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 hoar frost this morning.

February 9.

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

A hoar frost on the ground this morning — for the open fields are mostly bare — was quite a novel sight. I had noticed some vapor in the air late last evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1860

A hoar frost on the ground this morning was quite a novel sight. See November 23, 1852 (“You must go forth very early to see a hoar frost, which is rare here”); December 16, 1853 (“These days, when the earth is still bare and the weather is so warm as to create much vapor by day, are the best for these frost works.”); February 12, 1855 (“All trees covered this morning with a hoar frost, very handsome looking toward the sun, —the ghosts of trees.”); January 13, 1859 ("A very remarkable sort of hoar frost, the crystallized fog, which is still increasing, an inch deep on many trees, and gets to be much more,. . . It is quite rare here, at least on this scale. ")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  February 9

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

Hoar frost, crystallized fog, on the north side of every twig.

January 13. 

January 13, 2019

The cold spell is over, and here this morning is a fog or mist; the wind, if there is any, I think, northerly; and there is built out horizontally on the north side of every twig and other surface a very remarkable sort of hoar frost, the crystallized fog, which is still increasing. 

Mr. Edwin Morton was telling me night before last of a similar phenomenon witnessed in central New York, the fog of highlands or mountains crystallizing in this way and forming a white fringe or frost on the trees even to an inch and a half. 

This is already full an inch deep on many trees, and gets to be much more, perhaps an inch and a half even, on some in the course of the day. It is quite rare here, at least on  this scale. 

The mist lasts all this day, though it is far from warm (+ 11° at 8 A. M.), and till noon of the 14th, when it becomes rain, and all this time there is exceedingly little if any wind. 

I go to the river this morning and walk up it to see the trees and bushes along it. 

As the frostwork (which is not thin and transparent like ice, but white and snow-like, or between the distinctly leaf with veins and a mere aggregation of snow, though you easily distinguish the distinct leaves) is built out northward from each surface, spreading at an angle of about forty-five degrees, i. e. some twenty-odd each side of the north, you must stand on the north side and look south at the trees, etc., when they appear, except the large limbs and trunk, wholly of snow or frostwork, mere ghosts of trees, seen softly against the mist for a background. 

It is mist on mist. 

The outline and character of each tree is more distinctly exhibited, being exaggerated, and you notice any peculiarity in the disposition of the twigs. 

• Some elm twigs, thus enlarged into snowy fingers, are strikingly regular and handsome.

• In the case of most evergreens, it amounts to a very rich sugaring, being so firmly attached. 

• The weeping willow seems to weep with more remarkable and regular curve than ever, and stands still and white with thickened twigs, as if carved in white marble or alabaster. 

• Those trees, like alders, which have not grown much the past year — which have short and angular twigs—are the richest in effect. The end of each alder twig is recurved where the drooping catkin is concealed. On one side you see the dark-brown fruit, but on the north that too is concealed. 

I can see about a quarter of a mile through the mist, and when, later, it is somewhat thinner, the woods, the pine woods, at a distance are a dark-blue color.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 13, 1859

A very remarkable sort of hoar frost, the crystallized fog, which is still increasing, an inch deep on many trees, and gets to be much more, perhaps an inch and a half even, on some in the course of the day. It is quite rare here, at least on this scale. See November 23, 1852 (“You must go forth very early to see a hoar frost, which is rare here”); December 16 1853 (“These days, when the earth is still bare and the weather is so warm as to create much vapor by day, are the best for these frost works.”); February 9, 1860 ("A hoar frost on the ground this morning — for the open fields are mostly bare — was quite a novel sight. I had noticed some vapor in the air late last evening"); February 12, 1855 (“All trees covered this morning with a hoar frost, very handsome looking toward the sun, —the ghosts of trees.”)

Through the mist the woods, the pine woods, at a distance are a dark-blue color. See January 21, 1855 ("The snow is turning to rain through a fine hail.Pines and oaks seen at a distance — say two miles off — are considerably blended and make one harmonious impression. The former, if you attend, are seen to be of a blue or misty black," ); February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish, and the single trees on the hill, under the dull mist-covered sky, remarkably distinct and black."); February 7, 1859 ("Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter."); see also note to February 6, 1852 ("mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker, and more imposing."

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

A morning of creation.

December 31

It is one of the mornings of creation, and the trees, shrubs, etc., etc., are covered with a fine leaf frost, as if they had their morning robes on, seen against the sun. There has been a mist in the night. 

