A Book of the Seasons: December 6 (walking on ice, tracking, buds and pinweed)

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

 December 6

I see boys skating

but know not when the ice froze.

So busy writing.

December 6, 1854

The mist is so thick

even the reflected mist

now veils the hillsides.

December 6, 1859

Some plants are now seen

more simply and distinctly

and to advantage.

December 6, 1856

December 6, 2024

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it. December 6, 1858

Though foul weather yesterday, this is the warmest and pleasantest day yet. December 6, 1852

Cows are turned out to pasture again. December 6, 1852

On the Corner causeway fine cobwebs glimmer in the air, covering the willow twigs and the road, and sometimes stretching from side to side above my head. December 6, 1852

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there. December 6, 1852

Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since. December 6, 1852

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs. December 6, 1852

To Walden and Baker Bridge, in the shallow snow and mizzling rain. December 6, 1859

It is somewhat of a lichen day . . .What surprising forms and colors! Designed on every natural surface of rock or tree. . . .How naturally they adorn our works of art! December 6, 1859

And there are the various shades of green and gray beside. December 6, 1859

The mist is so thick that we cannot quite see the length of Walden as we descend to its eastern shore. December 6, 1859

You see, beneath these whitened wooded hills and shore sloping to it, the dark, half mist-veiled water. December 6, 1859

The reflections of the hillsides are so much the more unsubstantial, for we see even the reflected mist veiling them. December 6, 1859

Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze. December 6, 1858

Though it is melting, there is more ice left on the twigs in the woods than I had supposed. December 6, 1859

It is already half fallen, melting off. December 6, 1858

The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. December 6, 1858

It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. 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 6, 1858

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, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. December 6, 1859

I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture. December 6, 1854

Skating is fairly begun. December 6, 1856

The river is generally frozen over, though it will bear quite across in very few places. December 6, 1856

Much of the ice in the middle is dark and thin, having been formed last night, and when you stamp you see the water trembling in spots here and there. December 6, 1856

I can walk through the spruce swamp now dry-shod, amid the water andromeda and Kalmia glauca. December 6, 1856

I feel an affection for the rich brown fruit of the panicled andromeda growing about the swamp, hard, dry, inedible, suitable to the season. December 6, 1856

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 6, 1856

How handsome every one of these leaves that are blown about the snow-crust or lie neglected beneath, soon to turn to mould! December 6, 1856

Though so many oak leaves hang on all winter, you will be surprised on going into the woods at any time, only a short time after a fall of snow, to see how many have lately fallen on it and are driven about over it, so that you would think there could be none left till spring. December 6, 1856

Far the greater part of the shrub oak leaves are fallen. December 6, 1856

Against this swamp I take to the riverside where the ice will bear. December 6, 1856

White snow ice it is, but pretty smooth, but it is quite glare close to the shore and wherever the water overflowed yesterday. December 6, 1856

On the meadows, where this overflow was so deep that it did not freeze solid, it cracks from time to time with a threatening squeak. December 6, 1856

Where I crossed the river on the roughish white ice, there were coarse ripple-marks two or three feet apart and convex to the south or up-stream, extending quite across, and many spots of black ice a foot wide, more or less in the midst of the white, where probably was water yesterday. December 6, 1856

The water, apparently, had been blown southerly on to the ice already formed, and hence the ripple-marks. December 6, 1856

I see here and there very faint tracks of musk-rats or minks, made when it was soft and sloshy, leading from the springy shore to the then open middle, — the faintest possible vestiges, which are only seen in a favorable light. December 6, 1856

I see also what I take to be rabbit's tracks made in that slosh, shaped like a horse's track, only rather longer and larger. December 6, 1856

Flannery tells me he is cutting in Holbrook's Swamp, in the Great Meadows, a lonely place. He sees a fox repeatedly there, and also a white weasel,--once with a mouse in its mouth, in the swamp. December 6, 1857

Just this side of Bittern Cliff, I see a very remarkable track of an otter, made undoubtedly December 3d, when this snow ice was mere slosh. It had come up through a hole (now black ice) by the stem of a button-bush, and, apparently, pushed its way through the slosh, as through snow on land, leaving a track eight inches wide, more or less, with the now frozen snow shoved up two inches high on each side, i. e. two inches above the general level. December 6, 1856

Where the ice was firmer are seen only the tracks of its feet. It had crossed the open middle (now thin black ice) and continued its singular trail to the opposite shore, as if a narrow sled had been drawn bottom upward. December 6, 1856

