Unexpected snow.

October 27. 

October 27.

This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow, quite unexpectedly, for last night it was rainy but not cold. 

The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. The cold numbs my fingers. 

Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 27, 1851

 Winter is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think. See October 15, 1852 ("The ground begins to whiten, and our thoughts begin to prepare for winter."); January 27, 1858 ("sit long at a time, still, and have your thoughts. . . .You can not go home yet; you stay and sit in the rain. ")

This morning I wake and find it snowing and the ground covered with snow; quite unexpectedly, for last night it was rainy but not cold.

The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone cannot move. She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each other further asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude pales in the heavens, not from any fault in the observer's eye nor from any fault in itself, perchance, but because its progress in its own system has put a greater distance between.

The night is oracular. What have been the intimations of the night? I ask. How have you passed the night ? Good-night ! My friend will be bold to conjecture; he will guess bravely at the significance of my words.

The cold numbs my fingers this morning. The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter.

Perhaps it was the young of the purple finch that I saw sliding down the grass stems some weeks ago; or was it the white-throated finch?

Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.

The Ardea minor still with us. Saw a woodcock  feeding, probing the mud with its long bill, under the railroad bridge within two feet of me for a long time. Could not scare it far away. What a disproportionate length of bill! It is a sort of badge they [wear] as a punishment for greediness in a former state.

The highest arch of the stone bridge is six feet eight inches above the present surface of the water, which I should think was more than a foot higher than it has been this summer, and is four inches below the long stone in the east abutment.

See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Obstacles of the Heart. See also Farewell, my friend

Pine needles

October 22.

The pines, both white and pitch, have now shed their leaves, and the ground in the pine woods is strewn with the newly fallen needles.

The fragrant life everlasting is still fresh, and the Canada snapdragon still blooms bluely by the roadside. 

The rain and dampness have given birth to a new crop of mushrooms.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1851

The ground in the pine woods is strewn with the newly fallen needles. See October 25, 1853 (“The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight.”)


The Canada snapdragon still blooms bluely by the roadside. See October 22 1858 ("On the top of the Cliff  . . . very handsome Aster undulatus, and an abundance of the little blue snapdragon.")

Now is the time to enjoy the dry leaves.

October 10.

Some maples which a week ago
were a mass of yellow foliage
are now a fine gray smoke, as it were,
and their leaves cover the ground.

The chickadee, sounding all alone,
now that birds are getting scarce,
reminds me of the winter,
in which it almost alone is heard.

You make a great noise now
walking in the woods.
Now all nature is a dried herb,
full of medicinal odors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1851

You make a great noise now walking in the woods. See October. 28, 1860 (" We make a great noise going through the fallen leaves in the woods and wood-paths now, so that we cannot hear other sounds")

The chickadee reminds me of the winter. See  October 10, 1856 ("The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards");See also October 2, 1857 ("The chickadees of late have winter ways, flocking after you."); October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance."); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.");  October 15, 1856 (" The chickadees are hopping near on the hemlock above. They resume their winter ways before the winter comes.");   November 4, 1855 (“The winter is approaching. The birds are almost all gone. The note of the dee de de sounds now more distinct, prophetic of winter, as I go amid the wild apples on Nawshawtuct.”)

Oct. 10. The air this morning is full of bluebirds, and again it is spring. There are many things to indicate the renewing of spring at this season. The blossoming of spring flowers, — not to mention the witch-hazel, — the notes of spring birds, the springing of grain and grass and other plants.

The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard. How agreeable to the eye at this season the color of new-fallen leaves (I am going through the young woods where the locusts grow near Goose Pond), sere and crisp! When freshly fallen, with their forms and their veins still distinct, they have a certain life in them still.

You make a great noise now walking in the woods, on account of the dry leaves, especially chestnut and oak and maple, that cover the ground. I wish that we might make more use of leaves than we do. We wait till they are reduced to virgin mould. Might we not fill beds with them ? or use them for fodder or litter ? After they have been flattened by the snow and rain, they will be much less obvious. Now is the time to enjoy the dry leaves. Now all nature is a dried herb, full of medicinal odors. I love to hear of a preference given to one kind of leaves over another for beds. Some maples which a week ago were a mass of yellow foliage are now a fine gray smoke, as it were, and their leaves cover the ground.

The witch-hazel loves a hillside with or without wood or shrubs. It is always pleasant to come upon it unexpectedly as you are threading the woods in such places. Methinks I attribute to it some elvish quality apart from its fame. It affects a hillside partially covered with young copsewood. I love to behold its gray speckled stems. The leaf first green, then yellow for a short season, then, when it touches the ground, tawny leather color. 

As I stood amid the witch-hazels near Flint's Pond, a flock of a dozen chickadees came flitting and singing about me with great ado, — a most cheering and enlivening sound, — with incessant day-day-day and a fine wiry strain betweenwhiles, flitting ever nearer and nearer and nearer, inquisitively, till the boldest was within five feet of me; then suddenly, their curiosity satiated, they flit by degrees further away and disappear, and I hear with regret their retreating day-day-days.

There is a great difference between this season and a month ago.

October 7.

October 7

To river; by boat to Corner Bridge.  It is a remarkable difference between night and day on the river, that there is no fog by day.  This morning the fog over the river and the brooks and meadows running into it has risen to the height of forty or fifty feet.


A very still, warm, bright, clear afternoon. Our boat so small and low that we are close to the water. The weeds being dead and the weather cooler, the water is more transparent. The fishes are plainly seen. See a pickerel that has swallowed a smaller fish, with the tail projecting from his mouth.


There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- warm as this happens to be, -- as between one period of your life and another.  A little frost is at the bottom of it.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 7, 1851

The earth has gradually turned more northward.

October 5. 

Moon three-quarters full. 

The nights now are very still, for there is hardly any noise of birds or of insects. The whip-poor-will is not heard, nor the mosquito.

There is a down-like mist over the river and pond, and there are no bright reflections of the moon, all the light being absorbed by the low fog.

The moon gives not a creamy but white, cold light. 

Standing on the Cliffs, no sound comes up from the woods. The earth has gradually turned more northward; the birds have fled south after the sun, and this impresses me as a deserted country.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1851

The nights now are very still, for there is hardly any noise of birds or of insects. See October 5, 1857 ("There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant.")