A Book of the Seasons: February 22 (Catkins expand, springlike warmth, listening for the bluebird)

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

February 22

Such warm and pleasant

weather I even listen

for the first bluebird.

February 22, 1855

February 22, 2015

Went to Plymouth to lecture or preach. February 22, 1852

A mild, misty day. The red (?) oaks about Billington Sea fringed with usneas, which in this damp air appear in perfection. The trunks and main stems of the trees have, as it were, suddenly leaved out in the winter, — a very lively light green, — and these ringlets and ends of usnea are so expanded and puffed out with light and life, with their reddish or rosaceous fruit, it is a true lichen day. February 22, 1852

My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two, and the willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish. February 22, 1854

Our neighbor Wetherbee was J. Moore's companion when he took that great weight of pickerel this winter. He says it was fifty-six pounds in Flint's, in one day, and that four of them weighed eighteen pounds and seven ounces.  February 22, 1854

Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields. The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is deliciously warm. February 22, 1855

[Farmer] had seen a partridge drum standing on a wall. Said it stood very upright and produced the sound by striking its wings together behind its back, as a cock often does, but did not strike the wall nor its body. This he is sure of, and declares that he is mistaken who affirms the contrary, though it were Audubon himself.  February 22, 1855

It is a pleasant and warm afternoon, and the snow is melting. Yet the river is still perfectly closed. February 22, 1856

Just below this bridge begins an otter track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river.. . . It looks as if some one had dragged a round timber down the middle of the river a day or two since, which bounced as it went. February 22, 1856 

Go to Worcester to lecture in a parlor.  February 22, 1859

Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber.  February 22, 1855

The sun goes down to-night under clouds, - a round red orb, - and I am surprised to see that its light, falling on my book and the wall, is a beautiful purple.  February 22, 1855

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A Sunny Nook in Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: 

Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

A Change in the Air

Listening for the Bluebird

*****

November 18, 1857 ("Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places.”)

January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him”).
February 2, 1854 (" The ice is about eighteen inches thick on Fair Haven. Saw some pickerel just caught there, with a fine lustre to them.")
February 4, 1855 ("See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock”)
February 9, 1854 ("It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in")

February 18, 1857 (“I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. The very grain of the air seems to have undergone a change and is ready to split into the form of the bluebird's warble . . . The air over these fields is a foundry full of moulds for casting bluebirds' warbles. ”)
February 19, 1857 ("Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales and look very red, probably on account of the warm weather.")
February 20, 1856 ("See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday.")
February 21, 1855 ("I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. ")

Red and yellowish

willow catkins now push out 

half an inch or more. 

February 22, 1854

Alder catkins in 

my pitcher have shed pollen 

for a day or two.

February 22, 1854

February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring.").
February 23, 1859 ("One boy tells me that he saw a bluebird in Concord on Sunday, the 20th")
February 24, 1857("As I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air. ")
February 27. 1852 ("The buds of the aspen show a part of their down or silky catkins.")

 February 27, 1853 ("The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.")
March 6, 1853 ("Last Sunday I plucked some alder twigs, some aspen, and some swamp willow, and put them in water in a warm room, Immediately the alder catkins were relaxed and began to lengthen and open, and by the second day to drop their pollen”)
March 10, 1853 ("The alder's catkins — the earliest of them — are very plainly expanding, or, rather, the scales are loose and separated, and the whole catkin relaxed.”)
March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower”)
March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!")
April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen")

April 19, 1860 ("Toward night, hear a partridge drum. You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.")

April 26, 1857 (“In the winter we sit by fires in the house; in spring and fall, in sunny and sheltered nooks; in the summer, in shady and cool groves, or over water where the breeze circulates.”)
May 22, 1857 (“Is it not summer when we do not go seeking sunny and sheltered places, but also love the wind and shade?”)

February 22, 2022

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 

  February 21.     <<<<<                  February 22           >>>>>    February 23

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 22

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDTFeb22

 

Botanizing Plymouth while there to lecture or preach --a true lichen day.

 

February 22.

February 22, 2022

Went to Plymouth to lecture or preach all day. 

Bæomyces roseus (Baiós, small, and múkys, a fungus ).

