The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
This resonant air –
melodious sounds – looking
through winter to spring.
The crowing of cocks
such is the state of the air
reminds you of spring.
Walk up the railroad.
Clear straw-colored grass and weeds –
crow's track in the snow.
December 2, 2017
On the 30th I paddled on it in the afternoon, and there was not a particle of ice, and even in the morning my constantly wet hands were not cold. December 2, 1853
Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth. December 2, 1859
The distant sounds of cars, cocks, hounds, etc. . . remind me of spring. There is a certain resonance and elasticity in the air that makes the least sound melodious as in spring. December 2, 1852
The crowing of cocks and other sounds remind you of spring, such is the state of the air. December 2, 1859
It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring. December 2, 1852
I wear only one coat. December 2, 1859
There is still no ice in the Concord River, or the skimming which forms along the shore in the night almost entirely disappears in the day. December 2, 1853
I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before. We had to break the ice about the boat-house for some distance. December 2, 1852
We have had every day since [Nov. 30] similar slight flurries of snow, we being in their midst. December 2, 1858
Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it. December 2, 1854
Got in my boat, which before I had got out and turned up on the bank. December 2, 1856
It made me sweat to wheel it home through the snow, I am so unused to the work of late. December 2, 1856
How quickly men come out on to the highways with their sleds and improve the first snow! The farmer has begun to play with his sled as early as any of the boys. December 2, 1856
Saw Melvin's lank bluish-white black-spotted hound, and Melvin with his gun near, going home at eve. He follows hunting, praise be to him, as regularly in our tame fields as the farmers follow farming. Persistent Genius! How I respect him and thank him for him! . . . How good in him to follow his own bent, . . .I thank my stars for Melvin.. .. I would fain give thanks morning and evening for my blessings. Awkward, gawky, loose-hung, dragging his legs after him. He is my contemporary and neighbor. December 2, 1856
The banks are white with frost. The air is calm, and the water smooth. December 2, 1852
The barberries are shrivelled and dried. December 2, 1850
I find yet cranberries hard and not touched by the frost. December 2, 1850
Then walked up the railroad. The clear straw-colored grass and some weeds contrasting with the snow it rises above. December 2, 1856
Some parts of the meadow are covered with thin ice, through which we row, and the waves we make in the river nibble and crumble its edge, and produce a rustling of the grass and reeds, as if a muskrat were stirring. December 2, 1852
I saw but little in my walk. Saw no bird, only a crow's track in the snow. December 2, 1856
There goes a muskrat. He leaves so long a ripple behind that in this light you cannot tell where his body ends, and think him longer than he is. December 2, 1852
Above the bridge on the road from Chelmsford to Bedford we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. Not so shy as a muskrat. December 2, 1852
After searching long amid the very numerous young hickories at Britton's shanty and Smith's Hill . . . I do not think that a single hickory has been planted in either of these places for some years at least . . .Yet I still think that some must have been planted within a dozen years on Fair Haven Hill without the pines in a manner in which oaks are not. December 2, 1860
I notice to-night the horns of the new moon appear split. December 2, 1853
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Common Barberry
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
*****
July 20, 1852 ("The horns of the moon only three or four days old look very sharp , still cloud like , in the midst of a blue space , prepared to shine a brief half - hour before it sets . . . and, as it sinks in the west . . . the outline of the old moon in its arms is visible if you do not look directly at it.”)
August 23, 1859 ("The cranberries (not vines) are extensively frost-bitten and spoiled.");
August 29, 1858 ("We saw where many cranberries had been frost-bitten, F. thinks the night of the 23d. They are much injured.");
September 20, 1851("The cranberries, too, are touched.");
September 24, 1855 ("Some still raking, others picking, cranberries. ")
October 4, 1852 ("Barberries green, reddish, or scarlet. Cranberry beds at distance in meadows (from hill) are red, for a week or more.")
December 7 , 1853 ("I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them.")
November 26, 1857 ("Got my boat up this afternoon. . . .One end had frozen in.”)
November 26, 1858 ("Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual”)
November 29, 1860 ("Get up my boat, 7 a. m. Thin ice of the night is floating down the river.”)
November 30, 1855 (“Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.”)
December 1, 1860 (“What is most remarkable is that they should be planted so often in open land, on a bare hillside, where oaks rarely are.”);
December 3, 1860 (“Under and about the hickory that stands near the white oak (under the north side of the hill), there are many small hickories two to four feet high amid the birches and pines. Yet, I find no young hickories springing up on the open hillside.”)
December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in.")
December 10, 1859 ("Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze”)
December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up. Ground bare. River open")
December 28, 1852 ("Brought my boat from Walden in rain. No snow on ground.")
December 23, 1851 (“ I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.”)
December 2, 2020
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 2A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality."~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality.”~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2023
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