Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I recommence life.

January 23.

 8 a. m. — On river. 

Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I see many minnows (may be dace) from one and a half to four inches long which have come out, through holes or cracks a foot wide more or less, where the current has worn through and shows the dark stream, and the water has flown over the adjacent ice, sinking it down so as to form a shallow water four or five feet wide or more, and often several rods long, and four or five inches deep on the side next the crack, or deepest side. This water has a yellowish color, and a fish or anything else in it is at once seen. 

I think that they come out into this thin water over lying the ice for the sake of the sun's warmth. Much heat must be reflected from the icy bottom this sunny morning, — a sort of anticipation of spring to them. 

This shallow surface water is also thinly frozen over, and I can sometimes put my hand close over the minnow. When alarmed they make haste back to the dark water of the crack, and seek the depths again.

Each pleasant morning like this all creatures recommence life with new resolutions, — even these minnows, methinks.

That snow which in the afternoons these days is thawing and dead — in which you slump — is now hard and crisp, supporting your weight, and has a myriad brilliant sparkles in the sunlight.

When a thaw comes, old tracks are enlarged in every direction, so that an ordinary man's track will look like the track of a snow-shoe, and a hound's track will sometimes have spread to a foot in diameter (when there is a thin snow on ice), with all the toes distinct, looking like the track of a behemoth or megalonyx.

Minott says that pigeons alight in great flocks on the tops of hemlocks in March, and he thinks they eat the seed. (But he also thought for the same reason that they ate the white pine seed at the same season, when it is not there! They might find a little of the last adhering to the pitch.)

Says he used to shoot the gray squirrel thus: he put his hat or coat upon a stick while the squirrel hung behind an upright limb, then, going round to the side, he shot him, for the squirrel avoided exposing himself to the coat as much as to the man.

He has stood on the steep hill southwest side of Moore's Swamp and seen two foxes chase a white rabbit all about it. The rabbit would dodge them in the thicket, and now and then utter a loud cry of distress. The foxes would burst out on the meadow and then dash into the thicket again. This was when the wood had been cut and he could see plainly. 

He says that the white rabbit loves to sit concealed under the over arching cinnamon ferns (which he calls "buck-horns") on the sunny side of a swamp, or under a tuft of brakes which are partly fallen over. 

That a hound in its head long course will frequently run over the fox, which quickly turns and gets off three or four rods before the former can stop himself.


For Spring and Blossoming vide Pliny, vol. ii, page 163.


H.D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1860.


Each pleasant morning like this all creatures recommence life.See December 26, 1853 ("The sight of the pure and trackless road up Brister's Hill, with branches and trees supporting snowy burdens bending over it on each side, would tempt us to begin life again.")

When a thaw comes, old tracks are enlarged in every direction, so that an ordinary man's track will look like the track of a snow-shoe See January 8, 1860 ("There are a man's tracks, perhaps my own, along the pond-side there, looking not only larger than reality, but more elevated . . .they look like white stepping-stones"); January 12, 1854 ("I see my snowshoe tracks quite distinct, though made January 2d. Though they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or three inches above the general level there, and more white.");
January 25, 1857 (" I see the track of a fox or dog across the meadow, made some time ago. Each track is now a pure white snowball rising three inches above the surrounding surface,")

Minott says that a hound in its head long course will frequently run over the fox, which quickly turns and gets off three or four rods before the former can stop himself. See January 22, 1860 ("Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent for a while and gain a breathing-spell."); January 30, 1855 (" Minott . . .told how Jake Lakin lost a dog, a very valuable one, by a fox leading him on to the ice on the Great Meadows and drowning him.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

Facing the sun

January 19.

P. M. — Down river. 2 p. m. — Thermometer 38. Somewhat cloudy at first. The open water at Barrett's Bar is very small compared with that at Hubbard's Bath yesterday, and I think it could not have frozen much last night. It is evident mere shallowness is not enough to prevent freezing, for that shallowest space of all, in middle of river at Barrett's Bar, has been frozen ever since the winter began. It is the swifter though deeper, but not deep, channels on each side that remain open

Facing the sun when I reach the lowest part of the Great Meadows, the neck of the Holt, I see that the ice before me, thickly covered with snow, is of two shades, white and darker in parallel sections as far as I can see. This is owing to fine snow blown low over the first - hence white - portion. It is probably the last light snow of the morning (when half an inch fell), blown by the strong northwest wind just risen.

