I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge.

April 26. 

April 26, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

I begin now to leave off my greatcoat.

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

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

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

The Viola ovata budded.

Saw pollywogs two or three inches long.

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

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

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

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

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

Frogs are strange creatures.

April 18.

April 18, 2018

P. M. – To Hubbard's Grove. 

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. 

The Rana sylvatica tadpoles have mostly wiggled away from the ova. 

Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land. 

I saw in those ditches many small pickerel, landlocked, which appeared to be transversely barred! They bury themselves in the mud at my approach.

Examined the pools and ditches in that neighborhood, i.e. of Skull-Cap Ditch, for frogs. All that I saw distinctly, except two R. fontinalis, were what I have considered young bullfrogs, middling-sized frogs with a greenish-brown back and a throat commonly white or whitish. 

I saw in a deep and cold pool some spawn placed just like that of the R. sylvatica and the R. halecina, – it was in the open field, – and the only frog I could distinguish near it was a middling sized one, or larger, with a yellow throat, not distinctly green, but brown or greenish-brown above, but green along each upper jaw. A small portion of bright golden ring about the eye was to be seen in front. 

In the spring near by, I see two unquestionable R. fontinalis, one much the largest and with brighter mottlings, probably on account of the season. The upper and forward part of their bodies distinct green, but their throats, white or whitish, not yellow. 

There were also two small and dark-colored frogs, yet with a little green tinge about the snouts, in the same spring.

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. Certainly those two unquestionable R. fontinalis had no yellow to throats, and probably they vary very much in the greenness of the back. Those two were not so much barred on the legs as mottled, and in one the mottlings had quite bright halos. They had the yellow segment in front part of eye, as also had the two smallest. Have the bullfrogs this? I doubt if I have seen a bullfrog yet.

I should say, with regard to that spawn, that I heard in the neighboring pool the stertorous tut tut tut like the R. halecina, and also one dump sound.

Frogs are strange creatures. One would describe them as peculiarly wary and timid, another as equally bold and imperturbable. 

All that is required in studying them is patience. You will sometimes walk a long way along a ditch and hear twenty or more leap in one after another before you, and see where they rippled the water, without getting sight of one of them. 

Sometimes, as this afternoon the two R. fontinalis, when you approach a pool or spring a frog hops in and buries itself at the bottom. You sit down on the brink and wait patiently for his reappearance. After a quarter of an hour or more he is sure to rise to the surface and put out his nose quietly without making a ripple, eying you steadily. At length he becomes as curious about you as you can be about him. He suddenly hops straight toward [you], pausing within a foot, and takes a near and leisurely view of you.

Perchance you may now scratch its nose with your finger and examine it to your heart's content, for it is become as imperturbable as it was shy before. You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness; not by heat, but by coldness. 

You see only a pair of heels disappearing in the weedy bottom, and, saving a few insects, the pool becomes as smooth as a mirror and apparently as uninhabited. At length, after half an hour, you detect a frog's snout and a pair of eyes above the green slime, turned toward you, -etc.

It is evident that the frog spawn is not accidentally placed, simply adhering to the stubble that may be nearest, but the frog chooses a convenient place to deposit it; for in the above-named pool there was no stout stubble rising above the surface except at one side, and there the spawn was placed.

It is remarkable how much the musquash cuts up the weeds at the bottom of pools and ditches, – burreed, sweet flags, pontederia, yellow lily, fine, grass like rushes, and now you see it floating on the surface, sometimes apparently where it has merely burrowed along the bottom.

I see where a ditch was cut a few years ago in a winding course, and now a young hedge of alders is springing up from the bottom on one side, winding with the ditch. The seed has evidently been caught in it, as in a trap.

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

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. See April 18, 1860 ("Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom. "). See also April 29, 1857 ("I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season.")

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. See  April 5, 1858 ("What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long, — though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis?"); see also Peabody Museum,  Green Frog - Rana clamitans ("often green, however, dorsal coloration can also be brown, black or even grayish. The upper lip is usually bright green, but not always. ... Often confused with the American Bullfrog, which lacks the complete dorsolateral ridge and has a yellow-green belly.") and A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Identifying the Green Frog in Spring (Rana Fontinalis)

You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness. See April 15, 1858 ("The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience, more perhaps than by activity. He must take his position, and then wait and watch. It is equally true of quadrupeds and reptiles. Sit still in the midst of their haunts. ")

The first pleasant days of Spring

March 7

March 7, 2025

A raw east wind and rather cloudy. 

Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago. 

Did I not see crows flying northeasterly yesterday toward night? 

The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle. 

Saw, about a hemlock stump on the hillside north of the largest Andromeda Pond, very abundant droppings of some kind of mice, on that common green moss (forming a firm bed about an inch high, like little pines, surmounted by a fine red stem with a green point, in all three quarters of an inch high), which they had fed on to a great extent, evidently when it was covered with snow, shearing it off level.  They must have fed very extensively on this moss the past winter. 

It is now difficult getting on and off Walden. 

At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss, which apparently has just risen above the surface of the water, tender and compact. 

I see many tadpoles of medium or full size in deep warm ditches in Hubbard’s meadow. They may probably be seen as soon as the ditches are open, thus earlier than frogs. At his bridge over the brook it must have been a trout I saw glance,—rather dark, as big as my finger. 

To-day, as also three or four days ago, I saw a clear drop of maple sap on a broken red maple twig, which tasted very sweet. 

The Pyrola secunda is a perfect evergreen. It has lost none of its color or freshness, with its thin ovate finely serrate leaves, revealed now the snow is gone. It is more or less branched. 

Picked up a very handsome white pine cone some six and a half inches long by two and three eighths near base and two near apex, perfectly blossomed. It is a very rich and wholesome brown color, of various shades as you turn it in your hand, —a light ashy or gray brown, somewhat like unpainted wood. as you look down on it, or as if the lighter brown were covered with a gray lichen, seeing only those parts of the scales always exposed, —with a few darker streaks or marks and a drop of pitch at the point of each scale. Within, the scales are a dark brown above (i.e. as it hangs) and a light brown beneath, Very distinctly being marked beneath by the same darker brown, down the centre and near the apex somewhat anchor wise. 

We were walking along the sunny hillside on the south of Fair Haven Pond (on the 4th), which the choppers had just laid bare, when, 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 striped squirrel spring: We listen for the bluebird but we hear him not.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1855

Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago. See  March 4, 1860 ("I see a bush of the early willow . . . whose catkins are conspicuous thirty rods off . . . The bush at this distance had quite a silvery look."); March 21, 1855 ("This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March . . . It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Did I not see crows flying northeasterly yesterday toward night? See March 2, 1860 ("See thirty or more crows come flying in the usual irregular zigzag manner in the strong wind, from over M. Miles’s, going northeast, — the first migration of them, — without cawing. "); March 5, 1854 (“See crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks.”);   March 5, 1859 ("I see a crow going north or northeast, high over Fair Haven Hill, and, two or three minutes after, two more, and so many more at intervals of a few minutes. This is apparently their spring movement.")

The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle. See note to March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still, half a dozen rods off. It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.") 

Abundant droppings of some kind of mice, on that common green moss. See  March 14, 1855 ("At one of the holes under the stump of March 7th, caught a Mus leucopus (deer mouse). So this was the kind, undoubtedly, that fed on the moss, ")  See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

At Brister’s Spring there are beautiful dense green beds of moss. See March 4, 1859 (" I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light-green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up,   and lie just above the surface of the water. They are scattered about in the old decayed trough. (And there are still more and larger at Brister's Spring.) They are like little rugs or mats and are very obviously of fresh growth, such a green as has not been dulled by winter, a very fresh and living, perhaps slightly glaucous, green. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Mosses Bright Green

I see many tadpoles of medium or full size in deep warm ditches in Hubbard’s meadow. They may probably be seen . . . earlier than frogs. See  February 18, 1857  ("When I approached the bank of a ditch this afternoon, I saw a frog diving to the bottom. "): March 7, 1853  ("What is the earliest sign of spring? The motion of worms and insects? The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of buds? . . . –– Or are there earlier signs in the water? - the tortoises, frogs, etc.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Frogs, and Turtles Stirring 

To-day, as also three or four days ago, I saw a clear drop of maple sap on a broken red maple twig. See February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring . . . I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

 Picked up a very handsome white pine cone . . . perfectly blossomed.  See February 25, 1860 (''The white pine cones have been blowing off more or less in every high wind ever since the winter began, and yet perhaps they have not more than half fallen yet.'): March 5, 1860 ("White pine cones half fallen. ");   March 21, 1859 ("I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again. See March 4, 1855 ("May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first blue bird...be 

called the striped squirrel spring -- In which we go listening for the blue bird, but hear him not.")

