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
Last night was so cold
the river closed everywhere
and made good skating.
.
The voice of the owl
the voice of the wood as well
just before sundown.
December 19, 1856
A faint rosy blush –
horizon without a cloud.
Suddenly sunset.
December 19, 1851
 |
| December 19, 2019 |
Walked a little way along the bank of the Merrimack, which was frozen over, and was agreeably reminded of my voyage up it. December 19, 1856
The night previous, in Amherst, I had been awaked by the loud cracking of the 'ground, which shook the house like the explosion of a powder-mill. December 19, 1856
The night previous, in Amherst, I had been awaked by the loud cracking of the 'ground, which shook the house like the explosion of a powder-mill. December 19, 1856
This is a sound peculiar to the coldest nights. December 19, 1856
Farmer has lately been riding about in the neighboring towns west and northwest, as far as Townsend, buying up their furs, — mink, musquash, and fox. December 19, 1859
Says that Stow is as good a town for mink as any, but none of them have more musquash than Concord. December 19, 1859
He, however, saw but one mink-track in all his rides, and thinks that they are scarce this year. December 19, 1859
Near the island I see a muskrat close by swimming in an open reach. December 19, 1854
He was always headed up-stream, a great proportion of the head out of water, and his whole length visible, though the root of the tail is about level with the water. December 19, 1854
Now and then he stopped swimming and floated down-stream, still keeping his head pointed up with his tail. December 19, 1854
It is surprising how dry he looks, as if that back was never immersed in the water. December 19, 1854
Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new-fallen snow, till I came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. December 19, 1850
I see where the snowbirds have picked the seeds of the Roman wormwood and other weeds and have covered the snow with the shells and husks. December 19, 1850
Yarrow too is full of seed now, and the common johnswort has some seed in it still. December 19, 1859
The smilax berries are as plump as ever. December 19, 1850
The catkins of the alders are as tender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries. December 19, 1850
The dried choke-cherries so abundant in the swamp are now quite sweet. December 19, 1850
The witch-hazel is covered with fruit and drops over gracefully like a willow, the yellow foundation of its flowers still remaining. December 19, 1850
I find the sweet-gale (Myrica) by the river also. December 19, 1850
The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when I get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider. I am astonished that the animals make no more use of them. December 19, 1850
The smilax berries are as plump as ever. December 19, 1850
The catkins of the alders are as tender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries. December 19, 1850
The dried choke-cherries so abundant in the swamp are now quite sweet. December 19, 1850
The witch-hazel is covered with fruit and drops over gracefully like a willow, the yellow foundation of its flowers still remaining. December 19, 1850
I find the sweet-gale (Myrica) by the river also. December 19, 1850
The wild apples are frozen as hard as stones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when I get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider. I am astonished that the animals make no more use of them. December 19, 1850
Walden froze completely over last night. December 19, 1856
This is very sudden, for on the evening of the 15th there was not a particle of ice in it. In just three days, then, it has been completely frozen over, and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick, a transparent green ice, through which I see the bottom where it is seven or eight feet deep. December 19, 1856
The ice is so transparent that it is too much like walking on water by faith. December 19, 1856
I detect its thickness by looking at the cracks, which are already very numerous, but, having been made at different stages of the ice, they indicate very various thicknesses. December 19, 1856
Often one only an inch deep crosses at right angles another two and a half inches deep, the last having been recently made and indicating the real thickness of the ice. December 19, 1856
I advance confidently toward the middle, keeping within a few feet of some distinct crack two inches or more deep, but when that fails me and I see only cracks an inch or an inch and a half deep, or none at all, I walk with great caution and timidity, though the ice may be as thick as ever, but I have no longer the means of determining its thickness. December 19, 1856
The portion of the pond which was last frozen is a thinner and darker ice stretching about across the middle from southeast to northwest, i. e. from the shoulder of the Deep Cove to nearly midway between the bar and Ice-Fort Cove Cape. December 19, 1856
