In the path near Goose Pond

January 2.

In the path near Goose Pond I see where the rabbits have eaten the bark of smooth sumachs and young locusts rising above the snow; also barberry. 

Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges, etc., on the snow was a dark indigo blue. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 2, 1855

See January 2, 1856 (“There are the tracks of many rabbits, both gray and white, which have run about the edges of these swamps since this snow came, amid the alders and shrub oaks, and one white one has crossed it. ”)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 2.

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

Between frozen spew and broken ice

January 1.

P. M. —Skate to Pantry Brook with C. 

All the tolerable skating is a narrow strip, often only two or three feet wide, between the frozen spew and the broken ice of the middle.

We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1855

Frozen spew. See December 20, 1854 (The river is "uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking.)

Pink light on the snow. See December 20, 1854 ("In some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge"); December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. "); December 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue"); January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun."); January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. "); January 19, 1859 ("Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening.");January 31, 1859 ("the pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. "); February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”)

January 1. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, January 1

Pink light on the snow –

the shadow of the bridges

dark indigo blue.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Between frozen spew and broken 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-550101

Jan. 1. P. M. —Skated to Pantry Brook with C. All the tolerable skating was a narrow strip, often only two or three feet wide, between the frozen spew and the broken ice of the middle.

Jan. 2. I see, in the path near Goose Pond, where the rabbits have eaten the bark of smooth sumachs and young locusts rising above the snow; also bar berry. Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges, etc., on the snow was a dark indigo blue.

The perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape!

December 31, 2014

December 31.

On river to Fair Haven Pond. 

A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue. The pines look very dark. 

The white oak leaves are a cinnamon-color, the black and red oak leaves a reddish brown or leather-color. 

I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow. Once a partridge rises from the alders and skims across the river at its widest part just before me; a fine sight. 

On the edge of A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow I see the track of an otter made since yesterday morning. 

How glorious the perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 31, 1854

A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The weather, New Year's Eve

The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue. See December 20, 1854 ("The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue as I look back half a mile at them, and, in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge."); January 1, 1855 ("We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue.")

I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow. See December 31, 1855 ("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.") See also November 29, 1858 ("I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top."); December 12, 1859 ("The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge . . . and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice. "); December 22, 1852 ("The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow . . . You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature. ")

I see the track of an otter made since yesterday morning. See December 31, 1853 ("Saw probably an otter's track, very broad and deep, as if a log had been drawn along . . . This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer.");  See also December 6, 1856 (“Just this side of Bittern Cliff, I see a very remarkable track of an otter . . .The river was all tracked up with otters, from Bittern Cliff upward. 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.”);  January 21, 1853 (“I think it was January 20th that I saw that which I think an otter track in path under the Cliffs, — a deep trail in the snow, six or seven inches wide and two or three deep in the middle, as if a log had been drawn along, similar to a muskrat's only much larger, and the legs evidently short and the steps short, sinking three or four inches deeper still, as if it had waddled along.”); February 4, 1855 ("See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers.”); 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 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.”); March 6, 1856 ("On the rock this side the Leaning Hemlocks, is the track of an otter. "); March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!"); April 6, 1855 ("it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen."); February 20, 1855 (among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare."); 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,"); January 21, 1853 ("Otter are very rare here now.”); and the Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Otter

The perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape. See December 31, 1855 ("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 "); See also  December 9, 1856 ("A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape.”); December 20, 1851 ("Red, white, green, and, in the distance, dark brown are the colors of the winter landscape."); January 2, 1854 ("I wish to get on to a hill to look down on the winter landscape."); January 24, 1852 ("The oaks are made thus to retain their leaves, that they may play over the snow-crust and add variety to the winter landscape.")

How glorious the

perfect stillness and peace of

the winter landscape.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape!

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-541231

Lost on the water. Nantucket.

December 29

Nantucket to Concord at 7.30 A. M. 

Still in mist. The fog was so thick that we were lost on the water; stopped and sounded many times. The clerk said the depth varied from three to eight fathoms between the island and Cape. 

Whistled and listened for the locomotive’s answer, but probably heard only the echo of our own whistle at first, but at last the locomotive’s whistle and the life-boat bell.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 29, 1854

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles

If I were home I would try to write poetry.

December 26

December 26, 2023

I walk in the woods with R. It is wonderfully warm and pleasant, and the cockerels crow just as in a spring day at home. I feel the winter breaking up in me; if I were home I would try to write poetry.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 26, 1854

I feel the winter breaking up in me. See December 2, 1859 ("Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth. The crowing of cocks and other sounds remind you of spring, such is the state of the air. "); December 2, 1852 ("The distant sounds of cars, cocks, hounds, etc.. . . remind me of spring. There is a certain resonance and elasticity in the air that makes the least sound melodious as in spring. It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring."); December 29, 1851 ("It is warm as an April morning. There is a sound as of bluebirds in the air, and the cocks crow as in the spring."); December 29, 1856 (“The cockerels crow, and we are reminded of spring.”);  January 31, 1854 ("We too have our thaws. They come to our January moods, when our ice cracks, and our sluices break loose. Thought that was frozen up under stern experience gushes forth in feeling and expression."); March 9, 1852 ("[T]he air excites me. When the frost comes out of the ground, there is a corresponding thawing of the man.”) March 21, 1853 ("Winter breaks up within us; the frost is coming out of me, and I am heaved like the road; accumulated masses of ice and snow dissolve, and thoughts like a freshet pour down unwonted channels.")

December 26.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 26

Wonderfully warm – 

if I were home I would try 

to write poetry.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, If I were home I would try  to write poetry

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-541226

At New Bedford

December 25. 

At New Bedford see casks of oil covered with seaweed to prevent fire. The weed holds moisture. 

Town not lively; whalers abroad at this season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1854

The woods first glaze

December 24

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. 

This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1854

A slight glaze, the first of the winter. This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness. See December 26, 1855 ("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.")