A summer begun

 June 8.

J\

June 8, 2018

Here it is the 8th of June, and the grass is growing apace. In the front yards of the village they are already beginning to cut it. The fields look luxuriant and verdurous, but, as the weather is warmer, the atmosphere is not so clear.

In distant woods the partridge sits on her eggs, and at evening the frogs begin to dream and boys begin to bathe in the river and ponds.

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.

The cars come and go with such regularity and precision, and the whistle and rumble are heard so far, that town clocks and family clocks are already half dispensed with, and it is easy to foresee that one extensive well-conducted and orderly institution like a railroad will keep time and order for a whole country. The startings and arrivals of the cars are the epochs in a village day.

Not till June can the grass be said to be waving in the fields. When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1850

 When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun. See June 8, 1859 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella.. . .When you go forth to walk at 2 p. m. you see perhaps, in the south west or west or maybe east horizon, a dark and threatening mass of cloud showing itself just over the woods, its base horizontal and dark, with lighter edges where it is rolled up to the light, while all beneath is the kind of dark slate of falling rain. These are summer showers, come with the heats of summer."); See also June 1, 1853 (" Summer begins now about a week past, with the expanded leaves, the shade and warm weather."); June 9, 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,. . . It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. . . . It suggests also the creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly begun."); June 11, 1856 ("It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th :• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.") and See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Waving grasses, Buttercups, and Shade

The sound of the snowflakes falling on the dry oak leaves.

December 11

At 2 p. m. begins to snow, and snows till night. Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging.

See one sheldrake in Walden. 

As I stand on the railroad at Walden, at R. W. E.'s crossing, the sound of the snowflakes falling on the dry oak leaves (which hold on) is exactly like a rustling produced by a steady but slight breeze. But there is no wind. It is a gentle and uninterrupted susurrus. 

This light snow, which has been falling for an hour, resting on the horizontal spray of the hemlocks, produces the effect of so many crosses, or checker or lattice work.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1859

Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging. December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . .That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild."); December 20, 1859 ("December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still, like to-day (only it was not so moist). Was succeeded next day noon by a strong and cold northwest wind.")

A gentle and uninterrupted susurrus. See April 18, 1855 ("I hear a susurrus in the shrub oak leaves"); November 1, 1857 ("When I enter the woods I notice the drier crispier rustle of withered leaves on the oak trees, – a sharper susurrus.")

That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

December 6. 

P. M. — To Walden and Baker Bridge, in the shallow snow and mizzling rain. 

It is somewhat of a lichen day. The bright-yellow sulphur lichens on the walls of the Walden road look novel, as if I had not seen them for a long time. Do they not require cold as much as moisture to enliven them? What surprising forms and colors! Designed on every natural surface of rock or tree. Even stones of smaller size which make the walls are so finished, and piled up for what use? How naturally they adorn our works of art! 

See where the farmer has set up his post-and-rail fences along the road. The sulphur lichen has, as it were, at once leaped to occupy the northern side of each post, as in towns handbills are pasted on all bare surfaces, and the rails are more or less gilded with them as if it had rained gilt. The handbill which nature affixes to the north side of posts and trees and other surfaces. 

And there are the various shades of green and gray beside. 

Though it is melting, there is more ice left on the twigs in the woods than I had supposed. 

The mist is so thick that we cannot quite see the length of Walden as we descend to its eastern shore. The reflections of the hillsides are so much the more unsubstantial, for we see even the reflected mist veiling them. You see, beneath these whitened wooded hills and shore sloping to it, the dark, half mist-veiled water. 

For two rods in width next the shore, where the water is shallowest and the sand bare, you see a strip of light greenish two or three rods in width, and then dark brown (with a few green streaks only) where the dark sediment of ages has accumulated. 

And, looking down the pond, you see on each side successive wooded promontories — with their dim reflections — growing dimmer and dimmer till they are lost in the mist. The more distant shores are a mere dusky line or film, a sort of concentration of the mistiness. 

In the pure greenish stripe next the shore I saw some dark-brown objects above the sand, which looked very much like sea turtles in various attitudes. One appeared holding its great head up toward the surface. 