Close to the northwest end of this, there is a small and narrow place twenty feet long east and west, which is still so thin that a small stone makes a hole. December 19, 1856
The water, judging from my map, may [be] seventy or seventy-five feet deep there. It looks as if that had been the warmest place in the surface of the pond and therefore the last to yield to the frost king. December 19, 1856
Into this, or into the thinner ice at this point, there empties, as it were, a narrow meandering creek from near the western shore, which was nearly as late to freeze as any part. December 19, 1856
About the edge of all this more recent and darker ice, the thicker ice is white with a feathery frost, which seems to have been produced by the very fine spray, or rather the vapor, blown from the yet unfrozen surface on to the ice by the strong and cold wind. Here is where, so to speak, its last animal heat escaped, the dying breath of the pond frozen on its lips. December 19, 1856
It had the same origin with the frost about the mouth of a hole in the ground whence warm vapors had escaped. December 19, 1856
The fluid, timid pond was encircled within an ever-narrowing circle by the icy grasp of winter, and this is a trace of the last vaporous breath that curled along its trembling surface. December 19, 1856
Here the chilled pond gave up the ghost. 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 19, 1854
This is the first tolerable skating. December 19, 1854
First there is the snow ice on the sides, somewhat rough and brown or yellowish spotted where the water overflowed the ice on each side yesterday, and next, over the middle, the new dark smooth ice, and, where the river is wider than usual, a thick fine gray ice, marbled, where there was probably a thin ice yesterday. Probably the top froze as the snow fell. December 19, 1854
I am surprised to find how rapidly and easily I get along, how soon I am at this brook or that bend in the river, which it takes me so long to reach on the bank or by water. I can go more than double the usual distance before dark. December 19, 1854
It takes a little while to learn to trust the new black ice; I look for cracks to see how thick it is. December 19, 1854
I am surprised to find how rapidly and easily I get along, how soon I am at this brook or that bend in the river, which it takes me so long to reach on the bank or by water. I can go more than double the usual distance before dark. December 19, 1854
It takes a little while to learn to trust the new black ice; I look for cracks to see how thick it is. December 19, 1854
It is apt to be melted at the bridges about the piers, and there is a flow of water over the ice there. December 19, 1854
There is a fine, smooth gray marbled ice on the bays, which apparently began to freeze when it was snowing night before last. December 19, 1854
There is a marbling of dark where there was clear water amid the snow. December 19, 1854
Now and then a crack crosses it, and the water, oozing out, has frozen on each side of it two or three inches thick, and some times as many feet wide. These give you a slight jolt. December 19, 1854
Withered leaves! this is our frugal winter diet, instead of the juicy salads of spring and summer. December 19, 1856
I think I could write a lecture on "Dry Leaves," carrying a specimen of each kind that hangs on in the winter into the lecture-room as the heads of my discourse. December 19, 1856
They have long hung to some extent in vain, and have not found their poet yet. December 19, 1856
The pine has been sung, but not, to my knowledge, the shrub oak. December 19, 1856
Most think it is useless. . . .It is never seen on the woodman's cart. The citizen who has just bought a sprout-land on which shrub oaks alone come up only curses it. December 19, 1856
How glad I am that it serves no vulgar use! December 19, 1856
But it serves a higher use than they know. December 19, 1856
Shrub oak! how true its name! December 19, 1856
Think first what a family it belongs to. December 19, 1856
The oak, the king of trees, is its own brother, only of ampler dimensions. December 19, 1856
The oaks, so famous for grandeur and picturesqueness, so prized for strength by the builder, for knees or for beams; and this is the oak of smaller size, the Esquimau of oaks, the shrub oak! December 19, 1856
It is not like brittle sumach or venomous dogwood, which you must beware how you touch, but wholesome to the touch, though rough; not producing any festering sores, only honest scratches and rents. December 19, 1856
The oaken shrub! I value it first for the noble family it belongs to. December 19, 1856
Off Clamshell I heard and saw a large flock of Fringilla linaria over the meadow. December 19, 1854
Suddenly they turn aside in their flight and dash across the river to a large white birch fifteen rods off, which plainly they had distinguished so far. December 19, 1854
I afterward saw many more in the Potter swamp up the river. December 19, 1854
They were commonly brown or dusky above, streaked with yellowish white or ash, and more or less white or ash beneath. December 19, 1854
