Jan. 14, 1852.
When I see the dead stems of the tansy, goldenrod, johnswort, asters, hardback, etc., etc., rising above the snow by the roadside, sometimes in dense masses, which carry me back in imagination to their green summer life, I put faintly a question which I do not yet hear answered, Why stand they there? Why should the dead corn-stalks occupy the field longer than the green and living did? Many of them are granaries for the birds. It suggests that man is not an annual. He sees the annual plants wither. Nor does his sap cease to flow in the winter as does that of the trees, though, perhaps, even he may be slightly dormant at that season. It is to most a season to some extent of inactivity. He lays up his stores, and is perhaps a little chilled. On the approach of spring there is an increased flow of spirits, of blood, in his veins.
Here is a dense mass of dry tansy stems, attached still to the same roots which sustained them in summer, but what an interval between these and those. Here are no yellow disks; here are no green leaves; here is no strong odor to remind some of funerals. Here is a change as great as can well be imagined. Bare, brown, scentless stalks, with the dry heads still adhering. Color, scent, and flavor gone. ....
I love to see now a [hay]cock of deep-reddish meadow-hay full of ferns and other meadow plants of the coarsest kind. My imagination supplies the green and the hum of bees. What a memento of summer such a haycock! To stand beside a haycock covered with snow in winter, through which the dry meadow plants peep out! And yet our hopes survive. ….
Standing on the hill on the Baker Farm to-day, the level shrub oak plain under Fair Haven appeared as if Walden and other smaller ponds, and perhaps Fair Haven, had anciently sunk down in it, and the Cliffs been pushed up, for the level is continued in many cases even over extensive hollows.
-H.D.T.
Jan. 14, 2021. Mid-day under a light drizzle after a very faint snowfall.
From Old Concord Road in Lincoln, I pass through the still-active Lindentree Farm fields on the north side of Mount Misery, within the bounds of what was Baker Farm during Thoreau's time. Remaining rows of dried stalks of sunflowers, once brilliant gold but today a withered brown, stand as a reminder of the long and warm days of summer; their seeds have long been stripped by the birds. Rather than haycocks, I find neat rows of freshly laid pale yellow straw to cover up over-wintered crops. The straw is clean and homogenous, strikingly different fromThoreau’s observed deep-reddish haycocks, chock full of last summer’s ferns, flowers and weeds.
Further along the trail, I find the dried stalks of goldenrod, docks, great mullein and evening primrose. Symbols of the past and harbingers of what's to come, the dried flowers conjure an emotion somewhere between nostalgia and hope. With memories of the now-long-past, easy and abundant days of summer and a longing for of such days to arrive again, today feels very much like a "Half-way Day" (as my kids celebrate in their school half way through the school year), a chance to remember, appreciate and dream anew.
The fields here are massive and impressive, providing a now-rarer, distant view in our more grown-in and forested landscape compared to Thoreau’s time. A massive American beech tree with wide sweeping branches adorns the otherwise empty landscape.
I find my way to the approximate location of the hill on the former Baker Farm, and upon receiving permission from some contractors refurbishing a house, I take in the view of a distant Fairhaven Bay, which drops down from the surrounding hills like a kettle pond such as Walden, Goose or White Ponds.
On my return, as I walk the perimeter of the field I spot about a dozen eastern bluebirds in the grass, as well as a red-tailed hawk watching me on a limb nearby. As I approach the hawk, it flies right toward me until veering off over the fields to a more distant perimeter tree afar.
(Check out my follow-up visit to this location on April 28.)
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