Now, at 8.30 A. M., I see, collected over the low grounds behind Mr. Cheney’s, a dense fog (over a foot of snow), which looks dusty like smoke by contrast with the snow. Though limited to perhaps twenty or thirty acres, it is as dense as any in August. 

This accounts for the frost on the twigs. It consists of minute leaves, the longest an eighth of an inch, all around the twigs, but longest commonly on one side, in one instance the southwest side. 

Clearing out the paths, which the drifting snow had filled, I find already quite a crust, from the sun and the blowing making it compact; but it is soft in the woods. 

9 A. M. — To Partridge Glade.

I see many partridge-tracks in the light snow, where they have sunk deep amid the shrub oaks; also gray rabbit and deer mice tracks, for the last ran over this soft surface last night. 

In a hollow in the glade, a gray rabbit’s track, apparently, leading to and from a hole in the snow, which, following, and laying open, I found to extend curving about this pit, four feet through and under the snow, to a small hole in the earth, which apparently led down deep. 

At ten the frost leaves are nearly all melted. 

It is invariably the east track on the railroad causeway which has the least snow on it. Though it is nearly all blown off elsewhere on the causeway, Trillium Woods have prevented its being blown off opposite to them. 

The snow-plow yesterday cast the snow six feet one side the edge of the cars, and it fell thick and rich, evenly broken like well-plowed land. It lies like a rich tilth in the sun, with its glowing cottony-white ridges and its shadowy hollows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 31, 1855

One of the mornings of creation. See January 26, 1860 ("There are from time to time mornings, both in summer and winter, when especially the world seems to begin anew.”)

The trees, shrubs, etc., etc., are covered with a fine leaf frost. See January 6, 1853 ("This morning the weeds and twigs and fences were covered with what I may call a leaf frost."; February 12, 1855 (“All trees covered this morning with a hoar frost, very handsome looking toward the sun, —the ghosts of trees.”); February 14, 1855 ("There is also another leaf or feather frost on the trees, weeds, and rails, — slight leaves or feathers, a quarter to a half inch long by an eighth wide, standing out around the slightest core . . . These ghosts of trees are very handsome and fairy-like.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The weather, New Year's Eve

This [dense fog] accounts for the frost on the twigs. It consists of minute leaves, the longest an eighth of an inch, all around the twigs, but longest commonly on one side, in one instance the southwest side. See December 31, 1859 (''There has evidently been a slight fog generally in the night, and the trees are white with it. The crystals are directed southwesterly, or toward the wind.")

I see many partridge-tracks in the light snow . . . also gray rabbit and deer mice tracks. See December 31, 1854 ("I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow. Once a partridge rises from the alders and skims across the river") See also December 27, 1853 ("It is surprising what things the snow betrays . . . no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice and larger animals.")

A mist in the night,

frost now seen against the sun –

morning creation.

There is a softening of the air and snow.

February 12 

All trees covered this morning with a hoar frost, very handsome looking toward the sun, —the ghosts of trees. Is not this what was so blue in the atmosphere yesterday afternoon? 

P. M. — To Walden. A very pleasant and warm afternoon. There is a softening of the air and snow. The eaves run fast on the south side of houses, and, as usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance. 

I observe no mouse tracks in the fields and meadows. The snow is so light and deep that they have run wholly underneath, and I see in the fields here and there a little hole in the crust where they have come to the surface.

February 12, 2023

It is very pleasant to stand now in a high pine wood where the sun shines in amid the pines and hemlocks and maples as in a warm apartment. 

I see at Warren’s Crossing where, last night perhaps, some partridges rested in this light, dry, deep snow. They must have been almost completely buried. They have left their traces at the bottom. They are such holes as would be made by crowding their bodies in backwards, slanting-wise, while perhaps their heads were left out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1855


