Short winter days lengthened by light reflected from the snow.

December 17

Flint's Pond apparently froze completely over last night. It is about two inches thick.  Walden is only slightly skimmed over a rod from the shore.

I noticed where it had been frozen for some time near the shore of Flint's Pond and the ice was thicker and whiter, there were handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had melted, and the water had worn it running through, a handsome figure on the icy carpet.

December 17, 2020

I noticed when the snow first came that the days were very sensibly lengthened by the light being reflected from the snow. Any work which required light could be pursued about half an hour longer. So that we may well pray that the ground may not be laid bare by a thaw in these short winter days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1850

Flint's Pond apparently froze completely over last night. It is about two inches thick. Walden is only slightly skimmed over a rod from the shore. See  December 17, 1859 ("Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen. Saw in [it] a good-sized black duck"); See also December 9, 1856 ("There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden. . .[Yet] yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden."); December 11, 1858 ("Walden is about one-third skimmed over."); December 24, 1853 ("Walden almost entirely open again. Skated across Flint's Pond. "); December 27, 1852 (" Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. . . .. A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

Handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had melted, and the water had worn it running through. See December 7, 1856 ("There are many of those singular spider-shaped dark places amid the white ice, where the surface water has run through some days ago.")

The days were very sensibly lengthened by the light being reflected from the snow. See December 28, 1856 ("Since the snow of the 23d, the days seem considerably lengthened, owing to the increased light after sundown."); see also December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely.”); December 15, 1856 (The short boreal twilight.")

These short winter days

sensibly lengthened by light

reflected from snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Short winter days lengthened

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-501217

A powder-mill blown up

January 7

To Nawshawtuct. 

This is one of those pleasant winter mornings when you find the river firmly frozen in the night, but still the air is serene and the sun feels gratefully warm an hour after sunrise, — though so fair, a healthy whitish vapor fills the lower stratum of the air, concealing the mountains, — the smokes go up from the village, you hear the cocks with immortal vigor, and the children shout on their way to school, and the sound made by the sonorousness in the earth. 

All nature is but braced by the cold. It gives tension to both body and mind. 

Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight, —  a hawk or dove. The least touch or jar shakes them off, and it is difficult to bring the female catkins home in your pocket. They cover the snow like coarse bran. 

On breaking the male catkins, I am surprised to see the yellow anthers so distinct, promising spring. I did not suspect that there was so sure a promise or prophecy of spring. These are frozen in December or earlier, — the anthers of spring, filled with their fertilizing dust. 

About ten minutes before 10 a. m., I heard a very loud sound, and felt a violent jar, which made the house rock and the loose articles on my table rattle, which I knew must be either a powder-mill blown up or an earthquake. Not knowing but another and more violent might take place, I immediately ran down-stairs, but I saw from the door a vast expanding column of whitish smoke rising in the west directly over the powder-mills four miles distant. It was unfolding its volumes above, which made it widest there. In three or four minutes it had all risen and spread itself into a lengthening, somewhat copper-colored cloud parallel with the horizon from north to south, and about ten minutes after the explosion it passed over my head, being several miles long from north to south and distinctly dark and smoky toward the north, not nearly so high as the few cirrhi in the sky. 

I jumped into a man's wagon and rode toward the mills. In a few minutes more, I saw behind me, far in the east, a faint salmon-colored cloud carrying the news of the explosion to the sea, and perchance over [the] head of the absent proprietor. Arrived probably before half past ten. There were perhaps thirty or forty wagons there. 

The kernel-mill had blown up first, and killed three men who were in it, said to be turning a roller with a chisel. In three seconds after, one of the mixing-houses exploded. The kernel-house was swept away, and fragments, mostly but a foot or two in length, were strewn over the hills and meadows, as if sown, for thirty rods, and the slight snow then on the ground was for the most part melted around. The mixing-house, about ten rods west, was not so completely dispersed, for most of the machinery remained, a total wreck. 

The press-house, about twelve rods east, had two thirds [of] its boards off, and a mixing-house next westward from that which blew up had lost some boards on the east side. The boards fell out (i. e. of those buildings which did not blow up), the air within apparently rushing out to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the explosions, and so, the powder being bared to the fiery particles in the air, another building explodes. The powder on the floor of the bared press-house was six inches deep in some places, and the crowd were thoughtlessly going into it. 

