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
Snow collects like down
in little columns about
every twig and stem.
Seen in perfection
complete to the last flake now
while it is snowing.
It always melts
and freezes at the same time
when icicles form.
My spruce tree
one of the small ones in the swamp
hardly a quarter the size of the largest
looked double its size
in the town hall this evening
and its top had been cut off.
It was lit with candles --
But the starlit sky
is far more splendid to-night
than any saloon.
December 24, 1853
Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow. December 24, 1851
I observe that there are many dead pine-needles sprinkled over the snow, which had not fallen before. December 24, 1850
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, 1856
Saw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At length he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and flew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had not associated such actions with my idea of birds It was not birdlike. December 24, 1850
Saw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At length he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and flew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had not associated such actions with my idea of birds It was not birdlike. December 24, 1850
See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter! It looks much smaller than a jay. December 24, 1858
I see the tracks of a partridge more than half an inch deep in the ice, extending from this island to the shore, she having walked there in the slosh. They are quite perfect and remind me of bird-tracks in stone. She may have come to bud these blueberry trees. I see where she spent the night at the bottom of the largest clump, in the snow. December 24, 1859
Saw a flock of snowbirds on the Walden road. I see them so commonly when it is beginning to snow that I am inclined to regard them as a sign of a snow-storm. The snow bunting (Emberiza nivalis) methinks it is, so white and arctic, not the slate-colored. December 24, 1851
Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; like large catbirds at a distance, but, nearer at hand, some of them, when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps (?), with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. The note I heard, a rather faint and innocent whistle of two bars. December 24, 1851
Walking to-day across the Great Meadows on the snow-crust looking toward the sun, I notice that the fine, dry snow blown over the surface of the frozen fields looks like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain. December 24, 1850
A whitening of snow last evening, the third thus far. December 24, 1853
This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind December 24, 1854
More snow in the night and to-day, making nine or ten inches
December 24, 1856
The snow collects and is piled up in little columns like down about every twig and stem, and this is only seen in perfection, complete to the last flake, while it is snowing, as now. December 24, 1856
A strong and very cold northwest wind. I think that the cold winds are oftenest not northwest, but northwest by west. December 24, 1859
It is never so cold but it melts somewhere. . . . It is always melting and freezing at the same time when icicles form. December 24, 1850
Judging from those whose rings I have counted, the largest of those stems must be about sixty years old. December 24, 1859
Skated across Flint's Pond; for the most part smooth but with rough spots where the rain had not melted the snow. December 24, 1853
From the hill beyond I get an arctic view northwest. December 24, 1853
The mountains are of a cold slate-color. December 24, 1853
Walden almost entirely open again. December 24, 1853
Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle. When I push aside the snow with my feet, the ice appears quite black by contrast. December 24, 1856
Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! December 24, 1858
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, 1859
I had looked in vain into the west for nearly half an hour to see a red cloud blushing in the sky. December 24, 1851
The few clouds were dark, and I had given up all to night, but 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, 1851
In the town hall this evening, my spruce tree, one of the small ones in the swamp, hardly a quarter the size of the largest, looked double its size, and its top had been cut off for want of room. December 24, 1853
The few clouds were dark, and I had given up all to night, but 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, 1851
In the town hall this evening, my spruce tree, one of the small ones in the swamp, hardly a quarter the size of the largest, looked double its size, and its top had been cut off for want of room. December 24, 1853
It was lit with candles, but the starlit sky is far more splendid to-night than any saloon. December 24, 1853
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| December 24, 2015 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Northern Shrike |
*****
September 12, 1851 ("To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond. . . I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially in the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood. It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. ")
October 22, 1857 ("Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon!")
November 4, 1854 (“Saw a shrike in an apple tree, with apparently a worm in its mouth. ”)
November 29, 1858 ("I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.”)
December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.") December 11, 1854 ("I find Flint’s frozen to-day,and how long?")
December 9, 1856 ("Yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden.")
December 12, 1858 (“See a shrike on a dead pine”);December 23, 1858 ("See a shrike on the top of an oak.”)
December 22, 1853 ("Got a white spruce for a Christmas-tree for the town out of the spruce swamp,")
December 26, 1853 ("It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. And every twig thus laden is as still as the hillside itself.”)
December 23, 1851 ("Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red.")
December 26, 1855 ("We have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had.")December 23, 1851 ("Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red.")
December 27, 1852 (" Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up..")
December 29, 1855 (“Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.”)
December 29, 1855 (“Just before reaching the Cut I see a shrike flying low beneath the level of the railroad, which rises and alights on the topmost twig of an elm within four or five rods. All ash or bluish-slate above down to middle of wings; dirty-white breast, and a broad black mark through eyes on side of head; primaries(?) black, and some white appears when it flies. Most distinctive its small hooked bill (upper mandible).It makes no sound, but flits to the top of an oak further off. Probably a male.”)
December 29, 1855 (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”)
December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”)
December 30, 1859 ("I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time.")
January 14, 1853 ("White walls of snow rest on the boughs of trees, in height two or three times their thickness.”)
January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. . . .They have only an ice egg in them now. ”)
February 3, 1856 (“see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree”)
February 5, 1855(“like the steam curling along the surface of a river.”).
February 5, 1859 ("I see another butcher-bird on the top of a young tree by the pond.")
February 10, 1856 ("I saw a fox on the railroad. . . He coursed, or glided, along easily, appearing not to lift his feet high, leaping over obstacles, with his tail extended straight behind. He leaped over the ridge of snow . . . between the tracks, very easily and gracefully.”)February 16, 1852 ("like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind”)
January 19, 1852 ("like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning”)
February 21, 1854 ("You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.")
February 23, 1854 (“like steam curling from a roof”)
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
"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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