Most had a crimson crown or frontlet, and a few a crimson neck and breast, very handsome. December 19, 1854
Some with a bright-crimson crown and clear-white breasts. I suspect that these were young males. December 19, 1854
They keep up an incessant twittering, varied from time to time with some mewing notes, and occasionally, for some unknown reason, they will all suddenly dash away with that universal loud note (twitter) like a bag of nuts. December 19, 1854
They are busily clustered in the tops of the birches, picking the seeds out of the catkins, and sustain themselves in all kinds of attitudes, sometimes head downwards , while about this. December 19, 1854
Common as they are now, and were winter before last, I saw none last winter. December 19, 1854
As I stand here, I hear the hooting of my old acquaintance the owl in Wheeler's Wood .December 19, 1856
Do I not oftenest hear it just before sundown? December 19, 1856
This sound, heard near at hand, is more simply animal and guttural, without resonance or reverberation, but, heard here from out the depths of the wood, it sounds peculiarly hollow and drum-like, as if it struck on a tense skin drawn around, the tympanum of the wood, through which all we denizens of nature hear. December 19, 1856
Thus it comes to us an accredited and universal or melodious sound; is more than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well. December 19, 1856
The owl only touches the stops, or rather wakes the reverberations. December 19, 1856
For all Nature is a musical instrument on which her creatures play, celebrating their joy or grief unconsciously often. December 19, 1856
It sounds now, hoo | hoo hoo (very fast) | hoo-rer | hoo. December 19, 1856
In all woods is heard now far and near the sound of the woodchopper's axe, a twilight sound, now in the night of the year, men having come out for fuel to the forests, as if men had stolen forth in the arctic night to get fuel to keep their fires a-going. December 19, 1851
Men go to the woods now for fuel who never go other time. December 19, 1851
The sound of the axes far in the horizon sounds like the dropping of the eaves. December 19, 1851
Why should it be so pleasing to look into a thick pine wood where the sunlight streams in and gilds it? December 19, 1851
Now the sun sets suddenly without a cloud– & with scarcely any redness following so pure is the atmosphere – only a faint rosy blush along the horizon. December 19, 1851
All this, I think, I have noticed in previous years. December 19, 1856
December 19, 2021
*****
Walden (“The first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being hard, dark, and transparent, and affords the best opportunity that ever offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow; for you can lie at your length on ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the water, and study the bottom at your leisure, only two or three inches distant, like a picture behind a glass.”)
A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Colors
*****
June 22, 1851 ("The world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure. I awake to its music with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind. . . .And without effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.”)
July 16, 1851("This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains.)
August 5, 1856 ("Choke-cherries near House-leek Rock begin to be ripe, though still red. They are scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See those handsome racemes of ten or twelve cherries each, dark glossy red, semi- transparent. You love them not the less because they are not quite palatable.")September 1, 1853 ("Johnswort, the large and common, is about done")
October 20, 1852 ("Tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed.")
October 27, 1855 (“To appreciate their wild and sharp flavors, it seems necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. They must be eaten in the fields. . . Some of those apples might be labelled, “To be eaten in the wind.” “);
November 3, 1853 ("To-day I see yarrow, very bright ")
November 9, 1852 ("Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus.")
November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy.")
November 18, 1852 ("Yarrow and tansy still. These are cold, gray days.")
November 18, 1855 ("Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves.")
November 22, 1853 ("Yarrow is particularly fresh and innocent")
November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common)")
February 4, 1854 ("I go over to the Hemlocks on the Assabet this morning. See the tracks of a mink, in the shallow snow along the edge of the river, looking for a hole in the ice.")
February 6, 1856 ("He [Goodwin] thinks that what I call muskrat-tracks are mink-tracks by the Rock, and that muskrat do not come out at all this weather.")
February 6, 1856 ("He [Goodwin] thinks that what I call muskrat-tracks are mink-tracks by the Rock, and that muskrat do not come out at all this weather.")
