4.07.2006

Thoreau's Journal: 7-Apr-1853

If you make the least correct observation of nature this year, you will have occasion to repeat it with illustrations the next, and the season and life itself is prolonged.

I am surprised to see how much in warm places the high blueberry buds are started, some reddish, some greenish, earlier now than any gooseberries I have noticed. Several painted tortoises; no doubt have been out a long time.

Walk in and about Tarbell’s Swamp. Heard in two distinct places a slight, more prolonged croak, somewhat like the toad. This? Or a frog? It is a warmer sound than I have heard yet, as if dreaming outdoors were possible.

3 comments:

Casey said...

I love the idea of "correct observation of nature" -- how tyrannical; how grand.

Cathy said...

Last night the chorus of frogs in our local wet prarie kept us moving briskly along the boardwalk. It was unnerving and thrilling. Hard to imagine the first settlers trying to drop into sleep with the Great Black Swamp owning the night outside the windows.

ControlThis said...

Casey said...
I love the idea of "correct observation of nature" -- how tyrannical; how grand.

I can't even look at the stars right any more.

But *my* reading of Thoreau is more correct than most.

And next year our observations will be repeated.