in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now is the season to look for Indian relics—the sandy fields being just bared— I stand on the high lichen covered & colored (greenish) hill beyond Abner Buttrick’s— I go further east & look across the meadow to Bedford—& see that peculiar scenery of March—in which I have taken so many rambles—The earth just bare & beginning to be dry—the snow lying on the N sides of hills—the gray deciduous trees & the green pines soughing in the March wind—they look now as if deserted by a companion—(the snow) When you walk over bare lichen-clad hills—just beginning to be dry—& look afar over the blue water on the meadows—You are beginning to break up your winter quarters—& plan adventures for the new year— The scenery is like—yet unlike November— You have the wind—a peculiarly soft moist air or else a raw wind

Now is the reign of water….It is astonishing how soon the ice has gone out of the river. But it still lies on the bottom of the meadow.