The value of the pitch pine in winter.

January 31. 

The value of the pitch pine in winter is that it holds the snow so finely. I see it now afar on the hillsides decking itself with it, its whited towers forming coverts where the rabbit and the gray squirrel lurk. It makes the most cheerful winter scenery beheld from the window, you know so well the nature of the coverts and the sombre light it makes.

The young oaks, with their red leaves, covering so many acres, are also an indispensable feature of the winter landscape, and the limbs of oak woods where some of the trees have been cut off 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1852 

The value of the pitch pine in winter is that it holds the snowso finely. See December 17, 1851 ("The pitch pines hold the snow well. It lies now in balls on their plumes and in streaks on their branches."); January 30, 1841("The snow collects upon the plumes of the pitch pine in the form of a pineapple."); January 19, 1855 ("On some pitch pines it lay in fruit-like balls as big as one’s head, like cocoanuts . . . Under one pitch pine, which shut down to the ground on every side, you could not see the sky at all, but sat in a gloomy light as in a tent"); February 16, 1860 ("How handsome . . . the smaller pitch pines converted into marble or alabaster with their lowered plumes like rams' heads! The character of the wood-paths is wholly changed by the new-fallen snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Pitch Pine in Winter

The young oaks, with their red leaves. . . are also an indispensable feature of the winter landscape. See January 2, 1859 ("All our large oaks may retain a few leaves at the base of the lower limbs and about the trunks . . .while the same trees when young are all alike thickly clothed in the winter."); January 24, 1852 ("The oaks are made thus to retain their leaves, that they may play over the snow-crust and add variety to the winter landscape") See also December 11, 1858 ("While the oak leaves look redder and warmer, the pines look much darker since the snow has fallen (the hemlocks darker still"); December 21, 1854 ("A perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still"); January 19, 1859 ("What warmth in the withered oak leaves, thus far away, mingled with pines! They are the redder for the warmth and the sun. At this season we do not want any more color."); Compare January 2, 1859 ("The color of young oaks of different species is still distinct, but more faded and blended, becoming a more uniform brown.")

A Book of the Seasons: January 29 (stinging cold, rainbow snow-sparkles, measuring ice and snow, redpolls, winter colors in Beck Stow's swamp )

 

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 29

The rainbow-colored 

reflections from myriad

crystals of the snow. 

January 29, 1860 

January 29, 2017

A very cold morning. Thermometer, or mercury, 18° below zero.  January 29, 1854

Not cold.  January 29, 1855

It is considerably colder. January 29, 1858

Colder than before, and not a cloud in the sky to-day. January 29, 1860

Half an inch or more of snow fell last night, the ground being half bare before. January 29, 1860

It was a snow of small flakes not star-shaped.  January 29, 1860

Sun comes out at noon. January 29, 1855

As usual, I now see, walking on the river and river-meadow ice, thus thinly covered with the fresh snow, that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, i. e., as I walk toward the sun, January 29, 1860

The rainbow-colored
reflections from myriad
crystals of the snow.
January 29, 1860

Pickerel of at least three different forms and colors were lying on the ice of Walden this afternoon January 29, 1853 

I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden, three or four rods from the shore, its tail sticking out a hole.  January 29, 1853 

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. January 29, 1853 

Since the 13th there has been at no time less than one foot on a level in open fields. January 29, 1856

The snow is probably about fourteen on a level in open fields now, or quite as deep as at any time this winter. January 29, 1856

I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow's, north of the new road. January 29, 1858

For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes, and the shortest way is to bend down bushes eight feet high and tread on them. January 29, 1858

The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-vessels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions. January 29, 1858

The cranberry rising red above the ice is seen to be allied to the water andromeda, but is yet redder. January 29, 1858

I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. January 29, 1858

Even this green is exhilarating, like a spring in winter. I am affected by the sight even of a mass of conferva in a ditch.  January 29, 1858

I find some radical potamogeton leaves six inches long under water, which look as if growing. January 29, 1858

