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 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The first red maple blossoms—so very red over the water are very interesting.

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1859

There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed.

Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.

1854

I find but one red-maple fairly in blossom on a few twigs over the water today. I think therefore the 22nd will do for the very earliest.

Photo April 22, 2017

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 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The lilac is beginning to open today.

How we prize any redness on the ground….

Photos April 20, 2017

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A very pleasant & warm afternoon—the earth seems to be waking up—Frogs croak in the clear pools on the hillside where rocks have been taken out—& there is frog-spawn there & little tad poles 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.

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That oak…it stands like an athlete & defies the tempests in every direction.  Its branches look like stereotyped gray lightening on the sky…Like an athlete it shows its well developed muscles.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! —suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled….

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As Cawley loved a garden, so I a forest.  Observe all kinds of coincidences—as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.

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The sun-light in the wood across the stream.

The sun sparkle on the water is it not brighter now than it will be in the summer?

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The water on the meadows is now quite high on account of the melting snow & the rain.

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 Would it not be a fine office to preserve the vert of this forest in which I ramble?

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At this season of the year, we are continually expecting warmer weather than we have.

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A driving snow storm in the night & still raging—5 or 6 inches deep on a level at 7 AM.

All birds are turned into snow birds. Trees and houses have put on the aspect of winter. The travelers carriage wheels, the farmer’s wagon are converted into white disks of snow through which the spokes hardly appear. But it is good now to stay in the house & read & write. We do not now go wandering all abroad & dissipated—but the imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts— I can hear the clock tick as not in pleasant weather— My life is enriched— I love to hear the wind howl. I have a fancy sitting with my book or paper—in some mean & apparently unfavorable place—in the kitchen for instance where the work is going on—rather a little cold than comfortable— — My thoughts are of more worth in such places than they would be in a well-furnished studio.

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There is this afternoon & evening a rather cool April rain—pleasant to hear its steady dripping.

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Why are some maples now in blossom so much redder than others.

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We go seeking the south sides of hills and woods, or deep hollows to walk in, this cold and blustering day. We sit by the side of little Goose Pond to watch the ripples on it. Now it is merely smooth, and then there drops down upon it, deep as it lies amid the hills, a sharp and narrow blast of the icy north wind careering above, striking it perhaps by a point or an edge, and swiftly speeding along it, making a dark blue ripple…

You could sit there and watch these blue shadows playing over the surface like light and shade on changeable silk, for hours…Watching the ripples fall and dark across the surface of low-lying and small woodland lakes is one of the amusements of these windy March and April days.

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The epigea is not quite out.

The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigea, anemone, thalictrum and (by the first of May) Viola pedata. These grow quite in the woods amid dry leaves, nor do they depend so much on water as the very earliest flowers.

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We were but just able to get under the stone arches by lying flat and pressing our boat down, after breaking up a large cake of ice which had lodged against the upper side. Before we get to Clamshell, see Melvin ahead scare up two black ducks, which make a wide circuit to avoid both him and us. Sheldrakes pass also, with their heavy bodies.

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The aspect of April waters, smooth and commonly high, before many flowers (none yet) or any leafing while the landscape is still russet, and frogs are just awakening, is peculiar.