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

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.")

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.");  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. "); See also 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.")

The perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape. See 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")  

 

We spend the whole day cleaning the family room and some of the dust bunnies are the size of sheep

At 11 or so jane suggests we hike up to the view   the fireworks start at midnight and last the right amount of time. we walk briskly home. back by 1230 New Year's day 2015.

arrive at the ridge

just in time for the fireworks
midnight new years eve.

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

At Ricketson’s.

December 26.

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.")

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.")

The finest days of the year

December 21.

It snowed slightly this morning, so as to cover the ground half an inch deep. Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick. It must have frozen, the whole of it, since the snow of the 18th,-- probably the night of the 18th. 

It is very thickly covered with what C. calls ice-rosettes, i.e. those small pinches of crystallized snow, -- as thickly as if it had snowed in that form. I think it is a sort of hoar frost on the ice. It was all done last night, for we see them thickly clustered about our skate-tracks on the river, where it was quite bare yesterday. 

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. Take Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still. 

The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. I see the feathers of a partridge strewn along on the snow a long distance, the work of some hawk perhaps, for there is no track.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 21, 1854

Walden is frozen over, . . .probably the night of the 18th. See December 21, 1855 ("Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove."); also A Book of the Seasons, First Ice.

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. See December 10, 1853 (”These are among the finest days in the year . . .”); October 10, 1856 (" These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer."); May 21, 1854 (“ . . .the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.").

A glorious winter day.

December 20.

7 A. M. —To Hill. 

The coldest morning as yet. The river appears to be frozen everywhere. Where was water last night is a firm bridge of ice this morning. The snow which has blown on to the ice has taken the form of regular star-shaped crystals, an inch in diameter. 

I see the mother-o’-pearl tints now, at sunrise, on the clouds high over the eastern horizon before the sun has risen above the low bank in the east. The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass. 

Here are some crows already seeking their breakfast in the orchard, and I hear a red squirrel’s reproof. The woodchoppers are making haste to their work far off, walking fast to keep warm, before the sun has risen, their ears and hands well covered, the dry, cold snow squeaking under their feet.

P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven. C.’s skates are not the best, and beside he is far from an easy skater, so that, as he said, it was killing work for him. Time and again the perspiration actually dropped from his forehead on to the ice, and it froze in long icicles on his beard. 

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. Cold as it is, the sun seems warmer on my back even than in summer, as if its rays met with less obstruction. And then the air is so beautifully still; there is not an insect in the air, and hardly a leaf to rustle. If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. 

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. 

I am surprised to find how fast the dog can run in a straight line on the ice. I am not sure that I can beat him on skates, but I can turn much shorter. 

It is very fine skating for the most part. All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly; but in some places for a quarter of a mile it is uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking. 

At sun down or before, it begins to belch. It is so cold that only in one place did I see a drop of water flowing out on the ice.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 20, 1854

The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown. . . See December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”); December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, . . .giving it a slight greenish tinge.”)

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. See December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, is as it was designed and made to be.”); December 21, 1854 ("We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. See December 15, 1854 ("I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one . . .. How came they there?”);

The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue . . . and, in some places. . .the snow has a pinkish tinge. See 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.") and note to January 31, 1859 ("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")

Last night was so cold that the river closed up

December 19. 

December 19, 2023

Skated a half-mile up Assabet and then to foot of Fair Haven Hill. This is the first tolerable skating. Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before. 

First there is the snow ice on the sides, somewhat rough and brown or yellowish spotted where the water overflowed the ice on each side yesterday, and next, over the middle, the new dark smooth ice, and, where the river is wider than usual, a thick fine gray ice, marbled, where there was probably a thin ice yesterday. Probably the top froze as the snow fell.

I am surprised to find how rapidly and easily I get along, how soon I am at this brook or that bend in the river, which it takes me so long to reach on the bank or by water. I can go more than double the usual distance before dark. 

