Red alder catkins, dangling in the wintry air, promise a new spring.

January 10. 

Sunday. P. M. – To Goose Pond across Walden. 

The north side of Walden is a warm walk in sunny weather. 

If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins dangling at the extremities of the twigs, all in the wintry air, like long, hard mulberries, promising a new spring and the fulfillment of all our hopes. 

We prize any tenderness, any softening, in the winter, – catkins, birds’ nests, insect life, etc., etc.

The most I get, perchance, is the sight of a mulberry-like red catkin which I know has a dormant life in it, seemingly greater than my own.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 10, 1858

If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins dangling at the extremities of the twigs. See February 11, 1854 ("In the winter we so value the semblance of fruit that even the dry black female catkins of the alder are an interesting sight, not to mention, on shoots rising a foot or two above these, the red or mulberry male catkins, in little parcels dangling at a less than right angle with the stems, and the short female ones at their bases.")

January 10. 

See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 10

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 © 2009-2022