The willow twigs on the right of the Red Bridge causeway are bright greenish-yellow and reddish as in the spring

November 14.

November 14, 2024

The river is slightly over the meadows. 

The willow twigs on the right of the Red Bridge causeway are bright greenish-yellow and reddish as in the spring. Also on the right railroad sand-bank at Heywood's meadow. Is it because they are preparing their catkins now against another spring? 

The first wreck line -- of pontederia, sparganium, etc. -- is observable. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 14, 1854

The river is slightly over the meadows . . . The first wreck line . . . is observable. See November 14, 1855 ("The rain has raised the river an additional foot or more, and it is creeping over the meadows. The old weedy margin is covered and a new grassy one acquired.") See also November 8, 1853 ("To riverside as far down as near Peter’s, to look at the water-line before the snow covers it.")

The willow twigs on the right of the Red Bridge causeway are bright greenish-yellow and reddish as in the spring. See November 18, 1858 ("Notice the short bright-yellow willow twigs on Hubbard’s Causeway. They are prominent now, first, because they are bare; second, because high-colored always and this rarity of bright colors at present; third, because of the clear air and November light."); March 17, 1859 ("The blushing twigs retain their color throughout the winter and appear more brilliant than ever the succeeding spring. They are winter fruit. It adds greatly to the pleasure of late November, of winter or of early spring walks to look into these mazes of twigs of different colors"); March 18, 1861 ("When I pass by a twig of willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising above the sedge in some dry hollow early in December, or in midwinter above the snow, my spirits rise as if it were an oasis in the desert."); See also December 2, 1852 (" It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Osier in Winter and early Spring

Pontederia, sparganium, etc.  See September 28, 1851 ("The pontederia, which apparently makes the mass of the weeds by the side of the river, is all dead and brown and has been for some time; the year is over for it."); October 16, 1859 ("So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia and flags.")

November 14. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 14

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

Why was it made that man should be thrilled to his inmost being by the vibrating of a wire?

January 3, 2022

January 3. 

Oak-apples are a winter fruit. The leaves being gone, they are now conspicuous and shine in the sun. Some trees are quite full of them.
Do they not suggest that all vegetable fruit is but the albumen about young animal life? 

The ground has been bare for some days, and the weather warm.

The river has risen, and now the meadows are frozen so as to bear, a dark, thin, but rather opaque ice, as if covered with steam, -- and I see now travelling, sweeping, coursing over it, in long winrows, fine pellets of snow, like cotton, fine, round, and dry, which I do not detect in the air before they fall.

They lodge against a rail and make a small drift. So once more the skating will be spoiled.

A spirit sweeps the string of the telegraph harp, and strains of music are drawn out endlessly like the wire itself.  We have no need to refer music and poetry to Greece for an origin now. What becomes of the story of a tortoise-shell on the seashore now? The world is young, and music is its infant voice.

I do not despair of such a world where you have only to stretch an ordinary wire from tree to tree to hear such strains drawn from it by New England breezes as make Greece and all antiquity seem poor in melody. Why was it made that man should be thrilled to his inmost being by the vibrating of a wire? 

Are not inspiration and ecstasy a more rapid vibration of the nerves swept by the in rushing excited spirit, whether zephyral or boreal in its character.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1852

Oak-apples are a winter fruit . . . Do they not suggest that all vegetable fruit is but the albumen about young animal life?  See September 4, 1854 ("Is not Art itself a gall? Nature is stung by God and the seed of man planted in her. The artist changes the direction of Nature and makes her grow according to his idea. If the gall was anticipated when the oak was made, so was the canoe when the birch was made. Genius stings Nature, and she grows according to its idea.")

