I am part of one great creature.

January 12

January 12, 2019

After a spitting of snow in the forenoon, I see the blue sky here and there, and the sun is coming out. It is still and warm. The earth is two thirds bare. I walk along the Mill Brook below Emerson’s, looking into it for some life.

Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we leap by the side of the open brooks! What beauty in the running brooks! What life! What society! The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core, far, far within. 

It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls. Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for wildness, for crows that will not alight within gunshot! and bless him for hens, too, that croak and cackle in the yard!

Where are the shiners now, and the trout? I see none in the brook. Have the former descended to the deep water of the river? Ah, may I be there to see when they go down! Why can they not tell me? Or gone into the mud? There are few or no insects for them now. 

The strong scent of this red oak, just split and corded, is a slight compensation for the loss of the tree. 

How cheering the sight of the evergreens now, on the forest floor, the various pyrolas, etc., fresh as in summer! 

What is that mint whose seed-vessels rubbed are so spicy to smell—minty—at the further end of the pond by the Gourgas wood-lot? 

On Flint’s Pond I find Nat Rice fishing. He has not caught one. I asked him what he thought the best time to fish. He said, “When the wind first comes south after a cold spell, on a bright morning.”

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.

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

Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. See October 26, 1853 ("It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show") See also 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

The warmth of the sun on our backs. See January 31, 1854 ("The wind is more southerly, and now the warmth of the sun prevails, and is felt on the back.”); July 21, 1853 ("The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I have to shade my face with my hands")

I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. See November 11, 1853 ("I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood.”); February 12, 1855 ("As usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance. “) See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows

I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls. See February 20, 1857 ("What is the relation between a bird and the ear that appreciates its melody, to whom, perchance, it is more charming and significant than to any else? Certainly they are intimately related, and the one was made for the other. . . . I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. “);  May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night.  . . .  One with the rocks and with us.”); August 3, 1852 (“By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, ”)

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. See January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale.");  January 10, 1856 ("We are reduced to admire buds, even like the partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice, —the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, the rapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and cracked blueberry. Even a little shining bud which lies sleeping behind its twig and dreaming of spring, perhaps half concealed by ice, is object enough."); January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds, including, perhaps, sprouts! — the impregnable, vivacious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs; the birch and oak sprouts, and the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts; the round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink, etc.")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

I see the blue sky

and the sun is coming out. 

It is still and warm.

The tender buds are 

spring rolled up packed with summer –

the hope of the year.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  I am part of one great creature

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-550112

Air thick with snowflakes

January 11

P. M. — Skated to Lee’s Bridge and Farrar’s Swamp -— call it Otter Swamp.

A fine snow has just begun to fall, so we make haste to improve the skating before it is too late. Our skates make tracks often nearly an inch broad in the slight snow which soon covers the ice. 

All along the shores and about the islets the water broadly overflows the ice of the meadows, and frequently we have to skate through it, making it fly. The snow soon shows where the water is. 

It is a pleasant time to skate, so still, and the air so thick with snowflakes that the outline of near hills is seen against it and not against the more distant and higher hills. 

Single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon.

The ground, which was two thirds bare before, began to gray about Fair Haven Pond, as if it were all rocks.

There were many of those grubs and caterpillars on the ice half a dozen rods from shore, some sunk deep into it.  

This air, thick with snowflakes, making a background, enables me to detect a very picturesque clump of trees on an islet at Pole Brook,—a red oak in midst, with birches on each side.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 11, 1855

A fine snow has just begun to fall, so we make haste to improve the skating before it is too late. See February 3, 1855 ("It is a novel experience, this skating through snow, some times a mile without a bare spot, this blustering day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

Single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon. See April 22, 1852 ("The mist to-day makes those near distances which Gilpin tells of."); August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects"); September 20, 1857 ("The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark."); November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects.");  December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable"); February 16, 1860 ( The snow being spread for a background, while the storm still raging confines your view to near objects, each apple tree is distinctly outlined against it.") 