They were very weird-like and of indefinite size. I supposed that they were stumps or logs on the bottom, but was surprised to find that they were a thin and flat collection of sediment on the sandy bottom, like that which covered the bottom generally further out. 

When the breeze rippled the surface some distance out, it looked like a wave coming in, but it never got in to the shore. 

No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. Thus it is alternate snow and seeds.

Returning up the railroad, I see the great tufts of sedge in Heywood's meadow curving over like locks of the meadow's hair, above the snow.  These browned the meadow considerably. 

Then came a black maze, of alders moistened by the rain, which made a broad black belt between the former brown and the red-brown oaks higher up the hillside. 

The white pines now, seen through the mist, the ends of their boughs drooping a little with the weight of the glaze, resemble very much hemlocks, for the extremities of their limbs always droop thus, while pines are commonly stiffly erect or ascendant.

***

I took out my boots, which I have not worn since last spring, with the mud and dust of spring still on them, and went forth in the snow. That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

H. .D. Thoreau,  Journal, December 6, 1859

It is somewhat of a lichen day. See December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”); and note to February 7. 1959("I see the sulphur lichens on the rails brightening with the moisture I feel like studying them again as a relisher or tonic, to make life go down and digest well, as we use pepper and vinegar and salads. They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes.")


No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. See November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."; )December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.");See December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth."); December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds. "); December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales.”); January 7, 1853 ("Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight, . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran."); January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it").


That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter. See November 28, 1850 ("Within a day or two the walker finds gloves to be comfortable, and begins to think of an outside coat and of boots. Embarks in his boots for the winter voyage."); December 3, 1856 ("The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter's wood.”); December 8, 1852 ("One cannot burn or bury even his old shoes without a feeling of sadness and compassion");compare March 30, 1860 (“It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel lightfooted.”)

Before man was here to behold them, the sun was reflected from the lily pad after the May storm as brightly as now.

May 22. 

Saturday. Ed. Emerson brings me the egg of a hawk, dirty bluish-white, just found, with three other eggs not much developed, in a nest on the ground. Probably a hen-harrier's. 

P. M. — By cars to Worcester, on way to New York.

We have had much rainy weather for about a week, and it has just cleared up. I notice, as I glide along, that the sun coming out shines brightly on smooth waters, ponds, and flooded meadows raised by the rain, and is reflected from the new lily pads, which most now first generally notice, spread out on the surface, the foul weather having prevented our observing their growth. Something like this annually occurs. 

After this May storm the sun bursts forth and is reflected brightly in some placid hour from the new leaves of the lily spread out on the surface in the ponds and pools raised [by] the rain, and we seem to have taken a long stride into summer. 

So was it also in a former geological age, when water and water-plants prevailed and before man was here to behold them. The sun was then reflected from the lily pad after the May storm as brightly as now.

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

Something like this annually occurs. After this May storm the sun bursts forth and we seem to have taken a long stride into summer. See May 22, 1857 ("When the May storm is over, then the summer is fairly begun. "); May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”);May 11, 1854 (" I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night.")


Water-plants prevailed and before man was here to behold them. See April 28, 1852 ("This may, perhaps, be nearly the order of the world's creation. Such were the first localities afforded for plants, water-bottoms, bare rocks, and scantily clad lands, and land recently bared of water.Thus we have in the spring of the year the spring of the world represented."); February 11, 1854 ("For how many aeons did the willow shed its yellow pollen annually before man was created!")

A genuine wayfaring man

April 2.

Go to New Bedford. 

April 2, 2017

A great change in the weather. I set out apple trees yesterday, but in the night it was very cold, with snow, which is now several inches deep. 

On the sidewalk in Cambridge I see a toad, which apparently hopped out from under a fence last evening, frozen quite hard in a sitting posture. Carried it into Boston in my pocket, but could not thaw it into life. 