Fne pellets of snow, like cotton, fine, round, and dry. See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified . . . Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot."); November 24, 1860 (“ The first spitting of snow. . .consisted almost entirely of pellets an eighth of an inch or less in diameter. These drove along almost horizontally, or curving upward like the outline of a breaker, before the strong and chilling wind . . . T he air was so filled with these snow pellets that for an hour we could not see a hill half a mile off”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

The telegraph harp . . .t o hear such strains drawn from it by New England breezes as make Greece and all antiquity seem poor. September 22, 1851 ("How much the ancients would have made of it! To have a harp on so great a scale, girdling the very earth, and played on by the winds of every latitude and longitude,")

To read that the ancients stretched a wire round the earth, attaching it to the trees of the forest, by which they sent messages by one named Electricity, father of Lightning and Magnetism, swifter far than Mercury, the stern commands of war and news of peace , and that the winds caused this wire to vibrate so that it emitted a harp like and æolian music in all the lands through which it passed, as if to express the satisfaction of the gods in this invention . Yet this is fact, and we have yet attributed the invention to no god.

September 22, 1851. See also September 3, 1851 ("As I went under the new telegraph - wire , I heard it vibrating like a harp high overhead . It was as the sound of a far - off glorious life , a supernal life , which came down to us , and vibrated the lattice - work of this life of ours."); September 12, 1851 ("As I was entering the Deep Cut, the wind, which was conveying a message to me from heaven, dropped it on the wire of the telegraph which it vibrated as it passed."); September 23, 1851 ("The telegraph harp sounds strongly to-day, in the midst of the rain. I put my ear to the trees and I hear it working terribly within, and anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is if you had entered some world - famous cathedral, resounding to some vast organ."); October 14, 1851 ("There was but little wind this morning, yet I heard the telegraph harp. It does not require a strong wind to wake its strings . . . A gentle but steady breeze will often call forth its finest strains");  December 29, 1851 ("The artist is at work in the Deep Cut . The telegraph harp sounds . "); January 18, 1852 (" While the snow is falling, the telegraph harp is resounding across the fields. "); March 12, 1852 ("The telegraph harp has spoken to me more distinctly and effectually than any man ever did.")

And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic Harps diversely framed,

That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

The Eolian Harp 

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 3

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

The darkness in the east, the crescent of night.

November 25.

This morning the ground is again covered with snow, deeper than before.

In the afternoon walked to the east part of Lincoln.

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance.

Saw also quite a flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome bird as big as a robin.

When returning between Bear Hill and the railroad, the sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, a thick snow-storm were gathering, which, as we had faced the west, we were not prepared for; yet the air was clear.

November 22, 2021

That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill.
Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls.

Hosmer said: “If you ever minded it, it is about the surest sign of rain that there is. Don't you know that last Friday night you heard them and spoke of them, and the next day it rained?”

This time there were other signs of rain in abundance. But night before last,” said I, “when you were not here, they hooted louder than ever, and we have had no rain yet.”

At any rate, it rained hard the 21st, and by that rain the river was raised much higher than it has been this fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1851

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance. See November 27, 1857 ("Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory near the wall, in the rocky ravine just above the trough. Its trunk was covered with loose scales unlike the hickories near it and as much as the shagbark; but probably it is a shaggy or scaly-barked variety of Carya glabra. [Carya glabra – pignut hickory]. The husk is not thick, like that of the shagbark, but quite thin, and splits into four only part way down. The shell is not white nor sharply four-angled like the other, but it is rather like a pignut."); January 7, 1860 ("See, at White Pond . . . a pignut hickory, which was quite full of nuts and still has many on it.") See also November 26, 1860 ("Better for us is the wild strawberry than the pineapple, the wild apple than the orange, the hazelnut or pignut than the cocoanut or almond, and not on account of their flavor merely, but the part they play in our education."); November 28, 1860 ("The rich man's son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man's, pignuts; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut")

A flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome. See December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections.”);  December 11, 1855 ("When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty."); July 15, 1858 ("Saw two pine grosbeaks, male and female, . . .the male a brilliant red orange, —neck, head, breast beneath, and rump,—blackish wings and tail, with two white bars on wings. (Female, yellowish.) ")

The sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, . . yet the air was clear.  See November 25, 1857 ("I shiver about awhile on Pine Hill, waiting for the sun to set. Methinks the air is dusky soon after four these days. . . . There is the sun a quarter of an hour high, shining on it through a perfectly clear sky, but to my eye it is singularly dark or dusky. And now the sun has disappeared");November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk."); November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.")