It takes a little while to learn to trust the new black ice; I look for cracks to see how thick it is. 

Near the island I see a muskrat close by swimming in an open reach. He was always headed up-stream, a great proportion of the head out of water, and his whole length visible, though the root of the tail is about level with the water. Now and then he stopped swimming and floated down-stream, still keeping his head pointed up with his tail. It is surprising how dry he looks, as if that back was never immersed in the water. 

It is apt to be melted at the bridges about the piers, and there is a flow of water over the ice there. There is a fine, smooth gray marbled ice on the bays, which apparently began to freeze when it was snowing night before last. There is a marbling of dark where there was clear water amid the snow. Now and then a crack crosses it, and the water, oozing out, has frozen on each side of it two or three inches thick, and some times as many feet wide. These give you a slight jolt. 

Off Clamshell I heard and saw a large flock of Fringilla linaria over the meadow. No doubt it was these I saw on the 15th. ( But I saw then, and on the 10th, a larger and whiter bird also; may have been the bunting.) 

Suddenly they turn aside in their flight and dash across the river to a large white birch fifteen rods off, which plainly they had distinguished so far. I afterward saw many more in the Potter swamp up the river. They were commonly brown or dusky above, streaked with yellowish white or ash, and more or less white or ash beneath. 

Most had a crimson crown or frontlet, and a few a crimson neck and breast, very handsome. Some with a bright-crimson crown and clear-white breasts. I suspect that these were young males. 

They keep up an incessant twittering, varied from time to time with some mewing notes, and occasionally, for some unknown reason, they will all suddenly dash away with that universal loud note (twitter) like a bag of nuts. They are busily clustered in the tops of the birches, picking the seeds out of the catkins, and sustain themselves in all kinds of attitudes, sometimes head downwards , while about this. 

Common as they are now, and were winter before last, I saw none last winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 19, 1854

Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before. See December 20, 1854 ("It is very fine skating for the most part. All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly; but in some places for a quarter of a mile it is uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking.") See also note to December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

A large flock of Fringilla linaria over the meadow. Common as they are now, and were winter before last , I saw none last winter. See December 9, 1852 ("They suddenly dash away from this side to that in flocks, with a tumultuous note, half jingle, half rattle, like nuts shaken in a bag, or a bushel of nutshells, soon returning to the tree they had forsaken on some alarm. They are oftenest seen on the white birch, apparently feeding on its seeds, scattering the scales about. "); December 11, 1855 (" The snow will be three feet deep, the ice will be two feet thick, and last night, perchance, the mercury sank to thirty degrees below zero. . . .But under the edge of yonder birch wood will be a little flock of crimson-breasted lesser redpolls, busily feeding on the seeds of the birch and shaking down the powdery snow! . . .There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

Up riverside 'via Hubbard Bath,

December 15.

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice!

I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one five eighths of an inch long. The last has apparently melted quite a cavity in the ice. How came they there?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 15, 1854

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice! See December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct.")

The day is short.

Great winter itself 

reflecting rainbow colors

like a precious gem. 

December 11.

We have now those early, still, clear winter sunsets over the snow. It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.

The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day. You must make haste to do the work of the day before it is dark. 

I hear rarely a bird except the chickadee, or perchance a jay or crow.

A gray rabbit scuds away over the crust in the swamp on the edge of the Great Meadows beyond Peter’s. A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing, making five or six as it were finger-marks.

C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th. I find Flint’s frozen to-day,and how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1854

The morning and the evening twilight make the whole day. See   November 13, 1857 ("How speedily the night comes on now! There is some duskiness in the afternoon light before you are aware of it, the cows have gathered about the bars, waiting to be let out, and, in twenty minutes, candles gleam from distant windows, and the walk for this day is ended.");  November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, . . . In December there will be less light than in any month in the year.”);  November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”); November 30, 1858 (“The short afternoons are come.");    December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”); December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky."); December 21, 1851 ("The morning and evening are one day.");  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")

That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem. See  December 11, 1855("Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle."); see also December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, . . .giving it a slight greenish tinge.”); December 14. 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset.");  December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown"); December 21, 1854 ("Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still.")