A few windows were broken thirty or forty rods off. Timber six inches square and eighteen feet long was thrown over a hill eighty feet high at least, — a dozen rods; thirty rods was about the limit of fragments. The drying-house, in which was a fire, was perhaps twenty-five rods distant and escaped. Every timber and piece of wood which was blown up was as black as if it had been dyed, except where it had broken on falling; other breakages were completely concealed by the color. I mistook what had been iron hoops in the woods for leather straps. 

Some of the clothes of the men were in the tops of the trees, where undoubtedly their bodies had been and left them. The bodies were naked and black, some limbs and bowels here and there, and a head at a distance from its trunk. The feet were bare; the hair singed to a crisp. 

I smelt the powder half a mile before I got there. 

Put the different buildings thirty rods apart, and then but one will blow up at a time. 

Brown thinks my red-headed bird of the winter the lesser redpoll. He has that fall snowbird, he thinks the young of the purple finch. What is my pine knot of the sea? Knot, or ash-colored sandpiper? or phala- rope? Brown's pine knot looks too large and clumsy. He shows me the spirit duck of the Indians, of which Peabody says the Indians call it by a word meaning spirit, "because of the wonderful quickness with which it disappears at the twang of a bow." 

I perceive (?) the increased length of the day on returning from my afternoon walk. Can it be? The sun sets only about five minutes later, and the day is about ten minutes longer.

Le Jeune thus describes the trees covered with ice in Canada in the winter of '35 and '36 (he appears to be at Quebec):  There was a great wind from the north east, accompanied by a rain which lasted a very long time, and by a cold great enough to freeze these waters as soon as they touched anything, so that, as this rain fell on the trees from the summit (cime) to the foot, there was formed (il s'y fit) a crystal of ice, which enchased both trunk (tige) and branches, so that for a very long time all our great woods appeared only a forest of crystal; for in truth the ice which clothed them universally everywhere (partout) was thicker than a testoon (epaisse de plus d'un teston); in a word all the bushes and all that was above the snow was environed on all sides and enchased in (avec) ice; the savages have told me that it does not happen often so (de meme)."

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1853

Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight. See January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it") See also note to December 6, 1859 ("No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders").


Put the different buildings thirty rods apart, and then but one will blow up at a time. See July 21, 1859 ("As you draw near the powder-mills, you see the hill behind bestrewn with the fragments of mills which have been blown up in past years, — the fragments of the millers having been removed, — and the canal is cluttered with the larger ruins. The very river makes greater haste past the dry-house, as it were for fear of accidents.") Nathan Pratt purchased a mill pond dam on the Assabet River and converted the former sawmill to a powder mill in 1835. The first explosion, in the first year the mills were operating, killed four men in 1836. The last three explosions in 1940 ended gunpowder production, and the dam at the original mill pond site is now being used to generate hydroelectricity for municipal Concord. The body of water created by the dam goes by the name Ripple Pond, and is located in Acton and Maynard.~ Wikipedea

I perceive  the increased length of the day.The sun sets only about five minutes later, and the day is about ten minutes longer. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”); January 25, 1855 ("For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in.)

January 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 7

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

Unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit.

February 19

The sky appears broader now than it did. The day has opened its eyelids wider. The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. Of course it is then that the ameliorating cause begins to work.

February 19, 2019

To White Pond. 

Considering the melon-rind arrangement of the clouds, by an ocular illusion the bars appearing to approach each other in the east and west horizons, I am prompted to ask whether the melons will not be found to be in this direction oftenest. 

The strains from my muse are as rare nowadays, or of late years, as the notes of birds in the winter, — the faintest occasional tinkling sound, and mostly of the woodpecker kind or the harsh jay or crow. It never melts into a song. Only the day-day-day of an inquisitive titmouse. 

Everywhere snow, gathered into sloping drifts about the walls and fences, and, beneath the snow, the frozen ground, and men are compelled to deposit the summer's provision in burrows in the earth like the ground squirrel. Many creatures, daunted by the prospect, migrated in the fall, but man remains and walks over the frozen snow-crust and over the stiffened rivers and ponds, and draws now upon his summer stores. Life is reduced to its lowest terms. There is no home for you now, in this freezing wind, but in that shelter which you prepared in the summer. You steer straight across the fields to that in season.

I can with difficulty tell when I am over the river. There is a similar crust over my heart.

Where I rambled in the summer and gathered flowers and rested on the grass by the brook-side in the shade, now no grass nor flowers, no brook nor shade, but cold, unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit. 

