Colder and perhaps windier.

January 6. 

Still colder and perhaps windier. 

The river is now for the most part covered with snow again, which has blown from the meadows and been held by the water which has oozed out. I slump through snow into that water for twenty rods together, which is not frozen though the thermometer says — 8°. 

I think that the bright-yellow wood of the barberry, which I have occasion to break in my surveying, is the most interesting and remarkable for its color of any. 

When I get home after that slumping walk on the river, I find that the slush has balled and frozen on my boots two or three inches thick, and can only be thawed off by the fire, it is so solid. 

I frequently have occasion in surveying to note the position or bearing of the edge of a wood, which I describe as edge of wood. In such a way apparently the name Edgewood originated. 

Beatton, the old Scotch storekeeper, used to say of one Deacon (Joe ?) Brown, a grandfather of the milkman, who used to dine at his house on Sundays and praise his wife's dinners but yet prevented her being admitted to the church, that his was like a "coo's (cow's) tongue, rough one side and smooth the other." 

A man asked me the other night whether such and such persons were not as happy as anybody, being conscious, as I perceived, of much unhappiness himself and not aspiring to much more than an animal content. 

"Why!"

 said I, speaking to his condition,

"the stones are happy, Concord River is happy, and I am happy too.

When I took up a fragment of a walnut-shell this morning, I saw by its very grain and composition, its form and color, etc., that it was made for happiness.

The most brutish and inanimate objects that are made suggest an everlasting and thorough satisfaction; they are the homes of content.

Wood, earth, mould, etc., exist for joy.

 
Do you think that Concord River would have continued to flow these millions of years by Clamshell Hill and round Hunt's Island, if it had not been happy, — if it had been miserable in its channel, tired of existence, and cursing its maker and the hour that it sprang ?" 

Though there is an extremely cold, cutting northwest wind, against which I see many travellers turning their backs, and so advancing, I hear and see an unusual number of merry little tree sparrows about the few weeds that are to be seen. 

They look very chipper, flitting restlessly about and jerking their long tails.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 6, 1857

I am happy too. See September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”); January 7, 1855 ("It would not be worth the while to die and leave all this life behind one.”); March 15, 1852 ("The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is happy whose work takes him outdoors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Concord River . . . continued to flow these millions of years . . . See March 14, 1860 ("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."); March 12, 1856 ("It is long-continued, steady cold which produces thick ice. If the present cold should continue uninterrupted a thousand years would not the pond become solid?"); March 24, 1855 ("In the course of ages the rivers wriggle in their beds, till it feels comfortable under them. Time is cheap and rather insignificant."); February 11, 1854 ("For how many aeons did the willow shed its yellow pollen annually before man was created!"); May 5, 1860 ("Think how many pewees must have built under the eaves of this cliff since pewees were created and this cliff itself built!!”)

Friday I get home after 630 and change and by seven we are out under red light only with the half moon on the crusty snow for a long walk up to the view down to the Moosetrail back up via Beech Lane and then bushwhacking to the Kendall Fisher pond where there are some very distinct old Fisher tracks frozen in the ice then up to the double chair but By now I've taken off my mittens even though it's 21° and we decide to bushwhack down the property line. Easier said than done because of those cliffs in the dark and forgetting just where the Way around is we end up stuck halfway down and halfway up a cliff over on the neighbors land and have to climb back up in order to get down and it seems as though we are at the stream that flows down through our St. George land but we head back south and end up (although I have no clue) near the lake view farm corner above the ramp and having to slide down here and there and over the boulders and eventually down to the ramp and out and starting down that old first trail that we saw when we first bought this land but I veer off to the sheep trail by the stream and over rainbow bridge to pick up Jane's glove where she at the start of the hike already too hot had left that behind. home by 10PM. 20170106

stuck halfway down and

halfway up we climb back up

to get  back down.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 6.

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/HDT570106

Black birches and red maples changed about the pond.

October 1.

The young black birches about Walden, next the south shore, are now commonly clear pale yellow, very distinct at distance, like bright-yellow white birches, so slender amid the dense growth of oaks and evergreens on the steep shores. 

  

The black birches and red maples are the conspicuous trees changed about the pond. Not yet the oaks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 1, 1854

The young black birches about Walden, next the south shore, are now commonly clear pale yellow, very distinct at distance. See October 3, 1858 ("About the pond I see maples of all their tints, and black birches (on the southwest side) clear pale yellow")

The black birches and red maples are the conspicuous trees changed about the pond. See October 1, 1852 ("The young and tender trees begin to assume the autumnal tints more generally,"); October 3, 1856 ("Especially the hillsides about Walden begin to wear these autumnal tints in the cooler air. These lit leaves, this glowing, bright-tinted shrubbery, is in singular harmony with the dry, stony shore of this cool and deep well.")

The young black birches

next the Walden south shore are 

now clear pale yellow

distinct at distance

like bright-yellow white birches 

so slender amid 

dense growth of oaks and 

evergreens on the steep shores.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Black birches and red maples 

changed about 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-541001

The large-catkined early willow

April 15.

April 15, 2022

Rain, rain, rain, all day, carrying off the snow. 

The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now. 

The aspen on the railroad is beginning to blossom, showing the purple or mulberry in the terminal catkins, though it droops like dead cats' tails in the rain. It appears about the same date with the elm.


