Thoreau writes in his journal:
Apples and cherry trees begin to look green at a distance. I see the catkin of a female Populus tremuloides far advanced, i.e. become large like the willows. These low woods are full of the Anemone nemorosa, half opened at this hour and gracefully drooping,—sepals with a purple tinge on the under side, now exposed. They are in beds and look like hail on the ground, their now globular flowers spot the ground white . . .
P.M.—To hill north of Walden.
I smell the blossoms of the willows, the row of Salix alba on Swamp Bridge Brook, a quarter of a mile to windward, the wind being strong. There is a delightful coolness in the wind. Reduce neck-cloth. Nothing so harmonizes with this condition of the atmosphere—warm and hazy—as the dream of the toad . . .
These are the warm-west-wind, dream-frog, leafing-out, willowy, haze days. Is not this summer, whenever it occurs, the vireo and yellowbird and golden robin being here ? The young birch leaves reflect the light in the sun . . .