A Book of the Seasons: January 3 (It is now fairly winter, winter colors, winter landscape, twilight lingers, the day seems longer)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

January 3

From the Peak I look 

over the wintry landscape

as twilight lingers. 

January 3, 1854

The ground has been bare for some days, and the weather warm. January 3, 1852

Having had rain within a few days on the four or five inches of snow there was, making slosh of it without melting the hard frozen ground, the slosh and surface water have now frozen, making it pretty good skating in the roads generally. January 3, 1859

The slosh on Walden had so much water in it that it has now frozen perfectly smooth and looks like a semitransparent marble. January 3, 1858

Snows again. About two inches have fallen in the night, but it turns to a fine mist. It was a damp snow. January 3, 1856

Snows all day, falling level, without wind, a moist and heavy snow. Snowed part of the night also. January 3, 1857

From the Peak, I look over the wintry landscape. First there is the white ground, then the dark, dulled green of evergreens, then the reddish brown of the oaks, which generally retain their leaves, then the gray of maples and other trees, which are bare. Modest Quaker colors seen above the snow.   January 3, 1854

Now, when all the fields and meadows are covered deep with snow, the warm-colored shoots of osiers, red and yellow, rising above it, remind me of flames. January 3, 1856

In the river meadows and on the (perhaps moist) sides of the hill, how common and conspicuous the brown spear-heads of the hardhack, above the snow, and looking black by contrast with it! January 3, 1856

Many of the clusters of the smooth sumach are now a very dark crimson.  January 3, 1859

Going to the Andromeda Ponds, I was greeted by the warm brown-red glow of the Andromeda calyculata toward the sun. I see where I have been through, the more reddish under sides apparently being turned up. It is long since a human friend has met me with such a glow.  January 3, 1858

I see a flock of F. hyemalis this afternoon, the weather is hitherto so warm. January 3, 1858

Saw four snow buntings by the railroad causeway, just this side the cut, quite tame. . . . They were busily eating the seed of the piper grass on the embankment there, and it was strewn over the snow by them like oats in a stable. January 3, 1860

As we passed the almshouse brook this pleasant winter afternoon, at 2.30 p. m. (perhaps 20°, for it was 10° when I got home at 4.45), I saw vapor curling along over the open part by the roadside. January 3, 1860

The most we saw, on the pond and after, was a peculiar track amid the men and dog tracks, which we took to be a fox-track, for he trailed his feet, leaving a mark, in a peculiar manner, and showed his wildness by his turning off the road. January 3, 1860

Melvin thinks that the musquash eat more clams now than ever, and that they leave the shells in heaps under the ice. As the river falls it leaves them space enough under the ice along the meadow's edge and bushes. I think he is right. January 3, 1860

When a locomotive came in, just before the sun set, I saw a small cloud blown away from it which was a very rare but distinct violet purple. January 3, 1860

The third considerable snow-storm. January 3, 1861

It is now fairly winter. We have passed the line, have put the autumn behind us, have forgotten what these withered herbs that rise above the snow here and there are, what flowers they ever bore. January 3, 1861

The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer. January 3, 1854

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Colors

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau.  the osier in Winter and early Spring

*****

November 8, 1858 ("I admire again about this time the still bright red or crimson fruit of the sumach")

November 27, 1857 (“Returning, I see a fox run across the road in the twilight . . . I feel a certain respect for him, . . ., he still maintains himself free and wild in our midst.”)

November 24, 1857 ("Looking toward the sun, the andromeda in front of me is a very warm red brown and on either side of me, a pale silvery brown; looking from the sun, a uniform pale brown")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified . . . Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot.")

December 21, 1859 ("The incipient slosh of yesterday is now frozen, and makes good sleighing and a foundation for more.") 

December 28, 1856 ("Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here.")

December 29, 1856 ("Do not the F. hyemalis, lingering yet, and the numerous tree sparrows foretell an open winter?")

January 1, 1854 ("[A] moist and heavy snow. It is about six inches in all this day.”)

January 2, 1856 ("Crossing the railroad at the Heywood meadow, I see some snow buntings rise from the side of the embankment, and with surging, rolling flight wing their way up through the cut. . . Returning, I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed . . . They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.")

January 6, 1856 (" While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard . . .  What a pity our yard was made so tidy in the fall with rake and fire, and we have now no tall crop of weeds rising above this snow to invite these birds! ")

January 6, 1859 ("Near Nut Meadow Brook, on the Jimmy Miles road, I see a flock of snow buntings. They are feeding exclusively on that ragged weed which I take to be Roman wormwood. ")

January 7, 1857 ("This snow which fell last Saturday so moist and heavy is now surprisingly dry and light and powdery.")

January 10,1855 ("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.”)

February 5, 1854 ("Here was one track that crossed the road, — did not turn in it like a dog, — track of a wilder life. How distinct from the others! Such as was made before roads were, as if the road were a more recent track.")

January 3, 2022

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

January 2 <<<<<<<<  January 3 >>>>>>>> January 4

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