I think that the largest early-catkined willow in large bushes in sand by water now blossoming -- the fertile catkins with paler blossoms, the sterile covered with pollen, a pleasant lively bright yellow -- is the brightest flower I have seen thus far. I notice that the sterile blossoms of that large-catkined early willow begin to open on the side of the catkin, like a tinge of golden light, gradually spreading and expanding over the whole surface and lifting their anthers far and wide. The stem of these sterile catkins is more reddish, smoother, and slenderer than that of the female ones (pale-flowered), which is darker and downy.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1852

The aspen on the railroad appears about the same date with the elm. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens; also Elms and the Purple Finch.

I think that the largest early-catkined willow . . . is the brightest flower I have seen thus far. See April 12, 1852 (“It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow, the color of the sun.”); April 18, 1852 ("The most interesting fact, perhaps, at present is these few tender yellow blossoms, these half-expanded sterile aments of the willow, seen through the rain and cold, — signs of the advancing year, pledges of the sun's return."); February 11, 1854 (“For how many aeons did the willow shed its yellow pollen annually before man was created!”)

Earliest spring flowers

April 12

April 12, 2022

See the first blossoms (bright-yellow stamens or pistils) on the willow catkins to-day. The speckled alders and the maples are earlier then. The yellow blossom appears first on one side of the ament and is the most of bright and sunny color the spring has shown, the most decidedly flower-like that I have seen. It flowers, then, I should say, without regard to the skunk-cabbage, q. v. First the speckled alder, then the maple without keys, then this earliest, perhaps swamp, willow with its bright-yellow blossoms on one side of the ament. 

It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow, the color of the sun.

There is, this afternoon and evening, a rather cool April rain. Pleasant to hear its steady dripping.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 12, 1852

It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow. See note April 12, 1858 ("Now the early willows are in their prime, methinks.") and  April 13, 1852 ("As I came home through the streets at 11 o’clock last night through the snow, it cheered me to think that there was a little bit of a yellow blossom by warm sandy watersides which had expanded its yellow blossom on the sunny side amid the snows. I mean the catkins of the earliest willow. To think of those little sunny spots in nature, so incredibly contrasting with all this white and cold.") See also April 2, 1856 (“It will take you half a lifetime to find out where to look for the earliest flower.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

A rather cool April rain. See April 12, 1855 ("Still falls a little snow and rain this morning,"); April 12, 1856 ("Rains considerably in the evening.")

April 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 12

Bright-yellow blossoms

on willow catkins today –

color of the sun.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Earliest spring flowers

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-520412

In the shady yew wood

September 23

September 23, 2018

I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green and then dark.

Red pine-sap by north side of Yew Path some ten rods east of yew, not long done. The root of the freshest has a decided checkerberry scent, and for a long time — a week after — in my chamber, the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1860

Pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod. See September 23, 1852 ("A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. ") See also November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.") and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

Red pine-sap. See note to September 23, 1857 (“The red variety is very common and quite fresh”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pine-sap and Tobacco-pipe

tinyurl.com/HDTyew

To Annursnack

July 22.

Yesterday having been a rainy day, the air is now clear and cool. Rarely is the horizon so distinct. 

I stand in Heywood's pasture and, leaning over the wall, look westward. The surface of the earth, - grass grounds, pastures, and meadows, - is remarkably beautiful. All things are peculiarly fresh on account of the copious rains.

The next field, as I look over the wall, is a sort of terrestrial rainbow. First dark-green, where white clover has been cut; next along the edge of the meadow is a strip of red-top, uncut, perfectly distinct; then the cheerful bright-yellow sedge of the meadow; then a corresponding belt of red-top on its upper edge, quite straight and rectilinear like the first; then a glaucous-green field of grain still quite low; and, in the further corner of the field, a much darker square of green than any yet -- all brilliant in this wonderful light.

First locust heard.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1860

A sort of terrestrial rainbow all brilliant in this wonderful light. See July 15, 1860 (“The rich green of young grain now, of various shades; the flashing blades of corn; the yellowing tops of ripening grain; the dense uniform red of red-top; the purple of the fowl-meadow along the low river-banks; the very dark and shadowy green of herd's-grass as if clouds were always passing over it; the fresh light green where June-grass has been cut; the fresh dark green where clover has been cut; the hard, dark green of pastures; the cheerful yellowish green of the meadows where the sedges prevail, with darker patches and veins of grass in the higher and drier parts.”)

First locust heard. See June 14, 1854 ("Harris's other kind, the dog-day cicada (canicularis), or harvest-fly. He says it begins to be heard invariably at the beginning of dog-days; he (Harris) heard it for many years in succession with few exceptions on the 25th of July."); July 17, 1856 (“A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust.”); July 18, 1851 ("I first heard the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.”); July 19, 1854 ("The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days."); July 26, 1854 ("It is a windy day like yesterday, yet almost constantly I hear borne on the wind from far, mingling with the sound of the wind, the z-ing locust, scarcely like a distinct sound.”); July 26, 1853 (“I mark again, about this time when the first asters open, the sound of crickets or locusts that makes you fruitfully meditative, helps condense your thoughts, like the mel dews in the afternoon. This the afternoon of the year.”); July 31, 1856 (“This dog-day afternoon [a]s I make my way amid rank weeds still wet with the dew, the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts, I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.”); August 14, 1853 ("Locust days, — sultry and sweltering. I hear them even till sunset. The usually invisible but far-heard locust."); August 16, 1852 ("These are locust days. I hear them on the elms in the street, but cannot tell where they are."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust, Dogdayish Days