Sunday. River channel fairly open.
P. M. - To Bee Tree Hill over Fair Haven Pond.
For some time, or since the ground has been bare, I have noticed the spider-holes in the plowed land. We go over the cliffs. Though a cold and strong wind, it is very warm in the sun, and we can sit in the sun where sheltered on these rocks with impunity. It is a genial warmth. The rustle of the dry leaves on the earth and in the crannies of the rocks, and gathered in deep windrows just under their edge, midleg deep, reminds me of fires in the woods. They are almost ready to burn. I see a fly on the rock. The ice is so much rotted and softened by the sun that it looks white like snow now as I look down on the meadow. There is considerable snow on the north side of hills in the woods. At the Bee Hill-side, a striped squirrel, which quickly dives into his hole at our approach. May not this season of springlike weather between the first decidedly springlike day and the first bluebird, already fourteen days long, be called the striped squirrel spring? In which we go listening for the bluebird, but hear him not.
Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still, half a dozen rods off. It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.
