Pulling turnips in cold weather

November 21.

Another finger-cold evening, which I improve in pulling my turnips - the usual amusement of such weather - before they shall be frozen in. It is worth the while to see how green and lusty they are yet, still adding to their stock of nutriment for another year; and between the green and also withering leaves it does me good to see their great crimson round tops, sometimes quite above ground, they are so bold. They remind me of rosy cheeks in cool weather, and indeed there is a relationship. 

All kinds of harvestry, even pulling turnips when the first cold weather numbs your fingers, are interesting, if you have been the sower, and have not sown too many.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 21, 1860

Another finger-cold evening, which I improve in pulling my turnips . . . before they shall be frozen in. See November 13, 1851 ("A day when you cannot pluck a flower, cannot dig a parsnip, nor pull a turnip, for the frozen ground! What do the thoughts find to live on?"); November 24, 1855 ("[I]tis time to put them [apples] in the cellar, and the turnips. "); November 14, 1855 ("Mr. Rice . . . remembered a similar season fifty-four years ago, and he remembered it because on the 13th of November that year he was engaged in pulling turnips and saw wild geese go over, when one came to tell him that his father was killed by a bridge giving way . . .")