From night into day
I look into the clear sky
with its floating clouds.
Greenish blue patches
of winter sky seen in the
west before sundown.
And now the crescent
of the moon – and farther off –
her attendant star.
January 24, 2020
Between winter and summer there is, to my mind, an immeasurable interval. January 24, 1858
It has been so cold since the rise that you can now cross the channel almost anywhere. January 24, 1859
Thermometer about 6.30 a.m. in the bulb!! . . .ours would have stood at -26° at 6.30, if the thermometer had been long enough. At 11.30 a.m. ours was -1°, at 4 p.m., +12°. January 24, 1857
Where the mountains in the horizon are well wooded and the snow does not lodge, they still look blue. January 24, 1852
All but a narrow segment of the sky in the northwest and southeast being suddenly overcast by a passing kind of snow-squall, though no snow falls, January 24, 1852
I have not been able to find any tracks of muskrats this winter. I suspect that they very rarely venture out in winter with their wet coats. January 24, 1856
How, then, can the musquash draw air through the ice as is asserted? He might, however, come to breathe in such a bubble as this already existing. January 24, 1859.
I see a few fishes dart in the brooks. January 24, 1858
At Hosmer's tub spring a small frog is active! January 24, 1858
Saw a red squirrel out. January 24, 1854
A great many hemlock cones have fallen on the snow and rolled down the hill. January 24, 1856
I see squirrel-tracks about the hemlocks. They are much like rabbits, only the toes , are very distinct. From this they pass into a semicircular figure sometimes. Some of the first are six inches from outside to outside lengthwise with one to two feet of interval. Are these the gray or red? January 24, 1856
Higher up, against the Wheeler Swamp, I see where many squirrels —perhaps red, for the tracks appear smaller—have fed on the alder cones on the twigs which are low or frozen into the ice, stripping them to the core just as they do the pine cones. January 24, 1856
I see squirrel-tracks about the hemlocks. They are much like rabbits, only the toes , are very distinct. From this they pass into a semicircular figure sometimes. Some of the first are six inches from outside to outside lengthwise with one to two feet of interval. Are these the gray or red? January 24, 1856
Higher up, against the Wheeler Swamp, I see where many squirrels —perhaps red, for the tracks appear smaller—have fed on the alder cones on the twigs which are low or frozen into the ice, stripping them to the core just as they do the pine cones. January 24, 1856
That Wheeler swamp is a great place for squirrels. I observe many of their tracks along the riverside there. The nests are of leaves, and apparently of the gray species. January 24, 1856
I knew that a crow had that day plucked the cedar berries and barberries by Flint’s Pond and then flapped silently through the trackless air to Walden, where it dined on fisherman’s bait, though there was no living creature to tell me. January 24, 1856
Here are the tracks of a crow, like those of the 22d, with a long hind toe, nearly two inches. The two feet are also nearly two inches apart. I see where the bird alighted, descending with an impetus and breaking through the slight crust, planting its feet side by side. January 24, 1856
How different this partridge-track, with its slight hind toe, open and wide-spread toes on each side, both feet forming one straight line. The middle toe alternately curved to the right and to the left, and what is apparently the outer toe in each case shorter than the inner one. January 24, 1856
I see under a great many trees, black willow and swamp white oak, the bark scattered over the snow, some pieces six inches long, and above see the hole which a woodpecker has bored. January 24, 1856
Scare a shrike from an apple tree. He flies low over the meadow, somewhat like a woodpecker, and alights near the top twig of another apple tree. January 24, 1860
See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk. January 24, 1860
See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk. January 24, 1860
At Nut Meadow Brook the small-sized water-bugs are as abundant and active as in summer. I see forty or fifty circling together in the smooth and sunny bays all along the brook. January 24, 1858
Like the water-bugs the dormant buds and catkins which overhang the brook might be waked up in midwinter, but these bugs are much the most susceptible to the genial influences. January 24, 1858
Like the water-bugs the dormant buds and catkins which overhang the brook might be waked up in midwinter, but these bugs are much the most susceptible to the genial influences. January 24, 1858
The larger spiders generally rest on the ice with all their legs spread, but on being touched they gather them up. January 24, 1859
The droppings of a skunk left on a rock, perhaps at the beginning of winter, were full of grasshoppers' legs. January 24, 1860