March 7.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  March 7

"The first pleasant days 

of spring come out like a squirrel 

and go in again."

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first pleasant days of Spring

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-550707

***

We had a cold winter, perhaps the coldest February yet. Below zero many mornings. Temperature averages around 7° (?). 50 days without going above freezing, So today is a warm day in the 20s. 

We hike without snowshoes to the double chair via the upper view walking in our old tracks so as not to sink in. It is up to my knees off the trail. Just south of the lower view we hear an owl make, first, that who-cooks-for-you song, and then some strange noises. It is late afternoon. 

At the view I hear chickadees and at the double chair a woodpecker tapping. This is the only bird life but the woods are full of deer. Many many deer beds and tracks -- in fact I use the deer trails to get up Prichard.

Jane shows me where a bobcat has walked in her tracks. 

Coming down we go over the cliff and I have to slide on my heels. Jane is invigorated and we veer off trail past the pink rock. The snow is sugar-like and easy to go downhill sliding in a mini avalanche. We stay out a little longer going around the house clockwise, and come in just before needing a headlamp

Avoiding deep snow

a bobcat walks in her tracks.

I use the deer trails.

March 7, 2015 zphx

Yesterday is like a refllection

April 20.

yesterday

A willow coming out fairly, with honey-bees humming on it, in a warm nook. And now different kinds of bees and flies about them. What a sunny sight and summer sound! 

A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank. 

The painted tortoises are fairly out sunning to-day. 

A very pleasant and warm afternoon; the earth seems to be waking up. 

Frogs croak in the clear pools on the hillside where rocks have been taken out, and there is frog-spawn there, and little tadpoles are very lively in the sunny water. 

I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1854

A willow coming out fairly, with honey-bees humming on it, in a warm nook. See April 17, 1852 ("We hear but little music in the world which charms us more than this sound produced by the vibration of an insect's wing and in some still and sunny nook in spring"); April 17, 1855 ("The second sallow catkin (or any willow) I have seen in blossom —there are three or four catkins on the twig partly open —I am about to clutch, but find already a bee curved close on each half-opened catkin, intoxicated with its early sweet."); April 18, 1852 (" The most interesting fact, perhaps, at present is these few tender yellow blossoms, these half-expanded sterile aments of the willow, seen through the rain and cold, — signs of the advancing year, pledges of the sun's return.") 

Quickly and surely

the bee finds the first flower

before the poet.

April 17, 1855

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank. See April 25, 1859 ("One saw a striped snake the 3d of April on a warm railroad sand-bank, — a similar place to the others I heard of.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Snake

The painted tortoises are fairly out sunning to-day. See March 29, 1858 ("They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water"); May 1, 1859 ("All up and down our river meadows their backs are shining in the sun to-day. It is a turtle day. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Describing the experience of the day. See July 23, 1851 ("Put an interval between the impression and the expression, - wait till the seed germinates naturally.”); May 5, 1852 ("I succeed best when I recur to my experience not too late, but within a day or two; when there is some distance, but enough of freshness."); January 10, 1854 ("What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day . . . as any view changes to one who is journeying amid mountains when he has increased the distance.");  March 27, 1857 ("The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory."); March 28, 1857 ("Often I can give the truest and most interesting account of any adventure I have had after years have elapsed, for then I am not confused, only the most significant facts surviving in my memory. Indeed, all that continues to interest me after such a lapse of time is sure to be pertinent, and I may safely record all that I remember.")

More ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water. See 1850 ("You have only to stand on your head a moment to be enchanted with the beauty of the landscape "); January 9, 1853 ("I see to-day the reflected sunset sky in the river, but the colors in the reflection are different from those in the sky.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Inverted Head experiment.

April 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 20

Yesterday is like

a reflection in water.

 Inverted, ideal.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yesterday is like a refletion

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-540420

We reach the lower view just before sunset. The woods have that late afternoon glow. At the view the sun is down. A clear blue sky and saffron horizon. The pond bright. Later walking home the long way the stars are out, shining through the trees like a winters night, the big dipper upside down.

On the long way home

stars shine like a winter night

dipper upside down.

April 20, 2014

Zphx