A Book of the Seasons: November 14 (bare branches of the oak woods, cold north wind, advancing winter, the clear white leafless twilight of November)

 

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

November 14

Now the bare branches

of the oak woods await the

onset of the wind. 

 November 14, 1853

October light fades

into the clear white leafless

November twilight.

November 14, 1853

My boat's motion sends 

an undulation ashore, 

rustling the dry sedge.

November 14, 1855

In this cutting wind

the dry rustle of oak leaves

sets your heart on edge.

 November 14, 1858

November 14, 2020

Now for the bare branches of the oak woods, where hawks have nested and owls perched, the sinews of the trees, and the brattling of the wind in their midst. For, now their leaves are off, they've bared their arms, thrown off their coats, and, in the attitude of fencers, await the onset of the wind.  November 14, 1853

This morning it was considerably colder than for a long time, and by noon very much colder than heretofore, with a pretty strong northerly wind. November 14, 1857

Unexpectedly find Heywood's Pond frozen over thinly, it being shallow and coldly placed. November 14, 1851

Minott hears geese to-day.  November 14, 1855

The principal flight of geese was November 8th, so that the bulk of them preceded this cold turn five days. November 14, 1858

Now all that moves migrates, or has migrated. Ducks are gone by. The citizen has sought the town. November 14, 1858

This cold weather makes us step more briskly. November 14, 1857

I feel the crunching sound  of frost-crystals in the heaving mud under my feet, November 14, 1857

Such are the first advances of winter. Ice-crystals shoot in the mud, the sphagnum becomes a stiffened mass, and dropping water in these cold places, a rigid icicle.   November 14, 1857 

It is all at once perfect winter. I walk on frozen ground two thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow.   November 14, 1858

This strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge. November 14, 1858

The rustling leaves sound like the fierce breathing of wolves, — an endless pack, half famished, from the north, impelled by hunger to seize him. November 14, 1858

If he looks into the water, he gets no comfort there, for that is cold and empty, expecting ice. November 14, 1858

I climb Annursnack. Under this strong wind more dry oak leaves are rattling down. 

All winter is their fall.  November 14, 1853.

A distinction is to be made between those trees whose leaves fall as soon as the bright autumnal tints are gone and they are withered and those whose leaves are rustling and falling all winter even into spring. November 14, 1853

The willow twigs on the right of the Red Bridge causeway are bright greenish-yellow and reddish as in the spring. Also on the right railroad sand-bank at Heywood's meadow. Is it because they are preparing their catkins now against another spring? November 14, 1854

A clear, bright, warm afternoon. November 14, 1855

All waters — the rivers and ponds and swollen brooks — and many new ones are now seen through the leafless trees — are blue reservoirs of dark indigo amid the general russet and reddish-brown and gray. November 14, 1853

Now I begin to notice the silver downy twigs of the sweet-fern in the sun (lately bare), the red or crimson twigs and buds of the high blueberry. The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights. November 14, 1858

The river is slightly over the meadows. November 14, 1854

The rain has raised the river an additional foot or more, and it is creeping over the meadows. November 14, 1855

The motion of my boat sends an undulation to the shore, which rustles the dry sedge half immersed there. November 14, 1855

Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy. November 14, 1852

A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank. November 14, 1855

Two red-wing blackbirds alight on a black willow. November 14, 1855

The thermometer is 27° at 6 P. M. The mud in the street is stiffened under my feet this evening.  November 14, 1857

[October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year. November 14, 1853

November 14, 2020

*****

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Geese in Autumn

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Seen from a Hillside

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moods

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November

*****

November 14, 2022

 

October 24, 1858 ("October is the red sunset sky, November the later twilight.")

November 9, 1855  ("See a painted tortoise and a wood tortoise in different places out on the bank still!  ")

November 11, 1858 ("The waters look cold and empty . . .  waiting for ice. Indeed, ice that formed last night must have recently melted in it.") 

November 12, 1853 ("Tansy is very fresh still in some places")

November 12, 1858 ("All people move the brisker for the cold, yet are braced and a little elated by it.")

November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)

November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”)

November 13, 1855 ("In mid-forenoon, seventy or eighty geese, in three harrows successively ")

November 13, 1855 ("A fine clear afternoon after the misty morning and heavy rain of the night.")

November 13, 1858 ("Last night was quite cold, and the ground is white with frost. Thus gradually, but steadily, winter approaches")

November 13, 1858 ("A large flock of geese go over just before night. ")

November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring . . . Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”)

November 17, 1858 ("We are interested at this season by the manifold ways in which the light is reflected to usAscending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner. . . A myriad of surfaces are now prepared to reflect the light. This is one of the hundred silvery lights of November.")

November 18, 1852 ("Yarrow and tansy still. These are cold, gray days.");

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")

December 11, 1853 ("We find Heywood's Pond frozen five inches thick.")   

November 14, 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 

November 13 <<<<<<<<<  November 14 >>>>>>>> November 15

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 14

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