At Bittern Cliff I saw where they had been playing, sliding, or fishing, apparently to-day, on the snow- covered rocks, on which, for a rod upward and as much in width, the snow was trodden and worn quite smooth, as if twenty had trodden and slid there for several hours. Their droppings are a mass of fishes' scales and bones, — loose, scaly black masses. December 6, 1856

At this point the black ice approached within three or four feet of the rock, and there was an open space just there, a foot or two across, which appeared to have been kept open by them. December 6, 1856

I continued along up that side and crossed on white ice just below the pond. December 6, 1856

The river was all tracked up with otters, from Bittern Cliff upward. December 6, 1856

Sometimes one had trailed his tail, apparently edge wise, making a mark like the tail of a deer mouse; sometimes they were moving fast, and there was an interval of five feet between the tracks. December 6, 1856

I saw one place where there was a zigzag piece of black ice two rods long and one foot wide in the midst of the white, which I was surprised to find had been made by an otter pushing his way through the slosh. December 6, 1856

In many places the otters appeared to have gone floundering along in the sloshy ice and water. December 6, 1856

These very conspicuous tracks generally commenced and terminated at some button-bush or willow, where a black ice now masked the hole of that date. December 6, 1856

When I speak of the otter to our oldest village doctor, who should be ex officio our naturalist, he is greatly surprised, not knowing that such an animal is found in these parts, December 6, 1856

It is surprising that our hunters know no more about them. December 6, 1856

On all sides, in swamps and about their edges and in the woods, the bare shrubs are sprinkled with buds, more or less noticeable and pretty, their little gemmae or gems, their most vital and attractive parts now, almost all the greenness and color left, greens and salads for the birds and rabbits. December 6, 1856

Each pinweed, etc., has melted a little hollow or rough cave in the snow, in which the lower part at least snugly hides. December 6, 1856

What variety the pinweeds, clear brown seedy plants, give to the fields, which are yet but shallowly covered with snow! December 6, 1856

They are never more interesting than now on Lechea Plain, since they are perfectly relieved, brown on white. December 6, 1856

You were not aware before how extensive these grain-fields. December 6, 1856

Not till the snow comes are the beauty and variety and richness of vegetation ever fully revealed. Some plants are now seen more simply and distinctly and to advantage. December 6, 1856

The pinweeds, etc., have been for the most part confounded with the russet or brown earth beneath them, being seen against a background of the same color, but now, being seen against a pure white background, they are as distinct as if held up to the sky. December 6, 1856

Some plants seen, then, in their prime or perfection, when supporting an icy burden in their empty chalices. December 6, 1856

Our eyes go searching along the stems for what is most vivacious and characteristic, the concentrated summer gone into winter quarters. December 6, 1856

For we are hunters pursuing the summer on snow-shoes and skates, all winter long. There is really but one season in our hearts. December 6, 1856

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river. December 6, 1852

10 P. M. — Hear geese going over. December 6, 1855

*****

A Book of the Seasons: First Ice

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Geese in Autumn

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

The world can never be more beautiful than now

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

*****

April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen.")

November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character.")

November 20, 1853 ("Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm")

November 24, 1855 ("Geese went over on the 13th and 14th, on the 17th the first snow fell, and the 19th it began to be cold and blustering") 

November 20, 1858  ("The cinnamon-brown of withered pinweeds (how long?) colors whole fields.")

November 24, 1858 ("It is lichen day.")

November 30, 1856 ("Several inches of snow,. . .. Now see . . .the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust.")

December 1, 1852 ('' At this season I observe the form of the buds which hare prepare for spring.")
December 3, 1856 ("Fewer weeds now rise above the snow. Pinweed (or sarothra) is quite concealed.")

December 4, 1856 ("Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night.")

December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.");See 

December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth.")

December 5, 1856 ("I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too ") 

December 5, 1856 ("The ice trap was sprung last night.")

December 5 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow.")

December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing . . .so that there is quite a glaze.")

December 5, 1859 ("There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves")

The dripping trees and

falling ice will wet you through

like rain in the woods.

Here or there one or

another rainbow color –

a small point of light.

December 6, 1858

December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond”)

December 8, 1850 ("A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home.")

December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year.")

December 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day.") 

December 13, 1852 (" About the base of the larger pin-weed, the frost formed into little flattened trumpets or bells, an inch or more long, with the mouth down about the base of the stem.")

December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but . . .I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")

December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds.") 

December 23, 1859 ("The pinweed — the larger (say thymifolia) — pods open, showing their three pretty leather-brown inner divisions open like a little calyx, a third or half containing still the little hemispherical or else triangular red dish-brown seeds.")

