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.
A bright day not cold
yet my shadow is a most
celestial blue.
January 15, 2018
It is a rather warm and moist afternoon, and feels like rain. January 15, 1852
For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. Wherever I go they are to be seen, especially in the deepest ruts and foot-tracks. Their number is almost infinite. January 15, 1852
For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. Wherever I go they are to be seen, especially in the deepest ruts and foot-tracks. Their number is almost infinite. January 15, 1852
The fog still continues through, and succeeding to, the rain. The third day of fog. The thermometer at 7.30 or 8 A. M. is at 33°. January 15, 1859
The snow appears considerably deeper than the 12th . . . You are sensible that you are walking at a level a foot or more above the usual one. January 15, 1856
The snow appears considerably deeper than the 12th . . . You are sensible that you are walking at a level a foot or more above the usual one. January 15, 1856
It has just been snowing, and this lies in shallow drifts or waves on the Great Meadows, alternate snow and ice. January 15, 1855
Skate into a crack, and slide on my side twenty-five feet. The river-channel dark and rough with fragments of old ice, — polygons of various forms, — cemented together, not strong. January 15, 1855
I cross the river on the crust with some hesitation. January 15, 1856
A bright day, not cold. I can comfortably walk without gloves, yet my shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. January 15, 1856
Seeing the tracks where a leaf had blown along and then tacked and finally doubled and returned on its trail, I think it must be the tracks of some creature new to me. January 15, 1856
The tracks of the mice near the head of Well Meadow . . . The snow was so light that only one distinct track was made by all four of the feet, five or six inches apart, but the tail left a very distinct mark. January 15, 1857
So it was so many thousands of years before Gutenberg invented printing with his types, and so it will be so many thousands of years after his types are forgotten, perchance. The deer mouse will be printing on the snow of Well Meadow to be read by a new race of men. January 15, 1857
Cold as the weather is and has been, almost all the brook is open in the meadow there, an artery of black water in the midst of the snow. January 15, 1857
As I passed the south shed at the depot, observed what I thought a tree sparrow on the wood in the shed, a mere roof open at the side. January 15, 1857
Looking closer, I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow, it having the usual marks on its breast and no bright-chestnut crown. January 15, 1857
The snow is nine or ten inches deep, and it appeared to have taken refuge in this shed, where was much bare ground exposed by removing the wood. January 15, 1857
The snow is nine or ten inches deep, and it appeared to have taken refuge in this shed, where was much bare ground exposed by removing the wood. January 15, 1857
More snow last night, and still the first that fell remains on the ground. January 15, 1861
Rice thinks that it is two feet deep on a level now. We have had no thaw yet. January 15, 1861
Science suggests the value of mutual intelligence. I have long known this dust, but, as I did not know the name of it, i. e . what others called it, I therefore could not conveniently speak of it, and it has suggested less to me and I have made less use of it. I now first feel as if I had got hold of it. January 15, 1853
What is there in music that it should so stir our deeps? . . . let us hear a strain of music, we are at once advertised of a life which no man had told us of, which no preacher preaches. January 15, 1857
January 15, 2018
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating
*****
January 15, 2014
February 16, 1852 ("By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department.")
February 18, 1860 ("As soon as I begin to be aware of the life of any creature, I at once forget its name. To know the names of creatures is only a convenience to us at first, but . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned.")
March 1, 1852 ("I can see that there is a certain advantage in these hard and precise terms, such as the lichenist uses, for instance. No one masters them so as to use them in writing on the subject without being far better informed than the rabble about it. . . . No man writes on lichens, using the terms of the science intelligibly, without having something to say. ");
March 5, 1858 ("Our scientific names convey a very partial information only. . . It was a new light when my; guide gave me Indian names for things for which had only scientific ones before. In proportion as I understood the language, I saw them from a new point of view.")
May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. . . .If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day.”)
August 29, 1858 ("With the knowledge of the name comes a distincter recognition and knowledge of the thing. . . . My knowledge now becomes communicable and grows by communication. I can now learn what others know about the same thing.")