I see two of those black and red-brown fuzzy caterpillars in a mullein leaf on this bare edge-hill, which could not have blown from any tree, I think. They apparently take refuge in such places. One on the railroad causeway where it is high, in the open meadow. January 24, 1858
I see an abundance of caterpillars of various kinds on the ice of the meadows, many of those large, dark, hairy, with longitudinal light stripes, somewhat like the common apple one. Many of them are frozen in yet, some for two thirds their length, yet all are alive. January 24, 1859
I also see a great many of those little brown grasshoppers and one perfectly green one, some of them frozen in, but generally on the surface, showing no signs of life; yet when I brought them home to experiment on, I found them all alive and kicking in my pocket. January 24, 1859
There were also a small kind of reddish wasp, quite lively, on the ice, and other insects; those naked, or smooth, worms or caterpillars. January 24, 1859
I also see a great many of those little brown grasshoppers and one perfectly green one, some of them frozen in, but generally on the surface, showing no signs of life; yet when I brought them home to experiment on, I found them all alive and kicking in my pocket. January 24, 1859
There were also a small kind of reddish wasp, quite lively, on the ice, and other insects; those naked, or smooth, worms or caterpillars. January 24, 1859
A grasshopper on the snow. January 24, 1860
This shows what insects have their winter quarters in the meadow-grass. This ice is a good field for an entomologist. January 24, 1859
This shows what insects have their winter quarters in the meadow-grass. This ice is a good field for an entomologist. January 24, 1859
The blue vervain stands stiffly and abundant in one place, with much rather large brown seed in it. It is in good condition. January 24, 1860
See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. . . .They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse. January 24, 1860
The sprouts of the canoe birch are not reddish like the white, but a yellowish brown. The small white begin to cast off their red cuticle the third or fourth year and reveal a whitish one. January 24, 1858
As I stand at the south end of J. P. B.'s moraine, I watch six tree sparrows, which come from the wood and alight and feed on the ground, which is their bare. . . . These birds, though they have bright brown and buff backs, hop about amid the little inequalities of the pasture almost unnoticed, such is their color and so humble are they. January 24, 1860
I walk along the sides of the stream, admiring the rich mulberry catkins of the alders, which look almost edible. They attract us because they have so much of spring in them. January 24, 1856
When the snow raises us one foot higher than we have been accustomed to walk, we are surprised at our elevation! So we soar. January 24, 1856
The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. . . . They have only an ice egg in them now. January 24, 1856
When clouds rise in mid afternoon, you cannot foresee what sunset picture they are preparing for us. January 24, 1852
Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown. January 24, 1852
I look into the clear sky with its floating clouds in the northwest as from night into day, now at 4 P.M. The sun sets about five. January 24, 1852
When the cars passed, I being on the pond ( Walden ) the sun was setting and suffusing the clouds far and near with rosy light Even the steam from the engine as its flocks or wreaths rose above the shadow of the woods, became a rosy cloud even fairer than the rest but it was soon dissipated. January 24, 1852
Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me. They are filled with a dense bed of the small andromeda, a dull red mass as commonly seen, brighter or translucent red looking toward the sun, grayish looking from it… January 24, 1855
When I come out on to the causeway, I behold a splendid picture in the west. A single elm by Hayden's stands in relief against the amber and golden, deepening into dusky but soon to be red horizon. January 24, 1852
And now the crescent of the moon is seen, and her attendant star is farther off than last night. January 24, 1852
January 24, 2020
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spiders on Ice
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insects in my Path.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, insects and worms come forth
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Lesser Redpoll
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Northern Shrike
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Skunk
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Colors
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, When the ice turns green
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January Moonlight
*****
January 24, 2020
*****
October 28, 1852 ("That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow.” )
December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”)
December 14. 1851("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset.")