December 24, 1854 ("Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning, concluding with a fine rain, which produces a slight glaze, the first of the winter.")

December 26, 1855 ("After snow, rain, and hail yesterday and last night, we have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had.")
December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales.”)
December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”)
December 31, 1852 (“It is a sort of frozen rain this afternoon, which does not wet one, but makes the still bare ground slippery with a coating of ice, and stiffens your umbrella so that it cannot be shut.")
January 7, 1855 (“It is a lichen day . . . How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark!”)

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, . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran.")

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.")

January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.")

January 26, 1852 ("The lichens look rather bright to-day, . . .The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”)

January 26, 1858 (“This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed.”)

January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him.")

February 5, 1852 ("The stems of the white pines also are quite gray at this distance, with their lichens”)

February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day, - a sudden humid growth.”)

 February 6, 1857 ("Down railroad to see the glaze, the first we have had this year, but not a very good one.")

February 7. 1859("They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes.")

February 8, 1856 ("But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow.”)

February 8, 1857 (“The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through.”)

February 20, 1856 ("See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday.. It came out to the river through the low declivities, making a uniform broad hollow trail there without any mark of its feet. . . .Commonly seven to nine or ten inches wide, and tracks of feet twenty to twenty-four apart; but sometimes there was no track of the feet for twenty-five feet, frequently for six; in the last case swelled in the outline.”)

February 21, 1855 ("How plain, wholesome, and earthy are the colors of quadrupeds generally! . . . The white of the polar bear, ermine weasel, etc., answers to the snow; . . .There are few or no bluish animals.")

February 22, 1856 (“Just below this bridge begins an otter track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river. In the snow less than an inch deep, on the ice, each foot makes a track three inches wide, apparently enlarged in melting. The clear interval, sixteen inches; the length occupied by the four feet, fourteen inches. It looks as if some one had dragged a round timber down the middle of the river a day or two since, which bounced as it went.”)

February 22, 1855 ("Farmer showed me an ermine weasel he caught in a trap three or four weeks ago . . . All white but the tip of the tail.")

We are hunters 

pursuing the summer

on snow-shoes and skates

 all winter long.

 

There is but 

one season 

in our hearts. 

December 6, 1856

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 

December 5 <<<<<<<< December 6 >>>>>>>> December 7

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 6

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

tinyurl.com/HDT06DEC

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look.

September 28.

September 28, 2014

A considerable part of the last two nights and yesterday, a steady and rather warm rain, such as we have not had for a long time. This morning it is still completely overcast and drizzling a little.

Flocks of small birds — apparently sparrows, bobolinks (or some bird of equal size with a pencilled breast which makes a musical clucking), and piping goldfinches 

— are flitting about like leaves and hopping up on to the bent grass stems in the garden, letting themselves down to the heavy heads, either shaking or picking out a seed or two, then alighting to pick it up.

I am amused to see them hop up on to the slender, drooping grass stems; then slide down, or let themselves down, as it were foot over foot, with great fluttering, till they can pick at the head and release a few seeds; then alight to pick them up. They seem to prefer a coarse grass which grows like a weed in the garden between the potato-hills, also the amaranth.

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. They say that this has been a good year to raise turkeys, it has been so dry. So that we shall have something to be thankful for.

Hugh Miller, in his “Old Red Sandstone,” speaking of  “the consistency of style which obtains among the ichthyolites of this formation” and the “microscopic beauty of these ancient fishes,” says: 

“The artist who sculptured the cherry stone consigned it to a cabinet, and placed a microscope beside it; the microscopic beauty of these ancient fish was consigned to the twilight depths of a primeval ocean.

There is a feeling which at times grows upon the painter and the statuary, as if the perception and love of the beautiful had been sublimed into a kind of moral sense.

Art comes to be pursued for its own sake; the exquisite conception in the mind, or the elegant and elaborate model, becomes all in all to the worker, and the dread of criticism or the appetite of praise almost nothing.

And thus, through the influence of a power somewhat akin to conscience, but whose province is not the just and the good, but the fair, the refined, the exquisite, have works prosecuted in solitude, and never intended for the world, been found fraught with loveliness."

The hesitation with which this is said — to say nothing of its simplicity betrays a latent infidelity more fatal far than that of the “Vestiges of Creation,” which in another work this author endeavors to correct.

He describes that as an exception which is in fact the rule.

