A Book of the Seasons: January 12 (Fresh snow, summer in buds, crows in winter, walking in swamps, reminiscence )

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

January  12

Do the things which lie 

nearest to you – but which are 

difficult to do.

January 12, 1852

In winter what moves

us most is reminiscence 

of far-off summer. 

January 12, 1855

 Be abroad in heat 

and cold, day and night; 

live more – be weary often.

 January 12, 1852

Freshly fallen snow

sparkles with bright little suns –

each flake a mirror.

January 12, 1860

Tender buds now are 

spring rolled up packed with summer –

the hope of the year.

January 12, 1855

As deep the snow now

it is easier walking

in swamps than summer.

January 12, 1856

Farmer says that he saw what he calls the common hen-hawk, one soaring high with apparently a chicken in its claws, while a young hawk circled beneath, when former suddenly let drop the chicken, but the young failing to catch, he shot down like lightning and caught and bore off the falling chicken before it reached the earth.    January 12, 1859

Moderating, though at zero at 9 A. M. January 12, 1856

Coarse, hard rain from time to time to-day, with much mist, — thaw and rain. January 12, 1854

The earth is two thirds bare. January 12, 1855

The ground is covered with a black glaze, wet and shiny like water, like an invisible armor, a quarter of an inch or more thick. January 12, 1854 

Walking, or wading, very bad. January 12, 1854

I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard and earnestly, and live a more substantial life and get a glorious experience; be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, January 12, 1852

It is a fortnight since we had about a foot of snowfall on two or three inches which was firmly crusted, and a week since about six inches fell upon the last . . . and we have had clear cold weather ever since. January 12, 1856

It began to snow in the night, and this morning considerable has fallen and is still falling. I go forth to walk on the Hill at 3 P. M. January 12, 1860

After a spitting of snow in the forenoon, I see the blue sky here and there, and the sun is coming out. It is still and warm. January 12, 1855

It is a very beautiful and spotless snow now, having just ceased falling. January 12, 1860

This is a dry star snow. January 12, 1860

It lies tap light as down. January 12, 1860

When I look closely I see each snowflake lies as it first fell, delicate crystals with the six rays or leafets more or less perfect, not yet in the least melted by the sun. January 12, 1860

The sun is now out very bright and going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over the snow surface -- little mirror-like facets -- which on examination I find each to be one of those star wheels fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun. January 12, 1860

Such is the glitter or sparkle on the surface of a snow freshly fallen when the sun comes out and you walk from it, the points of light constantly changing. January 12, 1860

The snow in the first Andromeda Swamp was within about three inches of the top of the highest andromeda bushes and was swelled about three or four inches higher there than between such. January 12, 1856

Foxes had sunk from one to four inches in it. January 12, 1856

I see my snowshoe tracks quite distinct, though . . . they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or three inches above the general level there, and more white. January 12, 1854

How cheering the sight of the evergreens now, on the forest floor, the various pyrolas, etc., fresh as in summer! January 12, 1855

The locust pods, which were abundant, are still, part of them, unopened on the trees. January 12, 1860

What is that mint whose seed-vessels rubbed are so spicy to smell—minty—at the further end of the pond by the Gourgas wood-lot? 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. January 12, 1855

The summer is all packed in them. January 12, 1855

Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. January 12, 1855

How we leap by the side of the open brooks! What beauty in the running brooks! What life! What society! January 12, 1855

The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core, far, far within. January 12, 1855

I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. January 12, 1855

What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls. January 12, 1855

Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for wildness, for crows that will not alight within gunshot! and bless him for hens, too, that croak and cackle in the yard! January 12, 1855

[Summer] is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. January 12, 1855

In the swamp the dull-red leaves of the andromeda were just peeping out, the snow lying not quite level, but with gentle swells about the highest clumps of bushes. January 12, 1856

Deep as the snow was, it was no harder but perhaps easier walking there than in summer. January 12, 1856

It would not much impede a mouse running about below. January 12, 1856

Though the snow is only ten inches deep on a level, farmers affirm that it is two feet deep, confidently. January 12, 1856

The aspect of the pines now, with their plumes and boughs bent under their burden of snow, is what I call glyphic, like lumpish forms of sculpture, — a certain dumb sculpture. January 12, 1860

There is a wonderful stillness in the air, so that you hear the least fall of snow from a bough near you, suggesting that perhaps it was of late equally still in what you called the snow-storm, except for the motion of the falling flakes and their rustling on the dry leaves, January 12, 1860

Looking from the hilltop, the pine woods half a mile or a mile distant north and northwest, their sides and brows especially, snowed up like the fronts of houses, look like great gray or grayish-white lichens, cetrarias maybe, attached to the sides of the hills. January 12, 1860

Those oak woods whose leaves have fallen have caught the snow chiefly on their lower and more horizontal branches, and these look somewhat like ramalina lichens. January 12, 1860

As I stand by the hemlocks, I am greeted by the lively and unusually prolonged tche de de de de de of a little flock of chickadees. January 12, 1860

The snow has ceased falling, the sun comes out, and it is warm and still, and this flock of chickadees, little birds that perchance were born in their midst, feeling the influences of this genial season, have begun to flit amid the snow-covered fans of the hemlocks, jarring down the snow, — for there are hardly bare twigs enough for them to rest on, — or they plume themselves in some snug recess on the sunny side of the tree, only pausing to utter their tche de de de. January 12, 1860

I notice, as I am returning half an hour before sunset, the thermometer about 24°, much vapor rising from the thin ice which has formed over the snow and water to-day by the riverside. January 12, 1860

Here, then, I actually see the vapor rising through the ice. January 12, 1860

Where are the shiners now, and the trout? I see none in the brook . . . Why can they not tell me? January 12, 1855

On Flint’s Pond I find Nat Rice fishing. He has not caught one. January 12, 1855

I asked him what he thought the best time to fish. He said, “When the wind first comes south after a cold spell, on a bright morning.” January 12, 1855

January 12, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The hen-hawk

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of Spring

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

*****

January 12, 2020

March 16, 1858 (" The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.")
May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. . . . One with the rocks and with us.”)