That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. See note to November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last."); See also November 25, 1858 ("You are surprised, late these afternoons, a half an hour perhaps before sunset, . . . to see the singularly bright yellow light of the sun reflected from pines. . .through the clear, cold air, the wind, it may be, blowing strong from the northwest.. . . and when I look round northeast I am greatly surprised by the very brilliant sunlight of which I speak, surpassing the glare of any noontide, it seems to me");

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls. See November 18,1851 ("Surveying these days the Ministerial Lot. Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl,-- hoo hoo hoo, hoorer, hoo. . . .I heard it last evening. It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods.")

Heavy rain.

June 17. 

June 17, 2019

Rain, especially heavy rain, raising the river in the night of the 17th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 17, 1859

Heavy rain, raising the river in the night. See note to June 17, 1860 ("A steady gentle rain here for several hours, and in the night again, the thunder, as yesterday, mostly forerunning or superficial to the shower. This the third day of thunder-showers in afternoon, though the 14th it did not rain here.");  June 20, 1860 ("More rain falls to-day than any day since March, if not this year.") See also June 14, 1858 ("The river is raised surprisingly by the rain of the 12th. The Mill Brook has been over the Turnpike."); June 15, 1858 ("Rains steadily again, and we have had no clear weather since the 11th. The river is remarkably high, far higher than before, this year, and is rising.")

In rain to Nawshawtuct.

May 3. 

P. M. -- In rain to Nawshawtuct.

The river rising still.

What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.

Some common cherries are quite forward in leafing; say next after the black.

The Pyrus arbutifolia, of plants I observed, would follow the cherry in leafing. It just begins to show minute glossy leaves.

The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green, with its little tender green leaves, making thin wreaths of green against the bare stems of other plants (this and the gooseberry), - the next plant in this respect to the earliest gooseberry in the garden, which appears to be the same with that in the swamp.

I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs.

Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's.

There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins.

Anemone nemorosa near the ferns and the sassafras appeared yesterday.

The ferns invested with rusty wool (cinnamomea?) have pushed up eight or ten inches and show some of the green leaf.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 3, 1854

What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, See May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head."); See also May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings. The first summer yellow- birds on the willow causeway. The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once, i.e. many yellowbirds all over town. Now I remember the yellowbird comes when the willows begin to leave out. (And the small pewee on the willows also.)") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the “Small Pewee"

Some common cherries and Pyrus arbutifolia, etc. leafing. See geneally May 5, 1855 ("The trees and shrubs which I observe to make a show now with their green,. . .in the order of their intensity and generalness — gooseberry, both kinds . . . meadow-sweet . . . Choke-cherry shoots . . . Pyrus, probably arbutifolia, young black cherry,  . . . probably wild red cherry in some places, Salix alba with bracts, some small native willows, cultivated cherry") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring leaf-out.

The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green. See April 24, 1860 ("The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf."); May 4, 1852 ("The meadow-sweet begins to leave out")

There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins. See May 2, 1855 ("That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf.") See also April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 27, 1854 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long. "); April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."); April 30, 1859 (Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.")

I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs. See June 10, 1858 ("Apparently the E. insculpta are in the very midst of their laying now."); June 20, 1853 ("I see wood tortoises in the path; one feels full of eggs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

In the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge.

April 22

It was high water again about a week ago, Mann thinks within three or four inches as high as at end of winter.

He obtained to-day the buffle-headed duck, diving in the river near the Nine-Acre Corner bridge. I identify it at sight as my bird seen on Walden. 

