Cobwebs

December 6.

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

Cows are turned out to pasture again. 

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. 

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there.  

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

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river.

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1852

This is the warmest and pleasantest day yet.  See May 6, 1857 ("A beautiful and warm day."); December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year"); December 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day.") See also 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 ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

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

Fine cobwebs glimmer in the air . . . sometimes stretching from side to side above my head. See November 1, 1851 ("It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs . . . They have the effect of a shimmer in the air . . . the effect of a drifting storm of light."); October 20, 1858 ("Flocks of this gossamer, like tangled skeins, float gently through the quiet air as high as my head, like white parachutes to unseen balloons.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since. See November 12, 1853 ("Tansy is very fresh still in some places"); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce."); December 12, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge.")

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river. See October 16, 1851 ("To-night the spearers are out again."); November 15, 1855 ("The river rising. I see a spearer’s light to-night.")

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs. See December 31, 1859 ("Do I ever see a small hawk in winter ?"); December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant. . . says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart")