A Book of the Seasons: February 13 (Midwinter colors)

 

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

February 13.

Walking toward the sun

rainbow colors reflected

from powdery snow.

February 13, 1859

The red of sunsets

and of the snow at evening

and in rainbow flocks.

February 13, 1860

The blue of the sky and

of the ice and water

of shadows on snow.

February 13, 1860

 

Yellow of the sun

the morning and evening sky

and sedge bright when lit.

February 13, 1860

White of snow and clouds

and the black of clouds and of

thin wet snow on ice.

February 13, 1860

Purple of mountains

of the snow in drifts and of

clouds at evening.

February 13, 1860

The green of the sky

and of the ice and water

toward evening.

February 13, 1860

February 13, 2022

Color, which is the poet's wealth is so expensive that most take to mere outline or pencil sketches and become men of science. February 13, 1852

The principal charm of a winter walk over ice is perhaps the peculiar and pure colors exhibited.

• There is the red of the sunset sky, and of the snow at evening, and in rainbow flocks during the day, and in sun-dogs.
• The blue of the sky, and of the ice and water reflected, and of shadows on snow.
• The yellow of the sun and the morning and evening sky, and of the sedge (or straw-color, bright when lit on edge of ice at evening),
•  and all three in hoar frost crystals.
• Then, for the secondary, there is the purple of the snow in drifts or on hills, of the mountains, and clouds at evening.
• The green of evergreen woods, of the sky, and of the ice and water toward evening.
• The orange of the sky at evening.
• The white of snow and clouds,
•  and the black of clouds, of water agitated, and water saturating thin snow on ice.
• The russet and brown and gray, etc., of deciduous woods.
• The tawny of the bare earth.

February 13, 1860

I suspect that the green and rose (or purple) are not noticed on ice and snow unless it is pretty cold, and perhaps there is less greenness of the ice now than in December, when the days were shorter. February 13, 1860

The sun being in a cloud, partly obscured, I see a very dark purple tinge on the flat drifts on the ice earlier than usual, and when afterward the sun comes out below the cloud, I see no purple nor rose. February 13, 1860

Hence it seems that the twilight has as much or more to do with this phenomenon, supposing the sun to be low, than the slight angle of its rays with the horizon. February 13, 1860

The crust is quite green with the needles of pitch pines, sometimes whole plumes which have recently fallen. February 13, 1856

I observed that the swamp was variously shaded, or painted even, like a rug, with the sober colors running gradually into each other, by the colored recent shoots of various shrubs which grow densely, as the red blueberry, and the yellowish-brown panicled andromeda, and the dark-brown or blackish Prinos verticillatus, and the choke-berry, etc. February 13, 1858

There is much panicled andromeda . . . seventeen years old, with yellowish wood. February 13, 1858

How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc. February 13, 1858

And to-day I notice yellow-green recent shoots of high blueberry. February 13, 1858

Also mosses, mingled red and green. February 13, 1851

A yellow water, a foot or two deep, covers the ice on the meadows, but is not frozen quite hard enough to bear. February 13, 1852

This yellowish ice which froze yesterday and last night is thickly and evenly strewn with fibrous frost crystals. February 13, 1859

As I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets. February 13, 1859

It is as if the dust of diamonds and other precious stones were spread all around. The blue and red predominate. February 13, 1859

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, signs of spring: mosses bright green

Winter Colors (The solstice) (posted December 21, 2020)

November 6, 1853 (“The remarkable roundish, plump red buds of the high blueberry.”)

November 20, 1857 ("the bright-crimson shoots of high blueberry . . . have a very pretty effect, a crimson vigor to stand above the snow. ")

November 23, 1857 (“You distinguish it by its gray spreading mass; its light-gray bark, rather roughened; its thickish shoots, often crimson; and its plump, roundish red buds.”)

November 23, 1857 ("The panicled andromeda is upright, light-gray, with a rather smoother bark, more slender twigs, and small, sharp red buds lying close to the twig.")

December 1, 1852 (“The large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink,")

December 6, 1856 ("The rich brown fruit of the panicled andromeda growing about the swamp, hard, dry, inedible, suitable to the season. The dense panicles of the berries are of a handsome form, made to endure, lasting often over two seasons, only becoming darker and gray")

December 11, 1855 ("The great yellow buds of the swamp-pink, the round red buds of the high blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda")

December 20, 1851 ("Red, white, green, and, in the distance, dark brown are the colors of the winter landscape.")
December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.")

January 5, 1853 ("A fine rosy sky in the west after sunset; and later an amber-colored horizon.")

January 10, 1859 ("I begin to see a pink light reflected from the snow there about fifteen minutes before the sun sets. This gradually deepens to purple and violet in some places, and the pink is very distinct, especially when, after looking at the simply white snow on other sides, you turn your eyes to the hill.")

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 19, 1859 ("I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun, but very little on the hills. Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening")

January 25, 1858 ("The small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda");
January 25, 1858 ("The large yellowish buds of the swamp pink,.")
January 29, 1860 ("A parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow as I walk toward the sun. ")

January 31, 1859 ("Perhaps the green seen at the same time in ice and water is produced by the general yellow or amber light of this hour, mingled with the blue of the reflected sky.")

February 12, 1860 ("Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds.")
February12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green, and a rose-color to be reflected from the low snow-patches. ")

February 12, 1860 ("surprising and wonderful, as if you walked amid those rosy and purple clouds that you see float in the evening sky. I thus find myself returning over a smooth green sea, amid thousands of these flat isles as purple as the petals of a flower.")

February 18, 1852 ("The mosses on the rocks look green where the snow has melted. This must be one of the spring signs, when spring comes.")

February 27, 1852 ("The mosses now are in fruit - or have sent up their filaments with calyptrae.")

March 10, 1859 ("Fine red-stemmed mosses have begun to push and bud on Clamshell bank")

March 16, 1859 ("This first sight of the bare tawny and russet earth, seen afar, perhaps, over the meadow flood in the spring, affects me as the first glimpse of land, his native land, does the voyager who has not seen it a long time.")

Mosses now in fruit

are warmly red in the sun

when seen from one side.

April 25, 1857

February 13, 2022

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 

February 12 <<<<<<< February 13 >>>>>>> February 14

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 13 (midwinter colors)

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