I hear a chip-bird.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1861

My bird seen on Walden. See December 26, 1853 ("Saw in [Walden] a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, ... It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”); April 19, 1855 ("A little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond. It has a moderate-sized black head and neck, a white breast, and seems dark-brown above, with a white spot on the side of the head, not reaching to the out side, from base of mandibles, and another, perhaps, on the end of the wing, with some black there. . . .I think it is the smallest duck I ever saw.); and note to September 27, 1860 ("Looking up, I see a little dipper . . in the middle of the river. . .. I sit down and watch it . . . soon the dipper is thus tolled along to within twenty feet of where I sit, and I can watch it at my leisure. It has a dark bill and considerable white on the sides of the head or neck, with black between it, no tufts, and no observable white on back or tail.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper

I hear a chip-bird. See April 9, 1853("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che. " ); April 17, 1860 ("It perches on a cherry tree, perchance, near the house, and unseen, by its steady che-che-che-che-che che, affecting us often without our distinctly hearing it, it blends all the other and previous sounds of the season together. It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants."") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis).)

The bark of the striped squirrel is a first sure sign of decided spring weather.

March 9. 

Wednesday. Rain, dissolving the snow and raising the river.

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.

So the relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation which I have witnessed.

Minott thinks, and quotes some old worthy as authority for saying, that the bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 9, 1853

I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet.  See March 23, 1853 (“The white maple may perhaps be said to begin to blossom to-day, — the male, — for the stamens, both anthers and filament, are conspicuous on some buds. It has opened unexpectedly, and a rich sight it is, looking up through the expanded buds to the sky.”); March 29,  1853 ("The female flowers of the white maple , crimson stig mas from the same rounded masses of buds with the male , are now quite abundant. I think they have not come out more than a day or two.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

The relaxed and loosened (?) alder catkins and the extended willow catkins and poplar catkins are the first signs of reviving vegetation. See March 7, 1853 ("The dark chocolate-colored alder catkins — what I have called A. incana — are not only relaxed, but there is an obvious looseness and space between the scales. ");March 10, 1853 (".Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins, then the relaxing of the earlier alder catkins, then the pushing up of skunk-cabbage spathes (and pads at the bottom of water). This is the order I am inclined to, though perhaps any of these may take precedence of all the rest in any particular case . . . The early poplars are pushing forward their catkins , though they make not so much display as the willows . . . ");  March 29, 1853 ("The catkins of the Populus tremuloides  are just beginning to open, — to curl over and downward like caterpillars. Yesterday proved too cold, undoubtedly, for the willow to open, and unless I learn better, I shall give the poplar the precedence, dating both, however, from to-day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

The bark of the striped squirrel is the, or a, first sure sign of decided spring weather. See  March 4, 1855 ("May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring?"); March 7, 1855 ("In a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again."); March 17, 1859 ("I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons. ").See also Walden ("I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out

I admire the fine blue color of the cedar berries.

November 16

I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock. 

P. M. – To Nawshawtuct by boat with Sophia, up Assabet.

The river still higher than yesterday.

I paddled straight from the boat's place to the Island.

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, and this other, here inserted, on the steep bank above the Hemlocks.

I admire the fine blue color of the cedar berries.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 16, 1853

By boat with Sophia, up Assabet. See October 6, 1856 ("Carried Sophia and Aunt up the Assabet"); November 14, 1855 ("Up Assabet with Sophia. A clear, bright, warm afternoon.”)

The river still higher than yesterday. See November 15, 1853 ("The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease."); See also November 14, 1855 ("The rain has raised the river an additional foot or more, and it is creeping over the meadows.")

I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock.  See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum,. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”);  November 17, 1858 ("The polypody on the rock is much shrivelled by the late cold") See also  November 2, 1857 (“My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed. ”); November 5, 1857 ("At this season polypody is in the air. ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Polypody

The Rock. Likely Egg Rock / Island Rock, "The most forwrd point on the small area that Thoreau refers to as the Island,"  an outcrop at the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers where they form the Concord River.~ Ray Angelo,  Thoreau Place Names 74   See November 4, 1855 ("This forenoon the boys found a little black kitten about a third grown on the Island or Rock"); January 16, 1857 ("As I pass the Island (Egg Rock)"); June 9, 1855 (“Rhus Toxicodendron on Island Rock.”); August 9, 1856 ("I am surprised to see the Apocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island") 

I admire the fine blue color of the cedar berries.  See November 30, 1853 ("The twigs of young cedars with apparently staminate buds have even a strawberry-like fragrance, and what a heavenly blue have the berries! - a peculiar light blue, whose bloom rubs off, contrasting with the green or purplish-brown leaves."). Note Juniperus virginiana, sometimes known as red cedar, is a species of juniper. The berry-like female  seed cone  is dark purple-blue with a white wax cover giving an overall sky-blue color ~ wikipedia

I now take notice

of the green polypody

and the other ferns.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The fine blue color of the cedar berries

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-531116

A hard rain falling. River rising.