December 27, 1857 ("Mice have been abroad in the night. We are almost ready to believe that they have been shut up in the earth all the rest of the year because we have not seen their tracks.”)
December 31, 1853 ("The contact of sound with a human ear whose hearing is pure and unimpaired is coincident with an ecstasy.")
December 31, 1854 ("A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue.")
January 4, 1856 ("I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow.")
January 5, 1854 ("It being warm and thawing, though fair, the snow is covered with snow-fleas. Especially they are sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow. These are the first since the snow came")
January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)
January 7, 1860 (" As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas . . . Last night there was not one to be seen")
January 7, 1857 ("Though the rest of the broad path is else perfectly unspotted white, each track of the fox has proved a trap which has caught from three or four to eight or ten leaves each, snugly packed; and thus it is reprinted.")
January 7, 1857 ("In the wood-path [the snow] is all scored with the tracks of leaves that have scurried over it. Some might not suspect the cause of these fine and delicate traces, for the cause is no longer obvious")
December 31, 1854 ("A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue.")
January 4, 1856 ("I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow.")
January 5, 1854 ("It being warm and thawing, though fair, the snow is covered with snow-fleas. Especially they are sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow. These are the first since the snow came")
January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)
January 7, 1860 (" As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas . . . Last night there was not one to be seen")
January 7, 1857 ("Though the rest of the broad path is else perfectly unspotted white, each track of the fox has proved a trap which has caught from three or four to eight or ten leaves each, snugly packed; and thus it is reprinted.")
January 7, 1857 ("In the wood-path [the snow] is all scored with the tracks of leaves that have scurried over it. Some might not suspect the cause of these fine and delicate traces, for the cause is no longer obvious")
January 8, 1852 (" I notice that almost every track which I made yesterday. . . has got a dead leaf in it.")
January 13, 1857 ("I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived")
January 13, 1857 ("I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived")
January 14, 1852 ("There is no blueness in the ruts and crevices in the snow to-day. What kind of atmosphere does this require? . . . It is one of the most interesting phenomena of the winter.")
January 14, 1855 ("Skate to Baker Farm with a rapidity which astonished myself.")January 18, 1852 ("Perhaps the snow in the air, as well as on the ground, takes up the white rays and reflects the blue.”)
January 18, 1856 ("Clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden. . . .I am in raptures at my own shadow . . . Our very shadows are no longer black, but a celestial blue. This has nothing to do with cold, methinks, but the sun must not be too low.")January 22, 1854 ("Last night was very windy, and to-day I see the dry oak leaves collected in thick beds.")
January 26, 1852 ("To-day I see a few snow-fleas on the Walden road and a slight blueness in the chinks, it being cloudy and melting.")
January 27, 1857 ("Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at.")
January 27, 1857 ("A song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.")
January 28, 1857 ("Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard.")
January 30, 1860 (" The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element. ")
January 30, 1856 ("crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!")
January 31, 1856 (“The tracks of the mice suggest extensive hopping in the night and going a-gadding.”)
January 31, 1856 ("The fall of these withered leaves after each rude blast, so clean and dry that they do not soil the snow, is a phenomenon quite in harmony with the winter.")
February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue rather than black.")
February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”)
January 31, 1856 ("The fall of these withered leaves after each rude blast, so clean and dry that they do not soil the snow, is a phenomenon quite in harmony with the winter.")
February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue rather than black.")
February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”)
February 16, 1852 ("By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department.")
February 18, 1860 ("As soon as I begin to be aware of the life of any creature, I at once forget its name. To know the names of creatures is only a convenience to us at first, but . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned.")
March 10, 1856 ("The blue shadows on snow are as fine as ever.")
March 30, 1856 ("There are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw.")
February 18, 1860 ("As soon as I begin to be aware of the life of any creature, I at once forget its name. To know the names of creatures is only a convenience to us at first, but . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned.")
March 10, 1856 ("The blue shadows on snow are as fine as ever.")
March 30, 1856 ("There are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw.")
January 15, 2014
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.
January 14 <<<<<<<< January 15 >>>>>>>> January 16
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 15
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/HDT15Jan
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