The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season.

January 30.  

Buda  January 30 2021

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season, as at present, is that of the buttercup. 

Sorrel is also very common, and johnswort, and the purplish gnaphaliums. There is also the early crowfoot in some places, strawberry, mullein, and thistle leaves, and hawkweeds, etc., etc.

On Cliffs.

The westering sun is yet high above the horizon, but, concealed by clouds, shoots down to earth on every side vast misty rays like the frame of a tent, to which clouds perchance are the canvas, under which a whole country rests. 

BTV February 1, 2023

The northern and southern rays appear very much slanted and long; those between us and the west, steeper and shorter.

What I have called the Shrub Oak Plain contains comparatively few shrub oaks, — rather, young red and white and, it may be, some scarlet (?).

The shrub oak leaf is the firmest and best preserved. The white oak is the most sere and curled and brittle, frequently with discolored, mould-like spots.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1853

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season, as at present, is that of the buttercup. See November 8, 1858 ("The now more noticeable green radical leaves of the buttercup in the russet pastures remind me of the early spring to come, of which they will offer the first evidence."); January 9, 1853 ("On the face of the Cliff the crowfoot buds lie unexpanded just beneath the surface"); January 25, 1853 ("The buttercup leaves appear everywhere when the ground is bare.);  February 18, 1857 ("The snow is nearly all gone, and . . . I step excited over the moist mossy ground, dotted with the green stars of thistles, crowfoot, etc., the outsides of which are withered."); February 23, 1860 ("I walk over the moist Nawshawtuct hillside and see the green radical leaves of the buttercup"); February 28, 1857 ("At the Cliff, the tower-mustard, early crowfoot, and perhaps buttercup appear to have started of late.")

The westering sun, concealed by clouds, shoots down to earth on every side vast misty rays. See August 9, 1851 ("It was a splendid sunset that day, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people went to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky. . . We were in the westernmost edge of the shower at the moment the sun was setting, and its rays shone through the cloud and the falling rain. We were, in fact, in a rainbow.")

The shrub oak leaf is the firmest and best preserved. The white oak is the most sere and curled and brittle. See October 2, 1852 ("From Cliffs the shrub oak plain has now a bright-red ground, perhaps of maples.");  October 13, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is now a deep red, with grayish, withered, apparently white oak leaves intermixed."); November 3, 1852 ("The shrub oak plain is all withered."); May 14, 1855 ("All the oak leaves off the shrub oak plain, except apparently a few white oaks.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

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 ©  2009-2023

Pickerel of at least three different forms and color.

January 29.

To Walden.

Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday sheldrakes; being small, then wood sheldrakes. [I judge from the plate they were velvet ducks, or white-winged coots.] He never shot any at this season.

Saw a woodcock last month; never before.

Killed a goshawk (which was eating a rabbit) and a cat owl lately.

Says I hear the cat owl.

Has got only three or four minks this year.

Never saw an otter track.

I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden, three or four rods from the shore, its tail sticking out a hole. It had apparently run into this hole when full of water, as if on land, and been drowned and frozen. Headed downward, it was.

The ice is eight inches thick. It is full of short, faint, flake-like perpendicular cleavages, an inch or two broad, or varying somewhat from the perpendicular.

Melvin thinks that the "thundering" of the pond scares the pickerel.

Pickerel of at least three different forms and colors were lying on the ice of Walden this afternoon:

• first, a long and shallow kind most like those caught in the river, steel-colored with greenish or brownish lines, darker on the back and white beneath;

• second, a bright-golden fish with greenish reflections, remarkably deep, with a shorter head; both of these are mottled on the sides with an irregular network of dark-brown lines, often extending over the back, the meshes three fourths of an inch long, more or less, producing longitudinal stripes more or less distinct and continuous, very pure white beneath;

• third, shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides with small dark-brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood-red ones, very much like a trout. The specific name of reticulatus would not describe this.

These are all very firm fish, and weigh more than their size promises.

The perch also, and indeed all the fishes which in habit this pond, are as much handsomer than ordinary, as the water is purer than that of other ponds.

Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties, at least, of most of them..

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 29, 1853

 Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday sheldrakes. January 28, 1853 ("See three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard's this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed."); See also March 6, 1853 ("Stedman Buttrick calls the ducks which we see in the winter, widgeons and wood sheldrakes.")

Melvin has got only three or four minks this year. See December 19, 1859 ("Farmer . . . saw but one mink-track in all his rides, and thinks that they are scarce this year."); March 13, 1859 ("Garfield . . . asked if I had seen any mink]. I said that I commonly saw two or three in a year. He said that he had not seen one alive for eight or ten years. [but] "I catch thirty or forty dollars' worth every winter.")

I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden.  See January 7, 1860 ("I saw yesterday the track of a fox, and. .. on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse.")

Melvin thinks that the "thundering" of the pond scares the pickerel. See Walden ("The fishermen say that the "thundering of the pond" scares the fishes and prevents their biting.")

Mevin never saw an otter track. See January 21, 1853 (“I think it was January 20th that I saw that which I think an otter track in path under the Cliffs, — a deep trail in the snow, six or seven inches wide and two or three deep in the middle, as if a log had been drawn along, similar to a muskrat's only much larger, and the legs evidently short and the steps short, sinking three or four inches deeper still, as if it had waddled along.”);December 31, 1854 (“ On the edge of A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow I see the track of an otter made since yesterday morning.”);December 6, 1856 (“The river was all tracked up with otters, from Bittern Cliff upward. Sometimes one had trailed his tail, apparently edge wise, making a mark like the tail of a deer mouse; sometimes they were moving fast, and there was an interval of five feet between the tracks.”);  February 8, 1857 (“The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through.”) See also  April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen.");March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!")  

Pickerel of at least three different forms and colors were lying on the ice of Walden this afternoon. See January 25, 1853 ("The pickerel of Walden!. . .I am always surprised by their rare beauty, as if they were a fabulous fish, . . . handsome as flowers and gems, golden and emerald, — a transcendent and dazzling beauty. . . they have, if possible, to my eye, yet rarer colors, like precious stones. It is surprising that . . . in this deep and capacious spring, . . . this great gold and emerald fish swims") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 29

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 ©  2009-2023

What are our fields but felds or felled woods?

January 27. 

Trench says a wild man is a willed man. 

Well, then, a man of will who does what he wills or wishes, a man of hope and of the future tense, for not only the obstinate is willed, but far more the constant and persevering. 

The obstinate man, properly speaking, is one who will not. 

The perseverance of the saints is positive willedness, not a mere passive willingness. 

The fates are wild, for they will; and the Almighty is wild above all, as fate is. 

What are our fields but felds or felled woods. They bear a more recent name than the woods, suggesting that previously the earth was covered with woods. Always in the new country a field is a clearing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1853

All day at court at Cambridge

January 26. 

All day at court at Cambridge.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 26, 1854

See Letters to Blake, January 21, 1854 ("I have just returned from court at Cambridge, whither I was called as a witness, having surveyed a water-privilege, about which there is a dispute.")

A springlike afternoon.

January 25.


P. M. — To Flint's Pond, down railroad.

There is something springlike in this afternoon. In winter, after middle, we are interested in what is springlike. The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees.

The banks seem to lie in the embrace of the sun. The ground is partly bare. The cress is fresh and green at the bottoms of the brooks.

What is that long-leaved green plant in the brook in Hosmer's meadow on the Turnpike?

The buttercup leaves appear everywhere when the ground is bare.

There are temporary ponds in the fields made by the rain and melted snow, which hardly have time [to] freeze, they soak up so fast.

As I go up Bare Hill, there being only snow enough there to whiten the ground, the last year's stems of the blueberry (vacillans) give a pink tinge to the hillside, reminding me of red snow, though they do not semble it.

I am surprised to see Flint's Pond a quarter part open, — the middle. Walden, which froze much later, is nowhere open. But Flint's feels the wind and is shallow.

I noticed on a small pitch pine, in the axils close to the main stem, little spherical bunches of buds, an inch and more in diameter, with short, apparently abortive leaves from some. The leaves were nearly all single, as in the plants of one or two years' growth, and were finely serrate or toothed, pectinate (?).

On the lot I surveyed for Weston I found the chestnut oak (though the teeth are sharper than E.'s plate), a handsome leaf, still on the young trees. I had taken it for a chestnut before. It is hard to distinguish them by the trunk alone.

I found some barberry sprouts where the bushes had been cut down not long since, and they were covered with small withered leaves be set with stiff prickles on their edges, and you could see the thorns, as it were gradually passing into leaves, being, as one stage, the nerves of the leaf alone, — starlike and branched thorns, gradually, as. you descended the stem, getting some pulp between them. I suppose it was owing to the shortening them in.

I still pick chestnuts.

Some larger ones proved to contain double meats, divided, as it were arbitrarily, as with a knife, each part having the common division without the brown skin transverse to this.


The pickerel of Walden! when I see them lying on the ice, or in the well which the fisherman cuts in the ice, I am always surprised by their rare beauty, as if they were a fabulous fish, they are so foreign to the streets, or even the woods; handsome as flowers and gems, golden and emerald, — a transcendent and dazzling beauty which separates [them] by a wide interval from the cadaverous cod and haddock, at least a day old, which we see.

They are as foreign as Arabia to our Concord life, as if the two ends of the earth had come together. These are not green like the pines, or gray like the stones, or blue like the sky; but they have, if possible, to my eye, yet rarer colors, like precious stones.

It is surprising that these fishes are caught here. They are something tropical. That in this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams and chaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish swims!

They are true topazes, inasmuch as you can only conjecture what place they came from. The pearls of Walden, some animalized Walden water. I never chanced to see this kind of fish in any market.

With a few convulsive quirks they give up their diluted ghosts.

I have noticed that leaves are green and violets bloom later where a bank has been burnt over in the fall, as if the fire warmed it. I saw to-day, where a creeping juniper had been burnt, radical leaves of johnswort, thistle, clover, dandelion, etc., as well as sorrel and veronica.

Young white oaks retain their leaves, and large ones on their lower parts.

• Swamp white oak (?)
• Very young rock chestnut oaks 
• The little chinquapin (?) 
• The bear oak 
• The scarlet oak (?) 
• The red 
• The black (?), young trees 
• The witch-hazel, more or less 
• Carpinus Americana 
• Ostrya Virginica, somewhat 
• Sweet-fern, more or less 
• Andromeda 
• Andromeda, panicled (?)
• Kalmia latifolia 
• Kalmia angustifolia 
• Cranberry 

The above are such as I think of which wear their leaves conspicuously now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1853

There is something springlike in this afternoon. See January 25, 1852 ("It is glorious to be abroad this afternoon . . . The warmth of the sun reminds me of summer.") ); January 25, 1855 ("It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . . You dispense with gloves. "); January 25, 1858 ("A warm, moist day. Thermometer at 6.30 P.M. at 49°.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Warmth of the Sun;'; Compare January 25, 1854 ("A very cold day. Saw a man in Worcester this morning who took a pride in never wearing gloves or mittens But this morning he had to give up. The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of this month have been the coldest spell of weather this winter. Clear and cold and windy. "); 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. Smith's thermometer over ours at -29°, ours in bulb; but about seven, ours was at -8° and Smith's at -24; ours therefore at first about -23°.")

The buttercup leaves appear everywhere when the ground is bare. See November 8, 1858 ("The now more noticeable green radical leaves of the buttercup in the russet pastures remind me of the early spring to come, of which they will offer the first evidence."); January 9, 1853 ("On the face of the Cliff the crowfoot buds lie unexpanded just beneath the surface. I dig one up with a stick, and, pulling it to pieces, I find deep in the centre of the plant, just beneath the ground, surrounded by all the tender leaves that are to precede it, the blossom-bud, about half is big as the head of a pin, perfectly white. There it patiently sits, or slumbers, how full of faith, informed of a spring which the world has never seen.”)

 I noticed on a small pitch pine, in the axils close to the main stem, little spherical bunches of buds. See January 23, 1852 ("I see where . . . in some cases the mice have nibbled the buds of the pitch pines, where the plumes have been bent down by the snow"); March 8, 1859 ("I see, under the pitch pines on the southwest slope of the hill, the reddish bud-scales scattered on the snow . . . and, examining, I find that in a great many cases the buds have been eaten by some creature and the scales scattered about. . .I am inclined to think that these were eaten by the red squirrel; or was it the crossbill? for this is said to visit us in the winter. Have I ever seen a squirrel eat the pine buds?")