The other day as I came to the front of the house I caught sight of a genuine wayfaring man, an oldish countryman, with a frock and a bundle strapped to his back, who was speaking to the butcher, just then driving off in his cart. He was a gaunt man with a flashing eye, as if half crazy with travel, and was complaining, “You see it shakes me so, I would rather travel the common road.” I supposed that he referred to the railroad, which the butcher had recommended for shortness. I was touched with compassion on observing the butcher’s apparent indifference, as, jumping to his seat, he drove away before the traveller had finished his sentence, and the latter fell at once into the regular wayfarer’s gait, bending under his pack and holding the middle of the road with a teetering gait. 

On my way to New Bedford, see within a couple of rods of the railroad, in some country town, a boy’s box trap set for some muskrat or mink by the side of a little pond. The lid was raised, and I could see the bait on its point. 

A black snake was seen yesterday in the Quaker burying-ground here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 2, 1857

In the night it was very cold, with snow, which is now several inches deep. See note to April 2, 1861 ("A drifting snow-storm, perhaps a foot deep on an average.”)

I see a toad frozen quite hard in a sitting posture. Carried it into Boston in my pocket, but could not thaw it into life. April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore and was apparently chilled by the cold.”); December 31, 1857 ("found . . .a bull frog. . . It was evidently nearly chilled to death and could not jump, though there was then no freezing. I looked round a good while and finally found a hole to put it into,"); ; May 19, 1856 ("Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris . . .. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. "); August 23, 1851 ("[A snake] had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his jaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey in haste and fled"); July 23, 1856 ("Saw . . . a small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris, . . . I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him. ")

The advantage of going abroad

September 21 

September 21, 2015

P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Asclepias Cornuti discounting. The seeded parachutes which I release soon come to earth, but probably if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. 

Solidago nemoralis mostly done. 

Aster undulatus in prime, in the dry woods just beyond Hayden's, large slanting, pyramidal panicles of some lilac-tinged, others quite white, flowers, size of Diplopappus linariifolius. 

Solidago altissima past prime. 

Prinos berries. 

I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year. 

A. dumosus past prime. 

Am surprised to see on top of Cliffs, where Wheeler burned in the spring and had cut rye, by a large rock, some very large perfectly fresh Corydalis glauca, still well in bloom as well as gone to seed, two and a half feet high and five eighths of an inch thick at base. There are also many large tufts of its glaucous leaves on the black burnt ground which have not come to flower, amid the rye stubble. The bumblebees are sucking its flowers. 

Beside the young oak and the sprouts, poke-weed, erechthites, and this corydalis even are common there. How far is this due to the fire, aside from the clearing? 

Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way.

The Asclepias obtusifolia is turned yellow. I see its often perfectly upright slender pod five inches long. It soon bursts in my chamber and shows its beautiful straw- colored lining. A fairy-like casket, shaped like a canoe, with its closely packed imbricated brown seeds, with their yet compressed silvery parachutes like finest unsoiled silk in the right position above them, ready to be wafted some dry and breezy day to their destined places. 

On top of Cliff, behind the big stump, a yellow white goldenrod, var. concolor, which Gray refers to Pennsylvania, apparently with the common. That is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. 

Scare up turtle doves in the stubble. Uva-ursi berries quite ripe. 

Find, for first time in Concord, Solanum nigrum, berries apparently just ripe, by a rock northwest of corydalis. Thus I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable [you] to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. 

It is a warm and very hazy day, with wreaths of mist in horizon.

See, in the cow-killer on railroad, a small mountain-ash naturalized!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1856

Late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery . . . See September 21, 1854 (" Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher."); September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. See September 10, 1856 ("Descending the steep south end of this hill [Fall Mountain near Bellow Falls], I saw an apparent Corydalis glauca . . .  By the railroad below, the Solanum nigrum, with white flowers but yet green fruit.") See also September 22, 1859 ("The Solanum nigrum, which is rare in Concord, with many flowers and green fruit.")

I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. See August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate."). September 19, 1853 ("[the Maine woods]I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore. . . that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River."); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood . . . prepared for strange things."); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else.")

tinyurl.com/HDTabroad

Women and children are already picking hops in the fields, in the shade of large white sheets, like sails.

September 5. 

