon as I can get it painted and dried, I launch my boat and make my first voyage for the year up or down the stream, on that element from which I have been de barred for three months and a half.”); March 17, 1857 (“Launch my boat.”). See also February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring.")

I saw Mrs. Brooks's spiraeas to-day. See February 18, 1856 ("Sophia says that Mrs. Brooks's spiraeas have started considerably!”); February 25, 1857 ("I hear of lilac buds expanding, but have not looked at them.")

Why do water and snow take just this form?

February 19. 

Cloudy and somewhat rainy, the thermometer at last fallen to thirty-two and thirty-three degrees. 

I have often noticed that the surface of the snow was rippled or waved like water. The dust from plowed ground collects on the ridges which bound these waves, and there it becomes very conspicuous as the snow melts, the ridges standing out more and more, for the dirt apparently protects the snow from the sun. 

Why do water and snow take just this form? 

Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales and look very red, probably on account of the warm weather. 

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend. 

An old man, one of my neighbors, is so demented that he put both legs into one leg of his pantaloons the other morning! 

Mr. Cheney tells me that Goodwin brought him a partridge to sell in the midst of the late severe weather. C. said it was a pity to kill it, it must find it hard to get a living. "I guess she didn't find it any harder than I do," answered G. 

It would be pleasant to recall to mind the different styles of boats that have been used on this river from the first, beginning with the bark canoe and the dug out, or log canoe, or pirogue. Then, perhaps, some simple log canoe, or such a boat as now prevails, which probably has its prototype on English rivers, — call it dory, skiff, or what-not, — made as soon as boards were sawed here; the smaller, punt-like ones for one man; the round-bottomed boats from below, and the half-round or lapstreaked, sometimes with sails; the great canal-boats; and the hay-boats of the Sudbury meadows; and lastly what the boys call "shell-boats," introduced last year, in imitation of the Esquimau kayak. 

At evening it begins to snow . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 19, 1857

Why do water and snow take just this form? See February 12, 1860 ("That is what the phenomenon of ice means. The earth is annually inverted and we walk upon the sky. The ice reflects the blue of the sky. The waters become solid and make a sky below. The clouds grow heavy and fall to earth, and we walk on them. We live and walk on solidified fluids."); February 8, 1860 ("One would think that the forms of ice-crystals must include all others."); January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals"); See also February 19, 1854 ("Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world?”). Also April 18, 1852 (“"Why should just these sights and sounds accompany our life? Why . . .just this circle of creatures completes the world?”).

Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales See November 18, 1858 (“The early willow catkins already peep out a quarter of an inch”);  March 2, 1859 (“Go and measure to what length the silvery willow catkins have crept out beyond their scales, if you would know what time o' the year it is by Nature's clock.”);See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:. Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend. See February 8, 1857 ("And now another friendship is ended.”)

Warm weather. A thunder-storm in the evening.

March 16.

Another fine morning. 

Willows and alders along watercourses all alive these mornings and ringing with the trills and jingles and warbles of birds, even as the waters have lately broken loose and tinkle below. 

The song sparrows are very abundant, peopling each bush, willow, or alder for a quarter of a mile, and pursuing each other as if now selecting their mates. It is their song which especially fills the air. made an incessant and undistinguishable trill and jingle by their numbers. 

I see ducks afar, sailing on the meadow, leaving a long furrow in the water behind them. Watch them at leisure without scaring them, with my glass; observe their free and undisturbed motions. Some dark brown partly on water, alternately dipping with their tails up  partly on land. These I think may be summer ducks.

Others with bright white breasts, etc., and black heads about same size or larger, which may be golden-eyes, i.e. brass-eyed whistlers. [Probably both sheldrakes. Vide April 6 and 7, 1855.] 

They dive and are gone some time, and come up a rod off. At first I saw but one, then, a minute after, three.  

The first phoebe near the water is heard. 

See and hear honey-bees about my boat in the yard, attracted probably by the beeswax in the grafting-wax which was put on it a year ago. 

It is warm weather. A thunder-storm in the evening.

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

I see ducks afar. . . bright white breasts, etc., and black heads about same size or larger . . .Probably both sheldrakes. See  March 16, 1855 ("Scare up two large ducks . . .. One very large; white beneath, breast and neck; black head and wings and aft. . . . I view them with glass. The larger sails about on the watch, while the smaller, dark one dives repeatedly. I think it the goosander or sheldrake."); March 16, 1820 ("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, Signs of the Spring, Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

The first phoebe near the water is heard. See April 6, 1856 ("Just beyond Wood’s Bridge, I hear the pewee. With what confidence after the lapse of many months, I come out to this waterside, some warm and pleasant spring morning, and, listening, hear, from farther or nearer, through the still concave of the air, the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Phoebe

See and hear honey-bees about my boat in the yard, See May 7, 1853 ("The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

A thunder-storm in the evening. See February 15, 1861 ("A little thunder and lightning late in the afternoon. I see two flashes and hear two claps."); February 23, 1860 ("About 4 P. M. a smart shower, ushered in by thunder and succeeded by a brilliant rainbow "); March 8, 1854 ("Lightning this evening, after a day of successive rains.")

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A thunder-storm in the evening.

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-540316

March 16, 2022

I have a never-been-here-before moment at dusk snowshoeing off the lower trail --bushwacking, trying to stay off her track, headed for connector trail, looking for an open route through the trees--when a clear pristine path opens before me; i wonder why i never noticed it before and selfishly think to keep it secret an easy short cut between the trails. i see tangle of trees blocking the way to the "corner" and wonder why i have never see it before. The open path is as if it is an old logging road. Wait it is the logging road. i have reached the trail sooner than i thought. My mental coordinates all snap around thirty degrees. i am reoriented. i have my bearings. zphx  20140316