February 17, 1852 ("The shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day")
February 26, 1856 ("I see at bottom of the mill brook, below Emerson’s, two dead frogs. . . .t. Were they left by a mink, or killed by cold and ice? ")
February 28, 1856 ("A millwright comes and builds a dam across the foot of the meadow, and a mill-pond is created. . .; and muskrats and minks and otter frequent it.")
February 28, 1857 ("I see the track, apparently of a muskrat (?), — about five inches wide with very sharp and distinct trail of tail, — on the snow and thin ice over the little rill in the Miles meadow. . . . It is interesting to see how every little rill like this will be haunted by muskrats or minks. Does the mink ever leave a track of its tail? ")
March 8, 1853 ("Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus: the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches by two and a half.")
February 26, 1856 ("I see at bottom of the mill brook, below Emerson’s, two dead frogs. . . .t. Were they left by a mink, or killed by cold and ice? ")
February 28, 1856 ("A millwright comes and builds a dam across the foot of the meadow, and a mill-pond is created. . .; and muskrats and minks and otter frequent it.")
February 28, 1857 ("I see the track, apparently of a muskrat (?), — about five inches wide with very sharp and distinct trail of tail, — on the snow and thin ice over the little rill in the Miles meadow. . . . It is interesting to see how every little rill like this will be haunted by muskrats or minks. Does the mink ever leave a track of its tail? ")
March 8, 1853 ("Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus: the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches by two and a half.")
March 11, 1852 (The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing?").
March 13, 1859 ("I commonly saw two or three in a year. ")
March 15, 1855 ("He [Farmer] sells about a hundred mink skins in a year. . . .He says (I think) a mink’s skin is worth two dollars!”)
March 26, 1855 ("At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river r; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them.")
April 15, 1858 ("I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet.")
April 15, 1858 ("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times.")
April 25, 1860 ("When looking into holes in trees to find the squirrel‘s nest, I found a pout partly dried, with its tail gone, in one maple, about a foot above the ground. This was probably left there by a mink. Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red” yet.")
April 28, 1857 (“It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink”)
April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.")
March 13, 1859 ("I commonly saw two or three in a year. ")
March 15, 1855 ("He [Farmer] sells about a hundred mink skins in a year. . . .He says (I think) a mink’s skin is worth two dollars!”)
March 26, 1855 ("At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river r; perhaps I notice them more at this season, when the shallow water freezes at night and there is no vegetation along the shore to conceal them.")
April 15, 1858 ("I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet.")
April 15, 1858 ("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times.")
April 25, 1860 ("When looking into holes in trees to find the squirrel‘s nest, I found a pout partly dried, with its tail gone, in one maple, about a foot above the ground. This was probably left there by a mink. Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red” yet.")
April 28, 1857 (“It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink”)
April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.")
November 4, 1855 ("It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple.“)
November 6, 1853 ("The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together. ")
November 7, 1858 ("My apple harvest! It is to glean after the husbandman and the cows, or to gather the crop of those wild trees far away on the edges of swamps which have escaped their notice. . . . I fill my pockets on each side, and as I retrace my steps, I eat one first from this side, and then from that, in order to preserve my balance.")\
November 11, 1850 ("Now is the time for wild apples. . . Food for walkers.")
November 11, 1853 ("Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket.")
November 13, 1855 (“Going over Swamp Bridge Brook at 3 P. M., I saw in the pond by the roadside, a few rods before me, the sun shining bright, a mink swimming . . . It was a rich brown fur . . . not black as it sometimes appears, especially on ice.”)
November 17, 1855 ("Saw Goodwin this afternoon returning from the river with two minks, one trapped, the other shot, and half a dozen muskrats. Mink seem to be more commonly seen now, and the rising of the river begins to drive out the muskrats.")
November 18, 1851 ("Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl, — hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo. . . . . It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods, suggesting a vast undeveloped nature which men have not recognized nor satisfied. I rejoice that there are owls. They represent the stark, twilight, unsatisfied thoughts I have. . . This sound faintly suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live")
November 18, 1855 ("Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves.")