Last night perhaps, some partridges rested in this light, dry, deep snow. See February 13, 1855 ("I see where many have dived into the snow, apparently last night. . .They appear to have dived or burrowed into it, then passed along a foot or more underneath and squatted there, perhaps, with their heads out .”)   See alao A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A very pleasant and warm afternoon. There is a softening of the air and snow. The eaves run fast on the south side of houses, and, as usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance. See January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs."); January 22, 1860 ("Crows . . . 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, 1858 ("The wonderfully mild and pleasant weather continues. The ground has been bare since the 11th. . . . There has been but little use for gloves this winter, though I have been surveying a great deal for three months. The sun, and cockcrowing, bare ground, etc., etc., remind me of March."); 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."); February 7, 1857 ("It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my greatcoat and carry it on my arm.");February 7, 1857 ("Another warm day, the snow fast going off. . . . The thermometer was at 52° when I came out at 3 p.m.");  February 8, 1856 ("A clear and a pleasanter and warmer day than we have had for a long time."); February 8, 1856 ("The snow is soft, and the eaves begin to run as not for many weeks");   February 8, 1857 ("Another very warm day, I should think warmer than the last") February 8, 1857 ("The softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter."); February 8. 1860 ("40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. We have had much of this weather for a month past, reminding us of spring."); February 8, 1860 ("A different sound comes to my ear now from iron rails which are struck, as from the cawing crows, etc. ");  February 9, 1851 ("The last half of January was warm and thawy."); February 9, 1854 ("There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning, perhaps the light being diffused by vapor. It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in."); February 9, 1856 ("Thermometer 30°. This and yesterday comparatively warm weather."); February 11, 1856 ("I thought it would be a thawing day by the sound, the peculiar sound, of cock-crowing in the morning.");  February 16, 1855 ("Sounds sweet and musical through this air, as crows, cocks, and striking on the rails at a distance."); February 16, 1856 ("The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts; the cocks crow more than usual in barns; my greatcoat is an incumbrance."); February 18, 1855 ("Now for the first time decidedly there is something spring-suggesting in the air and light. . . .I listen ever for something spring-like in the notes of birds, some peculiar tinkling notes.”);February 18, 1857 ("I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. The very grain of the air seems to have undergone a change "); February 21, 1855 ("I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow."); February 22, 1855 ("Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird.”); February 24, 1852 ("I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. The cock-crowing and even the telegraph harp prophesy it, even though the ground is for the most part covered by snow."); February 24, 1857 ("[A]s I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, A Change in the Air; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows

The snow is so light and deep that [mice] have run wholly underneath. See February 20, 1855 ("We see the tracks of mice on the snow in the woods, or once in a year one glances by like a flash through the grass or ice at our feet, and that is for the most part all that we see of them."); See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

It is very pleasant to stand now in a high pine wood where the sun shines in. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun 

February 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau  February 12

Sun shines in amid

the pines and hemlocks as in

a warm apartment.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A softening of the air and snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 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-550212

Mornings of Creation

January 26. 

A sharp, cutting air. 

This is a pretty good winter morning, however. 

Not one of the rarer.

There are from time to time mornings, 

both in summer and winter,
when especially the world seems to begin anew,

mornings beyond which memory need not go, 

for not behind them is yesterday and our past life;

when, as in the morning of a hoar frost,

there are visible the effects of a certain creative energy, 

the world has visibly been recreated in the night.

Mornings of creation, 

I call them. 

In the midst of these marks of a creative energy recently active, 

while the sun is rising with more than usual splendor, 
I look back,- 

I look back for the era of this creation, 

not into the night, 

but to a dawn
for which no man ever rose early enough. 

A morning which carries us back beyond the Mosaic creation,
where crystallizations are fresh and unmelted.

It is the poet's hour. 

Mornings when men are new-born, 

men who have the seeds of life in them. 

This is not one of those mornings, but a clear, cold, airy winter day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 26, 1853

There are from time to time mornings. . .when especially the world seems to begin anew,. See January 23, 1860 ("Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I recommence life.”); January 7, 1858 ("These are true mornings of creation, original and poetic days, not mere repetitions of the past')

See also, Walden, Where I Lived, And What I Lived For  ("The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.")

Jan. 26. 

Up river on ice 9 A. M., above Pantry,

  A sharp, cutting air,

  This is a pretty good winter  morning, however.  Not one of the rarer,

  There are from time to time mornings, both in summer and winter, when especially the world seems to begin anew, beyond which memory need not go, for not behind them is yesterday and our past life; when, as in the morning of a hoar frost, there are visible the effects of a certain creative energy, the world has visibly been recreated in the night,

 Mornings of creation, I call them,

  In the midst of these marks of a creative energy recently active, while the sun is rising with more than usual splendor, I look back, — I look back for the era of this creation, not into the night, but to a dawn for which no man ever rose early enough,

  A morning which carries us back beyond the Mosaic creation, where crystallizations are fresh and unmelted,

  It is the poet's hour,

  Mornings when men are new - born, men who have the seeds of life in them,

  It should be a part of my religion to [ be ] abroad then,

  This is not one of those mornings, but a clear, cold, airy winter day,

 

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

  In these broad fields, in these extensive woods, on this stretching river, I never meet a walker,

  Passing behind the farmhouses, I see no man out.