A gray rabbit scuds away . . . A partridge goes off. See December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge."); see also September 23, 1851("The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur."); November 18, 1851 (".Here hawks also circle by day, and chickadees are heard, and rabbits and partridges abound. . . .You must be conversant with things for a long time to know much about them,. . . as the partridge and the rabbit are acquainted with the thickets and at length have acquired the color of the places they frequent."); 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.")

C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th. See November 21, 1852 ("I am surprised this afternoon to find . . .Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over”); November 23, 1852("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over.”) ; December 5, 1853 (" Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick.”); December 8, 1850 ("A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,"); December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden."); December 21, 1855 (" Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days"); December 21, 1857 (" Walden and Fair Haven,. . .have only frozen just enough to bear me, “); December 25, 1853 ("Skated to Fair Haven and above.")

I find Flint’s frozen to-day,and how long? See December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river."); December 9, 1856 (“Yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick.”); 

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

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/HDT541211

How quickly the snow feels the warmer wind!

December 10.

P. M. —-To Nut Meadow.

Weather warmer; snow softened. 

See a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods, at any rate), though it is quite warm. 

Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen. 

Hear the small woodpecker’s whistle; not much else; only crows and partridges else, and chickadees. 

How quickly the snow feels the warmer wind! The crust which was so firm and rigid is now suddenly softened and there is much water in the road.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 10, 1854

Surveying for T. Holden.

December 9.

A cold morning. 

What is that green pipes on the side-hill at Nut Meadow on his land, looking at first like green-briar cut off?  It forms a dense bed about a dozen rods along the side of the bank in the woods, a rod in width, rising to ten or twelve feet above the swamp. 

White Pond mostly skimmed over. 

The scouring-rush is as large round as a bulrush, forming dense green beds conspicuous and interesting above the snow, an evergreen rush. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 9, 1854

White Pond mostly skimmed over. See December 9, 1859 (“The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night,”); December 9, 1856 ("There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet"); see also December 11, 1854 (“C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th. I find Flint’s frozen to-day, and how long?”) and A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: First Ice.

Winter comes unnoticed

December 8.

P. M. —Up river and meadow on ice to Hubbard Bridge and thence to Walden.

Winter has come unnoticed by me, I have been so busy writing. This is the life most lead in respect to Nature. How different from my habitual one! It is hasty, coarse, and trivial, as if you were a spindle in a factory. The other is leisurely, fine, and glorious, like a flower. In the first case you are merely getting your living; in the second you live as you go along. You travel only on roads of the proper grade without jar or running off the track, and sweep round the hills by beautiful curves.

Here is the river frozen over in many places, I am not sure whether the fourth night or later, but the skating is hobbly or all hobbled like a coat of mail or thickly bossed shield, apparently sleet frozen in water. Very little smooth ice.

How black the water where the river is open when I look from the light, by contrast with the surrounding white, the ice and snow! A black artery here and there concealed under a pellicle of ice.

Go over the fields on the crust to Walden, over side of Bear Garden. Already foxes have left their tracks. 

How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting! There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm even like a pigeon’s neck. 

Why do the mountains never look so fair as from my native fields?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1854

Up river and on ice to Hubbard Bridge. See December 13, 1859 (“My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer.”)

Winter has come unnoticed by me, I have been so busy writing . . . hasty, coarse, and trivial, as if you were a spindle in a factory. See December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture."); 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 12, 1851("I have been surveying for twenty or thirty days, living coarsely, - indeed, leading a quite trivial life . . .")

Already foxes have left their tracks. See December 14, 1855 ("Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.")

Clear sunset sky, soft and delicate. See December 9, 1859 ("Methinks it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer." )

How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting! See December 8, 1850 ("This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.")