The pickerel of Walden! See January 29, 1853("Pickerel of at least three different forms and colors were lying on the ice of Walden this afternoon . . .all the fishes which in habit this pond, are as much handsomer than ordinary, as the water is purer than that of other ponds.") See  also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel and Walden ("Ah, the pickerel of Walden! . . . ")

I saw to-day, where a creeping juniper had been burnt, radical leaves of johnswort, thistle, clover, dandelion, etc., as well as sorrel and veronica. See December 23, 1855 ("At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis strictae specially fresh and bright."); January 23, 1855 ("The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse, seen in green circles on the water-washed plowed grounds, remind me of the internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew"); February 23, 1860 ("I walk over the moist Nawshawtuct hillside and see the green radical leaves of the buttercup, shepherd's purse (circular), sorrel, chickweed, cerastium, etc., revealed."); February 27, 1860 ("Among the radical leaves most common, and therefore early-noticed, are the veronica and the thistle")

No dark pines in the horizon.

January 24. 

In Worcester. 

From 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., walked about six miles north west into Holden with Blake, returning by Stonehouse Hill.

 A very cold day. 

Less forest near Worcester than in Concord, and that hardwood. No dark pines in the horizon. 

The evergreen laurel is a common underwood, contrasting agreeably with the snow. Large, broad backed hills. 

De Quincey's “Historical and Critical Essays” I have not read (2 vols.). 

Saw a red squirrel out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1854

In Worcester, walked about six miles north west into Holden with Blake. See Letters to Blake, January 21, 1854 ("I think to come and see you next week, on Monday, if nothing hinders. I have just returned from court at Cambridge, whither I was called as a witness, having surveyed a water-privilege, about which there is a dispute, since you were here.")

No dark pines in the horizon. See  August 15, 1853 ("It is a pleasure to look at the washed woods far away. You see every feature of the white pine grove with distinctness, — the stems of the trees, then the dark shade, then their fresh sunlit outsides.");  December 3, 1856 (“The pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon.”); December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it"); January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky.");January 19, 1859 ("It occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view, looking outward through the vista of our elm lined streets, than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon.")

He who fishes a pond first in the season expects to succeed best.

January  20. 

P. M. — To Walden.

I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike — for its seeds, their well-filled granary now. There are a few tracks reaching from weed to weed, where some have run, but under the larger plants the snow is entirely trodden and blackened, proving that a large flock has been there and flown. 

Ah, our indescribable winter sky, pure and continent and clear, between emerald (?) and amber (?), such as summer never sees! What more beautiful or soothing to the eye than those finely divided or minced clouds, like down or loose-spread cotton-batting, now reaching up from the west above my head! Beneath this a different stratum, all whose ends are curved like spray or wisps, All kinds of figures are drawn on the blue ground with this fibrous white paint. 

No sooner has Walden frozen thick enough to bear than the fishermen have got out their reels and minnows, for he who fishes a pond first in the season expects to succeed best.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 20, 1853

I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow. See August 31, 1859 (" Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds."); January 6. 1858 ("I see tree sparrows twittering and moving with a low creeping and jerking motion amid the chenopodium in a field, upon the snow"); see also January 20, 1860 ("The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them!")

Our indescribable winter sky, pure and continent and clear, See January 17, 1852 ("As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind . . .serenity, purity, beauty ineffable."); December 25, 1858 ("In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 27, 1860 ("What hieroglyphics in the winter sky!"); June 24, 1852 ("What could a man learn by watching the clouds?")

No sooner has Walden frozen thick enough to bear than the fishermen have got out their reels and minnows. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it"); January 6, 1853 (Walden apparently froze over last night. . . .. It is a dark, transparent ice, but will not bear me without much cracking.")

A meteorological journal of the mind.

  

Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. 

Henry Thoreau

June 6, 1857

The unclouded mind,

serene, pure, ineffable

like the western sky.

January 17, 1852

April 24, 1859. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. 

May 6, 1854. I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me. 

May 23, 1853. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind. 

June 6, 1857. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. 

June 25, 1852. There is a flower for every mood of the mind. 

July 23, 1851. The mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of clouds pass over the earth. 

August 7, 1853. The objects I behold correspond to my mood. 

August 19, 1851. The poet must be continually watching the moods of his mind.

September 24, 1859. I would know when in the year to expect certain thoughts and moods. 

October 26, 1857. The seasons and all their changes are in me.  

November 2, 1857 It is only a reflecting mind that sees reflections. 