November 13.

It has rained hard the 11th, 12th, and 13th, and the river is at last decidedly rising.

On Friday, 10th, it was still at summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 13, 1854

River rising.

September 14.

A. M. - - River still rising; at 4 P. M. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 14, 1860

See September 15, 1860 ("Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th).")

The sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain.

May 31. 

Rained hard during the night.

May 31, 2020

At 6 P. M. the river has risen to half an inch below summer level, having been three to four inches below summer level yesterday morning. 

I hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1860

I hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain. See May 31, 1858 ("Does not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? "); May 13, 1860 ("It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night."); May 16, 1853 ("Nature’appears to have passed a crisis. . . . The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound."); May 19, 1854 ("I hear the sprayey-note frog now at sunset."); May 25, 1859 ("Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring."); May 25, 1860 ("5 P.M. the toads ring loud and numerously, as if invigorated by this little moisture and coolness.”) See also June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31

I hear the sprayey 

note of toads more than ever –

now after the rain.

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

Cold and strong northwest wind

February 26

Sunday 2 P. M. — Thermometer 30; cold northwest wind. 

The water is about six inches above Hoar's steps.  That well covers the meadows generally. 

Cold and strong northwest wind this and yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 26, 1860

Cold and strong northwest wind this and yesterday. See February 26, 1855 ("Still clear and cold and windy. . . . This and the last two or three days have been very blustering and unpleasant, though clear. . . .Those great cakes of ice which the last freshet floated up on to uplands now lie still further from the edge of the recent ice.") See also February 9, 1856 ("How much the northwest wind prevails in the winter! Almost all our storms come from that quarter, and the ridges of snow-drifts run that way."); February 10, 1860 ("A very strong and a cold northwest wind to-day, shaking the house, — thermometer at 11 a. m., 14°, — consumes wood and yet we are cold, and drives the smoke down the chimney."); February 17, 1860 ("Cold and northwest wind, drifting the snow. . . .thermometer 14º."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February is Mid-Winter and April 15, 1860 ("Strong northwest wind and cold.. . .We are continually expecting warmer weather than we have”)

A very spring-like day, so much sparkling light in the air.

February 24

2 P.M. - Thermometer 42. 

A very spring-like day, so much sparkling light in the air. 

February 24, 2024

The clouds reflecting a dazzling brightness from their edges, and though it is rather warm (the wind raw) there are many, finely divided, in a stream southwest to northeast all the afternoon, and some most brilliant mother-o'-pearl. I never saw the green in it more distinct. This on the thin white edges of clouds as if it were a small piece of a rainbow. 

Some of the finest imaginable rippling, and some fine strings of clouds, narrow anteater skeletons, stretching from southwest to northeast, with the wind, looking like a little cotton caught on a crooked telegraph-wire, the spine is so distinct. 

A great part of the very finely divided cloud, one stratum above another, had the appearance of a woven web, the fibres crossing each other in a remarkable manner right overhead. 