Found some splendid fungi on old aspens used for a fence; quite firm; reddish-white above and bright vermilion beneath, or perhaps more scarlet, reflecting various shades as it is turned. January 29, 1858

I was surprised by its brilliant color. This intense vermilion (?) face, which would be known to every boy in the town if it were turned upward, faces the earth and is discovered only by the curious naturalist. January 29, 1858

These silent and motionless fungi . . . revealing their bright colors perchance only to the prying naturalist  January 29, 1858

To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. January 29, 1860

Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday sheldrakes. January 29, 1853

How imperfect a notion have we commonly of what was the actual condition of the place where we dwell, three centuries ago!  January 29, 1856

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,    The Alders

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The   Pickerel frog  (Rana palustris)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

*****

December 6, 1858 ("Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")
December 11, 1855 ("Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle")
December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . . I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six (?)-rayed wheel.")
December 23, 1850 ("The pitch pines now bear their snowy fruit.")

December 30, 1859 ("Little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine")
January 4, 1852 ("The cracks in the ice showing a white cleavage")

January 7, 1860 ("I saw yesterday the track of a fox, and. .. on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse.")
January 9, 1856 (“To Beck Stow’s . . . Probably it has been below zero far the greater part of the day. . . .I wade through the swamp, where the snow lies light eighteen inches deep on a level")
January 10, 1855 (“To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again.”)

January 10, 1856 (“I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now,”)
January 12, 1860 ("Going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over its surface, — little mirror-like facets, . . .which has fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun. 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 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 19, 1855 ("At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pig weed in the garden. Almost all have more or less crimson; a few are very splendid, with their particularly bright crimson breasts. The white on the edge of their wing-coverts is very conspicuous")
January 19, 1855 ("On some pitch pines it lay in fruit-like balls as big as one’s head, like cocoanuts.") 

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.")

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")
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 26, 1859 ("What various kinds of ice there are!")
January 27, 1860 ("Half a dozen redpolls busily picking the seeds out of the larch cones behind Monroe's.")
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.")

January 31, 1859 ("But what various kinds of ice there are!") 

February 3, 1852  (“This snow . . . is two feet deep, pure and powdery. 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.")
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 13, 1859 ("A dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, 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.").

 January 29, 2018

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 28 <<<<<<<<      January 29  >>>>>>>>  January 30

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDT29Jan

Not cold.

January 29. 

January 29, 2020

Not cold. 

Sun comes out at noon.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, January 29, 1855


Compare January 29, 1854 ("A very cold morning. Thermometer, or mercury, 18° below zero. ")

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

A Book of the Seasons: January 28 (a song sparrow, three ducks, tree sparrows, sun-sparkles, skunk-cabbage, Minott says, the influence of changing weather)

 

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

I rarely failed to find, even in mid-winter, 

some warm and springly swamp 

where the grass and the skunk-cabbage 

still put forth with perennial verdure,

 and some hardier bird occasionally 

awaited the return of spring

. ~ Walden

January 28

The sun-sparkles where

the river is open are

cheerful to behold.

 January 28, 1853

Three ducks sailing the

 river his afternoon though

these are coldest days.

 January 28, 1853

A song sparrow sits 

in the midst of snow on our 

wood-pile in the yard.

January 28, 1857

White pine. Red pine.
January 28, 2018

Though somewhat cool, it has been remarkably pleasant to-day, and the sun-sparkles where the river is open are very cheerful to behold. 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. January 28, 1853

Grew warmer toward night and snowed; but this soon turned to heavy rain in the night, which washed all the snow off the ice, leaving only bare ground and ice the county over by next morning. January 28, 1855

Snows all day, about two inches falling. They say it snowed about the same all yesterday in New York. Clears up at night. January 28, 1856

Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual. Probably the rain and thaw have brought down some of them. January 28, 1857

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard, in the midst of snow in the yard. January 28, 1857

Remarkable that the coldest of all winters these summer birds should remain. January 28, 1857

In the afternoon this sparrow joined a flock of tree sparrows on the bare ground west of the house. January 28, 1857

The song sparrow did not go off with them. January 28, 1857

It was amusing to see the tree sparrows wash themselves, standing in the puddles and tossing the water over themselves. January 28, 1857

They have had no opportunity to wash for a month, perhaps, there having been no thaw. January 28, 1857

Minott says they wade in to where it is an inch deep and then "splutter splutter," throwing the water over them. January 28, 1857

Minott has a sharp ear for the note of any migrating bird. January 28, 1858

Maybe he listens all day for them, or they come and sing over his house, — report themselves to him and receive their season ticket. January 28, 1858

The other day the rumor went that a flock of geese had been seen flying north over Concord, midwinter as it was, by the almanac. I traced it to Minott. January 28, 1858

He thought that the back of the winter was broken, — if it had any this year, — but he feared such a winter would kill him too. January 28, 1858

I was silent; I reflected; I drew into my mind all its members, like the tortoise; I abandoned myself to unseen guides. January 28, 1858

Suddenly the truth flashed on me. January 28, 1858

I remembered that within a week I had heard of a box at the tavern, which had come by railroad express, containing three wild geese and directed to his neighbor over the brook. January 28, 1858

Melvin tells me that one with whom he deals below says that the best musquash skins come from Concord River, and it is because our musquash are so fat.  January 28, 1859

About Brister's Spring the ferns, which have been covered with snow, and the grass are still quite green. January 28, 1852

The skunk-cabbage in the water is already pushed up, and I find the pinkish head of flowers within its spathe bigger than a pea. January 28, 1852

These warmer days the woodchopper finds that the wood cuts easier than when it had the frost in its sap-wood, though it does not split so readily. January 28, 1852

Thus every change in the weather has its influence on him, and is appreciated by him in a peculiar way. January 28, 1852

Coming through the village at 11 P.M., the sky is completely overcast, and the (perhaps thin) clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, somewhat as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind. January 28, 1858

January 28, 2018

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Skunk Cabbage

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow 

A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

January 28, 2018

August 26, 1859 (" I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. There may be cool veins in the air now, any day. ")
September 2, 1856 ("Minott, whose mind runs on them [pigeons] so much, but whose age and infirmities confine him to his wood-shed on the hillside, saw a small flock a fortnight ago.. . . One man's mind running on pigeons, will sit thus in the midst of a village, many of whose inhabitants never see nor dream of a pigeon except in the pot, and where even naturalists do not observe, and he, looking out with expectation and faith from morning till night, will surely see them.")
September 30, 1857 ("Minott says he is seventy-five years old.")

November 8, 1851 ("Ah, those sun-sparkles on Dudley Pond in this November air! what a heaven to live in! Intensely brilliant, as no artificial light I have seen, like a dance of diamonds. Coarse mazes of a diamond dance seen through the trees.")

December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. . . . A black and white duck on it.")
January 2, 1859 ("Minott says that a fox will lead a dog on to thin ice in order that he may get in.)
January 8, 1857 ("Minott says he has lived where he now does as much as sixty years. He has not been up in town for three years, on account of his rheumatism ")
January 15, 1857 ("I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow, . . .taken refuge in this shed”)
January 16, 1860 ("I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking some thing from the surface of the snow amid some bushes.")
January 22, 1857 ("Minott tells me that Sam Barrett told him once when he went to mill that a song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.”)
January 22, 1860 ("Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run")
January 23, 1857 ("I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day by our thermometer.")
January 23, 1863 ("Minott says that pigeons alight in great flocks on the tops of hemlocks in March, and he thinks they eat the seed.")
January 24, 1860 ("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 27, 1860 ("I occasionally hear a musquash plunge under the ice next the shore.")

