A Book of the Seasons: December 13 (first walk on ice, tracks, weeds against the snow, oak leaves, surveying )

 

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

 December 13

Leather-colored leaves

seen against the misty sky

in this mizzling rain.

December 13, 1858

Fine dewdrops frozen

on grass bent over the path

like a string of beads.

December 13, 1858

And now I first take

that peculiar winter walk–

sky under my feet.

December 13, 1859

It was a clear cold morning. December 13, 1852

Winter weather may be said to have begun yesterday. December 13, 1852

Now it will be a cheerful sight to see the snows descend and hear the blast howl. December 13, 1855

This morning it is snowing, and the ground is whitened. December 13, 1855

It seems an age since I took walks and wrote in my journal. December 13, 1851

Walk early through the woods to Lincoln to survey. December 13, 1852

Why have I ever omitted early rising and a morning walk? December 13, 1852

When shall I revisit the glimpses of the moon? December 13, 1851

River and ponds all open. December 13, 1852

Goose Pond skimmed over. December 13, 1852

The river is generally open again. December 13, 1856

The snow is mostly gone. In many places it is washed away down to the channels made by the mice, branching galleries. December 13, 1856

There is not so much ice in Walden as on the 11th. December 13, 1858

Goose Pond . . .and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges on the sunny sides. December 13, 1857

You may call it virgin ice as long as it is transparent. December 13, 1857

I see the water-target leaves frozen in under the ice in Little Goose Pond. December 13, 1857

I see those same two tortoises (of Dec. 2d), moving about in the same place under the ice, which I can not crack with my feet. December 13, 1857

The Emerson children see six under the ice of Goose Pond to-day. December 13, 1857

Apparently many winter in the mud of these ponds and pond-holes. December 13, 1857

I see some of those great andromeda puffs still hanging on the twigs behind Assabet Spring, black and shrivelled bags. December 13, 1856

I observed a mouse run down a bush by the pond-side. December 13, 1852

He appeared to be a reddish brown above and cream-colored beneath, and ran swiftly down the stems. December 13, 1852

I think it must be the Gerbillus Canadensis, or perhaps the Arvicola Emmonsii, or maybe the Arvicola hirsutus, meadow mouse. December 13, 1852

Began to snow at noon. This the third snow; the first lasted half an hour on ground; the second, two or three days. December 13, 1852

The countless flakes, seen against the dark evergreens like a web that is woven in the air, impart a cheerful and busy aspect to nature. December 13, 1855

It is like a grain that is sown, or like leaves that have come to clothe the bare trees. December 13, 1855

Now, by 9 o’clock, it comes down in larger flakes, and I apprehend that it will soon stop. December 13, 1855

It does. How pleasant a sense of preparedness for the winter, — plenty of wood in the shed and potatoes and apples, etc., in the cellar, and the house banked up! December 13, 1855

While surveying to-day, saw much mountain laurel for this neighborhood in Mason's pasture, just over the line in Carlisle. December 13, 1851

Its bright yellowish-green shoots are agreeable to my eye. December 13, 1851

We had one hour of almost Indian summer weather in the middle of the day. December 13, 1851

I felt the influence of the sun. It melted my stoniness a little. December 13, 1851

The pines looked like old friends again. December 13, 1851

Cutting a path through a swamp where was much brittle dogwood, etc., etc., I wanted to know the name of every shrub. December 13, 1851

There is a fine mizzling rain, which rests in small drops on your coat, but on most surfaces is turning to a glaze. December 13, 1858

Yet it is not cold enough for gloves even, and I think that the freezing may be owing to the fineness of the rain, and that, if it should rain much harder, even though it were colder, it would not freeze to what it fell on. December 13, 1858

It freezes on the railroad rails when it does not on the wooden sleepers. December 13, 1858

Already I begin to see, on the storm side of every twig and culm, a white glaze (reflecting the snow or sky), rhyming with the vegetable core. December 13, 1858

And on those fine grass heads which are bent over in the path the fine dew-like drops are frozen separately like a string of beads, being not yet run together. December 13, 1858

We stooped to examine, and I observed, about the base of the larger pin-weed, the frost formed into little flattened trumpets or bells, an inch or more long, with the mouth down about the base of the stem. December 13, 1852

They were very conspicuous, dotting the grass white.  December 13, 1852

Though there were plenty of other dead weeds and grasses about, no other species exhibited this phenomenon. December 13, 1852

There is little if any wind, and the fine rain is visible only against a dark ground. December 13, 1858

A damp day brings out the color of oak leaves, somewhat as of lichens. December 13, 1858

They are of a brighter and deeper leather-color, richer and more wholesome, hanging more straightly down than ever. December 13, 1858