Why do the mountains never look so fair as from my native fields? See November 11, 1851 ("The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another ... to him who has."); August 2, 1852 ("In many moods it is cheering to look across hence to that blue rim of the earth,  . . . These hills extend our plot of earth; they make our native valley or indentation in the earth so much the larger."); September 27, 1852 ("From the mountains we do not discern our native hills; but from our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them."); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); November 1, 1858 ("A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. Here, of course, is all that you love, all that you expect, all that you are.")

To Providence to lecture.

December 6.

I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture.  

After lecturing twice this winter I feel that I am in danger of cheapening myself by trying to become a successful lecturer, ie., to interest my audiences. 

I am disappointed to find that most that I am and value myself for is lost, or worse than lost, on my audience. I fail to get even the attention of the mass. I should suit them better if I suited myself less. 

I feel that the public demand an average man, —average thoughts and manners, — not originality, nor even absolute excellence. You cannot interest them except as you are like them and sympathize with them. 

I would rather that my audience come to me than that I should go to them, and so they be sifted; i.e., I would rather write books than lectures. That is fine, this coarse.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1854

I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture. See 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.")

This winter I feel that I am in danger of cheapening myself by trying to become a successful lecturer. See Thoreau's Lectures Before Walden, Lecture 46 (Wednesday, December 6, 1854, 7:30 PM Thoreau read at Railroad Hall in Providence, Rhode Island his lecture “What Shall it Profit“, in which he argues “a man had better starve at once than loose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.” Over the course of time this lecture evolved evolved into "Life Without Principle.")

The sea level blue

The flying fish 
breaks the surface 
in a flash of light 

with whirring fins
in erratic flight 

skimming the sea level blue.

zphx 20141113

Damp snow frozen solid

December 5.

Very cold last night. Probably river skimmed over in some places. The damp snow with water beneath (in all five or six inches deep and not drifted, notwithstanding the wind) is frozen solid, making a crust which bears well. This, I think, is unusual at this stage of the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1854

Probably river skimmed over in some places. See December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.") December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places . . . Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 5, 1856 (The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear")

We head out around 7 pm in a light snow. thirty degrees. o the view. on the way trim the branches from the hemlock that has fallen over the trial. the valley is illuminated by a dome of clouds back lit by the full moon.  it is light enough to walk without a headlamp where there is snow .  We go over the east side and up the gulf to the top of the mountain and sit. Deccember 5, 2014

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.

December 4.

Down railroad to Walden. 

Walden went down quite rapidly about the middle of November, leaving the isthmus to Emerson’s meadow bare. Flint’s has been very low all summer. 

The northeast sides of the trees are thickly incrusted with snowy shields, visible afar, the snow was so damp (at Boston it turned to rain). This had none of the dry delicate powdery beauties of a common first snow. 

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, 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 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 4; 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

In the midst of the snow.

December 3.

The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night. 

Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1854

The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning. See November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots."); November 18, 1855 ("About an inch of snow fell last night, but the ground was not at all frozen or prepared for it. A little greener grass and stubble here and there seems to burn its way through it this forenoon."); November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness."); November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you."); November 29, 1856 (“[S]nows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen . . .”); December 8, 1850 ( . . ."the ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.”)

Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon. See December 1, 1856 ("Slate-colored snowbirds flit before me in the path, feeding on the seeds on the snow, the countless little brown seeds that begin to be scattered over the snow,"); see also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A sign of Winter

December 2.

Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 2, 1854

See December 2, 1852 ("I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before.”);  December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat, which before I had got out and turned up on the bank.") See also November 26, 1857 ("Got my boat up this afternoon. . . .One end had frozen in.”); November 26, 1858 ("Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual”); November 29, 1860 ("Get up my boat, 7 a. m. Thin ice of the night is floating down the river.”); November 30, 1855 (“Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.”); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in."); December 10, 1859 ("Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze”); December 27, 1852 ("I took my new boat out") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.