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
Hear first springlike note
from the hill at the stone bridge
in the misty air.
One or two little
cloud flecks in a clear sky gone
when I Iook again.
 |
| February 17, 2018 |
Was waked up last night by the tolling of a bell about 11 o’clock, as if a child had hold of the rope. Dressed and went abroad in the wet to see if it was a fire. It seems the town clock was out of order, and the striking part ran down and struck steadily for fifteen minutes. If it had not been so near the end of the week, it might have struck a good part of the night. February 17, 1855
Some three or four inches of snow fallen in the night and now blowing. February 17, 1856
Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). February 17, 1855
The jays are uttering their unusual notes, and this makes me think of a woodpecker. February 17, 1855
It reminds me of the pine warbler, vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, except that it is much louder, and I should say has the sound of l rather than t, — veller, etc., perhaps. February 17, 1855
Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? February 17, 1855
Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird? In the damp misty air. February 17, 1855
I hear that some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week!! It was probably a shrike. February 17, 1860
The river very high, one inch higher than the evening of January 31st. The bridge at Sam Barrett’s caved in; also the Swamp Bridge on back road. Muskrats driven out. February 17, 1855
The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats, and even boats . . . It is as open as the 3d of April last year, at least. February 17, 1857
Thermometer at 1 p.m., 60°. February 17, 1857
Some are apprehending loss of fruit from this warm weather. February 17, 1857
At noon begins to snow again, as well as blow. Several more inches fall. February 17, 1856
Cold and northwest wind, drifting the snow. February 17, 1860
I see on the Walden road that the wind through the wall is cutting through the drifts, leaving a portion adhering to the stones. February 17, 1852
It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest. February 17, 1852
At Gowing's Swamp I see where someone hunted white rabbits yesterday with a dog. The hunter has run round and round it on firm ground, while the hare and dog have cut across and circled about amid the blueberry bushes. February 17, 1854
It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest. February 17, 1852
At Gowing's Swamp I see where someone hunted white rabbits yesterday with a dog. The hunter has run round and round it on firm ground, while the hare and dog have cut across and circled about amid the blueberry bushes. February 17, 1854
The mice-tracks are very amusing. It is surprising how numerous they are, and yet I rarely ever see one. They must be nocturnal in their habits. February 17, 1854
In the early part of winter there was no walking on the snow, but after January, perhaps, when the snow-banks had settled and their surfaces, many times thawed and frozen, become indurated, in fact, you could walk on the snow-crust pretty well. February 17, 1854
3 P. M., thermometer 14º. A perfectly clear sky except one or two little cloud flecks in the southwest, which, when I look again after walking forty rods, have entirely dissolved. February 17, 1860
When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink, and even from white board fences. February 17, 1860
When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink, and even from white board fences. February 17, 1860
Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light,
- when we live an arctic life,
- when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m.,
- when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day,
- when I travelled, as it were, between the portals of the night,
- and the path was narrow as well as blocked with snow.
Grows colder yet at evening, and frost forms on the windows. February 17, 1860
February 17, 2019
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring
*****
December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)
December 18, 1859 ("I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight.")
December 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge");
December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. ")
December 29, 1859 ("To-night I notice the rose-color in the snow and the green in the ice at the same time, having been looking out for them").
January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.").
January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. “);
January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. . . .Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.”)
January 31, 1859 (" 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. . . . I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters.")
February 1, 1857 ("Thermometer at 42°.")
February 7, 1857("Another warm day, . . . The thermometer was at 52° when I came out at 3 p.m.")
February 8, 1860 ("It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard.")
February 8. 1860 ("40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. We have had much of this weather for a month past, reminding us of spring.")
February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”)
February 12, 1860 ("That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring?")
February 14, 1854 ("This greater liveliness of the birds methinks I have noticed commonly in warm, thawing days toward spring")
February 16, 1857 (“A wonderfully warm day (the third one); about 2 p.m., thermometer in shade 58.”)
February 18, 1857 (“When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”)
February 18, 1857 ("Thermometer at 1 p.m., 65.”)
February 18, 1857 ("I thought at one time that I heard a bluebird. . . . I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. . . . Here is the soft air and the moist expectant apple trees, but not yet the bluebird. They do not quite attain to song")
February 19,1856 (“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 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. It is already 40°, and by noon is between 50° and 60°)
February 24, 1860 ("The river risen and quite over the meadows yesterday and to-day, and musquash begun to be killed. ")
February 25, 1857 ("The thermometer is at 65° at noon.")
March 5, 1859 ("I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm\ . . . It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker!. . . It is the spring note of the nuthatch")
March 13, 1853 (“But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter,”)
April 3, 1856 ("The river is now generally and rapidly breaking up. It is surprising what progress has been made since yesterday. It is now generally open about the town.”);April 7, 1856 ("Surprised to find the river not broken up just above this [Hubbard] bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice. “) See also February 21, 1857 ("The river for some days has been open and its sap visibly flowing, like the maple.")
February 17, 2019
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.
February 16 <<<<< February 17 >>>>> February 18
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 17
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/HDTFeb17
No comments:
Post a Comment