Friday. 

September 5.

To Brattleboro, Vt. 

Will not the prime of goldenrods and asters be just before the first severe frosts ? 

As I ride along in the cars, I think that the ferns, etc., are browned and crisped more than usual at this season, on account of the very wet weather. 

Found on reaching Fitchburg that there was an interval of three and a half hours between this and the Brattleboro train, and so walked on, on the track, with shouldered valise. Had observed that the Nashua River in Shirley was about one mile west of Groton Junction, if I should ever want to walk there. 

Observed by railroad, in Fitchburg, low slippery elm shrubs with great, rough, one-sided leaves. 

Solidago lanceolata past prime, a good deal. Aster puniceus in prime. 

About one mile from West Fitchburg depot, westward, I saw the panicled elderberries on the railroad but just beginning to redden, though it is said to ripen long before this. 

As I was walking through Westminster, I remembered that G. B. Emerson says that he saw a handsome clump of the Salix lucida on an island in Meeting-House Pond in this town, and, looking round, I saw a shrub of it by the railroad, about one mile west of West Fitchburg depot, and several times afterward within a mile or two. Also in the brook behind Mr. Alcott's house in Walpole, N. H. 

Took the cars again in Westminster. The scenery began to be mountainous and interesting in Royalston and Athol, but was more so in Erving. 

In Northfield first observed fields of broom-corn very common, Sorghum saccharatum, taller than corn. Alcott says they bend down the heads before they gather them, to fit them for brooms. 

Hereabouts women and children are already picking hops in the fields, in the shade of large white sheets, like sails.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1856

To Purgatory in Sutton by railroad and buggy.

June 16. 

June 16 

Saw at the Natural History Rooms a shell labelled Haliotis splendens, apparently same with mine from Ricketson’s son, with holes and green reflections. 

To Purgatory in Sutton: by railroad to Wilkinsonville in the northeast corner of Sutton (thirty cents) and by buggy four or five miles to Purgatory in the south or southeast part of the town, some twelve miles from Worcester. 

The stream rising from the bottom of it must empty into the Blackstone, perhaps through the Mumford River. Sutton is much wooded. 

The woman at the last house told of an animal seen in the neighborhood last year. Well, she “had no doubt that there had been a bad animal about.” A Mr. Somebody, who could be relied on, between there and Sutton Centre, had been aroused by a noise early one morning, and, looking out, saw this animal near a wood-pile in his yard, as big as a good-sized dog. He soon made off, making nothing of the walls and fences, before he and his sons got their guns ready. They raised part of the town, a body of shoemakers, and surrounded a swamp into which it was supposed to have entered, but they did not dare to go into it. Also a strange large track was seen where it crossed the road. 

Found at the very bottom of this Purgatory, where it was dark and damp, on the steep moss and fern covered side of a rock which had fallen into it, a wood thrush’s nest. Scarcely a doubt of the bird, though I saw not its breast fairly. Heard the note around, and the eggs (one of which I have) correspond. Nest of fine moss from the rock (hypnum ?), and lined with pine-needles; three eggs, fresh.

Found in the Purgatory the panicled elder (Sambucus pubens), partly gone to ribbed seed, but some in flower, new to me; Polygonum cilinode (?), not yet in flower; moose-wood or striped maple; and also, close by above, Actoea alba, out of bloom; and a chestnut oak common. Cow-wheat numerously out.

Heard around, from within the Purgatory, not only Wilson’s thrush, but evergreen forest note and tanager; and saw chip-squirrels within it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1856

Purgatory is a 0.25-mile-long chasm between granite walls rising as high as 70 feet, once believed to have originated in the sudden release of dammed-up glacial meltwater near the end of the last Ice Age.  Today ice lingers in boulder caves into the early summer, however there is there is no evidence of water erosion in the chasm or on its walls.

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

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

I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle.

March 22.

P. M.—To white maples and up Assabet.

The ice of the river is very rapidly softening, still concealed by snow, the upper part becoming homogeneous with the melting snow above it. I sometimes slump into snow and ice six or eight inches, to the harder ice beneath. I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch. 