Look at White Pond, that crystal drop that was, in which the umbrageous shore was reflected, and schools of fabulous perch and shiners rose to the surface, and with difficulty you made your way along the pebbly shore in a summer afternoon to the bathing-place. Now you stalk rapidly across where it was, muffled in your cloak, over a more level snow -field than usual, furrowed by the wind, its finny inhabitants and its pebbly shore all hidden and forgotten, and you would shudder at the thought of wetting your feet in it. 

Returning across the river just as the sun was setting behind the Hollowell place, the ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, though all around, above and below, was one unvaried white, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. This phenomenon is to be put with the blue in the crevices of the snow. So, likewise, give me leave, or require me, to mend my work, and I will chip down the vessel on both sides to a level with the notches which I have made.

A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith, where there was a kind of core formed, stretching south southeast [and] north-northwest, surrounded by what looked like a permanent white cloud, which, however, was very variable in its form. The light flashes or trembles upward, as if it were the light of the sun reflected from a frozen mist which undulated in the wind in the upper atmosphere.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 19, 1852

The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring :The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

Considering the melon-rind arrangement of the clouds, by an ocular illusion the bars appearing to approach each other in the east and west horizons, I am prompted to ask whether the melons will not be found to be in this direction oftenest. See December 21, 1851 ("To-night, as so many nights within the year, the clouds arrange themselves in the east at sunset in long converging bars, according to the simple tactics of the sky. It is the melon-rind jig . . .converging bars inclose the day at each end as within a melon rind, and the morning and evening are one day"); December 29, 1859 ("The clouds were very remarkable this cold afternoon, about twenty minutes before sunset, consisting of very long and narrow white clouds converging in the horizon (melon-rind-wise) both in the west and east")

Man remains and walks over the frozen snow-crust and over the stiffened rivers and ponds, See February 19, 1854 ("I incline to walk now in swamps and on the river and ponds, where I cannot walk in summer.")

The harsh jay or crow. It never melts into a song. Only the day-day-day of an inquisitive titmouse. See February 12, 1854 ("and you hear the lisping tinkle of chickadees from time to time and the unrelenting steel-cold scream of a jay, unmelted, that never flows into a song, a sort of wintry trumpet, screaming cold; hard, tense, frozen music, like the winter sky itself; in the blue livery of winter's band.")

The ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. See January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown); Compare February 21, 1854 ("The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.”); January 7, 1856 ("Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.”); December 25, 1858 (“The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast.”) January 19, 1859 ("To-night I notice, this warm evening, that there is most green in the ice when I go directly from the sun. There is also considerable when I go directly toward it, but more than that a little one side; but when I look at right angles with the sun, I see none at all.") February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green...")

A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith. See Note to November 5, 1860 ("Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness. Thus our winter is heralded.") and See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights and the Poetic Science of the Aurora:

On the evening of February 19, 1852, a scientist at the New Haven station of the nascent telegraph witnessed something extraordinary:

A blue line appeared upon the paper, which gradually grew darker and larger, until a flame of fire followed the pen, and burned through a dozen thicknesses of the prepared paper. The paper was set on fire by the flame, and produced considerable smoke. The current then subsided as gradually as it came on, until it entirely disappeared, and was then succeeded by a negative current, which bleached instead of colored, the paper; this also gradually increased, until, as with the positive current, it burned the paper, and then subsided, to be followed by the positive current.

. . . It came in waves of varying intensity all throughout the evening, interpolating between positive and negative current with each wave. Scientists knew of only one phenomenon in nature that corresponds to this pattern: the Aurora Borealis.

February 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 19

Cold unvaried snow

now stretching mile after mile

and no place to sit.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  

Unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit.

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/hdt-520219 

Winter sky

February 17. 

February 17, 2018

Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day, when I travelled, as it were, between the portals of the night, and the path was narrow as well as blocked with snow. Then, too, the sun has the last opportunity to fill the air with vapor.

I see on the Walden road that the wind through the wall is cutting through the drifts, leaving a portion adhering to the stones. 

It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest. 

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. 

I saw Patrick Riordan carrying home an armful of fagots from the woods to his shanty, on his shoulder. How much more interesting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, or perchance to steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat must be sweet. 

It was something to hear that the women of Waltham used the Parmelia saxatilis ( ?) in dyeing. 

If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those  interested in botany are acquainted with Linnaeus. 