This snow looks just like vapor curling along over the surface, long waving lines producing the effect of a watered surface in motion, a low, thin, but infinitely broad stream made up of a myriad meandering rills of vapor flowing over the surface, curving about swellings in the ice like the grain of wood.

As you look down on it around you, you only see it moving straight forward in a thin sheet; but when you look at it several rods off in the sun, it has that waving or devious motion like vapor and flames, very agreeable and surprising, very interesting to look at.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 19, 1860


This snow looks just like vapor curling along over the surface, long waving lines producing the effect of a watered surface in motion. See January 19, 1852 ("The snow blowing far off in the sun . . .looks like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning.") also December 24, 1850 (" ... like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain."); February 16, 1852 ("I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. . . .like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind."); February 23, 1854 (“The fine snow drives along over the field like steam curling from a roof, forming architectural drifts. ”) February 3, 1855 (" . . .alive with flowing streams of snow, in form like the steam which curls along a river’s surface at sunrise.”); February 5, 1855 (“the fine snow, blowing over the meadow in parallel streams between which the darker ice was seen, looked just like the steam curling along the surface of a river.”)






When I reached the lowest part of the Great Meadows, the neck of the Holt, I saw that the ice, thickly covered with snow, before me was of two shades, white and darker, as far as I could see in parallel sec tions. This was owing to fine snow blown low over the first — hence white — portion. I noticed it when I was returning toward the sun. This snow looks just like vapor curling along over the surface, — long waving lines producing the effect of a watered surface, very interesting to look at, when you face the sun, waving or curving about swellings in the ice like the grain of wood, the whole surface in motion, like a low, thin, but infinitely broad stream made up of a myriad meandering rills of vapor flowing over the surface. It seemed to rise a foot or two, yet when I laid my finger on the snow I did not perceive that any of the drifting snow rose above it or passed over it; it rather turned and went round it. It was the snow, probably the last light snow of the morning (when half an inch fell), blown by the strong northwest wind just risen, and apparently blown only where the surface beneath was smooth enough to let it slide. On such a surface it would evidently be blown a mile very quickly. Here the distance over which it was moving may have been half a mile. As you look down on it around you, you only see it moving straight forward in a thin sheet; but when you look at it several rods off in the sun, it has that waving or devious motion like vapor and flames, very agreeable and surprising.

Down Boston Road around Quail Hill

January 16.

P. M. — Down Boston road around Quail Hill
Very warm, — 45° at 2 p. m. 

There is a tender crust on the snow, and the sun is brightly reflected from it.

Looking toward Billerica from the cross-road near White's, the young oaks on the top of a hill in the horizon are very red, perhaps seven or eight miles off and directly opposite to the sun, far more red, no doubt, than they would appear near at hand, really bright red; but nowhere else that I perceive. It is an aerial effect, depending on their distance and elevation and being opposite to the sun, and also contrasted with the snowy ground. 

Looking from Smith's Hill on the Turnpike, the hills eight or ten miles west are white, but the mountains thirty miles off are blue, though both may be equally white at the same distance.

I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking something from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. I watch one attentively, and find that it is feeding on the very fine brown chaffy-looking seed of the panicled andromeda.

This shrub grows unobserved by most, known only to botanists, and at length matures its hard, dry seed vessels, which, if noticed, are hardly supposed to contain seed. But there is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird.

Though you may have never noticed this shrub, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to it, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seed that falls from it. The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, January 16, 1860


Looking from Smith's Hill on the Turnpike, the hills eight or ten miles west are white, but the mountains thirty miles off are blue, See September 24, 1851 ("You see distinctly eight or ten miles the russet earth and even houses, and then its outline is distinctly traced against the further blue mountains, thirty or thirty-five miles distant."); April 1, 1852 ("The mountains, which an hour ago were white, are now all blue, the mistiness has increased so much in the horizon")