  Perhaps I do not meet so many men as I should have met three centuries ago, when the Indian hunter roamed these woods.

  I enjoy the retirement and solitude of an early settler.

  Men have cleared some of the earth, which no doubt is an advantage to the walker.

  I see a man sometimes chopping in the woods, or planting or hoeing in a field, at a distance; and yet there may be a lyceum in the evening, and there  is a book - shop and library in the village, and five times a day I can be whirled to Boston within an hour.

  There is a little thin ice on the meadows.

  I see the bubbles underneath, looking like coin.

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

  I observe that it is so distributed over the ice as [ to ] show equal spaces of bare ice and of snow at pretty regular distances.

  I have seen the same phenomenon on the surface of snow in fields, as if the surface of the snow disposed itself according to the same law that makes waves of water.

  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 ? I see this fine drifting snow in the air ten or twelve feet high at a distance.

  Perhaps it may have to do with the manner in, or the angle at, which the wind strikes the earth.

  Made a roaring fire on the edge of the meadow at Ware ( ? ) Hill in Sudbury.

  A piece of paper, birch bark, and dry leaves started it, and then we depended on the dead maple twigs and limbs to kindle the large dead wood.

  Green wood will burn better than the damp and rotten wood that lies on the ground.

  We chose a place which afforded a prospect, but it turned out that we looked only at the fire.

  It made all places indifferent.

  The color of the coals, in a glowing heap or seen through the white ashes on the brands, like rubies.

  The shadows, coming and going, of the flame passing over the white ashes of the brands.

  I burnt off my eye lashes when the fire suddenly blazed up with the wind, without knowing that I had come very near it.

  Though  our fuel was dead and rotten wood found in the snow, it made very little smoke, which may have been owing to the state of the atmosphere, clear and cold.

  The sound of the air or steam escaping from a brand, its sighing or dying shriek, fine and sharp as a cambric needle, is the music we hear.

  One half the pleasure is in making the fire.

  But then we should have something to cook by it.

  Collecting fresh fuel from time to time is very pleasant.

  The smoke ever and anon compelled us to move round to the opposite side.

  The sap which flowed from some maple boughs which I cut froze in large drops at the end.

  How came sap there now ?

 It is remarkable that many men will go with eagerness to Walden Pond in the winter to fish for pickerel and yet not seem to care for the landscape.

  Of course it cannot be merely for the pickerel they may catch; there is some adventure in it; but any love of nature which they may feel is certainly very slight and indefinite.

  They call it going a - fishing, and so indeed it is, though, perchance, their natures know better.

  Now I go a - fishing and a - hunting every day, but omit the fish and the game, which are the least important part.

  I have learned to do without them.

  They were indispensable only as long as I was a boy. 

 I am encouraged when I see a dozen villagers drawn to Walden Pond to spend a day in fishing through the ice, and suspect that I have more fellows than I knew, but I am disappointed and surprised to find that they lay all the stress on the fish which they catch or fail to catch, and on nothing else, as if there were nothing else to be caught.

  When we got off at some distance from our fire, returning, we saw a light bluish smoke rising as high as the woods above it, though we had not perceived it before, and thought that no one could have detected us.

  At the fall on Clematis Brook the forms of the ice were admirable.

  The coarse spray had frozen as it fell on the rocks, and formed shell - like crusts over them, with irregular but beautifully clear and sparkling surfaces like egg - shaped diamonds, each being the top of a club - shaped and branched fungus icicle.

  This spray had improved the least core —as the dead and slender rushes drooping over the water - and formed larger icicles about them, shaped exactly like horns, skulls often attached, or roots On similar slight limbs there out from the shore and rocks all fantastic forms, with broader ter bases, from which hung stalactites of ice; and on logs in the water were perfect ice fungi with the of horns.

  were built sorts of and flat of all sizes, under which the water gurgled, flat underneath and hemi spherical.

  A form like this would project over the six inches deep by four or five in and a foot long, held by the but with a slight weed for core.

  could take off the incrustations rocks, water : width rocks, You on the turn Looking down on it them up, and they were perfect shells.

 

 

 

 

**** 

 

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.

  In civilized nations there are those answering to the rain - makers and sorcerers of savages,

  Also this office ' is universal among savage tribes.

Bitter, cutting, cold northwest wind on causeway, stiffening the face, freezing the ears.