November 18, 1857. You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind. 

December 25, 1858. In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour. 

December 27, 1851 The sky is always ready to answer to our moods.  

January 17, 1852. As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. 

January 23, 1858. It is in vain to write on the seasons unless you have the seasons in you. 

January 26, 1852. Would you see your mind, look at the sky.

Daybreak with cool mind

a white cloud reflected in

yesterday’s river. 

June 29,2023

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

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 © 2009-2020

  

 

Quails venture out of the woods.

January 17.

Henry Shattuck tells me that the quails come almost every day and get some saba beans within two or three rods of his house, some which he neglected to gather.

Probably the deep snow drives them to it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 17, 1856

See January 3, 1869 ("Quails are very rare here");  January 5, 1860 ("I see where the quails have run along the roadside, and can count the number of the bevy better than if I saw them."); January 10, 1854 ("The sportsmen chose the late thaw to go after quails . They come out at such times to pick the horse-dung in the roads, and can be traced thence to their haunts."); February 6, 1857 ("One who has seen them tells me that a covey of thirteen quails daily visits Hayden's yard and barn, where he feeds them and can almost put his hands on them."); February 7, 1857 ("It seems in severe winters the quails venture out of the woods and join the poultry of the farmer's yard")

The ant-lion is found at Burlington, Vermont,

January 16.

To Cambridge and Boston.

Carried to Harris the worms -- brown, light-striped-and fuzzy black caterpillars (he calls the first also caterpillars); also two black beetles; all which I have found within a week or two on ice and snow; thickest in a thaw.

Showed me, in a German work, plates of the larvæ of dragon-flies and ephemeræ, such as I see or their cases on rushes, etc., over water.

Says the ant-lion is found at Burlington, Vermont, and may be at Concord.

I can buy Indian coats in Milk Street from three and a half to six dollars, depending on the length; also leggins from $1.50 to three or more dollars, also depending on the length.

Saw a Nantucket man, who said that their waters were not so good as the south side of Long Island to steer in by sounding. Off Long Island it deepened a mile every fathom for at least forty miles, as he had proved, — perhaps eighty; but at Barnegat it was not so


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 16, 1855

Harris. See note to January 1, 1853 ("Sibley told me that Agassiz told him that Harris was the greatest entomologist in the world, and gave him permission to repeat his remark")

Caterpillars which I have found within a week or two on ice and snow. . See 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 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.”) and note to January 22, 1859 ("Four kinds of caterpillars, and also the glow-worm-like creature so common, grasshoppers, crickets, and many bugs, not to mention the mosquito like insects which the warm weather has called forth (flying feebly just over the ice and snow a foot or two), spiders, and snow-fleas")

January 16  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 16


A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

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

We have had no thaw yet

January 15 .

More snow last night, and still the first that fell remains on the ground.

Rice thinks that it is two feet deep on a level now.

We have had no thaw yet.

Rice tells me that he baits the "seedees" and the jays and crows to his door nowadays with corn.

He thinks he has seen one of these jays stow away some where, without swallowing, as many as a dozen grains of corn, for, after picking it up, it will fly up into a tree near by and deposit so many successively in different crevices before it descends.

Speaking of Roman wormwood springing up abundantly when a field which has been in grass for twenty years or more is plowed, Rice says that, if you carefully examine such a field before it is plowed, you will find very short and stinted specimens of wormwood and pigweed there, and remarkably full of seed too!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1861

Causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved.

January 14. 

Coldest morning yet; 20° (?).

Pliny says, "In minimis Natura praestat” (Nature excels in the least things).

The Wellingtonia gigantea, the famous California tree, is a great thing; the seed from which it sprang, a little thing; and so are all seeds or origins of things.

Richard Porson said:

"We all speak in metaphors. Those who appear not to do it, only use those which are worn out, and are overlooked as metaphors. The original fellow is therefore regarded as only witty; and the dull are consulted as the wise."

He might have said that the former spoke a dead language.

John Horne Tooke is reported in "Recollections” by Samuel Rogers as having said:

 "Read few books well. We forget names and dates; and reproach our memory. They are of little consequence. We feel our limbs enlarge and strengthen; yet cannot tell the dinner or dish that caused the alteration. Our minds improve though we cannot name the author, and have forgotten the particulars."

