A Book of the Seasons: December 25 (winter weather, golden-crested wren, voice of the barred owl, ice booming, winter sky)

 

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 25.

Snow from the northeast

driving horizontally

fast whitens the ground.

December 25, 1855

Now after sunset

the light of the western sky –

the outlines of pines.

December 25, 1858

I hear an owl hoot.

How glad I am to hear him

in this serene hour.

December 25, 1858

December 25, 2018

December 25, 2019

A wind is now blowing the light snow which fell a day or two ago into drifts. December 25, 1851

Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground, and with it the first tree sparrows I have noticed in the yard. December 25, 1855

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. December 25, 1856

Up river on ice to Fair Haven Pond and across to Walden. The ground is still for the most part bare. Such a December is at least as hard a month to get through as November. You come near eating your heart now. December 25, 1858

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. December 25, 1856

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

The rocky shore under the pitch pines at the northeast end.. . . reflects so much light that the rocks are singularly distinct, as if the pond showed its teeth. December 25, 1858

I hear a sharp fine screep from some bird . . . The screep is a note of recognition meant for me. December 25, 1859

The bird is so very active that I can not get a steady view of it. Yet II can see a brilliant crown . . .the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before. December 25, 1859

This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river. December 25, 1859

I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds. December 25, 1858
.
The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast. December 25, 1858

About 4 p. m. the sun sunk behind a cloud, and the pond began to boom or whoop. I noticed the same yesterday at the same hour at Flint's. It is a very pleasing phenomenon, so dependent on the altitude of the sun. December 25, 1853

I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ? December 25, 1851

How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour. December 25, 1858

I standing twenty 

miles off see a crimson cloud 

in the horizon. 

December 25, 1851

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 25, 1858


I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. December 25, 1858

*****

Walden ("The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature. . . .The pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering; but though I may perceive no difference in the weather, it does. . . . Yet it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should . . . The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.”)

March 14, 1855 ("Winter back again in prospect, and I see a few sparrows, probably tree sparrows, in the yard")

April 19 1852 ("To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’)
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 25, 1857 (“November Eatheart, — is that the name of it?")

November 27, 1853 ("Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow")

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.”)

November 30, 1858 (“The short afternoons are come. . . . We see purple clouds in the east horizon.")

December 7, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset")

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, 1854 (“There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm”)

 December 9, 1856 ("A slight blush begins to suffuse the eastern horizon, and so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame. Such is a winter eve.");

 December 9, 1859 (" I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. . . .[T]here is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge. Thus, methinks, it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer")

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, 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 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”)

December 11, 1858 ("Walden is about one-third skimmed over.");
December 11, 1854 ("It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.") 

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 ")

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.")

Night comes on early.

Pine tree tops outlined against

the cold western sky,

December 12, 1859

December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me")

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

December 14, 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset.")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face .")

December 14, 1852 ("Who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset?")

December 14, 1855 ("Then I came upon a fox-track made last night, leading toward a farmhouse . . . 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 18, 1853 ("The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky.")

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 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, 1856 ("As I stand here, I hear the hooting of my old acquaintance the owl in Wheeler's Wood . . .Is more than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well. ")

December 20, 1851 ("Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods.")

December 20, 1851 ("The sun goes down apace behind glowing pines, and golden clouds like mountains skirt the horizon.")

December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass.");

The icy water

reflecting the warm colors

of the sunset sky.

December 20, 1855

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

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

 December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset, which at midday appears to rest on its axle!")

December 23, 1851 ("This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally.”) 

December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.")

 December 23, 1851 (“Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun.”)

December 21 1851 ("Long after the sun has set, and downy clouds have turned dark, and the shades of night have taken possession of the east, some rosy clouds will be seen in the upper sky over the portals of the darkening west.") 

 December 23, 1851 ("The evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.")

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, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.")

December 24, 1859 ("There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week")

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

December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open.. . . the only pond hereabouts that is open.")

December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it.);

December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon")

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 27, 1851("Venus - I suppose it is - is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight.")

The evening star seen

shining brightly before the

twilight has begun.

December 27, 1853

December 28, 1858 ("The ice cracks suddenly with a shivering jar like crockery or the brittlest material, such as it is.")

December 28, 1853 ("I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow")

December 28, 1858 ("That rocky shore under the pitch pines which so reflects the light.")

December 29, 1853 ("Wind from the north blows the snow almost horizontally, and, beside freezing you, almost takes your breath away. The driving snow blinds you.”)
December 30, 1859 ("I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow")
December 31, 1854 ("I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow.")
January 4, 1859 ("A north snow-storm, very hard to face. It snows very hard, driving along almost horizontally.”)

January 5, 1853 ("A fine rosy sky in the west after sunset; and later an amber-colored horizon.")

January 7, 1856 (“Returning just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun . . .It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.”)

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 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky.")

To look over pines

so rich and distinct, into

the soft western sky.

January 9, 1859

January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.");
January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")

January 12, 1852 ("I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard . . . be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, etc., etc.” ) 

January 14, 1852 ("I notice to-night, about sundown, that the clouds in the eastern horizon are the deepest indigo-blue of any I ever saw. Commencing with a pale blue or slate in the west, the color deepens toward the east.")

January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. . . .As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind.");

The unclouded mind,

serene, pure, ineffable

like the western sky.

January 17, 1852

January 19, 1857 ("A snow-storm with very high wind all last night and to-day. . . .A fine dry snow, intolerable to face")

January 19, 1859 ("It occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view, looking outward through the vista of our elm lined streets, than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon.")

January 23, 1858 (“Walden, I think, begins to crack and boom first on the south side,. . . like the cracking of crockery. It suggests the very brittlest material, as if the globe you stood on were a hollow sphere of glass and might fall to pieces on the slightest touch. . . . as if the ice were no thicker than a tumbler, though it is probably nine or ten inches. ”)

January 24, 1852 ("A single elm by Hayden's stands in relief against the amber and golden, deepening into dusky but soon to be red horizon.");

January 17, 1860 ("When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset.")

January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")

January 30, 1859 ("How peculiar the hooting of an owl! . . . full, round, and sonorous, waking the echoes of the wood.")

February 3, 1856 (“We go wading through snows now up the bleak river, in the face of the cutting northwest wind and driving snow-steam, turning now this ear, then that, to the wind, and our gloved hands in our bosoms or pockets. Our tracks are obliterated before we come back.”)

February 9, 1855 ("Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter. ")  

February 12, 1854 ("The pond does not thunder every night, and I do not know its law exactly. I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering, . . . [y]et it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should")

February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green”)

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 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”) 

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren. (Thoreau did not truly identify the golden-crested wren until Christmas 1859. )
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

December 25.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 25

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 © 2009-2021