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
A fine, clear, cold winter morning --
The sun is rising
and the smokes from the chimneys
blush like sunset clouds
. . .
I hardly get out
a couple of miles before
the sun is setting
. . .
I see the sun set
and make haste with the red sky
over my shoulder.
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day.
December 10, 2022
These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness. December 10, 1853
Going to the post-office . . . I notice those level bars, as it were, of frozen mist against the Walden wood. December 10, 1856
When I return, the sun is rising and the smokes from the chimneys . . . blush like sunset clouds. December 10, 1856
Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze. December 10, 1859
Paddled Cheney’s boat up Assabet. December 10, 1853
Passed in some places between shooting ice-crystals, extending from both sides of the stream. December 10, 1853
Weather warmer; snow softened. December 10, 1854
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. December 10, 1854
Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen. December 10, 1854
Hear the small woodpecker’s whistle; not much else; only crows and partridges else, and chickadees. December 10, 1854
See a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods, at any rate), though it is quite warm. December 10, 1854
Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. December 10, 1856
They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full. December 10, 1856
See the squirrel-tracks leading straight from tree to tree. December 10, 1856
I see the sun set from the side of Nawshawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. December 10, 1856
How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting. December 10, 1856
On my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light. December 10, 1856
The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night. December 10, 1856
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day, the air full of that peculiar vapor. December 10, 1856
The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night. December 10, 1856
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day, the air full of that peculiar vapor. December 10, 1856
What I write about at home I understand so well, comparatively! and I write with such repose and freedom from exaggeration. December 10, 1853
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen . . . though the fullest accompanying description may fail to recall my experience, these rude outline drawings . . . carry me back to that time and scene. It is as if I saw the same thing again, and I may again attempt to describe it in words if I choose. December 10, 1856
December 11, 2011
*********
A Book of the Seasons: by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
*********
April 7, 1853 ("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.")
May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.”)
May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now”)
May 21, 1854 (“The finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.”)
July 7, 1851 (“All the faculties in repose but the one you are using, the whole energy concentrated in that.”)
July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.")
August 5, 1851 (“When the moon is on the increase and half full it is already in mid-heaven at sunset so that there is no marked twilight intervening”)August 19, 1853 (“A glorious and ever-memorable day.”
September 18, 1858 ("It is a wonderful day.")
September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”)
October 10, 1857 (" The sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year.")
October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.”)
October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”)
October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show.")
October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts")
October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown.”)
November 9, 1852 ("Fore part of November time for walnutting.")
November 16, 1850 ("The walnut trees spot the sky with black nuts")
November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up.")
November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk")
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.”)
December 2, 1852 ("I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before. We had to break the ice about the boat-house for some distance.")
December 2, 1854 ("Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it")
December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon")
December 3, 1858 ("All the west is suffused with an extremely rich, warm purple or rose-color, while the edges of what were dove-colored clouds have a warm saffron glow, finally deepening to rose or damask when the sun has set.")
December 5, 1853 ("Now for the short days and early twilight. The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened . . . Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light.”)
December 5, 1856 ("It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. A white moon, half full, in the pale or dull blue heaven and a whiteness like the reflection of the snow, extending up from the horizon. . . like an aurora. . . . The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky.")
December 5, 1856 ("There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. “)
December 8, 1853 ("The twilights, morn and eve, are very clear and light, very glorious and pure, or stained with red, and prolonged, these days.")
December 8, 1854 ("There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm even like a pigeon’s neck.")
December 8, 1855 ("Still no snow, — nor ice noticeable. I might have left my boat out till now. ")
December 9, 1853 ("The third (at least) glorious day . . . with peculiarly long and clear cloudless silvery twilights morn and eve, with a stately, withdrawn after-redness.")
December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”)
December 9, 1859 ("I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. There is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge")
December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day. . . .I hear rarely a bird except the chickadee, or perchance a jay or crow”)
December 11, 1855 ("Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors ")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 14, 1855 (" getting over the wall under the walnut trees on the south brow of the hill, I see the broad tracks of squirrels, probably red, where they have ascended and descended the trees, and the empty shells of walnuts which they have gnawed left on the snow.”)
December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.”)
December 10, 2013
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
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.
December 9 <<<<<<<< December 10 >>>>>>>> December 11
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 10
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/HDT561210
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