There were many of those grubs and caterpillars on the ice. See January 8, 1855 ("I see various caterpillars and grubs on the snow and in one place a reddish ant about a third of an inch long walking off."); January 24, 1859 ("I see an abundance of caterpillars of various kinds on the ice of the meadows . . . Many of them are frozen in yet, some for two thirds their length, yet all are alive.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active

This air, thick with snowflakes, making a background, enables me to detect a very picturesque clump of trees on an islet. See December 28, 1852 ("A clump of birches raying out from one centre make a more agreeable object than a single tree."); January 9, 1860 ("I am interested by a clump of young canoe birches on the hillside shore of the pond")

January 11. See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 11

Air thick with snowflakes –

close objects stand out against 

a near horizon.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Air thick with snowflakes

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-550111

Translucent leaves lit up like cathedral windows

January 10

January 10, 2025

To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again, and they are carting home the mud which was dug out last fall, in great frozen masses.

The twigs of the Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath, project above the ice, the tallest twigs recurved at top, with the leaves standing up on the upper side like teeth of a rake.

Then there is the Andromeda calyculata, its leaves appressed to the twigs, pale-brown beneath, reddish above, with minute whitish dots. As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish.

The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened.

At European Cranberry Swamp, I see great quanities of the seeds of that low three-celled rush or sedge, about the edge of the pool on the ice, black and elliptical, looking like the droppings of mice, so thick in many places that by absorbing the sun’s heat they had melted an inch or more into the ice.

Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 10, 1855

The Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath. See July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon.“)

Beck Stow's. See January 10, 1856  ("I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now") See also July 17, 1852 ("Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! . . . deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step . . . and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish. See April 17, 1852 ("Chancing to turn round, I was surprised to see that all this pond-hole also was filled with the same warm brownish-red-colored andromeda. The fact was I was opposite to the sun, but from every other position I saw only the sun reflected from the surface of the andromeda leaves, which gave the whole a grayish-brown hue tinged with red; but from this position alone I saw, as it were, through the leaves which the opposite sun lit up, giving to the whole this charming warm, what I call Indian, red color, — the mellowest, the ripest, red imbrowned color;. . . that warm, rich red tinge, surpassing cathedral windows”); April 19, 1852 ("These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

The great buds of the swamp-pink. See January 31, 1854 ("I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplar, and the sweet- gale"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

European Cranberry Swamp.[Gowing's Swamp] See August 30, 1856 ("To Vaccinium Oxycoccus Swamp . . . I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, which Emerson says is the common cranberry of the north of Europe.").")

Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual. See November 25, 1860 (“I see a very great collection of crows far and wide on the meadows, evidently gathered by this cold and blustering weather.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

January 10. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, January 10

The andromeda  –

translucent leaves lit up like

cathedral windows.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Translucent leaves lit up like cathedral windows

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-550110

* * * * * *

We are up to the ridge again it is colder tonight perhaps 14° snow is slippery there are fox and coyote tracks on the way up and we don't stop at the view because of the cold and on the ridge in back we find a bobcat track that follows the trail along our own tracks up the ridge. For the first time this winter we walk on the ice on the pond and a new tree has fallen across the shortcut right above the driveway. Such a remarkable thing to be out in the cold in the woods with the bobcat this is the single thing to remember about today .

A fresh bobcat track

follows the trail up the ridge

along our old tracks.

Zphx20150110

Bog Laurel!

January 9.

 January 9, 2015

A cloudy day, threatening snow; wet under foot. 

How pretty the evergreen radical shoots of the St. John’s-wort now exposed, partly red or lake, various species of it. Have they not grown since fall? I put a stone at the end of one to try it. A little wreath of green and red lying along on the muddy ground amid the melting snows. 

I am attracted at this season by the fine bright-red buds of the privet andromeda, sleeping couchant along the slender light-brown twigs. They look brightest against a dark ground.

Walk up on the river a piece above the Holden Swamp, though there are very few places where I can get on to it, it has so melted along the shore and on the meadows. The ice over the channel looks dangerously dark and rotten in spots.

This winter I hear the axe in almost every wood of any consequence left standing in the township.

Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.