Many tracks of crows in snow along the edge of the open water against Merrick’s at Island. They thus visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? 

The snow now no longer bears you. It has become very coarse-grained under the sun, and I hear it sink around me as I walk. 

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. Probably in equally warm positions they would have begun to flow as early as those red ones which I have tapped. Their buds, and apparently some of the red ones, are visibly swollen. This probably follows directly on the flowing of the sap. In three instances I cut off a twig, and sap flowed  and dropped from the part attached to the tree, but in no case would any sap flow from the part cut off (I mean where I first had cut it), which appears to show that the sap is now running up. I also cut a notch in a branch two inches in diameter, and the upper side of the cut remained dry, while sap flowed from the lower side, but in another instance both sides were wet at once and equally. 

The sap, then, is now generally flowing upward in red and white maples in warm positions. See it flowing from maple twigs which were gnawed off by rabbits in the winter. 

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow. 

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned, though it is all ice and snow around the country over. Do not see any flying, nor before this. 

The woodchoppers, who are cutting the wood at Assabet Spring, now at last go to their work up the middle of the river, but one got in yesterday, one leg the whole length. It is rotted through in many places behind Prichard’s. 

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. It has also oozed out from the twigs, especially those that are a little drooping, and run down a foot or two bathing them sometimes all around, both twigs and buds sometimes, or collected in drops on the under sides of the twigs and all evaporated to molasses, which is, for the most part, as black as blacking or ink, having probably caught the dust, etc., even over all this snow. Yet it is as sweet and thick as molasses, and the twigs and buds look as if blacked and polished. Black drops of this thick, sweet syrup spot the under sides of the twigs. 

No doubt the bees and‘other insects frequent the maples now. I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. It is as thick as molasses. See a fuzzy gnat on it. It is especially apt to collect about the bases of the twigs, where the stream is delayed. Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. 

I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips. 

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1856

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned . . . Do not see any flying, nor before this. See March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . The perla insects still about ice and water,"); See also March 3, 1860 ("I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 24, 1857 ("I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light..") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active

[Crows] visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? See March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat?"); March 22, 1855 ("I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare, three weeks ago.")

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water, and C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow.") See also March 18, 1854 ("The willow catkins this side M. Miles's five eighths of an inch long and show some red. "); March 21, 1855 ("Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least . . .It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.");  March 21, 1859 ("The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. "); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. See January 4, 1859("When it grew late. . . I mistook the distant sound of the locomotive whistle for the hoot of an owl."); November 21, 1857 ("I hear, I think, a boy whistling upon the bank above me, but immediately perceive that it is the whistle of the locomotive a mile off in that direction.") Compare December 31, 1853 ("I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles

The hum of a bee?

Perhaps the railroad whistle

on the Lowell line.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I thought I heard the hum of a bee.

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-560322

Deepest snow, measured.

February 19.

Measure snow again, on account of what fell on 17th. West of railroad, 15+ + 2; east of railroad, 12 1/2- + 2 ; average of both, 14 + 2 = 16 ; Trillium Wood, 18 1/2 + 2=20 1/2. 

The great body of the last snow appears to have settled under the east side of the railroad. There are five and one half inches more in the wood than on the 12th. and I think this is about the average of what fell on the 17th (night and day). 

Accordingly, the snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter. I think if the drifts could be fairly measured it might be found to be seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level. 

This snow, you may say, is all drifted, for in the fields east of the railroad there is not so much as there was a week ago, while west there is about four inches more.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 19, 1856

the snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter ...seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level.  See January 29, 1856 ("The snow is probably about fourteen on a level in open fields now, or quite as deep as at any time this winter.. . .”); February 12, 1856("From January 6th to January 13th, not less than a foot of snow on a level in open land, and from January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level. That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!”)

Yesterday’s snow drifting

February 18.

Yesterday’s snow drifting. No cars from above or below till 1 P.M.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 18, 1856

See January 19, 1857 ("It is exceedingly drifted, so that the first train gets down about noon and none gets up till about 6 p. m.!")

