March is the fourth coldest month.

March 23. 

2 P. M. — 40°; rather windy.

Small dark-based cumuli spring clouds, mostly in rows parallel with the horizon. 

I see one field which was plowed before the 18th and spring rye sowed. The earlier the better, they say. Some fields might have been plowed earlier, but the ground was too wet. Farmer says that some fifty years ago he plowed and sowed wheat in January, and never had so good a crop. 

I hear that Coombs has killed half a dozen ducks one of them a large gray duck in Goose Pond. He tells me it weighed five and a half pounds, — while his black ducks weigh only three and a half, — and was larger than a sheldrake and very good to eat. Simply gray, and was alone, and had a broad flat bill. Was it the gadwall? or a kind of goose? 

It will be seen by the annexed scrap [Tables from the Patent Office Reports, 1853, p.332; 1854, p.427; 1855, p.375.] that March is the fourth coldest month, or about midway between December and November. The same appears from the fifteen years' observation at Mendon. (“American Almanac,” page 86.) 

The descent to extreme cold occupies seven months and is therefore more gradual (though a part of it is more rapid) than the ascent to extreme heat, which takes only five months. 

The mean average temperature of the coldest month (February) being 23.25, and of the warmest (July) being 72.35, the whole ascent from extreme cold to extreme heat is 49.10°, and in March (32.73) we have accomplished 8.48°, or a little less than one sixth the ascent. (According to the Mendon fifteen years ' average the whole ascent is 47.5, and in March we have advanced 9.2, a little more than one fifth.) 

It appears (from the scrap) that December, January, and February, the three winter months, differ very little in temperature, and the three summer months and September are next most alike, though they differ considerably more. (Same from Mendon tables.) 

The greatest or abruptest change is from November to December (in Mendon tables from September to October), the next most abrupt from April to May (in Mendon tables from March to April). 

The least change (according to the above tables) is from December to January. (According to Mendon tables, the same from December to January as from January to February.) 

The three spring months, and also October and November, are transition months, in which the temperature rapidly changes.

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

March is the fourth coldest month. See March 25, 1860 ("To speak of the general phenomena of March")

Colder and overcast

March 21. 

Colder and overcast. Did not look at thermometer; probably not far from 40°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 21, 1860

Colder. See March 20, 1860 ("The 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th were very pleasant and warm days, the thermometer standing at 50° 55° , 56° , 56°, and 51° (average 53 1/2°), - quite a spell of warm weather ")

March 21.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 21

Behind a picture in R. W. E.'s dining-room.

August 10. 

2 p.m. — Air, 84°; Boiling Spring this after noon., 46°; Brister's, 49°; or where there is little or no surface water the same as in spring. Walden is at surface 80° (air over it 76). 

Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long? 

Sand cherry is well ripe — some of it — and tolerable, better than the red cherry or choke-cherry. 

Juncus acuminatus aka paradoxus

Juncus paradoxus, that large and late juncus (tailed), as in Hubbard's Close and on island above monument and in Great Meadows, say ten days. 

Saw yesterday in Fitzwilliam from the railroad a pond covered with white lilies uniformly about half the size of ours! 

Saw this evening, behind a picture in R. W. E.'s dining-room, the hoary bat. First heard it fluttering at dusk, it having hung there all day. Its rear parts covered with a fine hoary down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 10, 1860

Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long? See August 5, 1856 ("Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales."); August 11, 1853 ("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.”)

Sand cherry is well ripe. July 28, 1856 ("Sand cherry ripe. The fruit droops in umble-like clusters, two to four peduncles together, on each side the axil of a branchlet or a leaf. . . . It is black when ripe.")

Juncus paradoxus, that large and late juncus (tailed), as in Hubbard's Close and on island. See August 30, 1858 ("Juncus paradoxus, with seeds tailed at both ends, (it is fresher than what I have seen before, and smaller), not done. Some of it with few flowers! A terete leaf rises above the flower. It looks like a small bayonet rush.")

August 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , August 10

 

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 am in raptures at my own shadow

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.

January 18, 2026

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.") See also January 24, 1859 ("This ice is a good field for an entomologist.")

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

Our very shadows

are no longer black but a

celestial blue.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  I am in raptures at my own shadow

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560118

A green blaze on Walden

August 28

About 6:30 P.M. paddle on Walden.

The sky is  completely overcast.  

I am in the shade of the woods when, just before setting, the sun comes out into a clear space in the horizon and a sudden blaze of light falls on east end of the pond and the hillside.

At this angle a double amount of bright sunlight reflects from the water up to the underside of  the still very fresh green leaves of the bushes and trees on the shore and on Pine Hill, revealing the most vivid and varied shades of green. I never saw such a green glow before.  

It is a wonderful contrast with the previous and still surrounding darkness.

When the sun falls lower, and the sunlight no longer fell on the pond, the green blaze of the hillside at once  diminishes, because the light no longer reflects upward to it. 

August 28, 2014

At sunset the air over the pond is 62 + ; the water at the top, 74°; poured from a stoppled bottle which lay at the bottom where one hundred feet deep, twenty or thirty minutes, 55° (and the same when drawn up in an open bottle which lay five minutes at the bottom); in an open bottle drawn up from about fifty feet depth (there) or more, after staying there five minutes, 63°. This about half the whole difference between the top and bottom, so that the temperature seems to fall regularly as you descend, at the rate of about one degree to five feet. When I let the stoppled bottle down quickly, the cork was forced out before it got to the bottom, when [ ? ] the water drawn up stood at 66°. Hence it seemed to be owing to the rising of the warmer water and air in the bottle. Five minutes with the open bottle at the bottom was as good as twenty with it stoppled. I found it 2° warmer than the 24th, though the air was then 4° warmer than now.

Possibly, comparing one day with the next, it is warmer at the bottom in a cold day and colder in a warm day, because when the surface is cooled it mixes more with the bottom, while the average temperature is very slightly changed.

The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1860

A sudden blaze of light falls on east end of the pond and the hillside. See September 3, 1860 ("The dense fresh green grass which has sprung up since it was mowed reflects a blaze of light, as if it were morning all the day.”); September 27, 1855 ("I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water.”); September 13, 1852 ("At this season, a golden blaze salutes me here from a thousand suns.”)

The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp. See August 26, 1859 ("A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side.") See also 
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

August 28. See A Book of the Seasons, August 28

The sky overcast –

a sudden vivid green blaze

of reflected light.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A green blaze on Walden

 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://www.tinyurl.com/greenblaze