The river risen and quite over the meadows yesterday and to-day, and musquash begun to be killed. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 24, 1860

Thermometer 42. A very spring-like day, so much sparkling light in the air. See February 24, 1852 ("I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air."); February 24, 1857 ("A fine spring morning. . . It seems to be one of those early springs of which we have heard but have never experienced") See also January 8, 1860 (“After December all weather that is not wintry is springlike.”); February 8, 1860 ("February may be called earine (springlike)."); February 12, 1856 ("The thermometer at 8.30 A. M., 42°. . . .How different the sunlight over thawing snow . . .I experience a springlike melting in my thoughts. "); February 14, 1857 ("It is a fine, somewhat springlike day. . .the thermometer in the shade north of house standing 42°."); February 18, 1857 ("The snow is nearly all gone, and it is so warm and springlike that I walk over to the hill, listening for spring birds."); February 22, 1855 ("Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring."); . February 25, 1857 ("The thermometer is at 65° at noon") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

Most brilliant mother-o'-pearl. See note to January 22, 1854 ("Once or twice of late I have seen the mother-o'-pearl tints and rainbow flocks in the western sky. The usual time is when the air is clear and pretty cool, about an hour before sundown.")

The river risen and musquash begun to be killed. See March 5, 1860 ("George Buttrick thinks that forty musquash have been killed this spring between Hunt's and Flint's Bridge.") See also October 29, 1857 ("Tthe river is very high for the season and all over the meadow in front of the house, and still rising. Many are out (as yesterday) shooting musquash."); January 29, 1859 ("Many are out in boats, steering outside the ice of the river over the newly flooded meadows, shooting musquash."); February 17, 1857 ("Thermometer at 1 p.m., 60°. The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats."); March 17, 1859 ("River risen still higher. . . . A great many musquash have been killed within a week. ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

February 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 24

Such a spring-like day,

the sparkling light in the air,

clouds dazzling brightness.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  A very spring-like 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 ©  2009-2024

The downy and cottony fruits of November.

November 24. 

The river has risen considerably, at last, owing to the rain of the 22d. Had been very low before. 

See, on the railroad-slope by the pond, and also some days ago, a flock of goldfinches eating the seed of the Roman wormwood. 

At Spanish Brook Path, the witch-hazel (one flower) lingers. 

I observe that ferns grow especially where there is an abrupt or broken bank, as where, in the woods, sand has been anciently dug out of a hillside to make a dam with and the semicircular scar has been covered with a sod and shrubs again. The shelter and steepness are favorable when there is shade and moisture. 

How pretty amid the downy and cottony fruits of November the heads of the white anemone, raised a couple of feet from the ground on slender stalks, two or three together, — small heads of yellowish-white down, compact and regular as a thimble beneath, but, at this time, diffusive and bursting forth above, somewhat like a little torch with its flame, — a very neat object!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 24, 1859

Pretty copious rain in the night.

September 23 

Pretty copious rain in the night. 

11 A. M. — River risen about fourteen inches above lowest this year (or thirteen and three quarters above my mark by boat). 

What an army of non-producers society produces, —, ladies generally (old and young) and gentlemen of leisure, so called! Many think themselves well employed as charitable dispensers of wealth which somebody else earned, and these who produce nothing, being of the most luxurious habits, are precisely they who want the most, and complain loudest when they do not get what they want. 

They who are literally paupers maintained at the public expense are the most importunate and insatiable beggars. They cling like the glutton to a living man and suck his vitals up. 

To every locomotive man there are three or four deadheads clinging to him as if they conferred a great favor on society by living upon it. 

Meanwhile they fill the churches, and die and revive from time to time. They have nothing to do but sin, and repent of their sins. How can you expect such bloodsuckers to be happy?  

Not only foul and poisonous weeds grow in our tracks, but our vileness and luxuriance make simple and wholesome plants rank and weed-like. All that I ever got a premium for was a monstrous squash, so coarse that nobody could eat it. Some of these bad qualities will be found to lurk in the pears that are invented in and about the purlieus of great towns. 

"The evil that men do lives after them." 

The corn and potatoes produced by excessive manuring may be said to have, not only a coarse, but a poisonous, quality. They are made food [for] hogs and oxen too. 

What creatures is the grain raised on the corn-fields of Waterloo food for, unless it be for such as prey upon men? Who cuts the grass in the graveyard? 

I can detect the site of the shanties that have stood all along the railroads by the ranker vegetation. I do not go there for delicate wild-flowers. 

It is important, then, that we should air our lives from time to time by removals, and excursions into the fields and woods, — starve our vices. Do not sit so long over any cellar-hole as to tempt your neighbor to bid for the privilege of digging saltpetre there. 

