Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze.

December 6

Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze. 

It is already half fallen, melting off. The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. 

It is now perfect only on the north sides of woods which the sun has not touched or affected. Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light. 

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1858

To see the glaze. See December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing . . . so that there is quite a glaze."); December 5, 1859 ("There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves"); December 24, 1854 ("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. "); December 26, 1855 ("After snow, rain, and hail yesterday and last night, 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."); February 6, 1857 ("Down railroad to see the glaze, the first we have had this year, but not a very good one."); February 8, 1856 ("But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow.”) See also Yesterday's ice storm today and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Days

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it. December 31, 1852 (“It is a sort of frozen rain this afternoon, which does not wet one, but makes the still bare ground slippery with a coating of ice, and stiffens your umbrella so that it cannot be shut.")

December 6. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 6

Here or there one or

another rainbow color –

a small  point of light.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Go out to see the glaze.

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

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