November 23, 1850 (“I lay down on the ice and look through at the bottom.”)November 18, 1855 ("Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves.")
November 24, 1859 ("See, on the railroad-slope by the pond, and also some days ago, a flock of goldfinches eating the seed of the Roman wormwood")
November 26, 1858 ("If the pond continues to fall, undoubtedly all the fishes thus landlocked will die.. . .No doubt several creatures, like otter and mink and foxes, know where to resort for their food at this season. This is now a perfect otter’s or mink’s preserve.")
November 27, 1855 ( I told [Farmer] I saw a mink. He said he would have given me $1.50 and perhaps something more for him. I hear that he gives $1.75, and sells them again at a profit. ")
November 27, 1855 ("A mink skin which he showed me was a darker brown than the one I saw last (he says they changed suddenly to darker about a fortnight since); and the tail was nearly all black.")
November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. So strong and cheerful, as if it rejoiced at the advent of winter, and exclaimed, “Winter, come on!”")
December 1, 1856 ("I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me, akin to winter thoughts, and sunsets, and to all virtue. Covert which the hare and the partridge seek, and I too seek. . . . I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak.")
November 27, 1855 ( I told [Farmer] I saw a mink. He said he would have given me $1.50 and perhaps something more for him. I hear that he gives $1.75, and sells them again at a profit. ")
November 27, 1855 ("A mink skin which he showed me was a darker brown than the one I saw last (he says they changed suddenly to darker about a fortnight since); and the tail was nearly all black.")
November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. So strong and cheerful, as if it rejoiced at the advent of winter, and exclaimed, “Winter, come on!”")
December 1, 1856 ("I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me, akin to winter thoughts, and sunsets, and to all virtue. Covert which the hare and the partridge seek, and I too seek. . . . I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak.")
December 1. 1856 ("The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch")
December 2, 1852 ("Above the bridge on the road from Chelmsford to Bedford we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. Not so shy as a muskrat.")
December 2, 1852 ("Above the bridge on the road from Chelmsford to Bedford we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. Not so shy as a muskrat.")
December 3, 1856 ("The pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.")
December 4, 1856 ("How many thousand acres are there now of pitchered blue-curls and ragged wormwood rising above the shallow snow?")
December 5 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow")
December 4, 1856 ("How many thousand acres are there now of pitchered blue-curls and ragged wormwood rising above the shallow snow?")
December 5 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow")
December 5, 1856 ("The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky. ")
December 6. 1856 ("I see here and there very faint tracks of musk-rats or minks, made when it was soft and sloshy,")December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond.")
December 9, 1856 ("I hear only the strokes of a lingering woodchopper at a distance, and the melodious hooting of an owl.")
December 9, 1852 ("They suddenly dash away from this side to that in flocks, with a tumultuous note, half jingle, half rattle, like nuts shaken in a bag, or a bushel of nutshells, soon returning to the tree they had forsaken on some alarm. They are oftenest seen on the white birch, apparently feeding on its seeds, scattering the scales about. ")December 9, 1852 ("A few petals of the witch-hazel still hold on")
December 9, 1856 (" Where does the ubiquitous hooter sit, and who sees him? In whose wood-lot is he to be found? . . .every week almost I hear the loud voice of the hooting owl, though I do not see the bird more than once in ten years")
December 11, 1855 (" The snow will be three feet deep, the ice will be two feet thick, and last night, perchance, the mercury sank to thirty degrees below zero. . . .But under the edge of yonder birch wood will be a little flock of crimson-breasted lesser redpolls, busily feeding on the seeds of the birch and shaking down the powdery snow! . . .There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances.")
December 14, 1850 ("I find a low, branching shrub frozen into the edge of the ice, with a fine spicy scent . . .. When I rub the dry-looking fruit in my hands, it feels greasy and stains them a permanent yellow, which I cannot wash out. It lasts several days, and my fingers smell medicinal. I conclude that it is sweetgale, and we name the island Myrica Island.")
