The dog lies with his paws hanging over the door-sill this agreeably cool morning.

May 30.

May 30, 2014

The morning wind forever blows; the poem of the world is uninterrupted, but few are the ears that hear it.

Forever that strain of the harp which soothed the Cerberus and called me back to life is sounding.

Olympus is the outside of the earth everywhere.

5 A. M. To Cliffs.

High blackberry out.

As I go by Hayden's in the still cool morning, the farmer's door is open — probably his cattle have been attended to — and the odor of the bacon which is being fried for his breakfast fills the air.

The dog lies with his paws hanging over the door-sill this agreeably cool morning.

The cistus out, probably yesterday, a simple and delicate flower, its stamens all swept to one side. It upholds a delicate saffron-golden (?) basin about nine inches from the ground.

As I look off from Fair Haven I perceive that that downy, silvery hoariness has mostly left the leaves (it now comes off on to the clothes), and they are of a uniform smooth light green, while the pines are a dirty dark brown, almost purple, and are mostly merged and lost in the deciduous trees.

The Erigeron bellidifolius is a tender-looking, pale-purple, aster-like flower a foot high in little squads, nodding in the wind on the bare slopes of hill pastures.

Young bush like black cherries a day or two, on Cliffs and in such favorable places.

The hylodes were about done peeping before those last few warm days, — when the toads began in earnest in the river, — but last night being somewhat cooler they were not so loud.

P. M. - To Carlisle Bridge by boat.

A strong but somewhat gusty southerly wind, before which C. and I sailed all the way from home to Carlisle Bridge in not far from an hour; the river unusually high for the season.

Very pleasant to feel the strong, fresh southerly wind from over the water.

There are no clouds in the sky, but a high haziness, as if the moisture drawn up by yesterday's heat was condensed by to-day's comparative coolness.

The water a dull slate-color and waves running high, — a dirty yellow where they break, — and long streaks of white foam, six or eight feet apart, stretching north and south between Concord and Bedford, — without end.

The common blue flag just out at Ball's Hill.

The white maples, especially those shaped like large bushes, on the banks are now full of foliage, showing the white under sides of the leaves in the wind, and the swamp white oak, having similar silvery under sides to its leaves, and both growing abundantly and prevailing here along the river, make or impart a peculiar flashing light to the scenery in windy weather, all bright, flashing, and cheerful.

On the meadows are large yellow-green patches of ferns beginning to prevail.

Passed a large boat anchored off in the meadows not far from the boundary of Concord. It was quite a piece of ocean scenery, we saw it so long before reaching it and so long after; and it looked larger than reality, what with the roaring of the wind in our shrouds and the dashing of the waves. The incessant drifting about of a boat so anchored by a long cable, playing with its halter, now showing more, now less, of its side, is a pleasing sight.

Landed at a high lupine bank by Carlisle Bridge. How many such lupine banks there are! — whose blue you detect many rods off.

There I found, methinks, minute Specularia perfoliata, with small crenate clasping leaves alternate at some distance apart, on upright stems about three inches high, but apparently fruiting in the bud.

Also the Silene antirrhina very abundant there.

The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent, one of the most common, in fact, in low ground and a very handsome purple, with more red than usual in its violet.

The pines now dotted with white shoots, the pitch pines a little red dish, are an interesting sight now.

Whence came all those dead suckers, a dozen at least, which we saw floating to-day, some on their sides, transversely barred, some on their backs with their white bellies up and dark fins on each side? Why are they suckers only that we see Can it be because the spearers have thrown them away? Or has some bird of prey dropped them? I rarely see other fish floating.

Melvin gave George Brooks some pink azaleas yesterday, said to have grown in the north part of the town.

The white maple keys falling and covering the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1853

The Erigeron bellidifolius is a tender-looking, pale-purple, aster-like flower a foot high in little squads, nodding in the wind on the bare slopes of hill pastures. See May 29, 1856 ("What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that meadow! Painted Cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergii, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc. Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones”); May 8, 1853 ("It is wonderful what a variety of flowers may grow within the range of a walk, and how long some very conspicuous ones may escape the most diligent walker, if you do not chance to visit their localities the right week or fortnight, when their signs are out.")