The supposed want of harmony between “the perception and love of the beautiful” and a delicate moral sense betrays what kind of beauty the writer has been conversant with. He speaks of his work becoming all in all to the worker, his rising above the dread of criticism and the appetite of praise, as if these were the very rare exceptions in a great artist's life, and not the very definition of it.

2 P. M. – To Conantum.

A warm, damp, mistling day, without much wind.

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled, — reminding me of some plants like the milkweed, expanding with maturity and pushing off their downy seeds. They have a singularly soft look.

For a week or ten days I have ceased to look for new flowers or carry my botany in my pocket.

The fall dandelion is now very fresh and abundant in its prime.

I see where the squirrels have carried off the ears of corn more than twenty rods from the corn-field into the woods. A little further on, beyond Hubbard's Brook, I saw a gray squirrel with an ear of yellow corn a foot long sitting on the fence, fifteen rods from the field. He dropped the corn, but continued to sit on the rail, where I could hardly see him, it being of the same color with himself, which I have no doubt he was well aware of.

He next took to a red maple, where his policy was to conceal himself behind the stem, hanging perfectly still there till I passed, his fur being exactly the color of the bark. When I struck the tree and tried to frighten him, he knew better than to run to the next tree, there being no continuous row by which he might escape; but he merely fled higher up and put so many leaves between us that it was difficult to discover him.

When I threw up a stick to frighten him, he disappeared entirely, though I kept the best watch I could, and stood close to the foot of the tree.

They are wonderfully cunning.

The Eupatorium purpureum is early killed by frost and stands now all dry and brown by the sides of other herbs like the goldenrod and tansy, which are quite green and in blossom.

The railroads as much as anything appear to have unsettled the farmers. Our young Concord farmers and their young wives, hearing this bustle about them, seeing the world all going by as it were, — some daily to the cities about their business, some to California, — plainly cannot make up their minds to live the quiet, retired, old-fashioned, country-farmer's life. They are impatient if they live more than a mile from a railroad.

While all their neighbors are rushing to the road, there are few who have character or bravery enough to live off the road. He is too well aware what is going on in the world not to wish to take some part in it. I was reminded of this by meeting S. Tuttle in his wagon.

The pontederia, which apparently makes the mass of the weeds by the side of the river, is all dead and brown and has been for some time; the year is over for it.

The mist is so thin that it is like haze or smoke in the air, imparting a softness to the landscape.

Sitting by the spruce swamp in Conant's Grove, I am reminded that this is a perfect day to visit the swamps, with its damp, mistling, mildewy air, so solemnly still.  There are the spectre-like black spruces hanging with usnea moss, and in the rear rise the dark green pines and oaks on the hillside, touched here and there with livelier tints where a maple or birch may stand, this so luxuriant vegetation standing heavy, dark, sombre, like mould in a cellar. The peculiar tops of the spruce are seen against this.

I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays, who make a great cry about nothing.

The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos, and the button-bush. The balls of the last appear not half grown this season,-probably on account of the drought, and now they are killed by frost.

This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant.  They ray out around the dry scape and flower, which still remain, resting on rich uneven beds of a coarse reddish moss, through which the small flowered andromeda puts up, presenting altogether a most rich and luxuriant appearance to the eye. 

Though the moss is comparatively dry, I cannot walk without upsetting the numerous pitchers, which are now full of water, and so wetting my feet. I once accidentally sat down on such a bed of pitcher-plants, and found an uncommonly wet seat where I expected a dry one. 

These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red. No plants are more richly painted and streaked than the inside of the broad lips of these.  Old Josselyn called this "Hollow-leaved Lavender." No other plant, methinks, that we have is so remarkable and singular.

Here was a large hornets' nest, which when I went to take and first knocked on it to see if anybody was at home, out came the whole swarm upon me lively enough. I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day, unless because the swamp is warmer. They were all within and not working, however.

I picked up two arrowheads in the field beyond.

What honest, homely, earth-loving, unaspiring houses they used to live in! Take that on Conantum for instance, so low you can put your hand on the eaves behind. There are few whose pride could stoop to enter such a house to-day. And then the broad chimney, built for comfort, not for beauty, with no coping of bricks to catch the eye, no alto or basso relievo.