The young oaks on the top of a hill in the horizon are very red, perhaps seven or eight miles off and directly opposite to the sun. See  March 23, 1859 ("The dense birches. . . reflect deep, strong purple and violet colors from the distant hillsides opposite to the sun."); ;April 3, 1853 ("Looking up the river yesterday, in a direction opposite to the sun, not long before it set, the water was of a rich, dark blue — while looking at it in a direction diagonal to this, i. e. northeast, it was nearly slate-colored..");April 5, 1856 ("We overlook the bright-blue flood alternating with fields of ice (we being on the same side with the sun)"); April 9, 1859 ("Standing low and more opposite to the sun, then all these dark-blue ripples are all sparkles too bright to look at.");  November 17, 1859 (“How fair and memorable this prospect when you stand opposite to the sun, these November afternoons, and look over the red andromeda swamp”).  November 20, 1858 ("As I returned over Conantum summit yesterday, just before sunset, . . . I was surprised to see a broad halo travelling with me and always opposite the sun to me, at least a quarter of a mile off and some three rods wide, on the shrub oaks")

Looking from Smith's Hill on the Turnpike. See August 5, 1852 ("From Smith's Hill beyond, there is as good a view of the mountains as from any place in our neighborhood,"); April 1, 1852 ("The mountains, which an hour ago were white, are now all blue, the mistiness has increased so much in the horizon") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, On Smith's Hill and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

*****

I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking some thing from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. I watch one attentively, and find that it is feeding on the very fine brown chaffy-looking seed of the panicled andromeda. It understands how to get its dinner, to make the plant give down, perfectly

 It flies up and alights on one of the dense brown panicles of the hard berries, and gives it a vigorous shaking and beating with its claws and bill, sending down a shower of the fine chaffy-looking seed on to the snow beneath. It lies very distinct, though fine almost as dust, on the spotless snow. It then hops down and briskly picks up from the snow what it wants. 

How very clean and agreeable to the imagination, and withal abundant, is this kind of food! How delicately they fare! These dry persistent seed-vessels hold their crusts of bread until shaken. The snow is the white table-cloth on which they fall. No anchorite with his water and his crust fares more simply. It shakes down a hundred times as much as it wants at each shrub, and shakes the same or another cluster after each successive snow. How bountifully Nature feeds them! 

No wonder they come to spend the winter with us, and are at ease with regard to their food. These shrubs ripen an abundant crop of seeds to supply the wants of these immigrants from the far north which annually come to spend the winter with us. How neatly and simply it feeds!

This shrub grows unobserved by most, only known to botanists, and at length matures its hard, dry seed-vessels, which, if noticed, are hardly supposed to contain seed. But there is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird. Though you may have never noticed it, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to this shrub, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seeds that falls from it.

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow

January 16  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 16

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt1860016

A myriad little suns

January 12.

It began to snow in the night, and this morning considerable has fallen and is still falling. I go forth to walk on the Hill at 3 P. M. It is a very beautiful and spotless snow now, having just ceased falling.

This is a dry star snow. It lies tap light as down. When I look closely I see each snowflake lies as it first fell, delicate crystals with the six rays or leafets more or less perfect, not yet in the least melted by the sun.

January 12, 2024

The sun is now out very bright and going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over the snow surface -- little mirror-like facets -- which on examination I find each to be one of those star wheels fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun.

Such is the glitter or sparkle on the surface of a snow freshly fallen when the sun comes out and you walk from it, the points of light constantly changing.

I suspect that these are good evidence of the freshness of the snow. The sun and wind have not yet destroyed these delicate reflectors. 

The aspect of the pines now, with their plumes and boughs bent under their burden of snow, is what I call glyphic, like lumpish forms of sculpture, — a certain dumb sculpture. There is a wonderful stillness in the air, so that you hear the least fall of snow from a bough near you, suggesting that perhaps it was of late equally still in what you called the snow-storm, except for the motion of the falling flakes and their rustling on the dry leaves, etc.

 Looking from the hilltop, the pine woods half a mile or a mile distant north and northwest, their sides and brows especially, snowed up like the fronts of houses, look like great gray or grayish-white lichens, cetrarias maybe, attached to the sides of the hills. Those oak woods whose leaves have fallen have caught the snow chiefly on their lower and more horizontal branches, and these look somewhat like ramalina lichens. 

