in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is fit that the almost earliest spring flower should be yellow the color of the sun.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A pure brook is a very beautiful object to study minutely.

It will bear the closest inspection….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

….maples and birches in front–with pines in the rear—making a low wild shore…The young trees & bushes now making apparent islands on the meadows are there nearly in this proportion I should think i.e. in deep water— Young maples—willows—button bushes—red osier…

April 9, 2016 Photo

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The male red maple buds now show 8 or 10 (counting everything) scales alternately crosswise—

& the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The epigaea is not quite out. The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigaea, 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.

I am perhaps more surprised by the growth of the Viola pedata leaves by the side of paths amid the shrub oaks, and half covered with oak leaves, than by any other growth, the situation is so dry and the surrounding bushes so apparently lifeless.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now the sun is low in the west the northeasterly water is of a peculiarly etherial light blue, more beautiful than the sky—

and this broad water with innumerable bays & inlets running up into the land on either side—& often divided by bridge causeways—as if it were the very essence & richness of the heavens distilled and poured upon the earth, contrasting with the clean russet land—& the paler sky from which it has been subtracted—nothing can be more elysian. Is not the blue more etherial when the sun is at this angle— The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The flower buds of the red maple have very red inner scales now being more & more exposed—which color the tree tops a great distance off.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

You may see anything now, —the buff-edged butterfly and many hawks along the meadow;

and hark! while I was writing down that field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes was borne to me from afar through the woods.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Not only are the evergreens brighter,

but the pools…have a peculiarly warm and bright April look, as if ready to be inhabited by frogs….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Hosmer is overhauling a vast heap of manure in the rear of his barn, turning the ice within it up to the light. Yet he asks despairingly what life is for, and says he does not expect to stay here long. But I have just come from reading Columella, who describes the same kind of spring in that, to him, new spring of the world with hope, and I suggest to be brave and hopeful with nature.

Human life may be transitory and full of trouble, but the perennial mind whose survey extends from that spring to this, from Columella to Hosmer, is superior to change. I will identify myself with that which did not die with Columella and will not die with Hosmer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columella

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When I look out the window, I see that the grass on the bank on the south side of the house is already much greener than it was yesterday. As it cannot have grown so suddenly, how shall I account for it?

I suspect the reason is that the few green blades are not merely washed bright by the rain, but erect themselves to imbibe its influence, and so are more prominent, while the withered blades are beaten down and flattened by it.

in Thoreau’s Journal

We cannot well afford not to see the geese go over a single spring,

and so commence our year regularly.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is suddenly warm, and this amelioration of the weather is incomparably the most important fact in this vicinity. It is incredible what a revolution in our feelings and in the aspect of nature this warmer air alone has produced. Yesterday the earth was simple to barrenness, and dead, bound out. Out of doors there was nothing but the wind and the withered grass, and the cold though sparkling blue water, and you were driven in upon yourself.

Now, you would think there was a sudden awakening in the very crust of the earth, as if flowers were expanding and leaves putting forth; but not so. I listen in vain to hear a frog or a new bird as yet. Only the frozen ground is melting a little deeper, and the water is trickling from the hills in some places. No, the change is mainly in us. We feel as if we had obtained a new lease of life.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The spring advances in spite of snow and ice and cold even.

Photo: March 29, 2016

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I stand on Heywood’s Peak, looking over Walden, more than half its surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air, like a draught of cold water, contrasting it in my memory with the wind of summer, which I do not thus eagerly swallow. This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me. I swallow it with eagerness as a panacea. I feel an impulse also already to jump into the half-melted pond. This cold wind is refreshing to my palate as the warm air of sunshine is not, methinks.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How charming the contrast of land and water, especially where there is a temporary island in the flood with its new and tender shores of waving outline, so withdrawn, yet habitable; above all if it rises into a hill high above the water, so contrasting with it the more, and, if that hill is wooded, suggesting wildness. Our vernal lakes have a beauty to my mind which they would not possess if they were more permanent. Everything is in rapid flux here, suggesting that nature is alive to her extremities and superficies.

To-day we sail swiftly on dark rolling waves, or paddle over a sea as smooth as a mirror, unable to touch the bottom where mowers work and hide their jugs in August, coasting the edge of maple swamps where alder tassels and white-maple flowers are kissing the tide that has risen to meet them. But this particular phase of beauty is fleeting. Nature has so many shows for us she cannot afford to give much time to this In a few days, perchance, these lakes will all have run away to the sea….in nature it is constant surprise and novelty….

 in Thoreau’s Journal

It is always a short step to peace of mind.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

….March fluctuates about a month, receding into February or advancing into April.

               March 26, 2011                                                       March 26, 2012

in Thoreau’s Journal

The red maple buds already redden the swamps & river sides.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How little that occurs to us are we prepared at once to appreciate. We discriminate at first only a few features, and we need to reconsider our experience from many points of view and in various moods to preserve the whole force of it.

Photo: March 24, 2015