I think that the opposite would be the truer statement, books differ so immensely in their nutritive qualities, and good ones are so rare.

Gosse, in his "Letters from Alabama,” says that he thinks he saw a large dragon-fly (Æslona), which was hawking over a brook, catch and devour some minnows about one inch long, and says it is known that "the larvæ of the greater water-beetles (Dyticidæ) devour fish."

It is the discovery of science that stupendous changes in the earth's surface, such as are referred to the Deluge, for instance, are the result of causes still in operation, which have been at work for an incalculable period. There has not been a sudden re-formation, or, as it were, new creation of the world, but a steady progress according to existing laws.

The same is true in detail also.

It is a vulgar prejudice that some plants are "spontaneously generated,” but science knows that they come from seeds, i. e. are the result of causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved.

It is a common saying that "little strokes fall great oaks,” and it does not imply much wisdom in him who originated it. The sound of the axe invites our attention to such a catastrophe; we can easily count each stroke as it is given, and all the neighborhood is informed by a loud crash when the deed is consummated.

But such, too, is the rise of the oak; little strokes of a different kind and often repeated raise great oaks, but scarcely a traveller hears these or turns aside to converse with Nature, who is dealing them the while.

Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance; she knows that seeds have many other uses than to reproduce their kind. In raising oaks and pines, she works with a leisureliness and security answering to the age and strength of the trees. If every acorn of this year's crop is destroyed, never fear! she has more years to come. It is not necessary that a pine or an oak should bear fruit every year, as it is that a pea-vine should.

So, botanically, the greatest changes in the landscape are produced more gradually than we expected. If Nature has a pine or an oak wood to produce, she manifests no haste about it.

Thus we should say that oak forests are produced by a kind of accident, i. e. by the failure of animals to reap the fruit of their labors. Yet who shall say that they have not a fair knowledge of the value of their labors — that the squirrel when it plants an acorn, has not a transient thought for its posterity? 

Possibly here, a thousand years hence, every oak will know the human hand that planted it.

How many of the botanist's arts and inventions are thus but the rediscovery of a lost art, i.e. lost to him here or elsewhere! 

Horace Mann told me some days ago that he found, near the shore in that muddy bay by the willows in the rear of Mrs. Ripley's, a great many of the Sternothærus odoratus, assembled, he supposed, at their breeding time, or, rather, about to come out to lay their eggs. He waded in [and] collected — I think he said-about a hundred and fifty of them for Agassiz! 

I see in the Boston Journal an account of robins in numbers on the savin trees in that neighborhood, feeding on their berries. This suggests that they may plant its berries as well as the crows.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 14, 1861

The discovery of science that stupendous changes in the earth's surface, such as are referred to the Deluge, for instance, are the result of causes still in operation, which have been at work for an incalculable period. See Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830–33); Stephen Jay Gould, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle,

Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance; See November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Nature

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

— Lao Tzu

There has not been a sudden re-formation, or, as it were, new creation of the world, but a steady progress according to existing laws. Compare May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); January 20, 1855 (“The world is not only new to the eye, but is still as at creation.”); October 18, 1860 ("The development theory implies a greater vital force in nature, equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. We find ourselves in a world that is already planted, but is also still being planted as at first.")

Porson said: "We all speak in metaphors." See September 1851 (“All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.”); May 10, 1853 ("He is the richest who has most use for nature as raw material of tropes and symbols with which to describe his life. If I am overflowing with life, am rich in experience for which I lack expression, then nature will be my language full of poetry,- all nature will fable, and every natural phenomenon be a myth. The man of science, who is not seeking for expression but for a fact to be expressed merely, studies nature as a dead language. I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant.")

It is a vulgar prejudice that some plants are "spontaneously generated,” but science knows that they come from seeds, i. e. are the result of causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved. See The Succession of Forest Trees  ("As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not furnished with wings , the notion is still a very common one that , when the trees which bear these spring up where none of their kind were noticed before, they have come from seeds or other principles spontaneously generated there in an unusual manner, or which have lain dormant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been called into activity by the heat of a burning  I do not believe these assertions, and I will state some of the ways in which, according to my observation, such forests are planted and raised.")

The first sleighing this winter.

January 13. 

