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
The rainbow-colored
reflections from myriad
crystals of the snow.
A very cold morning. Thermometer, or mercury, 18° below zero. January 29, 1854
Not cold. January 29, 1855
It is considerably colder. January 29, 1858
Colder than before, and not a cloud in the sky to-day. January 29, 1860
Half an inch or more of snow fell last night, the ground being half bare before. January 29, 1860
It was a snow of small flakes not star-shaped. January 29, 1860
Sun comes out at noon. January 29, 1855
As usual, I now see, walking on the river and river-meadow ice, thus thinly covered with the fresh snow, that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, i. e., as I walk toward the sun, January 29, 1860
As usual, I now see, walking on the river and river-meadow ice, thus thinly covered with the fresh snow, that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, i. e., as I walk toward the sun, January 29, 1860
 |
| The rainbow-colored reflections from myriad crystals of the snow. January 29, 1860 |
Pickerel of at least three different forms and colors were lying on the ice of Walden this afternoon January 29, 1853
I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden, three or four rods from the shore, its tail sticking out a hole. January 29, 1853
The ice is eight inches thick. It is full of short, faint, flake-like perpendicular cleavages, an inch or two broad, or varying somewhat from the perpendicular. January 29, 1853
Since the 13th there has been at no time less than one foot on a level in open fields. January 29, 1856
The snow is probably about fourteen on a level in open fields now, or quite as deep as at any time this winter. January 29, 1856
I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow's, north of the new road. January 29, 1858
For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes, and the shortest way is to bend down bushes eight feet high and tread on them. January 29, 1858
The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-vessels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions. January 29, 1858
The cranberry rising red above the ice is seen to be allied to the water andromeda, but is yet redder. January 29, 1858
I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. January 29, 1858
Even this green is exhilarating, like a spring in winter. I am affected by the sight even of a mass of conferva in a ditch. January 29, 1858
I find some radical potamogeton leaves six inches long under water, which look as if growing. January 29, 1858
Found some splendid fungi on old aspens used for a fence; quite firm; reddish-white above and bright vermilion beneath, or perhaps more scarlet, reflecting various shades as it is turned. January 29, 1858
I was surprised by its brilliant color. This intense vermilion (?) face, which would be known to every boy in the town if it were turned upward, faces the earth and is discovered only by the curious naturalist. January 29, 1858
These silent and motionless fungi . . . revealing their bright colors perchance only to the prying naturalist January 29, 1858
To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. January 29, 1860
Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday sheldrakes. January 29, 1853
How imperfect a notion have we commonly of what was the actual condition of the place where we dwell, three centuries ago! January 29, 1856
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pickerel frog (Rana palustris)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll
A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections
*****
December 6, 1858 ("Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")December 11, 1855 ("Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle")
December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . . I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six (?)-rayed wheel.")
December 23, 1850 ("The pitch pines now bear their snowy fruit.")
December 30, 1859 ("Little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine")
January 4, 1852 ("The cracks in the ice showing a white cleavage")
January 4, 1852 ("The cracks in the ice showing a white cleavage")
January 7, 1860 ("I saw yesterday the track of a fox, and. .. on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse.")
January 9, 1856 (“To Beck Stow’s . . . Probably it has been below zero far the greater part of the day. . . .I wade through the swamp, where the snow lies light eighteen inches deep on a level")
January 10, 1855 (“To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again.”)
January 10, 1856 (“I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now,”)January 9, 1856 (“To Beck Stow’s . . . Probably it has been below zero far the greater part of the day. . . .I wade through the swamp, where the snow lies light eighteen inches deep on a level")
January 10, 1855 (“To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again.”)
January 12, 1860 ("Going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over its surface, — little mirror-like facets, . . .which has fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun. Such is the glitter or sparkle on the surface of a snow freshly fallen when the sun comes out and you walk from it, the points of light constantly changing.")
January 14, 1853 ("Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw.")
January 19, 1855 ("At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pig weed in the garden. Almost all have more or less crimson; a few are very splendid, with their particularly bright crimson breasts. The white on the edge of their wing-coverts is very conspicuous")
January 19, 1855 ("On some pitch pines it lay in fruit-like balls as big as one’s head, like cocoanuts.")
January 20, 1860 ("The snow along the sides of the river is also all dusted over with birch and alder seed, and I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed.")
January 25, 1853 ("The pickerel of Walden!. . .I am always surprised by their rare beauty, as if they were a fabulous fish, . . . handsome as flowers and gems, golden and emerald, — a transcendent and dazzling beauty. . . they have, if possible, to my eye, yet rarer colors, like precious stones. It is surprising that . . . in this deep and capacious spring, . . . this great gold and emerald fish swims")
January 24, 1860 ("See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad . . .They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse")
January 24, 1860 ("See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad . . .They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse")
January 26, 1859 ("What various kinds of ice there are!")
January 27, 1860 ("Half a dozen redpolls busily picking the seeds out of the larch cones behind Monroe's.")
January 28, 1853 ("See three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard's this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed.")
January 27, 1860 ("Half a dozen redpolls busily picking the seeds out of the larch cones behind Monroe's.")
January 28, 1853 ("See three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard's this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed.")
January 31, 1859 ("But what various kinds of ice there are!")
February 3, 1852 (“This snow . . . is two feet deep, pure and powdery. From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface.”);
February 8, 1856 ("At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors.")
February 12, 1856 ("From January 6th to January 13th, not less than a foot of snow on a level in open land, and from January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level. That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!”)
February 13, 1859 ("A dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets.").
February 12, 1856 ("From January 6th to January 13th, not less than a foot of snow on a level in open land, and from January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level. That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!”)
February 13, 1859 ("A dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets.").
January 29, 2018
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.
https://tinyurl.com/HDT29Jan
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