As I stand by the hemlocks, I am greeted by the lively and unusually prolonged tche de de de de de of a little flock of chickadees. The snow has ceased fall ing, the sun comes out, and it is warm and still, and this flock of chickadees, little birds that perchance were born in their midst, feeling the influences of this genial season, have begun to flit amid the snow-covered fans of the hemlocks, jarring down the snow, — for there are hardly bare twigs enough for them to rest on, — or they plume themselves in some snug recess on the sunny side of the tree, only pausing to utter their tche de de de. 

The locust pods, which were abundant, are still, part of them, unopened on the trees. 

I notice, as I am returning half an hour before sunset, the thermometer about 24°, much vapor rising from the thin ice which has formed over the snow and water to-day by the riverside. Here, then, I actually see the vapor rising through the ice

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 12, 1860

This is a dry star snow. See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. ...Also I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six-rayed wheel. This must be the chef-d'oeuvre of the Genius of the storm. ..."); January 14, 1853 (" Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw."); December 14, 1855 ("Looking more closely at the light snow... I found that it was sprinkled all over ... with regular star-shaped cottony flakes with six points, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and on an average a half an inch apart. It snowed geometry.") January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals, . . . thin and partly transparent . . ., perfect little wheels with six spokes . . .countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth, pronouncing thus, with emphasis, the number six.”)

Going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over the snow. See February 3, 1852 (“From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface.”); February 8, 1856 ("At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors, one to every six inches, at least. ")

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

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022

.

Snow fleas

January 7.

 A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. From having been about 20° at midday, it is now (the thermometer) some 35° quite early, and at 2 p. m. 45°.

 At once the snow, which was dry and crumbling, is softened all over the country, not only in the streets, but in the remotest and slightest sled-track, where the farmer is hauling his wood; not only in yards, but in every woodland hollow and on every hill. There is a softening in the air and a softening underfoot. The softness of the air is something tangible, almost gross. 

Some are making haste to get their wood home before the snow goes, sledding, i. e. sliding, it home rapidly. 

Now if you take up a handful, it holds together and is readily fashioned and compressed into a ball, so that an endless supply of one kind of missiles is at hand. I find myself drawn toward this softened snow, even that which is stained with dung in the road, as to a friend.

I see where some crow has pecked at the now thawing dung here. How provident is Nature, who permits a few kernels of grain to pass undigested through the entrails of the ox, for the food of the crow and dove, etc.! 

As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas, more than a dozen rods from woods, amid a little goldenrod, etc., where, me- thinks, they must have come up through the snow. Last night there was not one to be seen. 

The frozen apples are thawed again.

You hear (in the house) the unusual sound of the eaves running. 

Saw a large flock of goldfinches running and feeding amid the weeds in a pasture, just like tree sparrows. Then flitted to birch trees, whose seeds probably they eat. Heard their twitter and mew.

Nature so fills the soil with seeds that I notice, where travellers have turned off the road and made a new track for several rods, the intermediate narrow space is soon clothed with a little grove which just fills it. 

See, at White Pond, where squirrels have been feeding on the fruit of a pignut hickory, which was quite full of nuts and still has many on it. The snow for a great space is covered with the outer shells, etc.; and, especially, close to the base of this and the neighboring trees of other species, where there is a little bare ground, there is a very large collection of the shells, most of which have been gnawed quite in two.

The white pine cones show still as much as ever, hanging sickle-wise about the tops of the trees. 

I saw yesterday the track of a fox, and in the course of it a place where he had apparently pawed to the ground, eight or ten inches, and on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse, probably rejected by him. A little further was a similar hole with some fur in it. Did he smell the dead or living mouse beneath and paw to it, or rather, catching it on the surface, make that hollow in his efforts to eat it? It would be remarkable if a fox could smell and catch a mouse passing under the snow beneath him! You would say that he need not make such a hole in order to eat the mouse.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1860

A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. 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, 1855 (“On opening the door I feel a very warm southwesterly wind . . . 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.”); January 7, 1860 ("A thaw begins, with a southerly wind.")