January 29, 1853 (Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday "sheldrakes"")
January 29, 1859 ("Many are out in boats, steering outside the ice of the river over the newly flooded meadows, shooting musquash.")
January 30, 1855 ("Minott to-day enumerates the red, gray, black, and what he calls the Sampson fox.")
February 1, 1853 ("Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last")
February 2, 1858 ("As I return from the post-office, I hear the hoarse, robin-like chirp of a song sparrow on Cheney's ground, and see him perched on the top most twig of a heap of brush, looking forlorn and drabbled and solitary in the rain")
February 3, 1853 ("Saw three ducks in the river.")
February 20, 1857 ("Minott always sits in the corner behind the door, close to the stove, with commonly the cat by his side, often in his lap. Often he sits with his hat on")
February 21, 1855 ("Can it be true, as is said, that geese have gone over Boston, probably yesterday? It is in the newspapers")
February 27, 1860 ("This [sheldrake] is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of.")
March 5, 1854 ("Channing, talking with Minott the other day about his health, said, " I suppose you 'd like to die now." "No," said Minott, "I 've toughed it through the winter, and I want to stay and hear the bluebirds once more."")
March 20, 1853 ("It is glorious to behold the life and joy of this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun. . . There is the difference between winter and spring. The bared face of the pond sparkles with joy.")
April 9, 1859 ("Standing low and more opposite to the sun, then all these dark-blue ripples are all sparkles too bright to look at.")
May 24, 1860 ("How perfectly new and fresh the world is seen to be, when we behold a myriad sparkles of brilliant white sunlight on a rippled stream!")

January 28, 2019

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 27  <<<<<<<<      January 28   >>>>>>>>  January 29

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 28

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

http://tinyurl.com/hdt28jan

A Book of the Season: January 26 ( kinds of ice, lichens, birches, wintry scene, signs of spring, who shall resist the thaw?)

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

 I paid many a visit to particular trees,

 of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood,

 standing far away in the middle of some pasture,

 or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hill-top;

 such as the black-birch, 

[or] its cousin, the yellow birch,

 with its loose golden vest, 

perfumed like the first. 

~Walden

January 26

Let all things give way 

to the impulse of 

expression.

 It is the bud unfolding, 

the perennial spring.

 As well stay the spring. 

Who shall resist the thaw? 

 January 26, 1852

Though you walk each day

you do not foresee the walk

you have the next day. 

January 26, 1860

January 26, 2019

Fair, but overcast. Thermometer about 32°. January 26, 1860

It is a very pleasant and warm day, and when I came down to the river and looked off to Merrick’s pasture, the osiers there shone as brightly as in spring, showing that their brightness depends on the sun and air rather than the season. January 26, 1859

The white maple buds look large, with bursting downy scales as in spring. January 26, 1856 

The yellow birch tree is peculiarly interesting. It might be described as a tree whose trunk or bole was covered with golden and silver shavings glued all over it and dangling in curls. January 26, 1858 

It is good to break and smell the black birch twigs now.  January 26, 1852

A warm rain from time to time. P. M. — To Clintonia Swamp down the brook. When it rains it is like an April shower. The brook is quite open, and there is no snow on the banks or fields. January 26, 1858

Some say that this particularly warm weather within a few days is the January thaw, but there is nothing to thaw. January 26, 1858

A sharp, cutting air . . .Bitter, cutting, cold northwest wind on causeway, stiffening the face, freezing the ears. January 26, 1853

Another cold morning. None looked early, but about eight it was -14°. January 26, 1857

A slight, fine, snow has fallen in the night and drifted before the wind. January 26, 1853

This morning it snows again,—a fine dry snow with no wind to speak of, giving a wintry aspect to the landscape. , January 26, 1855

Saw Boston Harbor frozen over (for some time).. . .Saw thousands on the ice, a stream of men reaching down to Fort Independence, where they were cutting a channel toward the city. Ice said to reach fourteen miles.  January 26, 1857

Though you walk every day, you do not foresee the kind of walking you will have the next day. January 26, 1860

The water is going down, and the ice is rotting. January 26, 1859

This which lately formed so suddenly on the flooded meadows, from beneath which the water has in a great measure run out, letting it down, while a warm sun has shone on it, is perhaps the most interesting of any. It might be called graphic ice. January 26, 1859

There is a little thin ice on the meadows. I see the bubbles underneath, looking like coin. January 26, 1853

What various kinds of ice there are! January 26, 1859 

There is now a fine steam-like snow blowing over the ice, which continually lodges here and there, and forthwith a little drift accumulates. But why does it lodge at such regular intervals? January 26, 1853

What changes in the aspect of the earth! one day russet hills, and muddy ice, and yellow and greenish pools in the fields; the next all painted white, the fields and woods and roofs laid on thick. , January 26, 1855

I see where a partridge has waddled through the snow still falling, making a continuous track. I look in the direction to which it points, and see the bird just skimming over the bushes fifteen rods off. January 26, 1855

The wintriest scene, —which perhaps can only be seen in perfection while the snow is yet falling, before wind and thaw begin.  January 26, 1855

Made a roaring fire on the edge of the meadow at Ware Hill in Sudbury . . . One half the pleasure is in making the fire. January 26, 1853

Made a fire on the ice, merely to see the flame and smell the smoke. January 26, 1860

The lichens look rather bright to-day, near the town line in Heywood's wood by the pond.  January 26, 1852

When they are bright and expanded, is it not a sign of a thaw or of rain?  January 26, 1852

The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed. January 26, 1858

The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge ! I could study a single piece of bark for hours.  January 26, 1852

This is a lichen day. January 26, 1858

It is surprising how much room there is in nature, if a man will follow his proper path. January 26, 1853

Nature loves gradation. January 26, 1858

From time to time I see a trout glance, and sometimes, in an adjoining ditch, quite a school of other fishes, but I see no tortoises.   January 26, 1858

In a ditch I see very light-colored and pretty large lizards moving about, and I suspect I may even have heard a frog drop into the water once or twice.  January 26, 1858

To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. January 26, 1860

The only birds I have seen to-day were some jays, one whistled clearly, — some of my mewing red frontlets, and some familiar chickadees. They are inquisitive, and fly along after the traveller to inspect him. January 26, 1853

These are remarkably warm and pleasant days.  January 26, 1859

About 2 o'clock P. M. these days, after a fair forenoon, there is wont to blow up from the northwest a squally cloud, spanning the heavens, but before it reaches the southeast horizon it has lifted above the northwest, and so it leaves the sky clear there for sunset, while it has sunk low and dark in the southeast. January 26, 1852

I like to sit still under my umbrella and meditate in the woods in this warm rain.  January 26, 1858

From these cliffs at this moment, the clouds in the west have a singular brassy color, and they are arranged in an unusual manner. January 26, 1852

A new disposition of the clouds will make the most familiar country appear foreign. January 26, 1852

January 26, 2018

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

*****

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

January 10, 1854 ("What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day");

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

January 19, 1852 ("The snow blowing far off in the sun . . .looks like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning.")

January 20, 1857 (" I hear that Boston Harbor froze over on the 18th, down to Fort Independence.")

  

January 27, 1858 ("The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life, like the lichens. You discover evidences of immortality not known to divines. You cease to die. You detect some buds and sprouts of life. . . . And then the rain comes thicker and faster than before, , , , ,You can not go home yet; you stay and sit in the rain. ")

January 29, 1856 (“Another bright winter day.. . .The willow osiers of last year’s growth. . . are perhaps as bright as in the spring, the lower half yellow, the upper red, ”) 

January 31, 1859 ("We do not commonly distinguish more than one kind of water in the river, but what various kinds of ice there are!")

February 16, 1852 ("I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. . . .like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind.”)

February 18, 1860  Sometimes, when I go forth at 2 P. M., there is scarcely a cloud in the sky, but soon one will appear in the west and steadily advance and expand itself, and so change the whole character of the afternoon and of my thoughts.

March 5, 1852 ("Such is the mood of my mind, and I call it studying lichens. The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks, really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk”)

January 26, 2018 

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 25  <<<<<<<<      January 26  >>>>>>>>  January 27

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 26

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDTJan26