March 12, 1854. P. M. To Ball's Hill along river.
Saw some ducks, black and white, —perhaps teal or widgeons. This great expanse of deep-blue water, deeper than the sky, why does it not blue my soul as of yore ? It is hard to soften me now. I see no gulls myself. The time was when this great blue scene would have tinged my spirit more. Now is the season to look for Indian relics, the sandy fields being just bared. I stand on the high lichen covered and colored (greenish) hill beyond Abner Buttrick's; I go further east and look across the meadows to Bedford, and see that peculiar scenery of March, in which I have taken so many rambles, the earth just bare and beginning to be dry, the snow lying on the north sides of hills, the gray deciduous trees and 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, and look afar over the blue water on the meadows, you are beginning to break up your winter quarters and plan adventures for the new year. The scenery is like, yet unlike, November; you have the same barren russet, but now, instead of a dry, hard, cold wind, a peculiarly soft, moist air, or else a raw wind. Now is the reign of water. I see many crows on the meadow by the water's edge these days. It is astonishing how soon the ice has gone out of the river, but it still lies on the bottom of the meadow. Is it peculiar to the song sparrow to dodge behind and hide in walls and the like? Toward night the water becomes smooth and beautiful. Men are eager to launch their boats and paddle over the meadows.
-H.D.T.
March 12, 2021. 55 degrees at 5 p.m.
I walk into the now-russet colored landscape of the Town's October Farm Waterfront land, with virtually all snow and ice having melted. The only remaining ice I see within this undulating, glaciated landscape is within the shadier portions of the trail, the wetlands and riverside meadows, and the deeper wooded hollows, soon to be reborn as vernal pools. As I walk, I hear again that long-familiar, yet long-unheard, sound of my feet moving through dry leaves. It does feel like November again, but with an embedded, underlying feeling of hope.
As I approach the river, I see from afar warm yellow light flooding in from the west downriver inviting me. The setting sun over Punkatasset casts a golden hue across Ball’s Hill, accentuating its already tawny leaf- and needle-strewn covering and creating magnificent shadows from the trees. I examine various bluish green lichen-covered trunks as I ascend. The sweeping panoramic view through the trees of the blue water on Great Meadows, upriver and the riverside wetland (from left to right) is truly impressive and heart-lifting. Along with the gentle wind in the trees, I hear the honking of Canada geese from multiple locations to my right, left and ahead of me. The honking is accompanied by the unceasing happy chorus of red-winged blackbirds, which fill-out the atmospherics with a feeling of a living landscape, very much like the spring peepers will create soon too. Two Canada geese, honking, from Great Meadows fly directly toward me and upon reaching the river turn east downriver. Two mallards fly upriver, quacking. I linger, feeling deeply appreciative. The horizon above Punkatasset is orange and gently fades out, gradually becoming more tawny and even purple toward the south, almost blending in color with the ruddy deciduous trees underneath. I can’t imagine another place I would rather be at this very moment. The “winter quarters” of my mind are officially broken open.
With the sun fading, I explore the edge of the river, watching a Canada goose swim on the smooth golden reflective water. Two song sparrows flit about at the water’s edge among the thorny green briar.
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