I begin to see the snow-fleas. Last night there was not one to be seen. See January 7, 1851 ("I do not remember to have seen fleas except when the weather was mild and the snow damp "); See also January 5, 1854 (“This afternoon. . .the snow is covered with snow-fleas. Especially they are sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow. These are the first since the snow came.”); January 15, 1852 (“For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. ”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

The white pine cones show still as much as ever, hanging sickle-wise about the tops of the trees. See February 25, 1860 ("The white pine cones have been blowing off more or less in every high wind ever since the winter began, and yet perhaps they have not more than half fallen yet”); March 5, 1860 (“White pine cones half fallen. ”)

1 saw yesterday the track of a fox, and in the course of it a place where he had apparently pawed to the ground, eight or ten inches, and on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse. See  February 2, 1860 (“I have myself seen one place where a mouse came to the surface to-day in the snow. Probably [the fox] has smelt out many such galleries. Perhaps he seizes them through the snow.”)

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

Tracking

January 5.

How much the snow reveals! 

I see where the downy woodpecker has worked lately by the chips of bark and rotten wood scattered over the snow, though I rarely see him in the winter. 

 Also I see where a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top, by the snow strewn with scales, literally blackened or darkened with them for a rod. 

And now, about the hill in front of Smith's, I see where the quails have run along the roadside, and can count the number of the bevy better than if I saw them.

A man receives only what he is ready to receive. His observations make a chain. He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 5, 1860

I see where a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top. See November 11, 1859 ("A flock of goldfinches on the top of a hemlock, — as if after its seeds?"); November 15, 1859 ("About the 23d of October I saw a large flock of goldfinches (judging from their motions and notes) on the tops of the hemlocks up the Assabet, apparently feeding on their seeds, then falling. They were collected in great numbers on the very tops of these trees and flitting from one to another. Rice has since described to me the same phenomenon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

A man receives only what he is ready to receive. See November 4, 1858 (“ All this you will see, and much more, if you are prepared to see it, — if you look for it. . . .Objects are concealed from our view not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray (continued) as because there is no intention of the mind and eye toward them. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of nature are for this reason concealed to us all our lives. . . . The actual objects which one person will see from a particular hilltop are just as different from those which another will see as the persons are different. The scarlet oak must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go forth. We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”)

How much the snow reveals! See February 16, 1854 ("For snow is a great revealer not only of tracks made in itself, but even in the earth before it fell.. . . A light snow will often reveal a faint foot or cart track in a field which was hardly discernible before, for it reprints it, as it were, in clear white type, alto-relievo.”); December 8, 1855 ("Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. .that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen");


   * * *

How much the snow reveals! I see where the downy woodpecker has worked lately by the chips of bark and rotten wood scattered over the snow, though I rarely see him in the winter. Once to-day, however, I hear his sharp voice, even like a woodchuck's. Also I have occasionally seen where (probably) a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top, by the snow strewn with scales, literally blackened or darkened with them for a rod. And now, about the hill in front of Smith's, I see where the quails have run along the roadside, and can count the number of the bevy better than if I saw them. Are they not peculiar in this, as compared with partridges, — that they run in company, while at this season I see but [one] or two partridges together?

A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, we hear it not, if it is written, we read it not, or if we read it, it does not detain us. Every man thus tracks himself through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and travelling. His observations make a chain. The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe. By and by we may be ready to receive what we cannot receive now. . . .

...I find, for example, in Aristotle some.thing about the spawning, etc., of the pout and perch, because I know something about it already and have my attention aroused; but I do not discover till very late that he has made other equally important observations on the spawning of other fishes, because I am not interested in those fishes.

I see the dead stems of the water horehound just rising above the snow and curving outward over the bank of the Assabet, near the stone-heaps, with its brown clusters of dry seeds, etc., every inch or two. These, stripped off or rubbed between the fingers, look somewhat like ground coffee and are agreeably aromatic. They have the fragrance of lemon-peel.

New year snowfall

January 3.

I awake to find it still snowing. Over two fluffy feet perched on the railing obscures half the window.

Where are the cows who strayed in last night to lick the salt on my car? They are gone this morning, their tracks now faint. Did the farmer find them?

The forecast says the snow will continue all day, perhaps to record levels. We'll stay in 'til it ends, with seed for the birds and a pot of bean soup.

Zphx, 1/3/2010

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 3

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