So live that only the most beautiful wild-flowers will spring up where you have dwelt, — harebells, violets, and blue-eyed grass.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1859

In a freshet the water rises higher as you go down the river.

July 8. 

Friday. 

I see an emperor moth (Attacus Cecropia), which came out the 6th. 

P. M. — To Clamshell by river. 

The Carex Muhlenbergii is common on Clamshell slope, just beyond the ravine. 

Thimble-berries have begun. 

The islands of the river, below the Assabet especially, — as Hosmer's, and the one just below French's Rock, — are now covered with 

• canary grass, which has almost entirely done and closed up; 
• fowl-meadow (Poa serotina), now fairly begun to bloom (first noticed the middle of June its slender green panicles shaped like a green red-top);
• Glyceria fluitans, going out of bloom; also
•  the sensitive fern (the "hand leaf" of haymakers); 
• pipes; 
• (and sedges, which might be named as soon as any, as the crinita which overhangs the water). 

I judge that in a freshet the water rises higher as you go down the river, both from the height to which it rose last March, as shown me at several bridges, and from the height of the bridges themselves, which the builders have been gradually compelled to raise, for the most part just above high-water mark.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 8, 1859

I see an emperor moth (Attacus Cecropia), which came out the 6th. See May 6, 1858 ("A boy brings me to-day an Attacus Cecropia moth . . ., the male, a dark brown above, and considerably larger than mine. It must be about seven inches in alar extent."); June 2, 1855 ("It was surprising to see the creature unfold and expand before our eyes, the wings gradually elongating, . . .at dusk, when apparently it was waving its wings preparatory to its evening flight, I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state.");June 18, 1857 ("They brought me an Attacus Cecropia . . . Its body was large like the one I have preserved"); June 22, 1857 ("It seems that Sophia found an Attacus Cecropia out in my chamber last Monday, or the 15th. It soon went to laying eggs on the window-sill, ")

Thimble-berries have begun.  See July 13, 1856 ("Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant");  July 17, 1856 ("On Linnaea Hill many thimble-berries and some raspberries."); July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems. "); July 21, 1856 ("Low blackberries thick enough to pick in some places, three or four days. Thimble-berries about the 12th, and V. Pennsylvanicum much longer.").

The sensitive fern (the "hand leaf" of haymakers.) See September 6, 1856 ("The sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl."); August 19, 1854 ("The very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left.")

I realize how water predominates on the surface of the globe.

March 17.

 

March 17, 2019

6.30 a. m. — River risen still higher. 

It is seven and a half inches below the highest part of the truss and about fifteen and a half inches below the middle of the lower stone step of the railroad. It is not quite over Wood's road.

I hear a robin fairly singing. 

A great many musquash have been killed within a week. One says a cartload have been killed in Assa- bet. Perhaps a dozen gunners have been out in this town every day. They get a shilling apiece for their skins. One man getting musquash and one mink earned five or six dollars the other day. I hear their guns early and late long before sunrise and after sunset, for those are the best times. 

P. M. — To Flint's Bridge by water. 

The water is very high, and smooth as ever it is. 

It is very warm. I wear but one coat on the water. 

The town and the land it is built on seem to rise but little above the flood. This bright smooth and level surface seems here the prevailing element, as if the distant town were an island. 

I realize how water predominates on the surface of the globe. 

I am surprised to see new and unexpected waterlines, drawn by the level edge of the flood about knolls in the meadows and in the woods, — waving lines, rarely if ever recognized or thought of by the walker or any, which mark the boundary of a possible or probable freshet any spring. 

Even if the highest water-mark were indicated at one point, the surveyor could not, with any labor short of infinite, draw these lines for us which wind about every elevation of earth or rock. Yet, though this slight difference of level which the water so simply and effectually points out, is so unobservable by us ordinarily, no doubt Nature never forgets it for a moment, but plants grow and insects, etc., breed in conformity to it. 

