Moods and Seasons.

January 18. 

2 p. m. — To Fair Haven Pond, on river. 

January 18, 2024

Thermometer 46; sky mostly overcast. 

The temperature of the air and the clearness or serenity of the sky are indispensable to a knowledge of a day, so entirely do we sympathize with the moods of nature. It is important to know of a day that is past whether it was warm or cold, clear or cloudy, calm or windy, etc. 

They are very different seasons in the winter when the ice of the river and meadows and ponds is bare, — blue or green, a vast glittering crystal, — and when it is all covered with snow or slosh; and our moods correspond. The former may be called a crystalline winter. 

Standing under Lee's Cliff, several chickadees, uttering their faint notes, come flitting near to me as usual. They are busily prying under the bark of the pitch pines, occasionally knocking off a piece, while they cling with their claws on any side of the limb. Of course they are in search of animal food, but I see one suddenly dart down to a seedless pine seed wing on the snow, and then up again. C. says that he saw them busy about these wings on the snow the other [day], so I have no doubt that they eat this seed. 

There is a springy place in the meadow near the Conantum elm. 

The sky in the reflection at the open reach at Hubbard's Bath is more green than in reality, and also darker-blue, and the clouds are blacker and the purple more distinct.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 18, 1860

The temperature of the air and the clearness or serenity of the sky are indispensable to a knowledge of a day, so entirely do we sympathize with the moods of nature. See January 26, 1852 ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.");  February 5, 1855 ("In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau Moods and Seasons of the Mind and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau To Know Nature's Moods

I have no doubt that they eat this seed. See  October 24, 1854 ("The chickadees are picking the seeds out of pitch pine cones"); January 20, 1860 ("I see them pick up the hemlock seed which lies all around them. Occasionally they take one to a twig and hammer at it there under their claws, perhaps to separate it from the wing, or even the shell.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter and A Book of the Seasons: The Pitch Pine in Winter

The sky in the reflection at the open reach at Hubbard's Bath is more green than in reality. See January 9, 1853 ("I see to-day the reflected sunset sky in the river, but the colors in the reflection are different from those in the sky.”); December 30, 1855 (“Recrossing the river behind Dodd’s, now at 4 P. M., the sun quite low, the open reach just below is quite green, a vitreous green, as if seen through a junk-bottle. Perhaps I never observed this phenomenon but when the sun was low”); December 29, 1856 (“When I return by Clamshell Hill, the sun has set, and the cloudy sky is reflected in a short and narrow open reach at the bend there. The water and reflected sky are a dull, dark green, but not the real sky.”);  October 14, 1858 ("Paddling slowly back, we enjoy at length very perfect reflections in the still water. The blue of the sky, and indeed all tints, are deepened in the reflection.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

January 18.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 18

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