Very delicate evergreen opposite linear leaves, strongly revolute, somewhat reddish-green above, the blossom-buds quite conspicuous. The whole aspect more tender and yellowish than the Andromeda Polifolia. The pretty little blossom-buds arranged crosswise in the axils of the leaves as you look down on them.

(Sometimes a lost man will be so beside himself that he will not have sense enough to trace back his own tracks in the snow.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 9, 1855


Andromeda calyculata is the leather-leaf or dwarf Cassandra (Chamaedaphne calculata). The Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel  or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust . . ., I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia. See  July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. "); February 4, 1858 ("Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc")

This winter I hear the axe in almost every wood of any consequence left standing in the township. See December 19, 1851 ("In all woods is heard now far and near the sound of the woodchopper's axe, a twilight sound, now in the night of the year, men having come out for fuel to the forests, as if men had stolen forth in the arctic night to get fuel to keep their fires a-going.") January 8, 1852 ("Even as early as 3 o'clock these winter afternoons the axes in the woods sound like nightfall, like the sound of a twilight labor."); January 21, 1852 ("This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever. . . Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!"); February 17, 1852 ("The shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day"); March 11, 1852 (The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing?"). 

The sky reflected in the open river-reach, now perfectly smooth.

January 8

Still warm and cloudy, but with a great crescent of clear sky increasing in the north by west. The streets are washed bare down to the ice. 

January 8, 2023

It is pleasant to see the sky reflected in the open river-reach, now perfectly smooth.

10 A. M. — To Easterbrooks place 'via old mill site. 

It is now a clear warm and sunny day. There is a healthy earthy sound of cock-crowing. I hear a few chickadees near at hand, and hear and see jays further off, and, as yesterday, a crow sitting sentinel on an apple tree. Soon he gives the alarm, and several more take their places near him. Then off they flap with their caw of various hoarseness.

I see various caterpillars and grubs on the snow and in one place a reddish ant about a third of an inch long walking off. 

In the swamps you see the mouths of squirrels’ holes in the snow, with dirt and leaves and perhaps pine scales about them. 

The fever-bush is betrayed by its little spherical buds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 8, 1855

The sky reflected in the open river-reach, now perfectly smooth. See December 14, 1854 ("The river is open almost its whole length. It is a beautifully smooth mirror within an icy frame . . . distinguished from the surrounding ice only by its reflections."); January 18, 1860 ("The sky in the reflection at the open reach at Hubbard's Bath is more green than in reality, and also darker-blue, and the clouds are blacker and the purple more distinct.")

A crow sitting sentinel on an apple tree. See February 27, 1857 ("I see many crows on the hillside, with their sentinel on a tree") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

I see various caterpillars and grubs on the snow. See December 20, 1854 ("If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. "); January 5, 1858 ("I see one of those fuzzy winter caterpillars, black at the two ends and brown-red in middle, crawling on a rock by the Hunt's Bridge causeway."); January 16, 1855 ("Carried to Harris the worms -- brown, light-striped-and fuzzy black caterpillars (he calls the first also caterpillars); also two black beetles; all which I have found within a week or two on ice and snow; thickest in a thaw"); January 22, 1859 ("Four kinds of caterpillars, and also the glow-worm-like creature so common, grasshoppers, crickets, and many bugs, not to mention the mosquito like insects which the warm weather has called forth (flying feebly just over the ice and snow a foot or two), spiders, and snow-fleas"); January 24, 1859 ("I see an abundance of caterpillars of various kinds on the ice of the meadows . . . Many of them are frozen in yet, some for two thirds their length, yet all are alive.")

The fever-bush is betrayed by its little spherical buds. November 6, 1853 ("The fever bush has small roundish buds, two or three commonly together, probably the blossom-buds.")

The sky reflected 

in the open river-reach

now perfectly smooth.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Sky reflected in the open river-reach

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-550108 

January Thaw

January 7

On opening the door I feel a very warm southwesterly wind, contrasting with the cooler air of the house, and find it unexpectedly wet in the street, and the manure is being washed off the ice into the gutter. It is, in fact, a January thaw. 