December 15, 1856 ("The hooting of the owl! That is a sound which my red predecessors heard here more than a thousand years ago. It rings far and wide, occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, aboriginal sound.")
December 17, 1859 ("And on the ridge north is the track of a partridge amid the shrubs. It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few")
December 17, 1856 ("When I returned from the South the other day, I was greeted by withered shrub oak leaves which I had not seen there. It was the most homely and agreeable object that met me. I found that I had no such friend as the shrub oak hereabouts. A farmer once asked me what shrub oaks were made for, not knowing any use they served. But I can tell him that they do me good. They are my parish ministers, regularly settled. They never did any man harm that I know.")December 18, 1854 ("Where a partridge took to wing I find the round red buds of the high blueberry plucked about the swamps. ")
December 18, 1852 ("Still the little ruby-crowned birds about" [The Lesser Redpoll, Fringilla linaria.] )December 18, 1859 ("Apples are thawed now and are very good. Their juice is the best kind of bottled cider that I know. They are all good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press.")
December 20, 1854 ("It is very fine skating for the most part. 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, 1854("The woodchoppers are making haste to their work far off, walking fast to keep warm, before the sun has risen, their ears and hands well covered, the dry, cold snow squeaking under their feet.")December 20, 1858 ("Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle")
December 21, 1851 ("Sunlight on pine-needles is the phenomenon of a winter day.")
December 21, 1851 ("Long after the sun has set . . . some rosy clouds will be seen in the upper sky over the portals of the darkening west. ")
December 21, 1854 ("Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick. It must have frozen, the whole of it, since the snow of the 18th,-— probably the night of the 18th")
December 21, 1855 (" Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove. It will probably be finished to-night. (No, it proved too warm.)")
December 22, 1850 ("The apples are now thawed. This is their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and uneatable are now filled with a rich, sweet cider . . .Now we both greedily fill our pockets with them, and grow more social with their wine. ")December 23, 1856 (“The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights”)
December 24, 1851 (“When I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border.”)
December 24, 1859 (" I see the tracks of a partridge ")
December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand?”)
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 25, 1858 (" In that serene hour I hear an owl hoot. How glad I am to hear him rather than the most eloquent man of the age!")
December 26, 1850 ("Walden not yet more than half frozen over.")
December 27, 1856 ("Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long southern bay.")
December 27, 1857("Walden is almost entirely skimmed over. It will probably be completely frozen over to-night.")
December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open, notwithstanding the cold of the 26th, 27th, and 28th and of to-day. It must be owing to the wind partly.")
December 30, 1853 ("The pond [Walden] not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.")
December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.”)
January 5, 1853 ("A fine rosy sky in the west after sunset; and later an amber-colored horizon.")
January 6, 1859 ("I see a flock of snow buntings. They are feeding exclusively on that ragged weed which I take to be Roman wormwood.")January 7, 1854 (" I hear one distinctly, hoorer hoo. Strange that we should hear this sound so often, loud and far, — a voice which we call the owl, — and yet so rarely see the bird. Oftenest at twilight. It has a singular prominence as a sound; is louder than the voice of a dear friend. Yet we see the friend perhaps daily and the owl but few times in our lives. It is a sound which the wood or horizon makes.")
January 10, 1858 ("If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins dangling at the extremities of the twigs, all in the wintry air, like long, hard mulberries, promising a new spring and the fulfillment of all our hopes.. . . a mulberry-like red catkin which I know has a dormant life in it, seemingly greater than my own")
January 21, 1853 (“I think it was January 20th that I saw that which I think an otter track . . .similar to a muskrat's only much larger.")January 21, 1852 ("This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever. . . Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!")
January 30, 1859 ("How peculiar the hooting of an owl! . . . full, round, and sonorous, waking the echoes of the wood.")
January 31, 1856 ("See also the tracks, probably of a muskrat, for a few feet leading from hole to hole just under the bank.")January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale.")
February 7, 1855 (“The ground cracked in the night as if a powder-mill had blown up")
February 17, 1852 ("The shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day")
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| December 19, 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. A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 19 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 |
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