The mist has now thickened into a fine rain, and I retreat.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1851

The white pines in Hubbard's Grove have now a pretty distinct parti-colored look, — green and yellow mottled.  See September 28, 1854 ("R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them. ,")  See also September 29, 1857 ("Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves."); October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish."); October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The fall dandelion is now very fresh and abundant in its prime. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

The pontederia is all dead and brown and has been for some time; the year is over for it. See August 22, 1860 ("Now, when the mikania is conspicuous, the bank is past prime, - for lilies are far gone the pontederia is past prime, willows and button-bushes begin to look the worse for the wear thus early"); September 2, 1859 ("The pontederia leaves are now decidedly brown or brownish"); September 5, 1860 ("The pontederia is extensively crisped and blackened"); September 13, 1859 ("The pontederia spike is now generally turned downward beneath the water"); September 17, 1852 ("The pontederia leaves are sere and brown along the river."); September 18, 1858 ("I see one pontederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks,  and so help conceal them."); September 26, 1859 ("The pontederia is fast shedding its seeds of late. . . . Many are long since bare. "); October 16, 1859 ("This may not be an annual phenomenon to you.. . ., but it has an important place in my Kalendar. So surely as the sun appears to be in Libra or Scorpio, I see the conical winter lodges of the musquash rising above the withered pontederia")

I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays.                                                 

The red squirrels scold

and the jays scream while you are

clubbing and shaking trees.

October 11, 1852

See also September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 24, 1857 ("A red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. It is the sound most native to the locality."); September 25, 1851 ("In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native."); September 25, 1855 ("The scream of the jay is heard from the wood-side."); September 25, 1857 ("Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels."); October 5, 1857 ("I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel."); December 1, 1857 (" I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree. ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos, See September 28, 1856 ("How many fruits are scarlet now! — barberries, prinos, etc."); See also August 20, 1854 ("Prinos berries have begun to redden."); August 23, 1853 ("Barberries have begun to redden, and the prinos, — some of the last quite red."); September 2, 1852 ("The red prinos berries ripe in sunny places.");September 5, 1858 ("To Walden. Prinos verticillatus berries reddening."); September 11, 1859 ("The prinos berries are now seen, red (or scarlet), clustered along the stems, amid the as yet green leaves. A cool red."); September 12, 1851 ("The prinos berries are pretty red."); September 21, 1856 ("Prinos berries."); September 23, 1854 ("Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered. "); September 25, 1859 ("Prinos berries are fairly ripe for a few days"); October 10, 1857 ("To Walden over Fair Haven Hill. Some Prinos verticillatus yellowing and browning at once, and in low ground just falling and leaving the bright berries bare");  October 23, 1853 ("The prinos is bare, leaving red berries."); November 2, 1853 ("The prinos berries are almost gone."); November 25, 1858 ("The prinos berries on their light-brown twigs are quite abundant and handsome.") and note to October 2, 1856 (“The prinos berries are in their prime.”):

The fresh bright scarlet

prinos berries seen in prime

amid fresh green leaves.

October 2, 1856

This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower. See note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.")  See also e.g.  June 12, 1852 ("The petals of the sidesaddle-flower, fully expanded, hang down. How complex it is, what with flowers and leaves! It is a wholesome and interesting plant to me, the leaf especially."); September 11, 1851("We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation?"); November 11, 1858 (“In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. ); November 16, 1852 ("At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day. See September 25, 1851 ("The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance."); . October 4, 1858 ("Hornets are still at work in their nests") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets

September 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 28

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Scarlet berry season.

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/HDT510928

Tall gerardia, one flower only left

August 29.

Though it is early, my neighbor's hens have strayed far into the fog toward the river.

I find a wasp in my window, which already appears to be taking refuge from winter and unspeakable fate.

Might I not walk a little further, till I hear new crickets, till their creak has acquired some novelty, as if they were a new species whose habitat I had reached?

The air is filled with mist, yet a transparent mist, a principle in it you might call flavor, which ripens fruits This haziness seems to confine and concentrate the sunlight, as if you lived in a halo. It is August.

A flock of forty-four young turkeys with their old, half a mile from a house on Conantum by the river, the old faintly gobbling, the half-grown young peeping. Turkey-men

Gerardia glauca (quercifolia, says one), tall gerardia, one flower only left; also Corydalis glauca

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 29, 1851

The midsummer night's moon.

July 20.

 

July 20, 2012

To Nawshawtuct at moonrise with Sophia, by boat.

Moon apparently fulled yesterday.

A low mist in crusts the meadow, -- not so perceptible when we are on the water. Now we row through a thin low mist about as high as one's head, now we come to a place where there is no mist on the river or meadow, apparently where a slight wind stirs.

The gentle susurrus from the leaves of the trees on shore is very enlivening, as if Nature were freshening, awakening to some enterprise. There is but little wind, but its sound, incessantly stirring the leaves at a little distance along the shore, heard not seen, is very inspiriting. It is like an everlasting dawn or awakening of nature to some great purpose.