His "Philosophia Botanica," which Rousseau, Sprengel, and others praised so highly, — I doubt if it has ever been translated into English. It is simpler, more easy to understand, and more comprehensive, than any of the hundred manuals to which it has given birth. A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. 

According to Linnaeus's classification, I come under the head of the Miscellaneous Botanophilists, — " Botanophili sunt, qui varia de vegetabilibus tradiderunt, licet ea non proprie de scientiam Botanicam spectant," — either one of the Biologi (Panegyrica plerumque exclamarunt) or Poetae.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1852

The peculiarity of those western vistas. See 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. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. “); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. . . .Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.”); February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. See March 5, 1852 ("The minute apothecium of the pertusaria, which the woodchopper never detected, occupies so large a space in my eye at present”)

The morning and the evening literally make the whole day. See December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)

A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. See March 12, 1852 (“I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the “Philosophia Botanica,” with the names annexed , than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach .”)

I come under the head of the miscellaneous botanophilists:(“Lovers of botany are those who have handed down various things about plants although they look at these things not exclusively concerning the knowledge of botany." ) [On Feb 3 Thoreau had checked out Linnaeus' Philosophia botanica by Carl von Linnaeus from Harvard Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290).]

The mystery of rose-colored ice

January 25

January 25, 2015

This morning is a perfect hunter’s morn, for it snowed about three quarters of an inch last evening, covering land and ice. 

(Is not good skating a sign of snow?) 

I  see the tracks apparently of many hunters that hastened out this morning.

It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm. The warmth and stillness in the hollows about the Andromeda Ponds are charming. You dispense with gloves.

I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice. It is covered with snow. I push it away with my hands and feet. 

At first I detect no rose tint, and suspect it may have disappeared, —faded or bleached out,—or it was a dream. At length I detect a faint tinge; I cut down a young white oak and sweep bare a larger space; I then cut out a cake.

The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope, as if it had dried on. Little balloons, with some old paint almost sealed off their spheres. It has no beauty nor brightness thus seen, no more than brick-dust.

And this it is which gave the ice so delicate a tinge, seen through that inch of clear white ice. What is it? Can it be blood?

For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1855

This morning is a perfect hunter’s morn. See January 16, 1853 ("It was a hunter's day. All tracks were fresh, the snow deep and light.")

Good skating  See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating.") See also 
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

Stillness in the hollows about the Andromeda Ponds. See January 24, 1855 ("Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me."); February 13, 1859 ("The wonderful stillness of a winter day . . .It is the sabbath of the year, stillness audible")

It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . . You dispense with gloves. See January 25, 1852 ("It is glorious to be abroad this afternoon . . . The warmth of the sun reminds me of summer."); January 25, 1853 ("There is something springlike in this afternoon "); 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 new warmth of the sun and Walking without Gloves

Rose-colored ice. See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. It reminded me of red snow, and may be the same. It extended several inches into the ice, at least, and had been spread by the flowing water recently. It was this delicate rose tint, with internal bluish tinges."); February 23, 1855 ("See at Walden . . . ice formed over the large square where ice has been taken out for Brown’s ice-house has a decided pink or rosaceous tinge.");  March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still . . . It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice."); March 7, 1855 ("The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle."). See also See January 22, 1860 ("At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow.")

It is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in. See January 25, 1853 ( The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees.") See also January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was.");  January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

January 25. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 25

Clear and bright, yet warm.

 It is a rare winter day –

you dispense with gloves.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The mystery of rose-colored ice

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550125

The increased length of the days

January 23

Love tends to purify and sublime itself. It mortifies and triumphs over the flesh, and the bond of its union is holiness. 

January 23, 2015

The increased length of the days is very observable of late. What is a winter unless you have risen and gone abroad frequently before sunrise and by starlight?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1854

The increased length of the days. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 7, 1853 ("I perceive the increased length of the day on returning from my afternoon walk. Can it be? The sun sets only about five minutes later, and the day is about ten minutes longer."); January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”); January 25, 1853 ("The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees.");  January 25, 1855 ("For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in.)

Rise and go abroad before sunrise and by starlight.  See November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day."); December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset."); January 20, 1852 ("To see the sun rise or go down every day would preserve us sane forever.”)

January 23. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 23 

What is a winter

unless you have risen and

gone out by starlight?

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 ©  2009-2025

tinyurl.com/hdt18540123