The common blue flag just out at Ball's Hill. See June 10, 1858 ("Common blue flag, how long?"); June 14, 1853  ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, . . . especially its reflections in the water.; June 15, 1859 ("Blue flag abundant."); June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”)

The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent. See May 30, 1852 ("Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . . Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow") See also May 14, 1858 ("Saw the Viola palmata, early form, yesterday; how long?”); May 17, 1853 ("The Viola palmata is out there, in the meadow. ");  May 21, 1855 ("Viola palmata  pretty common, apparently two or three days.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

Whence came all those dead suckers? See April 18, 1852 ("The sight of the sucker floating on the meadow at this season affects me singularly"); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!"); ("When I realize that the mortality of suckers in the spring is as old a phenomenon, perchance, as the race of suckers itself, I contemplate it with serenity and joy even, as one of the signs of spring")

Melvin gave George Brooks some pink azaleas yesterday, See May 31, 1853 (' I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora. Sophia brought home a single flower without twig or leaf from Mrs. Brooks's last evening. Mrs. Brooks. I find, has a large twig in a vase of water, still pretty fresh, which she says George Melvin gave to her son George. . . . Melvin and I and his dog, - and crossed the river in his boat, and he conducted me to where the Azalea nudiflora grew.")

The white maple keys falling and covering the river. See May 21, 1853 ("The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds"); May 28, 1858 ("See already one or two (?) white maple keys on the water"); May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects.”); June 9, 1858 ("White maple keys are abundantly floating.")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

The dog lies with his 

paws hanging over the door–

–sill this cool morning.

 uninterrupted –

morning wind forever blows

poem of the world 

    

 

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

This is earlier than I ever knew it to open.

March 11.

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.

Fair Haven was solid ice two or three days ago, and probably is still, and Goose Pond is to - day all ice.

Why, then, should Walden have broken up thus early? for it froze over early and the winter was steadily cold up to February at least.

I think it must have been because the ice was uncommonly covered with snow, just as the earth was, and as there was little or no frost in the earth, the ice also was thin, and it did not increase upward with snow ice as much as usual because there was no thaw or rain at all till February 2d, and then very little.

According to all accounts there has been no skating on Walden the past winter on account of the snow. It was unusually covered with snow.

This shows how many things are to be taken into account in judging of such a pond.

I have not been able to go to the pond the past winter.

I infer that, if it has broken up thus early, it must be because the ice was thin, and that it was thin not for want of cold generally, but because of the abundance of snow which lay on it.

The water is now high on the meadows and there is no ice there, owing to the recent heavy rains.

Yet C. thinks it has been higher a few weeks since.

C. observes where mice (?) have gnawed the pitch pines the past winter. Is not this a phenomenon of a winter of deep snow only? as that when I lived at Walden, a hard winter for them. I do not commonly observe it on a large scale.

My Aunt Sophia, now in her eightieth year, says that when she was a little girl my grandmother, who lived in Keene, N. H., eighty miles from Boston, went to Nova Scotia, and, in spite of all she could do, her dog Bob, a little black dog with his tail cut off, followed her to Boston, where she went aboard a vessel.

Directly after, however, Bob returned to Keene. 

One day, Bob, lying as usual under his mistress's bed in Keene, the window being open, heard a dog bark in the street, and instantly, forgetting that he was in the second story, he sprang up and jumped out the chamber window. He came down squarely on all fours, but it surprised or shocked him so that he did not run an inch, --- which greatly amused the children, - my mother and aunts.



The seed of the willow is exceedingly minute, - as I measure, from one twentieth to one twelfth of an inch in length by one fourth as much in width, - and is surrounded at base by a tuft of cotton - like hairs about one fourth of an inch long rising around and above it, forming a kind of parachute. These render it the most buoyant of the seeds of any of our trees, and it is borne the furthest horizontally with the least wind.

It falls very slowly even in the still air of a chamber, and rapidly ascends over a stove. It floats the most like a mote of any, — in a meandering manner, — and, being enveloped in this tuft of cotton, the seed is hard to detect.

Each of the numerous little pods, more or less ovate and beaked, which form the fertile catkin is closely packed with down and seeds. At maturity these pods open their beaks, which curve back, and gradually discharge their burden like the milkweed. It would take a delicate gin indeed to separate these seeds from their cotton.

If you lay bare any spot in our woods, however sandy, as by a railroad cut, no shrub or tree is surer to plant itself there sooner or later than a willow (commonly S. humilis or tristis) or poplar.

We have many kinds, but each is confined to its own habitat. I am not aware that the S. nigra has ever strayed from the river's brink. Though many of the S. alba have been set along our causeways, very few have sprung up and maintained their ground elsewhere.

The principal habitat of most of our species, such as love the water, is the river's bank and the adjacent river meadows, and when certain kinds spring up in an inland meadow where they were not known before, I feel pretty certain that they come from the river meadows.

I have but little doubt that the seed of four of those that grow along the railroad causeway was blown from the river meadows, viz. S. pedicellaris, lucida, Torreyana, and petiolaris.

The barren and fertile flowers are usually on separate plants. I observe [?] that the greater part of the white willows set out on our causeways are sterile ones.

You can easily distinguish the fertile ones at a distance when the pods are bursting.

And it is said that no sterile weeping willows have been introduced into this country, so that it cannot be raised from the seed.

Of two of the indigenous willows common along the brink of our river I have detected but one sex.

The seeds of the willow thus annually fill the air with their lint, being wafted to all parts of the country, and, though apparently not more than one in many millions gets to be a shrub, yet so lavish and persevering is Nature that her purpose is completely answered.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 11, 1861

It will be open then the 12th or 13th.This is earlier than I ever knew it to open. See Walden ("In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in '46, the 25th of March; in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52, the 18th of April; in '53, the 23rd of March; in '54, about the 7th of April. "); April 18, 1856 ("Walden is open entirely to-day for the first time, owing to the rain of yesterday and evening. I have observed its breaking up of different years commencing in ’45, and the average date has been April 4th. ") NoeFrom 1995 to 2015, ice out ranged from Jan. 29 in the record-breaking warm winter of 2012 to as late as April 12. The median ice out date over that period was March 21.  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

C. observes where mice (?) have gnawed the pitch pines the past winter. See January 23, 1852 ("Mice have nibbled the buds of the pitch pines, where the plumes have been bent down by the snow."); April 8, 1861 ("The pitch pines have been much gnawed or barked this snowy winter . . . At the base of each, also, is a quantity of the mice droppings. It is probably the white-footed mouse. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

   

We have many kinds, but each is confined to its own habitat. See May 12, 1857 ("Consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one,")

The seed of the willow is exceedingly minute. . .and is surrounded at base by a tuft of cotton - like hairs about one fourth of an inch long rising around and above it, forming a kind of parachute. These render it the most buoyant of the seeds of any of our trees . . and, though apparently not more than one in many millions gets to be a shrub, yet so lavish and persevering is Nature that her purpose is completely answered. See October 12, 1851 ("The seeds of the bidens, or beggar-ticks, with four-barbed awns like hay-hooks, now adhere to your clothes, so that you are all bristling with them. ... How tenacious of its purpose to spread and plant its race! By all methods nature secures this end, whether by the balloon, or parachute, or hook, or barbed spear like this, or mere lightness which the winds can waft."); November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow. and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge – shepherd's purse flowering

April 26. 

April 26, 2012

Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now on rather dirty weather-worn branches in low, damp gardens.

Also the smaller white flowers of the shepherd's-purse, which is already six or eight inches high, in the same places, i. e. Cheney's garden. Both, according to Dewey, introduced and naturalized.

What they call April weather, threatening rain notwithstanding the late long-continued rains.

P. M. — Rambled amid the shrub oak hills beyond Hayden's.

Lay on the dead grass in a cup-like hollow sprinkled with half-dead low shrub oaks. As I lie flat, looking close in among the roots of the grass, I perceive that its endless ribbon has pushed up about one inch and is green to that extent, — such is the length to which the spring has gone here, — though when you stand up the green is not perceptible.

It is a dull, rain dropping and threatening afternoon, inclining to drowsiness. I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge. The landscape wears a subdued tone, quite soothing to the feelings; no glaring colors.

I begin now to leave off my greatcoat.

The frogs at a distance are now so numerous that, instead of the distinct shrill peeps, it is one dreamy sound. It is not easy to tell where or how far off they are. When you have reached their pool, they seem to recede as you advance. As you squat by the side of the pool, you still see no motion in the water, though your ears ring with the sound, seemingly and probably within three feet.

I sat for ten minutes on the watch, waving my hand over the water that they might betray themselves, a tortoise, with his head out, a few feet off, watching me all the while, till at last I caught sight of a frog under a leaf, and caught and pocketed him; but when I looked afterward, he had escaped.

The moment the dog stepped into the water they stopped. They are very shy. Hundreds filled the air with their shrill peep. Yet two or three could be distinguished by some peculiarity or variation in their note. Are these different?

The Viola ovata budded.

Saw pollywogs two or three inches long.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1852

Chickweed shows its humble star-like white flowers. Also the smaller white flowers of the shepherd's-purse. See March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden");  April 13, 1858  ("Shepherd's-purse already going to seed; in bloom there some time. Also chickweed; how long? "); April 25, 1855 ("Shepherd’s-purse will bloom to-day") See also Basho:

When I looked under the hedge –

the little grass called shepherd's purse

was flowering.

I begin now to leave off my greatcoat. See April 26, 1854 ("It is now so warm that I go back to leave my greatcoat for the first time, and the cooler smell of possible rain is refreshing")

I sat for ten minutes on the watch, till at last I caught sight of a frog under a leaf, and caught and pocketed him. See March 27, 1853 (Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound.")

The moment the dog stepped into the water they stopped. They are very shy. March 27, 1853 ("Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. They are remarkably timid and shy; had their noses and eyes out, croaking, but all ceased, dove, and concealed themselves, before I got within a rod of the shore.")

A splendid sunset.

January 17. 

Another mild day. 

January 17, 2020

P. M. — To Goose Pond and Walden.  Sky overcast, but a crescent of clearer in the northwest. 

I see on the snow in Hubbard's Close one of those rather large flattish black bugs some five eighths of an inch long, with feelers and a sort of shield at the forward part with an orange mark on each side of it. 

In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating, and some under water. It must be a common phenomenon there in mild weather in the winter. 

I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). As I approach, I have a glimpse of one or two red squirrels gliding off silently along the branches of the pines, etc. They are gone so quickly and noiselessly, perhaps keeping the trunk of the tree between you and them, that [you] would not commonly suspect their presence if you were not looking for them. 

But one that was on the snow ascended a pine and sat on a bough with its back to the trunk as if there was nothing to pay. Yet when I moved again he scud up the tree, and glided across on some very slender twigs into a neighboring tree, and so I lost him. 

Here is, apparently, a settlement of these red squirrels. 

There are many holes through the snow into the ground, and many more where they have probed and dug up a white pine cone, now pretty black and, for aught I can see, with abortive or empty seeds; yet they patiently strip them on the spot, or at the base of the trees, or at the entrance of their holes, and evidently find some good seed. The snow, however, is strewn with the empty and rejected seeds. 

They seem to select for their own abode a hillside where there are half a dozen rather large and thick white pines near enough together for their aerial travelling, and then they burrow numerous holes and depend on finding (apparently) the pine cones which they cast down in the summer, before they have opened. In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources. 

I walk about Ripple Lake and Goose Pond. I see the old tracks of some foxes and rabbits about the edge of these ponds (over the ice) within a few feet of the shore. I think that I have noticed that animals thus commonly go round by the shore of a pond, whether for fear of the ice, or for the shelter of the shore, i. e. not to be seen, or because their food and game is found there. But a dog will oftener bolt straight across.
 

January 16, 2018

When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset. The northwest sky at first was what you may call a lattice sky, the fair weather establishing itself first on that side in the form of a long and narrow crescent, in which the clouds, which were uninterrupted overhead, were broken into long bars parallel to the horizon — 

Alcott said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, "A place where you can have a little conversation."

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 17, 1860

In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating. See January 23, 1858 ("Standing on the bridge over the Mill Brook on the Turnpike, there being but little ice on the south side, I see several small water-bugs (Gyrinus) swimming about, as in the spring."); January 24, 1858 ("At Nut Meadow Brook the small-sized water-bugs are as abundant and active as in summer. I see forty or fifty circling together in the smooth and sunny bays all along the brook. This is something new to me. What must they think of this winter?"); January 30, 1860 ("The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). See January 13, 1860 ("I see under some sizable white pines in E. Hubbard's wood, where red squirrels have run about much since this snow.") See also 
 January 17, 1854 ("Surveying for William O. Benjamin in east part of Lincoln. Saw a red squirrel on the wall, it being thawing weather. ") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

I see the old tracks of some foxes and rabbits about the edge of these ponds (over the ice) within a few feet of the shore. See January 8, 1860 ("We see no fresh tracks. The old tracks of the rabbit, now after the thaw, are shaped exactly like a horse shoe, an unbroken curve. Those of the fox which has run along the side of the pond are now so many snowballs, raised . . . above the level of the water-darkened snow.") See also January 2, 1856 (“As for the fox and rabbit race described yesterday, I find that the rabbit was going the other way, and possibly the fox was a rabbit, for, tracing back the rabbit, I found that it had first been walking with alternate steps, fox-like.”)

When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset. See January 17, 1852 ("In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

The spring note of the nuthatch.

March 5. 

Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. [Also the 21st March.] There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed. 

It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! (This is before I have chanced to see a bluebird, blackbird, or robin in Concord this year.) It is the spring note of the nuthatch. 

It paused in its progress about the trunk or branch and uttered this lively but peculiarly inarticulate song, an awkward attempt to warble almost in the face of the chickadee, as if it were one of its kind. It was thus giving vent to the spring within it. 

If I am not mistaken, it is what I have heard in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously early in the season, when we men had but just begun to anticipate the spring, — for it would seem that we, in our anticipations and sympathies, include in succession the moods and expressions of all creatures. 

When only the snow had begun to melt and no rill of song had broken loose, a note so dry and fettered still, so inarticulate and half thawed out, that you might (and would commonly) mistake for the tapping of a woodpecker. As if the young nuthatch in its hole had listened only to the tapping of woodpeckers and learned that music, and now, when it would sing and give vent to its spring ecstasy and it can modulate only some notes like that, that is its theme still. That is its ruling idea of song and music, — only a little clangor and liquidity added to the tapping of the woodpecker. 

It was the handle by which my thoughts took firmly hold on spring. This herald of spring is commonly unseen, it sits so close to the bark. 

P. M. — Up river to Well Meadow. The snow melts and sinks very rapidly. This spring snow is peculiarly white and blinding. The inequalities of the surface are peculiar and interesting when it has sunk thus rapidly. 

I see crows walking about on the ice half covered with snow in the middle of the meadows, where there is no grass, apparently to pick up the worms and other insects left there since the midwinter freshet. We see one or two little gnats or mosquitoes in the air. 

See a large light-colored hawk circling a long time over Fair Haven Hill, and another, probably its mate, starts away from Holden Wood and circles toward it. The last being nearest, I distinguished that its wings were black tipped. (I have no glass ) What can they be? I think that I have seen the same in previous springs. They are too light-colored for hen-hawks, and for a pair of marsh hawks, — being apparently alike. Then the fish hawk is said by the books not to get here nearly so early, and, beside, they would not circle about so much over the hill. 

The goshawk, which I next think of, has no black tip to wings that I can learn. May it not be the winter hawk of Wilson? for he says its primaries are black at the tips, and that [it] is lighter than the red-shouldered, of same species. 

At the same time I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. This is apparently their spring movement. 

Turkeys gobble in some distant farmyard at the same time. 

At length the sun is seen to have come out and to be shining on the oak leaves on the south side of Bear Garden Hill, and its light appears to be exactly limited to them. 

I saw on the ice, quite alive, some of those black water-beetles, which apparently had been left above by a rise of the river. Were they a Gyrinus? 

When I was last at Well Meadow, I saw where apparently a dozen hounds had all crossed the brook at exactly one point, leaving a great trail in the slosh above the ice, though there was but one track of a man. It reminded me of a buffalo-trail. 

Every half-mile, as you go up the river, you come to the tracks of one or two dogs which have recently crossed it without any man. 

Those skunk-cabbage buds which are most advanced have cast off their outmost and often frost-bitten sheaths, and the spathe is broader and slightly opened (some three quarters of an inch or more already) and has acquired brighter and more variegated colors. The out side of the spathe shows some ripeness in its colors and markings, like a melon-rind, before the spadix begins to bloom. 

I find that many of the most forward spathes, etc., have been destroyed since I was here three days ago. Some animal has nibbled away a part of the spathes (or sometimes only a hole in it) — and I see the fragments scattered about — and then eaten out the whole of the spadix. Indeed, but few forward ones are left. 

Is this a mouse or musquash? or a bird ? The spadix is evidently a favorite titbit to some creature. 

That more entire-leaved plant amid the early skunk- cabbage which I called a cress on the 3d has the bitter taste of cress. The common cress has in one place grown considerably, and is fresh and clean and very good to eat. I wonder that I do not see where some creatures have eaten it. 

The sweet-gale brush seen in a mass at a little distance is considerably darker than the alders above it. This will do for the sweet-gale maze in November. 

The cowslip there is very prominently flower-budded, lifting its yellow flower-buds above water in one place. The leaves are quite inconspicuous when they first come up, being rolled up tightly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1859

"The notes of the White-breasted Nuthatch

are remarkable on account of their nasal sound.

Ordinarily they resemble the monosyllables

hank, hank, kank, kank;

but now and then in the spring,

they emit a sweeter kind of chirp,

whenever the sexes meet,

or when they are feeding their young.”

( J. J. Audubon)

Notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed. See January 5, 1859 ("I hear a fine busy twitter, and, looking up, see a nuthatch hopping along . . . and then it utters a distinct gnah, as if to attract a companion. Indeed, that other, finer twitter seemed designed to keep some companion in tow, or else it was like a very busy man talking to himself. The companion was a single chickadee, which lisped six or eight feet off.. . .And when the nuthatch flitted to another tree two rods off, the chickadee unfailingly followed.")

It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! See March 13, 1853 ("Excepting a few blue birds and larks, no spring birds have come, apparently. . . .But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter, like some woodpecker, or possibly nuthatch?"); February 17, 1855 (" Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). . . Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird?”); February 18, 1857 ("When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”);  March 17, 1857 (" I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound."); March 18, 1857 ("I hear the faint fine notes of apparent nuthatches coursing up the pitch pines, a pair of them, one answering to the other, as it were like a vibrating watch-spring.Then, at a distance, that whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar, which after all I suspect may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker."); March 20, 1858 ("I hear now, at 7 A. M., from the hill across the water, probably the note of a woodpecker, I know not what species; not that very early gnah gnah, which I have not heard this year.").; March 25, 1859 ("P. M.— To Clamshell. I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. Do I ever hear it in the afternoon ? It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker and suggests a relation to that bird. “); April 25, 1859 ("I hear still the what what what of a nuthatch, and, directly after, its ordinary winter note of gnah gnah, quite distinct. I think the former is its spring note or breeding-note.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Nuthatch

I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. See March 5, 1854 ("See crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

I distinguished that its wings were black tipped. (I have no glass ) What can they be? Compare March 27, 1855 (“See my frog hawk. . . .It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump."); March 30, 1856 ("See probably a hen-hawk (?) (black tips to wings), sailing low over the low cliff next the river, looking probably for birds. [May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.]" ) May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

White-bellied nuthatch –

its peculiar note addressed

to the chickadee.

Buds and twigs and the mazes made by twigs in the silvery November light

November 15. 

P. M. — To Grackle Swamp. A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. 

November 15, 2023

I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up. The end of last month and the first part of this is the time. I do not know that I find more than one kind now in that swamp, and of that the fertile fronds are mostly decayed. All lie flat, ready to be buried in snow. 

Slight as the snow is, you are now reminded occasionally in your walks that you have contemporaries, and perchance predecessors. I see the track of a fox which was returning from his visit to a farmyard last night, and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog. The dog must have been a large one. I see their shadows before me. 

In another place, where the snow is so slight and lifted up on the withered grass that no track is left, I see by the cakes or balls of snow that have dropped from his shoes that a man has passed. This would be known for a man and a dog’s track in any part of the world. 

Five toes in a bundle, somewhat diamond-shape, forming a sort of rosette, are the print of the dog, whether on the sands of Africa or the snow of New England. The track of his master is somewhat more variable, yet reducible within certain limits. 

The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier), — later than the Lycopodium complanatum, which is done there. 

Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the frost-weed and evergreen ferns. Buds and twigs (like gossamer), and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery light on this down and the silver-haired andropogon grass to the first half of November. 

The water andromeda leaves have fallen, and the persistent turned that red brown; how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 15, 1858

To Grackle Swamp. See March 19, 1858 ("Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp")

A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. See November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”); and  note to November 15, 1854 ("The first snow, a mere sugaring which went off the next morning.")

I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up. The end of last month and the first part of this is the time.  See October 31, 1851 (" I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?).. . .They are quite fresh in those cold and wet places and almost flattened down now . . .Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves ");   November 16, 1853 ("I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock and various other ferns, one the marginal (?) shield fern and one the terminal shield fern.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

I see the track of a fox which was returning from his visit to a farmyard last night, See December 14, 1855("Then I came upon a fox-track made last night, leading toward a farmhouse"); January 21, 1857 ("It is remarkable how many tracks of foxes you will see quite near the village, where they have been in the night, and yet a regular walker will not glimpse one oftener than once in eight or ten years.")

This would be known for a man and a dog’s track in any part of the world. See November 28, 1858 ("Here is the track of a sportsman and his dog in my secluded path, and probably he preceded me in the summer as well. Yet my hour is not his, and I may never meet him! ")

The Lycopodium denroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier).  See September 24, 1857 ("I find the Lycopodium dendroideum, not quite out, just northwest of this pine grove, in the grass. It is not the
variety obscurum, which grows at Trillium Wood, is more upright-branched and branches round."); Novemberr 7, 1858 ("I see Lycopodium dendroideum which has not yet shed pollen.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November. See November 15, 1859 (“A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it.”);  See also  November 11, 1858 ("Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October)."),  note to November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

Buds and twigs (like gossamer), and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery light on this down. See November 28, 1856 ("The sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon")

The water andromeda leaves have fallen, and the persistent turned that red brown. See November 14, 1858 ("The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights."); November 20, 1857 ("The water andromeda leaves are brown now, except where protected by trees."); November 23, 1857 ("The water andromeda [at Gowing's Swamp] makes a still more uniformly dense thicket, which. . .makes an impression of smoothness and denseness, – its rich brown, wholesome surface, even as grass or moss.")

November 15.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 15

A very fine snow, 

just enough to whiten the 

bare spots a little. 

I go to look for 

the evergreen ferns before 

they are covered up. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Buds and twigs and the mazes made by twigs

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-581115

I find a young Emys insculpta

June 18. 

How dogs will resort to carrion, a dead cow or horse, half buried, no matter how stale, — the best-bred and petted village dogs, and there gorge themselves with the most disgusting offal by the hour, as if it were a season of famine! Surely they are foul creatures that we make cossets of. 

P. M. – To Walden to see a bird's nest, a red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. 

A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. Beside much black and white skunk-hair, there are many fishes scales (!) intimately mixed with its substance, and some skunk’s bones. 

E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. One or more of them he thinks has been covered by the recent flood. 

A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush, which he found in a nest in a low bush about a foot from the ground. 

Coming across the level pasture west of E. Hubbard's swamp, toward Emerson's, I find a young Emys insculpta, apparently going to lay, though she had not dug a hole. It was four and a quarter inches long by three and a half wide, and altogether the handsomest turtle of this species, if not of any, that I have ever seen. It was quite fresh and perfect, without wound or imperfection; its claws quite sharp and slender, and the annual striae so distinct on all the scales above and below that I could count them with ease. It was nine years old, though it would be like an infant among turtles, the successive striae being perfectly parallel at equal distances apart.

The sternum, with a large black spot on the rear angle of each scale and else where a rich brown color, even reminded me of the turtle-shell of commerce. While its upper shell was of ‘a uniform wholesome brown, very prettily marked in deed, not only by the outlines of the scales, but more distinctly by the lines of prominences raying out from the starting-point of each scale, perfectly preserved in each year’s growth, a most elaborate coat of mail, worthy the lifelong labor of some reptilian Vulcan. 

This must have been a belle among the E. insculpta. Nevertheless I did discover that all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! Had not a bird peeked them off? So liable are they to injury in their long lives. Then they are so well-behaved; can be taken up and brought home in your pocket, and make no unseemly efforts to escape. The upper shell was remarkably spreading and curving upward on the rear edges.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 18, 1858

A red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. See June 12, 1855 ("In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo’s nest which C. found on the 10th, within reach on a red maple forked twig, eight feet from ground. He took one cowbird’s egg from it, and I now take the other, which he left. There is no vireo’s egg"); July 21, 1855 ("A red-eyed vireo nest on a red maple on Island Neck, on meadow-edge, ten feet from ground; one egg half hatched and one cowbird’s egg, nearly fresh, a trifle larger"); January 13, 1856 ("What a wonderful genius it is that leads the vireo to select the tough fibres of the inner bark, instead of the more brittle grasses, for its basket, the elastic pine-needles and the twigs, curved as they dried to give it form, and, as I suppose, the silk of cocoons, etc., etc., to bind it together with!")