December 18, 1855 ("A dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice.")
December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown")
December 23, 1851 (“I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.”)
December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice.")
January 5, 1858 ("I see one of those fuzzy winter caterpillars, black at the two ends and brown-red in middle, crawling on a rock by the Hunt's Bridge causeway.")
January 6, 1854 ("Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow.")
January 8, 1857 ("I picked up on the bare ice of the river, opposite the oak in Shattuck's land, on a small space blown bare of snow, a fuzzy caterpillar, black at the two ends and red-brown in the middle, rolled into a ball.”)
January 8, 1860 ("Hear the goldfinch notes (they may be linarias), and see a few on the top of a small black birch by the pond-shore, of course eating the seed. Thus they distinguish its fruit from afar. When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch! [Were they not linarias? Vide Jan. 24]")
January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")
January 16, 1860 ("I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking something from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. . . . the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter . . . The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.")
January 19, 1859 ("The inner toe is commonly close to the middle one. It makes a peculiar curving track (or succession of 'curves), stepping round the planted foot each time with a sweep. You would say that it toed in decidedly and walked feebly. ")
January 20, 1857 ("Heard, in the Dennis swamp by the railroad this afternoon, the peculiar goldfinch-like mew — also like some canaries — of, I think, the lesser redpoll (?). Saw several. Heard the same a week or more ago.")
January 20, 1857 ("Heard, in the Dennis swamp by the railroad this afternoon, the peculiar goldfinch-like mew — also like some canaries — of, I think, the lesser redpoll (?). Saw several. Heard the same a week or more ago.")
January 22, 1856 ("See the track of a crow, the toes as usual less spread and the middle one making a more curved furrow in the snow than the partridge as if they moved more unstably.")
January 22, 1859 ("Perhaps the caterpillars, etc., crawl forth in sunny and warm days in midwinter when the earth is bare, and so supply the birds, and are ready to be washed away by a flow of water! I find thus a great variety of living insects now washed out. ")
January 22, 1859 ("Perhaps the caterpillars, etc., crawl forth in sunny and warm days in midwinter when the earth is bare, and so supply the birds, and are ready to be washed away by a flow of water! I find thus a great variety of living insects now washed out. ")
January 22, 1859 ("J. Farmer tells me that he once saw a musquash rest three or four minutes under the ice with his nose against the ice in a bubble of air about an inch in diameter, and he thinks that they can draw air through the ice,")
January 23, 1852 ("And the new moon and the evening star, close together, preside over the twilight scene.")
January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording . . . I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day.")
January 23, 1852 ("And the new moon and the evening star, close together, preside over the twilight scene.")
January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording . . . I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day.")
A great many hemlock
cones have fallen on the snow
and rolled down the hill.
January 25, 1854 ("A very cold day. . . .The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of this month have been the coldest spell of weather this winter.")
January 25, 1856 ("The hardest day to bear that we have had, for, beside being 5° at noon and at 4 P. M., there is a strong northwest wind. It is worse than when the thermometer was at zero all day. ")
January 25, 1857 ("Still another very cold morning.")
January 30, 1860 ("The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook.")
February 1, 1856 ("The two inner toes are near together; the middle, more or less curved often.")
January 30, 1860 ("The small water-bugs are gyrating abundantly in Nut Meadow Brook.")
February 1, 1856 ("The two inner toes are near together; the middle, more or less curved often.")
February 8, 1852 ("I now walk over fields raised a foot or more above their summer level, and the prospect is altogether new.")
February 24, 1854 "The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk.”)February 24, 1857 ("I have seen the probings of skunks for a week or more. “)
February 26, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February.”)
March 5, 1854("See a small blackish caterpillar on the snow. Where do they come from?")
March 5, 1854("See a small blackish caterpillar on the snow. Where do they come from?")
March 8, 1855 ("I see of late more than before of the fuzzy caterpillars, both black and reddish-brown.”)
January 24, 2021
A 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 © 2009-2017
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