As we go up the hill we smell the sweet briar.

The trees are now heavy, dark masses without tracery, not as in spring or early in June; but I forgot to say that the moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which seemed to rise faster than it, and threatened to obscure it all the night.

But suddenly she rose above it, and when, a few moments after, we thought to look again for the threatening cloud-bank, it had vanished, or a mere filmy outline could be faintly traced beneath her.

It was the eclipse of her light behind it that made this evil look so huge and threatening, but now she had triumphed over it and eclipsed it with her light.

It had vanished, like an ugly dream.

So is it ever with evils triumphed over, which we have put behind us.

What was at first a huge dark cloud in the east which threatened to eclipse the moon the livelong night is now suddenly become a filmy vapor, not easy to be detected in the sky, lit by her rays.

She comes on thus, magnifying her dangers by her light, at first displaying, revealing them in all their hugeness and blackness, exaggerating, then casting them behind her into the light concealed.

She goes on her way triumphing through the clear sky like a moon which was threatened by dark clouds at her rising but rose above them. That black, impenetrable bank which threatened to be the ruin of all our hopes is now a filmy dash of vapor with a faint-purplish tinge, far in the orient sky.

From the hilltop we see a few distant lights in farmhouses down below, hard to tell where they are, yet better revealing where they are than the sun does.  But cottage lights are not conspicuous now as in the autumn.

As we looked, a bird flew across the disk of the moon.

Saw two skunks carrying their tails about some rocks. Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight.

This is the midsummer night's moon.

We have come round the east side of the hill to see the moon from amid the trees. I like best to see its light falling far in amid the trees and along the ground before me, while itself is hidden behind them or one side.

It is cool, methinks with a peculiar coolness, as it were from the luxuriance of the foliage, as never in June. At any rate we have had no such sultry nights this month as in June.

There is a greater contrast between night and day now, reminding me that even in Hindostan they freeze ice in shallow vessels at night in summer (?).

There is a mist very generally dispersed, which gives a certain mellowness to the light, a wavingness apparently, a creaminess.

Yet the light of the moon is a cold, almost frosty light, white on the ground.

There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard.

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near.

The masses of the trees and bushes would be called black, if our knowledge that they are leaves did not make us call them dark - green.

Here is the Pycnanthemum lanceolatum near the boat's place, which I scent in the dark. It has been out some days, for some flowers are quite withered.

I hear from the copses or bushes along the shore, returning, a faint everlasting fine song from some small cricket, or rather locust, which it required the stillness of night to reveal.

A bat hovers about us.

How oily smooth the water in this moonlight! And the apparent depth where stars are reflected frightens Sophia.

These Yankee houses and gardens seen rising beyond this oily moonlit water, on whose surface the circling insects are like sparks of fire, are like Italian dwellings on the shores of Italian lakes.

When we have left the boat and the river, we are surprised, looking back from the bank, to see that the water is wholly concealed under a white mist, though it was scarcely perceptible when we were in its midst.

The few bullfrogs are the chief music.

I do not know but walnuts are peculiarly handsome by moonlight, -- seeing the moon rising through them, and the form of their leaves.

I felt some nuts. They have already their size and that bracing, aromatic scent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1853

The moon was at first eclipsed by a vast black bank of cloud in the east horizon, which threatened to obscure it all the night  See June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights")

Singular that, of all the animated creation, chiefly these skunks should be abroad in this moonlight. See June 20, 1853 (“ The moon full. . . . Saw a little skunk coming up the river-bank in the woods at the White Oak.”); July 12, 1851 ("I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from me, while the moon shines over the pitch pines")

There are a few fireflies about. See July 20, 1852 ("The stars are few and distant; the fireflies fewer still.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies

You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near. See June 14, 1851 ("How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute!"); July 12, 1851 ("I hear a human voice,"); August 5, 1851 ("I hear now from Bear Garden Hill — I rarely walk by moonlight without hearing — the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice")

It is a lichen day.

December 18. 

Rains. 

P. M. — To Assabet opposite Tarbell's, via Abel Hosmer's. 

It rains but little this afternoon, though there is no sign of fair weather. Only the mist appears thinner here and there from time to time. 

It is a lichen day. 

The pitch pines on the south of the road at the Colburn farm are very inspiriting to behold. Their green is as much enlivened and freshened as that of the lichens. It suggests a sort of sunlight on them, though not even a patch of clear sky is seen to-day. 

As dry and olive or slate-colored lichens are of a fresh and living green, so the already green pine-needles have acquired a far livelier tint, as if they enjoyed this moisture as much as the lichens do. They seem to be lit up more than when the sun falls on them. Their trunks, and those of trees generally, being wet, are very black, and the bright lichens on them are so much the more remarkable. 

I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight. 

Apples are thawed now and are very good. Their juice is the best kind of bottled cider that I know. They are all good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press.

The thick, low cloud or mist makes novel prospects for us. In the southwest horizon I see a darker mass of it stretched along, seen against itself. The oak woods a quarter of a mile off appear more uniformly red than ever. They are not only redder for being wet, but, through the obscurity of the mist, one leaf runs into an other and the whole mass makes one impression. 

The withered oak leaves, being thoroughly saturated with moisture, are of a livelier color. Also some of the most withered white oak leaves with roundish black spots like small lichens are quite interesting now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 18, 1859

It is a lichen day. See   December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”); January 26, 1852 ("The lichens look rather bright to-day, . . .The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”); February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day, - a sudden humid growth.”); January 7, 1855 (“It is a lichen day. . . . How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark!”); January 26, 1858 (“This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed”); November 24, 1858 ("It is lichen day. ").

I see three shrikes in different places to-day. See December 24, 1858 ("Another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter!"); : November 29, 1858 ("I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.”); December 12, 1858 (“See a shrike on a dead pine”);December 23, 1858 ("See a shrike on the top of an oak.”); February 5, 1859 ("I see another butcher-bird on the top of a young tree by the pond.") See also November 4, 1854 (“Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth. ”);   December 29, 1855 (“Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.”);  February 3, 1856 (“see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Northern Shrike


Apples are thawed now and are very good. Their juice is the best kind of bottled cider that I know. They are all good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. See December 19, 1850 ("The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when I get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider. I am astonished that the animals make no more use of them.")

The withered oak leaves, being thoroughly saturated with moisture, are of a livelier color. See  December 4, 1856 ("I have no doubt that it is an important relief to the eyes which have long rested on snow, to rest on brown oak leaves and the bark of trees. We want the greatest variety within the smallest compass, and yet without glaring diversity, and we have it in the colors of the withered oak leaves.");  December 13, 1858 ("A damp day brings out the color of oak leaves, somewhat as of lichens. They are of a brighter and deeper leather-color, richer and more wholesome, . . .their tints brought out and their lobes more flattened out, and they show to great advantage, these trees hanging still with leather-colored leaves in this mizzling rain, seen against the misty sky.")

That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

December 6

P. M. — To Walden and Baker Bridge, in the shallow snow and mizzling rain. 

It is somewhat of a lichen day. The bright-yellow sulphur lichens on the walls of the Walden road look novel, as if I had not seen them for a long time. Do they not require cold as much as moisture to enliven them? What surprising forms and colors! Designed on every natural surface of rock or tree. Even stones of smaller size which make the walls are so finished, and piled up for what use? How naturally they adorn our works of art! 

See where the farmer has set up his post-and-rail fences along the road. The sulphur lichen has, as it were, at once leaped to occupy the northern side of each post, as in towns handbills are pasted on all bare surfaces, and the rails are more or less gilded with them as if it had rained gilt. The handbill which nature affixes to the north side of posts and trees and other surfaces. 

And there are the various shades of green and gray beside. 

Though it is melting, there is more ice left on the twigs in the woods than I had supposed. 

The mist is so thick that we cannot quite see the length of Walden as we descend to its eastern shore. The reflections of the hillsides are so much the more unsubstantial, for we see even the reflected mist veiling them. You see, beneath these whitened wooded hills and shore sloping to it, the dark, half mist-veiled water. 

For two rods in width next the shore, where the water is shallowest and the sand bare, you see a strip of light greenish two or three rods in width, and then dark brown (with a few green streaks only) where the dark sediment of ages has accumulated. 

And, looking down the pond, you see on each side successive wooded promontories — with their dim reflections — growing dimmer and dimmer till they are lost in the mist. The more distant shores are a mere dusky line or film, a sort of concentration of the mistiness. 

In the pure greenish stripe next the shore I saw some dark-brown objects above the sand, which looked very much like sea turtles in various attitudes. One appeared holding its great head up toward the surface. 

They were very weird-like and of indefinite size. I supposed that they were stumps or logs on the bottom, but was surprised to find that they were a thin and flat collection of sediment on the sandy bottom, like that which covered the bottom generally further out. 