The snow of the 28th is driving like steam over the fields, drifting into the roads.

January 30.

8 A. M. -- It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot.  Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything.

As I walked above the old stone bridge on the 27th, I saw where the river had recently been open under the wooded bank on the west side; and recent sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory, and also the ends of saplings and limbs of trees which had been bent down by the ice, were frozen in. In some places some water stood above the ice, and as I stood there, I saw and heard it gurgle up through a crevice and spread over the ice. This was the influence of Loring’s Brook, far above.

P. M. -- Measure to see what difference there is in the depth of the snow . . .

. . .  The Andromeda calyculata is now quite covered, and I walk on the crust over an almost uninterrupted plain there; only a few blueberries and last, I break through. It is so light beneath that the crust breaks there in great cakes under my feet, and immediately falls about a foot, making a great hole, so that once pushing my way through — for regularly stepping is out of the question in the weak places —makes a pretty good path. 

By the railroad against Walden I hear the lisping of a chickadee, and see it on a sumach. It repeatedly hops to a bunch of berries, takes one, and, hopping to a more horizontal twig, places it under one foot and hammers at it with its bill. The snow is strewn with the berries under its foot, but I can see no shells of the fruit. Perhaps it clears off the crimson only. Some of the bunches are very large and quite upright there still. 

Again, I suspect that on meadows the snow is not so deep and has a firmer crust. In an ordinary storm the depth of the snow will be affected by a wood twenty or more rods distant, or as far as the wood is a fence.

There is a strong wind this afternoon from northwest, and the snow of the 28th is driving like steam over the fields, drifting into the roads. On the railroad causeway it lies in perfectly straight and regular ridges a few feet apart, northwest and southeast. It is dry and scaly, like coarse bran. Now that there is so much snow, it slopes up to the tops of the walls on both sides. 

What a difference between life in the city and in the country at present, — between walking in Washington Street, threading your way between countless sledges and travellers, over the discolored snow, and crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1856

It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot. Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything. See December 14, 1859 (" . . . Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it.")
 
sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory. . . .   See “Pail-stuff"

By the railroad against Walden I hear the lisping of a chickadee, and see it on a sumach. See Janaury 30, 1854("As we walk up the river, a little flock of chickadees flies to us from a wood-side fifteen rods off, and utters their lively day day day,.) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter 

What a solemn silence reigns here! See January 21, 1853 ("The silence rings; it is musical and thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible."); August 11, 1853 ("What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection, . . ..The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence."); August 2, 1854 ("As I go up the hill, surrounded by its shadow, while the sun is setting, I am soothed by the delicious stillness of the evening, . . . .It is the first silence I have heard for a month")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

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 ©  2009-2023

Measuring to see how the snow has settled.

January 23.

Brown is filling his ice-house. The clear ice is only from one and a half to four inches thick; all the rest, or nearly a foot, is snow ice, formed by the snow sinking the first under the water and freezing with the water. The same is the case at Walden. 

To get ice at all clear or transparent, you must scrape the snow off after each fall. Very little ice is formed by addition below, such a snowy winter as this. 

There was a white birch scale yesterday on the snowed-up hole which I made in the very middle of Walden. I have no doubt they blow across the widest part of the pond. 

When approaching the pond yesterday, through my bean-field, I saw where some fishermen had come away, and the tails of their string of pickerel had trailed on the deep snow where they sank in it. I afterward saw where they had been fishing that forenoon, the water just beginning to freeze, and also where some had fished the day before with red-finned minnows, which were frozen into an inch of ice; that these men had chewed tobacco and ate apples. All this I knew, though I saw neither man nor squirrel nor pickerel nor crow. 

I measure, this afternoon, the snow in the same fields which I measured just a week ago, to see how it has settled. It has been uniformly fair weather of average winter coldness, without any thaw. 

West of railroad it averages 11 1/2+. (On the 16th it was 12 1/4.) East of railroad, 14 inches (16th, 15 5/8). Or average of both 12 1/3+ — say 12 1/2. It has settled, therefore, in open fields 1 1/10 inches, showing how very solid it is, as many have remarked. 
Not allowing for what of the light snow above the crust may have drifted against the railroad embankment (though I measured on both sides of it). 