A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. Beside much black and white skunk-hair, there are many fishes scales (!) intimately mixed with its substance, and some skunk’s bones. See May 20, 1858 ("Saw in the street a young cat owl, one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yesterday. . . .So I visited the nest. It was in a large white pine close . . . the nest is some thirty-five feet high on two limbs close to the main stem, and, according to Skinner, was not much more than a foot across, made of small sticks, nearly flat, “without fine stuff!” There were but two young. ")

E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. See June 22, 1858 (“I have one of the nests. There is but little of it ...”);  see also  June 26, 1857 ("I must be near bobolinks' nests many times these days, — in E. Hosmer's meadow by the garlic and here in Charles Hubbard's, — but the birds are so overanxious, though you may be pretty far off, and so shy about visiting their nests while you are there, that you watch them in vain."); July 2, 1855 ("Young bobolinks are now fluttering over the meadow, but I have not been able to find a nest ..")

A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush. See June 2, 1852 ("Nest of Wilson's thrush with bluish-green eggs.")

This must have been a belle among the E. insculpta. Nevertheless I did discover that all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! See May 14, 1857 ("I see one with a large dent three eighths of an inch deep and nearly two inches long in the middle of its back, where it was once partially crushed. Hardly one has a perfect shell.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

June18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18

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 © 2009-2020

Boiling bayberries for the tallow.

April 7. 

Tuesday. 

April 7, 2019

he would deliberate which course i would take

Went to walk in the woods. When I had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone, and was sitting on a rock, was surprised to be joined by R.’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who had smelled me out and so tracked me. Would that I could add his woodcraft to my own! 

He would trot along before me as far as the winding wood-path allowed me to see him, and then, with the shortest possible glance over his shoulder, ascertain if I was following. At a fork in the road he would pause, look back at me, and deliberate which course I would take. 

At sundown I went out to gather bayberries to make tallow of. Holding a basket beneath, I rubbed them off into it between my hands, and so got about a quart, to which were added enough to make about three pints. 

They are interesting little gray berries clustered close about the short bare twigs, just below the last year’s growth. The berries have little prominences, like those of an orange, encased with tallow, the tallow also filling the interstices, down to the nut. 

They require a great deal of boiling to get out all the tallow. The outmost case soon melted off, but the inmost part I did not get even after many hours of boiling. The oily part rose to the top, making it look like a savory black broth, which smelled just like balm or other herb tea. 

I got about a quarter of a pound by weight from these say three pints of berries, and more yet remained. Boil a great while, let it cool, then skim off the tallow from the surface: melt again and strain it.

What I got was more yellow than what I have seen in the shops. A small portion cooled in the form of small corns (nuggets I called them when I picked them out from amid the berries), flat hemispherical, of a very pure lemon yellow, and these needed no straining. The berries were left black and massed together by the remaining tallow.

Cat-briar (Smilax) they call here “the devil’s wrapping yarn.” 

I see several emperor moth cocoons, with small eggs on the back, apparently of the ichneumon-fly, that has destroyed the nymph.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1857

In the woods alone, and was sitting on a rock, was surprised to be joined by R.’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who had smelled me out and so tracked me. See April 22, 1852 ("A strange dog accompanies us today, a hunting dog, gyrating about us at a great distance, beating every bush and barking at the birds, with great speed, gyrating his tail too all the while."); October 10, 1856 ("With what tireless energy and abandonment they dash through the brush and up the sides of hills! I meet two white foxhounds, led by an old red one. How full of it they are! How their tails work! They are not tied to paths; they burst forth from the thickest shrub oak lot, and immediately dive into another as the fox did.")

The berries have little prominences, like those of an orange, encased with tallow . . . Compare December 14, 1850 ("When I rub the dry-looking fruit in my hands, it feels greasy and stains them a permanent yellow, which I cannot wash out. It lasts several days, and my fingers smell medicinal. I conclude that it is sweetgale, and we name the island Myrica Island."); April 13, 1855 ("Great quantities of odoriferous sweetgale seed are collected with the scum at the outlet of Nut Meadow, for they float"); .April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars").

I see several emperor moth cocoons . . . see January 14, 1857 ("Almost every one is already empty, or contains only the relics of a nymph. It has been attacked and devoured by some foe. "); June 2 , 1855 ("I had pinned the cocoon to the sash at the upper part of my window and quite forgotten it. About the middle of the forenoon Sophia came in and exclaimed that there was a moth on my window.")