When the breeze rippled the surface some distance out, it looked like a wave coming in, but it never got in to the shore. 

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, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. Thus it is alternate snow and seeds.

Returning up the railroad, I see the great tufts of sedge in Heywood's meadow curving over like locks of the meadow's hair, above the snow.  These browned the meadow considerably. 

Then came a black maze, of alders moistened by the rain, which made a broad black belt between the former brown and the red-brown oaks higher up the hillside. 

The white pines now, seen through the mist, the ends of their boughs drooping a little with the weight of the glaze, resemble very much hemlocks, for the extremities of their limbs always droop thus, while pines are commonly stiffly erect or ascendant.

***

I took out my boots, which I have not worn since last spring, with the mud and dust of spring still on them, and went forth in the snow. That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

H. .D. Thoreau,  Journal, December 6, 1859

It is somewhat of a lichen day. See December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”); and note to February 7. 1959("I see the sulphur lichens on the rails brightening with the moisture I feel like studying them again as a relisher or tonic, to make life go down and digest well, as we use pepper and vinegar and salads. They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes.")


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, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. See November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."; )December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.");See December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth."); December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds. "); December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales.”); 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, . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran."); 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").


That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter. See November 28, 1850 ("Within a day or two the walker finds gloves to be comfortable, and begins to think of an outside coat and of boots. Embarks in his boots for the winter voyage."); December 3, 1856 ("The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter's wood.”); December 8, 1852 ("One cannot burn or bury even his old shoes without a feeling of sadness and compassion"); compare March 30, 1860 (“It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel lightfooted.”)

That is an era

when you change from summer shoes 

to the boots of winter.

A little moisture, a fog, or rain, or melted snow makes his wilderness to blossom like the rose.

February 7. 

Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter, and is not this connected with the blue in snow in similar days? 

Going along the Nut Meadow or Jimmy Miles road, when I see the sulphur lichens on the rails brightening with the moisture I feel like studying them again as a relisher or tonic, to make life go down and digest well, as we use pepper and vinegar and salads. They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes. 

That’s the true use of the study of lichens. 

I expect that the lichenist will have the keenest relish for Nature in her every-day mood and dress. He will have the appetite of the worm that never dies, of the grub. To study lichens is to get a taste of earth and health, to go gnawing the rails and rocks. This product of the bark is the essence of all times.

The lichenist extracts nutriment from the very crust of the earth. A taste for this study is an evidence of titanic health, a sane earthiness. It makes not so much blood as soil of life. It fits a man to deal with the barrenest and rockiest experience. 

A little moisture, a fog, or rain, or melted snow makes his wilderness to blossom like the rose. 

As some strong animal appetites, not satisfied with starch and muscle and fat, are fain to eat that which eats and digests, — the contents of the crop and the stomach and entrails themselves, — so the lichenist loves the tripe of the rock, — that which eats and digests the rocks. He eats the eater. 

“Eat-all” may be his name. 

A lichenist fats where others starve. His provender never fails. 

What is the barrenest waste to him, the barest rocks? A rail is the sleekest and fattest of coursers for him. He picks anew the bones which have been picked a generation since, for when their marrow is gone they are clothed with new flesh for him. What diet drink can be compared with a tea or soup made of the very crust of the earth? There is no such collyrium or salve for sore eyes as these brightening lichens in a moist day. 

Go and bathe and screen your eyes with them in the softened light of the woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 7, 1859

Going along the Nut Meadow or Jimmy Miles road, when I see the sulphur lichens on the rails brightening with the moisture. See February 6, 1852 ("Near the C. Miles house there are some remarkably yellow lichens (parmelias?) on the rails, -- ever as if the sun were about to shine forth clearly")

Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter, and is not this connected with the blue in snow in similar days? See  note to February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish."); see also February 2, 1854; ("The shade of pines on the snow is in some lights quite blue."); February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue .");  February 10, 1855 ("I go across Walden. My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow."); February 11, 1855 (“The atmosphere is very blue, tingeing the distant pine woods.”);  January 3, 1856 ("The snow turned to a fine mist or mizzling, through which I see a little blue in the snow, lurking in the ruts.") 

They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes. See November 24, 1858 ("It is lichen day."); December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”); January 7, 1855 (“It is a lichen day. . . . How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark!”); January 26, 1852 ("The lichens look rather bright to-day, . . .The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”); January 26, 1858 (“This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed”); February 5, 1852 ("The stems of the white pines also are quite gray at this distance, with their lichens”); February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day, - a sudden humid growth.”); 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").