They look peculiarly clean and wholesome, their tints brought out and their lobes more flattened out, and they show to great advantage, these trees hanging still with leather-colored leaves in this mizzling rain, seen against the misty sky. December 13, 1858

There is a fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak . . . about thirty- five feet high and . . . very full of leaves, excepting a crescent of bare twigs at the summit. December 13, 1856

The leaves have a little redness in them. December 13, 1856

There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot just beyond on the riverside, now apparently two or three years old, December 13, 1856

I judge from his account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden. December 13, 1852

I go this afternoon thinking I may find the stakes set for auction lots on the Ministerial Lot in December, '51. December 13, 1857

I find one white birch standing and two fallen. December 13, 1857

Thus in six years two out of three stout (two-and-a-half-inch) birch stakes were flat. December 13, 1857

A surveyor should know what stakes last longest. December 13, 1857

In sickness and barrenness it is encouraging to believe that our life is dammed and is coming to a head, so that there seems to be no loss, for what is lost in time is gained in power. December 13, 1857

All at once, unaccountably, as we are walking in the woods or sitting in our chamber, after a worthless fortnight, we cease to feel mean and barren. December 13, 1857

By stepping aside from my chosen path so often, I see myself better and am enabled to criticise myself. Of this nature is the only true lapse of time.  December 13, 1851

We had one hour of almost Indian summer weather in the middle of the day. I felt the influence of the sun. It melted my stoniness a little. December 13, 1851

This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time. December 13, 1851

The river froze over last night, — skimmed over. December 13, 1850

My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. December 13, 1859

It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it. December 13, 1859

Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also. December 13, 1859

If it makes me forget some things which I ought to remember, it no doubt enables me to forget many things which it is well to forget. December 13, 1851

I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me, just along the edge of the button-bushes, where not even he can go in the summer. We both turn our steps hither at the same time. December 13, 1859

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

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

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

*****

March 23, 1852 ("As I cannot go upon a Northwest Passage, then I will find a passage round the actual world where I am.")
April 8, 1854 ("A day or two surveying is equal to a journey")
May 6, 1854 ("It matters not where or how far you travel, — the farther commonly the worse, — but how much alive you are.")
August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village")
August 19, 1854 ("Flint's Pond has fallen very much since I was here. The shore is so exposed that you can walk round, which I have not known possible for several years, and the outlet is dry.")

August 25, 1858 (“The short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta. . . . above, it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath.”)
September 20, 1851 ("A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men.. . . I feel inexpressibly begrimed.")

September 26, 1851("Since I perambulated the bounds of the town, I find that I have in some degree confined myself, - - my vision and my walks.")

October 21, 1859 ("The clump of mountain laurel in Mason's pasture is of a triangular form, about six rods long by a base of two and a third rod")

November 1, 1858 ("Take the shortest way round and stay at home. A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. Here, of course, is all that you love, all that you expect, all that you are.")

November 14, 1851 ("Surveying the Ministerial Lot in the southwestern part of the town.")

November 18, 1851 ("Surveying these days the Ministerial Lot.")

November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character.");

November 20, 1851("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man")

November 20, 1858 ("The cinnamon-brown of withered pinweeds (how long?) colors whole fields.")
November 21, 1852 ("I am surprised this afternoon to find the river skimmed over in some places, and Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over”)

November 23, 1852("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over”)

November 24, 1851("Setting stakes in the swamp (Ministerial).")

November 25, 1850 ("Sometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village; the thought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, I am out of my senses")

November 26, 1858 ("Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years.")
November 26, 1858 ("And what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are.")

November 30, 1856 ("Several inches of snow,. . .. Now see . . .the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust.")

November 30, 1855 ("River skimmed over behind Dodd’s and elsewhere. Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.")

November 30, 1858 ("The river may be said to have frozen generally last night.")

December 1, 1856 (“The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm,. . .Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath.”)

December 2, 1857 ("Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice”)

December 3, 1856 ("Fewer weeds now rise above the snow. Pinweed (or sarothra) is quite concealed.")

December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.”)

December 4, 1856 ("I have no doubt that it is an important relief to the eyes which have long rested on snow, to rest on brown oak leaves and the bark of trees. We want the greatest variety within the smallest compass, and yet without glaring diversity, and we have it in the colors of the withered oak leaves.")
December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.”)

December 5, 1856 ('The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear, — wherever there is least current, as in broad places, or where there is least wind, . . “);

December 5, 1852 ("Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is . . . distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter");

December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow")
December 5, 1853 ("Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.")
December 5, 1856 ("The river is well skimmed over in most places,")
December 5 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow.")

December 6, 1856 ("The river is generally frozen over, though it will bear quite across in very few places. ")

December 6, 1856 ("Each pinweed, etc., has melted a little hollow or rough cave in the snow, in which the lower part at least snugly hides.")

December 6, 1856 ("What variety the pinweeds, clear brown seedy plants, give to the fields, which are yet but shallowly covered with snow!")

December 6, 1856("Not till the snow comes are the beauty and variety and richness of vegetation ever fully revealed.")

December 6, 1856("The pinweeds, . . .being seen against a pure white background, they are as distinct as if held up to the sky.")

December 6, 1856 ("Some plants seen, then, in their prime or perfection, when supporting an icy burden in their empty chalices.")

December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond")

 December 7, 1856 ("The pond must have been frozen by the 4th at least. . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick);

December 8, 1854 (" Go over the fields on the crust to Walden, over side of Bear Garden. Already foxes have left their tracks. How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting!")

December 8, 1853 (" Goose Pond now firmly frozen.”)

December 8, 1850 ("A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice. This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.")

December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")
December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,")
December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")
December 11, 1858 ("Walden is about one-third skimmed over.")
December 11, 1854 ("C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th.")

December 12, 1851 ("I have been surveying for twenty or thirty days, living coarsely, - indeed, leading a quite trivial life")

  December 12, 1855 ("The snow having come. . . and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice.")

December 12, 1859 ("Every man, and the woodchopper among the rest, should love his work as much as the poet does his.")

Prepared for winter --

cheerful to see snows descend

and hear the blast howl.

December 13, 1855

December 14, 1855 ("Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.")

December 14, 1850 ("I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited, not having a boat in the summer.")
December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")
December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated. a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet.")
December 15, 1855 ("The low grass and weeds, bent down with a myriad little crystalline drops, ready to be frozen.”)
December 16, 1850 ("The river is probably open again.")
December 18, 1859 (“The withered oak leaves, being thoroughly saturated with moisture, are of a livelier color.”)
December 18, 1858 ("The pond is merely frozen a little about the edges. I see various little fishes lurking under this thin, transparent ice, close up to the edge or shore, especially where the shore is flat and water shoal.")

December 18, 1852 ("Loring's Pond beautifully frozen. So polished a surface, I mistook many parts of it for water.")

 December 19, 1856 (“Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before.”);

December 20, 1858 ("Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.")

December 20, 1854 (“All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly;”);

December 20, 1855 ("I see . . . in now hard, dark ice, the tracks apparently of a fox, made when it was saturated snow.")\

December 21, 1855 ("I here take to the riverside. The broader places are frozen over, but I do not trust them yet. Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days");

December 21, 1857 (" Walden and Fair Haven,. . .have only frozen just enough to bear me, “)

December 21, 1856 (“The red oak leaves are a little lighter brown than the black oak, less yellowish beneath.”)
December 23, 1859 ("The pinweed — the larger (say thymifolia) — pods open, showing their three pretty leather-brown inner divisions open like a little calyx, a third or half containing still the little hemispherical or else triangular red dish-brown seeds.")

December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night!") 

December 24, 1856 (". It is very pleasant walking thus before the storm is over, in the soft, subdued light. . . .Do not see a track of any animal till returning near the Well Meadow Field, where many foxes, one of whom I have a glimpse of, had been coursing back and forth in the path and near it for three quarters of a mile. They had made quite a path");
December 25, 1858 (“I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds.”)

December 25, 1858 (" Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open. One was very near the middle and deepest part, the other between that and the railroad.")

December 27, 1857 ("Goose Pond is not thickly frozen yet . . .in many places water has oozed out and spread over the ice, mixing with the snow and making dark places.”)

December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice");

December 27, 1857 ("Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your obstacles. ")

December 27, 1857 ("Now you walk on the same pond frozen, amid the snow, with numbed fingers and feet, and see the water-target bleached and stiff in the ice")
December 31, 1854 ("The white oak leaves are a cinnamon-color, the black and red oak leaves a reddish brown or leather-color.’)

December 31, 1857 ("I have been surveying most of the time for a month past and have associated with various characters")

December 31, 1854 (" I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow.")

January 2, 1859 (“The color of young oaks of different species is still distinct, but more faded and blended, becoming a more uniform brown”)
January 10, 1851 ("I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of taking walks daily,")

February 13, 1859("Winter comes to make walking possible where there was no walking in summer. . .  I have three great highways raying out from one centre, which is near my door. I may walk down the main river or up either of its two branches")
February 19, 1854 ("I incline to walk now in swamps and on the river and ponds, where I cannot walk in summer.")

December 13, 2019

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 

 December 12 <<<<<<<<  December 13  >>>>>>>> December 14

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 13

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/HDT13DEC