Many a kingdom of nature has its boundaries parallel with this waving line. By these freshets, the relation of some field, usually far from the stream, to future or past deluge is suggested. I am surprised and amused, at least, to walk in such a field and observe the nice distinctions which the great water-level makes there. 

So plants and animals and thoughts have their commonly unseen shores, and many portions of the earth are, with reference to them, islands or peninsulas or capes, shores or mountains. 

We are stiff and set in our geography because the level of water is comparatively, or within short periods, unchangeable. We look only in the sea for islands and continents and their varieties. But there are more subtle and invisible and fluctuating floods which island this or that part of the earth whose geography has never been mapped. 

For instance, here is Mantatuket Rock, commonly a rocky peninsula with a low or swampy neck and all covered with wood. It is now a small rocky island, and not only the swampy neck but a considerable portion of the upland is blotted out by the flood, covered and concealed under water; and what surprises me is that the water should so instantly know and select its own shore on the upland, though I could not have told with my eye whether it would be thirty feet this way or as many that. 

A distinction is made for me by the water in this case which I had never thought of, revealing the relation of this surface to the flood ordinarily far from it, and which I now begin to perceive that every tree and shrub and herbaceous plant growing there knew, if I did not. 

How different to-day from yesterday! Yesterday was a cool, bright day, the earth just washed bare by the rain, and a strong northwest wind raised respectable billows on our vernal seas and imparted remarkable life and spirit to the scene. 

To-day it is perfectly still and warm. Not a ripple disturbs the surface of these lakes, but every insect, every small black beetle struggling on it, is betrayed; but, seen through this air, though many might not notice the difference, the russet surface of the earth does not shine, is not bright. 

I see no shining russet islands with dry but flushing oak leaves. The air is comparatively dead when I attend to it, and it is as if there were the veil of a fine mist over all objects, dulling their edges. Yet this would be called a clear day. 

These aerial differences in the days are not commonly appreciated, though they affect our spirits. 

When I am opposite the end of the willow-row, seeing the osiers of perhaps two years old all in a mass, they are seen to be very distinctly yellowish beneath and scarlet above. They are fifty rods off. 

Here is the same chemistry that colors the leaf or fruit, coloring the bark. It is generally, probably always, the upper part of the twig, the more recent growth, that is the higher-colored and more flower or fruit like. So leaves are more ethereal the higher up and further from the root. In the bark of the twigs, indeed, is the more permanent flower or fruit. 

The flower falls in spring or summer, the fruit and leaves fall or wither in autumn, but the blushing twigs retain their color throughout the winter and appear more brilliant than ever the succeeding spring. They are winter fruit. It adds greatly to the pleasure of late November, of winter, or of early spring walks to look into these mazes of twigs of different colors. 

As I float by the Rock, I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons. Double lines.

I find by measurement that there is from two to three inches fall in the middle between the piers of Flint's Bridge, on the two sides of the bridge, supposing the planking to be level; but there is much more close to the abutments, for the water is very conspicuously heaped up in the middle in each case, or between each two piers, thus : —   If you look from above, it is somewhat thus: — 

If I land now on any knoll which is left dry above the flood, an island in the meadow, and its surface is broken, I am pretty sure to find Indian relics. They pitched their wigwams on these highest places, near water. 

I was speaking yesterday of the peculiarity of our meadow-bays in time of flood, — a shore where there are no shore-marks; for in time trees, rocks, etc., arrange themselves parallel with the water's edge, and the water by its washing makes for itself a strand, washing out the soil from the bank and leaving the sand and stones, and paths of animals and men conform to the permanent shore, but in this case all is abrupt and surprising. 

Rocky islands covered with green lichens and with polypody half submerged rise directly from the water, and trees stand up to their middles in it. Any eye would perceive that a rock covered with green lichens quite down to the water's edge was something unusual.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1859


I hear a robin fairly singing. See March 12, 1854 ("I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet.”); March 18, 1858 (“The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first.”) See also note to  March 17, 1858 ("Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak beyond the hill, I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep.”)

It is very warm. I wear but one coat on the water. See March 17, 1854 ("A remarkably warm day for the season; too warm while surveying without my great coat; almost like May heats.”)