A drifting snow-storm last night and to-day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 13, 1853

A drifting snow-storm, the first of consequence. See December 26, 1853 ("The first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”) and note to November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.”) See also December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified . . . this is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face")

The first sleighing this winter. See January 26, 1856 ("We have had good sleighing ever since the 26th of December and no thaw."); March 1, 1858 ("We have just had a winter with absolutely no sleighing."); January 2, 1860 ("The past December has been remarkable for steady cold, or coldness, and sleighing."); December 22, 1860 ("This evening and night, the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now")

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

January 13.  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 13

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

I make huckleberries my theme

January 11.

Horace Mann brings me the contents of a crow's stomach in alcohol. It was killed in the village within a day or two. It is quite a mass of frozen-thawed apple, — pulp and skin, — with a good many pieces of skunk-cabbage berries one fourth inch or less in diameter, and commonly showing the pale-brown or blackish outside, interspersed, looking like bits of acorns, never a whole or even half a berry, — and two little bones as of frogs (?) or mice (?) or tadpoles; also a street pebble a quarter of an inch in diameter, hard to be distinguished in appearance from the cabbage seeds. 

I presume that every one of my audience knows what a huckleberry is, — has seen a huckleberry, gathered a huckleberry, and, finally, has tasted a huckleberry, and, that being the case, I think that I need offer no apology if I make huckleberries my theme this evening.

What more encouraging sight at the end of a long ramble than the endless successive patches of green bushes, — perhaps in some rocky pasture, — fairly blackened with the profusion of fresh and glossy berries?  There are so many of these berries in their season that most do not perceive that birds and quadrupeds make any use of them, since they are not felt to rob us; yet they are more important to them than to us. We do not notice the robin when it plucks a berry, as when it visits our favorite cherry tree, and the fox pays his visits to the field when we are not there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 11, 1861 

Crow's Stomach. See December 30, 1860 ("The crows now and of late frequent the large trees by the river, especially swamp white oak, and the snow beneath is strewn with bits of bark and moss and with acorns. They are foraging.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Crow

I make huckleberries my theme this evening. See December 30, 1860 ("The Whortleberry Family"); January 3, 1861 ("The berries which I celebrate"); January 8, 1861 ("The Indians used their dried berries commonly in the form of huckleberry cake, and also of huckleberry porridge or pudding. ") See also
Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript, By Henry David Thoreau, 37-59, 113

The fox pays his visits to the field when we are not there. See September 23, 1860 ("It is evident, then, that the fox eats huckleberries and so contributes very much to the dispersion of this shrub, for there were a number of entire berries in its dung in both the last two I chanced to notice.") ee also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 11

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 ©  2009-2023

Blueberries and poets

January 8.

Trees, etc., covered with a dense hoar frost. It is not leaf - like, but composed of large spiculæ —spear like — on the northeast sides of the twigs, the side from which the mist was blown. All trees are bristling with these spiculæ on that side, especially firs and arbor vitæ.


They taught us not only the use of corn and how to plant it, but also of whortleberries and how to dry them for winter, and made us baskets to put them in. We should have hesitated long to eat some kinds, if they had not set us the example, knowing by old experience that they were not only harmless but salutary. I have added a few to my number of edible berries by walking behind an Indian in Maine, who ate such as I never thought of tasting before. Of course they made a much greater account of wild fruits than we do.

It appears from the above evidence that the Indians used their dried berries commonly in the form of huckleberry cake, and also of huckleberry porridge or pudding. What we call huckleberry cake, made of Indian meal and huckleberries, was evidently the principal cake of the aborigines, and was generally known and used by them all over this part of North America, as much or more than plum-cake by us. They enjoyed it all alone ages before our ancestors heard of Indian meal or huckleberries.

We have no national cake so universal and well known as this was in all parts of the country where corn and huckleberries grew. If you had travelled here a thousand years ago, it would probably have been offered you alike on the Connecticut, the Potomac, the Niagara, the Ottawa, and the Mississippi.

Botanists have long been inclined to associate this family in some way with Mt. Ida, and, according to Tournefort arrange [ sic ] whortleberries were what the ancients meant by the vine of Mt. Ida, and the common English raspberry is called Rubus Idæus from the old Greek name. The truth of it seems to be that blueberries and raspberries flourish best in cool and airy situations on hills and mountains, and I can easily believe that something like them, at least, grows on Mt. Ida. But Mt. Monadnock is as good as Mt. Ida, and probably better for blueberries, though it does not [ sic ] mean “bad rock,” — but the worst rocks are the best for blueberries and for poets.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 8, 1861

The Indians used their dried berries commonly in the form of huckleberry cake, and also of huckleberry porridge or pudding. It would probably have been offered you alike on the Connecticut, the Potomac, the Niagara, the Ottawa, and the Mississippi. See December 30, 1860 ("The Whortleberry Family"); January 3, 1861 ("The berries which I celebrate appear to have a range -- most of them — very nearly coterminous with what has been called the Algonquin Family of Indians, whose territories are now occupied by the Eastern, Middle, and Northwestern States and the Canadas")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 8

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 ©  2009-2023

A low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west – coppery yellow.

January 6

A low, narrow, clear

segment of sky in the west -

coppery yellow.

January 6, 1854

Walked Tappan in P. M. down railroad to Heywood Brook, Fair Haven, and Cliffs.

At every post along the brook-side, and under almost every white pine, the snow strewn with the scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. They have sat on every post and dropped them for a great distance, also acorn-shells.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales, i. e. of catkins; also, here and there, the large glaucous lichens (cetrarias?).

Showed Tappan a small shad bush, which interested him and reminded him of a greyhound, rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow.

To return to the squirrels, I saw where they had laid up a pitch pine cone in the fork of a rider in several places.

Many marks of partridges, and disturbed them on evergreens.

A winter (?) gnat out on the bark of a pine.

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice.

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown.

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset, or just after (all the rest overcast), of the coppery yellow, perhaps, of some of Gilpin's pictures, all spotted coarsely with clouds like a leopard's skin.

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before. Do they go into the snow at night? 

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow.

H. D. Thoreau Journal, January 6, 1854

A small shad bush. . . rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow. See November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring, "); January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry

The scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. See January 13, 1860 ("The scales of the white pine cones are scattered about here and there. They seek a dry place to open them, — a fallen limb that rises above the snow, or often a lower dead stub projecting from the trunk of the tree.");  January 22,  1856 ("he snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales they have dropped while feeding overhead.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales. See December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales."); January 5, 1851 ("The catkins of the alders are now frozen stiff !!") January 20, 1860 (" The snow along the sides of the river is also all dusted over with birch and alder seed, and I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

Winter gnats? See February 2, 1854 ("The winter gnat is seen in the warm air.");  March 19, 1858  ("Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice. See January 6, 1855 ("The skating is for the most part spoiled by a thin, crispy ice on top of the old ice, which is frozen in great crystals and crackles under your feet.")

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown. See February 18, 1852 ("I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard")

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset.  See January 2, 1854 ("The tints of the sunset sky are never purer and ethereal than in the coldest winter days. "); January 5, 1852 ("I thought I saw an extensive fire in the western horizon . It was a bright coppery-yellow fair-weather cloud along the edge of the horizon  gold with some alloy of copper"); January 7, 1852 ("I go forth each afternoon and look into the west a quarter of an hour before sunset , with fresh curiosity , to see what new picture will be painted there") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

Gilpin. William Gilpin, English writer, printmaker, clergyman and schoolmaster, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque. See January 8, 1854 ("Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch therefore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast. . . . By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foundation for harmony." I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head.")

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before.  See January 5, 1854 ("The snow is covered with snow-fleas . . . sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow."); January 9, 1854 ("Find many snow-fleas, apparently frozen, on the snow. "); January 10, 1854 ("I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow. See December 18, 1855 ("See to-day a dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice."); December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice. . . .The spiders lie torpid and plain to see on the snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spiders on Ice

January 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 6.

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 © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt540106

One would like to skim over it like a hawk

January 4.

To Fair Haven on the ice partially covered with snow.

The cracks in the ice showing a white cleavage. 

What is their law?

Somewhat like foliage, but too rectangular, like the characters of some Oriental language. I feel as if I could get grammar and dictionary and go into it. They are of the form which a thin flake of ice takes in melting, somewhat rectangular with an irregular edge.

The pond is covered, — dappled or sprinkled, more than half covered, with flat drifts or patches of snow which has lodged, of graceful curving outlines. One would like to skim over it like a hawk, and detect their law.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 4, 1852

Patches of snow of graceful curving outlines. See February 12, 1860 ("The sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds.")