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.
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.
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.
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.")
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
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