June 26, 1853 ("Many of my fellow-citizens might go fishing a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, -- before they began to angle for the pond itself.”)
July 21, 1853 ("The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I have to shade my face with my hands.")

August 3, 1852 (“By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, ”)

October 26, 1853 ("It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show")

November 11, 1853 ("I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood.”)

At this season we

observe the form of the buds

now prepared for spring.

December 1, 1852

December 14, 1855 ("Looking more closely at the light snow... I found that it was sprinkled all over ... with regular star-shaped cottony flakes with six points, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and on an average a half an inch apart. It snowed geometry.")
December 14, 1859 ("I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six-rayed wheel. This must be the chef-d'oeuvre of the Genius of the storm. ")

December 17, 1855 ("The sound of cock-crowing is so sweet, and I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows.")
December 25, 1856 ("Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.")

December 28, 1856 (". . . if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords.")
January 1, 1856 ("Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why.")
January 2, 1854 ("I have heard different men set this snow at six, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight inches.")

January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals, . . . thin and partly transparent . . ., perfect little wheels with six spokes . . .countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth, pronouncing thus, with emphasis, the number six.”)
January 5, 1856 (“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. . . .A divinity must have stirred within them before the crystals did thus shoot and set. Wheels of the storm chariots.”)

January 6, 1858 ("It was one of those perfect, crystalline, star-shaped ones, six-rayed, like a flat wheel with six spokes rested unmelting on my coat, so perfect and beautiful.")

January 8, 1860 ("How changed are our feelings and thoughts by this more genial sky! . . . You cannot listen a moment such a day as this but you will hear, from far or near, the clarion of the cock celebrating this new season, yielding to the influence of the south wind")
January 8, 1860 ("Those [tracks]of the fox which has run along the side of the pond are now so many snowballs, raised as much above the level of the water-darkened snow as at first they sank beneath it. The snow, having been compressed by their weight, resists the melting longer.')
January 8, 1860 ("I see far across the pond, half a mile distant, what looks like a perfectly straight row of white stones, — . . There are a man's tracks, perhaps my own, along the pond-side there, looking not only larger than reality, but more elevated . . . like white stepping-stones. ")

January 8, 1855 ("It is now a clear warm and sunny day. There is a healthy earthy sound of cock-crowing.")

January 10, 1856 ("We are reduced to admire buds, even like the partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice, —the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, the rapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and cracked blueberry. Even a little shining bud which lies sleeping behind its twig and dreaming of spring, perhaps half concealed by ice, is object enough.")

January 10, 1855 ("Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual. ")

January 14, 1853 ("Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw.")

January 20, 1860 ("The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. . . . Here comes a little flock of chickadees, attracted by me as usual, and perching close by boldly; then, descending to the snow and ice, I see them pick up the hemlock seed which lies all around them")

January 21, 1859 ("It is the worst or wettest of walking.")
January 22, 1855 (“Heavy rain in the night and half of today, with very high wind from the southward, washing off the snow and filling the road with water. The roads are well-nigh impassable to foot-travellers.”)
January 22, 1860 ("Crows come about houses and streets in very cold weather and deep snows, and they are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i. e., when cocks crow.")
January 23, 1853 ("It is perhaps the wettest walking we ever have.”)

January 30, 1860 ("There are certain sounds invariably heard in warm and thawing days in winter, such as the crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows, and sometimes the gobbling of turkeys.")

January 23, 1858 ("The wonderfully mild and pleasant weather continues. The ground has been bare since the 11th. . . . The sun, and cockcrowing, bare ground, etc., etc., remind me of March.")

January 25, 1857 (" I see the track of a fox or dog across the meadow, made some time ago. Each track is now a pure white snowball rising three inches above the surrounding surface,")

January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds, including, perhaps, sprouts! — the impregnable, vivacious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs; the birch and oak sprouts, and the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts; the round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink, etc.")

January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale.")
January 31, 1854 ("The wind is more southerly, and now the warmth of the sun prevails, and is felt on the back.”)

February 3, 1852 (“From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface.”)

February 8, 1856 ("At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors, one to every six inches, at least.")

February 12, 1856 ("From January 6th to January 13th, not less than a foot of snow on a level in open land, and from January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level. That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!”)

February 12, 1855 ("As usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance.")
February 20, 1857 ("What is the relation between a bird and the ear that appreciates its melody, to whom, perchance, it is more charming and significant than to any else? Certainly they are intimately related, and the one was made for the other. . . . I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other.“)

February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”)

January 12, 2020

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

January 11 <<<<<<<<  January  12 >>>>>>>>  January 13

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 12

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