The channel of the river is quite open in many places, and I hear the pleasant sound of running water. The delicious soft, spring-suggesting air, —how it fills my veins with life! Life becomes again credible to me. A certain dormant life awakes in me, and I begin to love nature again. 

On the slopes the ground is laid bare and radical leaves revealed, crowfoot, shepherd's-purse, clover, etc., a fresh green, and, in the meadow, the skunk-cabbage buds, with a bluish bloom, and the red leaves of the meadow saxifrage; and these and the many withered plants laid bare remind me of spring and of botany. 

Still birds are very rare. Here comes a little flock of titmice, plainly to keep me company, with their black caps and throats making them look top-heavy, restlessly hopping along the alders, with a sharp, clear, lisping note.

I saw what looked like clay-colored snow-fleas on the under side of a stone.

It is a lichen day. The ground is covered with cetrariee, etc., under the pines. How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark! 

It would not be worth the while to die and leave all this life behind one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1855

On opening the door I feel a very warm southwesterly wind. . . It is, in fact, a January thaw. See January 7, 1851 ("January thaw. Take away the snow and it would not be winter but like many days in the fall. ");January 7, 1860 ("A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. ")

Here comes a little flock of titmice. See January 7, 1851 ("The birds acknowledge the difference in the air; the jays are more noisy, and the chickadees are oftener heard.")

It is a lichen day. See 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. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 7

It would not be worth 

the while to die and leave all 

this life behind one.

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

Those silver-gray cocoons so securely attached

January 6

6. P. M. – To Great Meadows. 

January 6, 2013

Saw one of those silver-gray cocoons which are so securely attached by the silk being wound round the leaf-stalk and the twig. This was more than a year old and empty and, having been attached to a red maple shoot, a foot or more above the meadow, it had girdled it just as a wire might, it was so unyielding, and the wood had overgrown it on each side. 

What is that small insect with large, slender wings  which I see on the snow or fluttering in the air these days? 

Also some little black beetles on the ice of the meadow, ten rods from shore. 

In many places near the shore the water has over flowed the ice to a great extent and frozen again with water between of a yellowish tinge, in which you see motes moving about as you walķ. 

The skating is for the most part spoiled by a thin, crispy ice on top of the old ice, which is frozen in great crystals and crackles under your feet. This is apparently the puddles produced by the late thaw and rain, which froze thinly while the rest of the water was soaked up.

 A fine snow is falling and drifting before the wind over the ice and lodging in shallow drifts at regular intervals.

I see where a woodpecker has drilled a hole about two inches over in a decayed white maple; quite recently, for the chippings are strewn over the ice beneath and were the first sign that betrayed it. The tree was hollow.  Is it for a nest next season? 

There was an old hole higher up. 

I see that the locust pods are still closed, or but partially open, but they open wider after lying in my chamber.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 6, 1855

Saw one of those silver-gray cocoons which are so securely attached by the silk being wound round the leaf-stalk and the twig. See December 17, 1853 ("While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln to-day, see a great many — maybe a hundred — silvery-brown cocoons"); December 24, 1853 ("In Weston's field I counted thirty-three or four of those large silvery-brown cocoons . . . The bare silvery cocoons would otherwise be too obvious. The worm has evidently said to itself: 'Man or some other creature may come by and see my casket. I will disguise it, will hang a screen before it.'"); January 19, 1854 ("The A. Promethea is the only moth whose cocoon has a fastening wound round the petiole of the leaf, and round the shoot, the leaf partly folded round it . . . not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share . . . determined how cocoons had best be suspended");  February 19, 1854 ("The light ash-colored cocoons of the A. Promethea, with the withered and faded leaves wrapped around them so artfully and admirably secured by fine silk wound round the leaf-stalk and the twig."); May 17, 1857 ("Two cocoons of apparently the Attacus Promethea on a small black birch, the silk wound round the leaf stalk.") See also January 14, 1857 ("What kind of understanding was there between the mind that determined that these leaves should hang on during the winter, and that of the worm that fastened a few of these leaves to its cocoon in order to disguise it?”)

January 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 6.

Silver-gray cocoons 

attached by the silk wound round 

the leaf-stalk and twig 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Silver-gray cocoons so securely attached

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-550106