Trillium Woods, 13 1/4+;16th it was 17. Has settled 3 3/4.  It seems, then, that, as it lies light in the wood at first, it settles much faster there, so that, though it was nearly 3 1/2 inches the deepest there a week ago, it is less than 1 inch the deepest there now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1856

We wait until 730 to go out to take advantage of the full moon. It is clear and still and the snow seems light but not deep off we go this time to the northwest corner and down into the flood plain but not to the falls instead up the cliff to the corner in the stream but not to the fort instead south towards the big house until we can see its lights and then back over to the regular trail then up the ski trail mostly just zigzagging with edges of my pack boots in the snow until we get to the Ridge Loop Trail. Right at our property boundary Jane has just cleaned the dogs' feet when Acorn goes dancing crazy as if trying to shake one of her feet off Jane says it is because she is cold warms her feet and we head back. We are using the red lights which work in the shadows but in the moonlight you can see the whole woods around you. It turns out when we get back that it has been seven or 8°. I did not notice the cold. ~ zphx 20160123

There is no secret but it is confided to some one.

January 18.

P. M. —To Walden to learn the temperature of the water. 

The snow is so deep at present in the streets that it is very difficult turning out, and there are cradle-holes between this and the post-office. The sidewalks being blotted out, the street, like a woodman’s path, looks like a hundred miles up country. 

I see where children have for some days come to school across the fields on the crust from Abiel Wheeler’s to the railroad crossing. I see their tracks in the slight snow upon the crust which fell the 14th. They save a great distance and enjoy the novelty.

This is a very mild, melting winter day, but clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden. The snow lies very level there, about ten inches deep, and for the most part bears me as I go across with my hatchet. I think I never saw a more elysian blue than my shadow. I am turned into a tall blue Persian from my cap to my boots, such as no mortal dye can produce, with an amethystine hatchet in my hand. 

I am in raptures at my own shadow. What if the substance were of as ethereal a nature? Our very shadows are no longer black, but a celestial blue.

This has nothing to do with cold, methinks, but the sun must not be too low. 

I clear a little space in the snow, which is nine to ten inches deep over the deepest part of the pond, and cut through the ice, which is about seven inches thick, only the first four inches, perhaps, snow ice, the other three clear. The moment I reach the water, it gushes up and overflows the ice, driving me out this yard in the snow, where it stood at last two and a half inches deep above the ice. 

The thermometer indicates 331/2° at top and 342/3° when drawn up rapidly from thirty feet beneath. So, apparently, it is not much warmer beneath. 

Observe some of those little hard galls on the high blueberry, peeked or eaten into by some bird (or possibly mouse), for the little white grubs which lie curled up in them. What entomologists the birds are! Most men do not suspect that there are grubs in them, and how secure the latter seem under these thick dry shells! Yet there is no secret but it is confided to some one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 18, 1856

To Walden to learn the temperature of the water. See January 11, 1856 (" The temperature of the body of Walden may perhaps range from 85° . . . down to 32°")

This is a very mild, melting winter day, but clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden. I think I never saw a more elysian blue than my shadow. See December 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue.’); February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”);  January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. "); January 30, 1856 ("Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects.") Also see note to January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)

What entomologists the birds are! Compare January 16, 1860 ("[T]here is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird.")

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

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022

A clear winter day.

January 1

P. M. —To Walden. 

January 1, 2016

Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath. This is now, therefore, bare, while the river, which was frozen before, is covered with snow.

A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.

The track-repairers have shovelled four little paths by the sides of the rails, all the way from the depot to Walden. As I went by the engine-house, I saw great icicles four feet long hanging from the eastern eaves, like slender pointed spears, the last half blown aside by the wind: and still more.

By the side of the Deep Cut are the tracks of probably tree sparrows about the weeds, and of partridges.

On the ice at Walden are very beautiful great leaf crystals in great profusion. 

The ice is frequently thickly covered with them for many rods. They seem to be connected with the rosettes,—a running together of them. They look like a loose web of small white feathers springing from a tuft of down, for their shafts are lost in a tuft of fine snow like the down about the shaft of a feather, as if a feather bed had been shaken over the ice.

They are, on a close examination, surprisingly perfect leaves, like ferns, only very broad for their length and commonly more on one side the midrib than the other. They are from an inch to an inch and a half long and three quarters wide, and slanted, where I look, from the southwest.

They have, first, a very distinct midrib, though so thin that they cannot be taken up; then, distinct ribs branching from this, commonly opposite, and minute ribs springing again from these last, as in many ferns, the last running to each crenation in the border. How much further they are subdivided, the naked eye cannot discern.

They are so thin and fragile that they melt under your breath while looking closely at them.

A fisherman says they were much finer in the morning. In other places the ice is strewn with a different kind of frostwork in little patches, as if oats had been spilled, like fibres of asbestos rolled, a half or three quarters of an inch long and an eighth or more wide. Here and there patches of them a foot or two over. Like some boreal grain spilled.

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. 

January 1, 2017

On the north shore, near the railroad, I see the tracks apparently of a white rabbit, afterward many tracks of gray rabbits, and where they had squatted under or rather by the side of an alder stem or the like, and left many balls in the pure snow. Many have run in one course.

In the midst of them I see the track of a large rabbit, probably a white one, which was evidently on the full spring. Its tracks are four feet apart, and, unlike the others, which are on the surface even of this light snow, these break through deep, making a hole six inches over. Why was this one in such haste?

I conclude to trace him back and find out. His bounds grow greater and greater as I go back, now six feet quite, and a few rods further are the tracks of a fox (possibly a dog, but I think not) exactly on the trail! A little further, where the rabbit was ascending a considerable slope, through this snow nearly a foot deep, the bounds measure full seven feet, leaving the snow untouched for that space between.

It appears that the fox had started the rabbit from a bank on which it was resting, near a young hemlock, and pursued it only a dozen rods up the hill, and then gave up the chase,—and well he might, methought.

In a rabbit’s track the two forefeet are the furthest apart. This chase occurred probably in the night, either the last or night before, when there was not a man within a mile; but, treading on these very deep and distinct tracks, it was as if I had witnessed it, and in imagination I could see the sharp eyes of the crafty fox and the palpitating breast of the timorous rabbit, listening behind.

We unwittingly traverse the scenery of what tragedies! Every square rod, perchance, was the scene of a life or death struggle last night. As you track the rabbit further off, its bounds becoming shorter and shorter, you follow also surely its changing moods from desperate terror till it walks calmly and reassured over the snow without breaking its very slight crust, — perchance till it gnaws some twig composedly, —and in the other direction you trace the retreating steps of the disappointed fox until he has forgotten this and scented some new game, maybe dreams of partridges or wild mice.

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately.

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

A very small patch of Walden looks at a little distance exactly like open water, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water. See April 13, 1856 (“[D]ark-green clear ice . . . At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still . . .it is blue as in summer.“); December 18, 1852 ("I slid over it with a little misgiving, mistaking the ice before me for water. “)

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. See December 28, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords");  June 26, 1853 ("Fishing is often the young man's introduction to the forest and wild. As a hunter and fisher he goes thither until at last the naturalist or poet distinguishes that which attracted him first, and he leaves the gun and rod behind.”); December 22, 1859 ("The fisherman stands erect and still on the ice, awaiting our approach, as usual forward to say that he has had no luck. He has been here since early morning, and for some reason or other the fishes won't bite. You won't catch him here again in a hurry. They all tell the same story. The amount of it is he has had "fisherman's luck," and if you walk that way you may find him at his old post to-morrow. . . .[T]he pond floor is not a bad place to spend a winter day"); May 6, 1858 ("One man shall derive from the fisherman’s story more than the fisher has got who tells it")

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately. See 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.”)

January 1. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, January 1

Looking closely as

this thin and fragile frostwork

melts under my breath.

Here two fishermen

know not why they have no bites

this clear winter day.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A clear winter day.

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

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