Saw in Plymouth, near Billington Sea, the Prinos glaber, or evergreen winterberry. It must be the same with the black-berried bush behind Provincetown.

A mild, misty day.

The red (?) oaks about Billington Sea fringed with usneas, which in this damp air appear in perfection. The trunks and main stems of the trees have, as it were, suddenly leaved out in the winter, — a very lively light green, — and these ringlets and ends of usnea are so expanded and puffed out with light and life, with their reddish or rosaceous fruit, it is a true lichen day.

They take the place of leaves in the winter. The clusters dripping with moisture, expanded as it were by electricity, sometimes completely investing the stem of the tree.

I understood that there were two only of the sixth generation from the Pilgrims still alive (in Plymouth?).

Every man will take such views as he can afford to take. Views one would think were the most expensive guests to entertain.

I perceive that the reason my neighbor cannot entertain certain views is the narrow limit within which he is obliged to live, on account of the smallness of his means. His instinct tells him that it will not do to relax his hold here and take hold where he cannot keep hold.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 22, 1852

Went to Plymouth to lecture or preach.  Benjamin Marston Watson established a series of Sunday lectures in Plymouth to provide an alternative venue for those who did not go to church. Thoreau read his "Life in the Woods" lecture twice on February 22; once at 10:00 am and again at 7:00 pm. Richard Smith February 22, 2021. See also October 7, 1854 ("Went to Plymouth to lecture and survey Watson's grounds.”);February 22, 1859 (“Go to Worcester to lecture in a parlor.”)  

Bæomyces roseus.  See April 3, 1859 ("We need a popular name for the baeomyces. C. suggests "pink mould" Perhaps "pink shot" or "eggs" would do.”)

The Prinos glaber, or evergreen winterberry [aka"Ilex glabra"]. See December 28, 1852 ("The berries that hold on into winter are to be remarked, — the winterberry, alder and birch fruit, smilax, pyrus, hips, etc") Compare September 5, 1858 ("Prinos verticillatus berries reddening."); October 2, 1856 (“The prinos berries are in their prime.. . . They are now very fresh and bright, and what adds to their effect is the perfect freshness and greenness of the leaves amid which they are seen.”)

The fresh bright scarlet

prinos berries seen in prime

amid fresh green leaves.

October 2, 1856

Red oaks fringed with usneas. See Walden (" All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath”)

Usnea are so expanded and puffed out with light and life, with their reddish or rosaceous fruit, it is a true lichen day. See December 31, 1851 ("Nature has a day for each of her creatures, her creations. To-day it is an exhibition of lichens at Forest Hall.”); January 26, 1852 ("The lichens look rather bright to-day, . . .The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour.”); February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day, - a sudden humid growth.”)

A Book of the Seasons: February 21 (news of spring, new life in Nature beginning to awake, signs of spring)

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

 February 21

Snow on the mountains

now a silver rim to this

basin of the world.

February 21, 1855

Chickadee passes

the news through all the forest –

spring is approaching.

February 21, 1855

Sheltered from the wind

I feel new life in Nature –

season’s warmer sun.

February 21, 1855

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

It has now got to be such weather that after a cold morning it is colder in the house, — or we feel colder, — than outdoors, by noon, and are surprised that it is no colder when we come out. February 21, 1854

The snow has just ceased falling — about two inches deep, in the woods, upon the old and on bare ground. February 21, 1854

There is scarcely a track of any animal yet to be seen. You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness. February 21, 1854

The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.  February 21, 1854

We now notice the snow on the mountains, because on the remote rim of the horizon its whiteness contrasts with the russet and darker hues of our bare fields. February 21, 1855

I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them . . . A silver edging to this basin of the world. February 21, 1855

Thermometer forty-six and snow rapidly melting. It melts first and fastest where the snow is so thin that it feels the heat reflected from the ground beneath. February 21, 1860

I see now, in the ruts in sand on hills in the road, those interesting ripples which I only notice to advantage in very shallow running water, a phenomenon almost, as it were, confined to melted snow running in ruts in the road in a thaw, especially in the spring. February 21, 1860

When you see the sparkling stream from melting snow in the ruts, know that then is to be seen this braid of the spring. February 21, 1860

When the leaves on the forest floor are dried, and begin to rustle under such a sun and wind as these . . .

When I perceive this dryness under my feet . . .

I realize what was incredible to me before, that there is a new life in Nature beginning to awake, that her halls are being swept and prepared for a new occupant. February 21, 1855

It is whispered through all the aisles of the forest that another spring is approaching. February 21, 1855

The wood mouse listens at the mouth of his burrow, and the chickadee passes the news along.  February 21, 1855

I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, February 21, 1855 

I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow. February 21, 1855

Can it be true, as is said, that geese have gone over Boston, probably yesterday? It is in the newspapers. February 21, 1855

Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. February 21, 1857

The river for some days has been open and its sap visibly flowing, like the maple. February 21, 1857

A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone which had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer, and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone, has become a broad, rounded, open one, -- has, in fact, expanded with the regularity of a flower's petals into a conical flower of rigid scales, and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate-winged seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. February 27, 1853

The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.  February 27, 1853

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, When the ice turns green

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: 

Braided ripples of melting snow

 Red Maple Sap Flows

 a change in the air

  the spring note of the chickadee

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, Geese Overhead

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

*****

December 21, 1852 ("You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature.")
February 12, 1854 ("I am not aware till I come out how pleasant a day it is. It was very cold this morning, and I have been putting on wood in vain to warm my chamber, and lo! I come forth, and am surprised to find it warm and pleasant.”)
February 16, 1856 ("I hear the eaves running before I come out, and our thermometer at 2 P. M. is 38°. The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts.")

February 17, 1857 ("Thermometer at 1 p.m., 60°. The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats, and even boats.")
February 18, 1857 ("I hear that geese went over Cambridge last night.")

February 19, 1852 ("The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. ")

February 20, 1855 ("I see from my window the bright blue water here and there between the ice and on the meadow.")

February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring. . . .. I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maple.")
February 27, 1852 ("If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope ?"
March 3, 1857 ("The red maple sap, which I first noticed the 21st of February, is now frozen up in the auger-holes .")
March 8, 1853 ("The melting snow, running and sparkling down-hill in the ruts, was quite springlike.")
March 9, 1859 ("A true spring day, not a cloud in the sky. The earth shines, its icy armor reflecting the sun, and the rills of melting snow in the ruts shine, too.")

April 4, 1852 ("I see the snow lying thick on the south side of the Peterboro Hills, . . .probably the dividing line at present between the bare ground and the snow-clad ground stretching three thousand miles to the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie and the Icy Sea.")
April 4, 1855 ("In the northwestern horizon, my eye rests on a range of snow-covered mountains, glistening in the sun.")

February 21, 2020

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 

  February 20 <<<<< February 21  >>>>>  February 22 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 21

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

A Book of the Seasons; February 20 ( tracks of little-seen animals, March winds, blue waters, a rock by the pond-side)

 

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

February 20.

The northerly wind

roaring in the woods to-day

reminds me of March.

February 20, 1855

The bright-blue water

here and there between the ice 

and on the meadow. 

February 20, 1855

A natural fact.

A bird and the ear -- the one 

made for the other.

February 20, 1857

I am that rock by

the pond-side affected by

each natural sound.

February 20, 1857*

February 20, 2012

*

If I were to discover

that a certain kind of stone

by the pond-shore was affected,

say partially disintegrated,

by a particular natural sound,

as of a bird or insect,

I see that one

could not be completely described

without describing the other.

I am that rock by the pond-side.

February 20, 1857

I notice a very pale pink reflection from snowy roofs and sides of white houses at sunrise. So both the pink and the green are phenomena of the morning. February 20, 1860

The last two or three days have been among the coldest in the winter, though not so cold as a few weeks ago. February 20, 1852

First the snow fell deep and level on the 18th, then, the 19th, came high wind. February 20, 1860

This morning the ground is once more covered about one inch deep. February 20, 1857

Snows all day. The most wintry day of the winter; yet not more than three inches on a level is fallen. February 20, 1858

A strong wind drying the earth which has been so very wet . . . The northerly wind blows me along, and when I get to the cut I hear it roaring in the woods, all reminding me of March, March. February 20, 1855

It is decided March weather, and I see from my window the bright-blue water here and there between the ice and on the meadow. February 20, 1855

We see the tracks of mice on the snow in the woods, or once in a year one glances by like a flash through the grass or ice at our feet, and that is for the most part all that we see of them. February 20, 1855

I know that we have here in Concord are at least twenty-one and perhaps twenty-six quadrupeds. . . . Some, though numerous, are rarely seen, as the wild mice and moles. Others are very rare, like the otter and raccoon. February 20, 1855

See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday.   February 20, 1856

The rock by the [Flint's] pond is remarkable for its umbilicaria.    February 20, 1852

I saw a mole [run] so close to the ground and under rather than over anything, . . . without making any noise. No wonder that we so rarely see these animals, though their tracks are so common. . . . The mole goes behind and beneath, rather than before and above. February 20, 1852

Skate to Fair Haven Pond. Make a fire on the south side of the pond, using canoe birch bark and oak leaves for kindlings. . . .The occasional loud snapping of the fire is exhilarating. February 20, 1854

We skate home in the dusk, with an odor of smoke in our clothes.  February 20, 1854

Minott always sits in the corner behind the door, close to the stove, with commonly the cat by his side, often in his lap. Often he sits with his hat on. February 20, 1857

What is the relation between a bird and the ear that appreciates its melody, to whom, perchance, it is more charming and significant than to any else? Certainly they are intimately related, and the one was made for the other. It is a natural fact February 20, 1857

If I were to discover that a certain kind of stone by the pond-shore was affected, say partially disintegrated, by a particular natural sound, as of a bird or insect, I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. February 20, 1857

I am that rock by the pond-side. February 20, 1857

What is hope, what is expectation, but a seed-time whose harvest cannot fail, an irresistible expedition of the mind, at length to be victorious ? February 20, 1857

A friend tells all with a look, a tone, a gesture, a presence, a friendliness. He is present when absent. February 20, 1859

The rain ceases, and it clears up at 5 P. M. It is a warm west wind and a remarkably soft sky, like plush; perhaps a lingering moisture there. What a revelation the blue and the bright tints in the west again, after the storm and darkness! February 20, 1859

*****

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

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I am a rock

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue Waters in Spring

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of Spring

Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present.")

The Maine Woods ("Daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it-rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”)

And for the first time

I see the water looking

blue on the meadows.

March 5, 1854

The first sight of the

blue water in the spring is

exhilarating.

April 5, 1856

April 6, 1855 ("Reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen.")
April 16, 1855 ("At Flint’s, sitting on the rock.")

May 12, 1857 (“He is a brother poet, this small gray bird (or bard), whose muse inspires mine. . . .One with the rocks and with us.”)
June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes")

July 3, 1857 ("Minott was sitting in his shed as usual, while his handsome pullets were perched on the wood within two feet of him. ")

July 16 1851 ("In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both its weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me ”)

October 23, 1852 ("My friend is one whom I meet, who takes me for what I am.")

August 8, 1852 ("I only know myself as a human entity, the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections”)
December 11, 1855 ("My body is all sentient. As I go here or there, I am tickled by this or that I come in contact with, as if I touched the wires of a battery.”)
December 21, 1851 ("Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that results to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize; and . . . will know each other through thick and thin.")

January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm! There is no account of the blue sky in history. I must live above all in the present.")
January 8, 1857 ("Minott says he has lived where he now does as much as sixty years. He has not been up in town for three years, on account of his rheumatism")
January 12, 1855 ("Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.")
January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him.”)

January 31, 1859 ("Also the pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. . . .Perhaps the green seen at the same time in ice and water is produced by the general yellow or amber light of this hour, mingled with the blue of the reflected sky.")
February 6, 1855 ("The coldest morning this winter. Our thermometer stands at -14° at 9 A.M")
February 7, 1854 ("This morning was one of the coldest in the winter.")
February 7, 1854 ("Made a fire on the snow-covered ice half a mile below Ball's Hill -- a large warm fire, whose flame went up straight, there being no wind, and without smoke. . . .We had often sailed over this very spot..”)
February 7, 1855 ("The coldest night for a long, long time.")
February 7, 1855 ("Thermometer at about 7.30 A. M. gone into the bulb, -19° at least. The cold has stopped the clock.")
February 8, 1851 ("Coldest day yet; – 22 ° at least (all we can read ) , at 8 A. M. , and , (so far) as I can learn, not above -6 ° all day.")
February 11, 1858 ("11° and windy. I think it is the coldest day of this winter.")
February 19, 1857 ("A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.")
February 19, 1858 ("Coldest morning this winter by our thermometer, -3° at 7.30.")

February 27, 1852 ("If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope?")

 February 19  <<<<< February 20 >>>>> February 21.

February 20, 2015

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 20

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 © 2009-2022

A Book of the Seasons: February 19 (frozen snow crust, winter moods, winter walking, signs of spring)

 

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

February 19

Cold unvaried snow

now stretching mile after mile–

and no place to sit.

February 19, 1852

February 19, 2019

The sky appears broader now than it did. The day has opened its eyelids wider. The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. February 19, 1852

Everywhere snow, gathered into sloping drifts about the walls and fences, and, beneath the snow, the frozen ground, . . . but man remains and walks over the frozen snow-crust and over the stiffened rivers and ponds, and draws now upon his summer stores. Life is reduced to its lowest terms. February 19, 1852

There is no home for you now, in this freezing wind, but in that shelter which you prepared in the summer. You steer straight across the fields to that in season. February 19, 1852

I can with difficulty tell when I am over the river. There is a similar crust over my heart. Where I rambled in the summer and gathered flowers and rested on the grass by the brook-side in the shade, now no grass nor flowers, no brook nor shade, but cold, unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit.  February 19, 1852

The strains from my muse are as rare nowadays, or of late years, as the notes of birds in the winter, — the faintest occasional tinkling sound, and mostly of the woodpecker kind or the harsh jay or crow. It never melts into a song. Only the day-day-day of an inquisitive titmouse. February 19, 1852

I incline to walk now in swamps and on the river and ponds, where I cannot walk in summer.  February 19, 1854

The large moths apparently love the neighborhood of water, and are wont to suspend their cocoons over the edge of the meadow and river, places more or less inaccessible, to men at least. February 19, 1854

The light ash-colored cocoons of the A. Promethea, with the withered and faded leaves wrapped around them so artfully . . .  are taken at a little distance for a few curled and withered leaves left on. February 19, 1854

Though the particular twigs on which you find some cocoons may never or very rarely retain any leaves, — the maple, for instance, — there are enough leaves left on other shrubs and trees to warrant their adopting this disguise. February 19, 1854

Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end.  February 19, 1854

Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world? February 19, 1854

Rufus Hosmer says that in the year 1820 there was so smooth and strong an icy crust on a very deep snow that you could skate everywhere over the fields and for the most part over the fences. February 19, 1855

The water is about a foot deep on the Jimmy Miles road . . . The only way for Conant to come to town when the water is highest is by Tarbell’s and Wood’s on the stone bridge, about a mile and a half round. February 19, 1855

It is true when there is no snow we cannot so easily see the birds, nor they the weeds. February 19, 1855

Cloudy and somewhat rainy, the thermometer at last fallen to thirty-two and thirty-three degrees. February 19, 1857

Why do water and snow take just this form? February 19, 1857

Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales and look very red, probably on account of the warm weather. February 19, 1857

At evening it begins to snow. February 19, 1857

Coldest morning this winter by our thermometer, -3° at 7.30.  February 19, 1858

The snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter. I think if the drifts could be fairly measured it might be found to be seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level.  February 19, 1856

Snow maybe near a foot deep, and now drifting. February 19, 1860

A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith . . .  as if it were the light of the sun reflected from a frozen mist which undulated in the wind in the upper atmosphere. February 19, 1852

February 19, 2023

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February is Mid-Winter

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To Know Nature's Moods

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I Have Seen Signs of the Spring 

Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

*****

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 

February 18  <<<<<  February 19 >>>>>  February 20  

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 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

tinyurl.com/HDT-19Feb