Great revolutions of this sort take place before you are aware of it.

January 26

Fair, but overcast. Thermometer about 32°. 

Pretty good skating on the Great Meadows, slightly raised and smoothed by the thaw and also the rain of (I think) the 23d-24th. 

Great revolutions of this sort take place before you are aware of it. 

Though you walk every day, you do not foresee the kind of walking you will have the next day.

January 26, 2019

Skating, crusted snow, slosh, etc., are wont to take you by surprise. 

P. M. — To Eleazer Davis's Hill, and made a fire on the ice, merely to see the flame and smell the smoke. We soon had a slender flame flashing upward some four feet, — so many parallel undulating tongues. The air above and about it was all in commotion, being heated so that we could not see the landscape distinctly or steadily through it. If only to see the pearl ashes and hear the brands sigh.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal,  January 26, 1860

Great revolutions of this sort take place before you are aware of it. See June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.")

Though you walk every day, you do not foresee the kind of walking you will have the next day. See January 10, 1854 ("What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day");  January 10, 1851 ("Who can foretell the sunset . . .the art of taking walks daily"); December 29, 1851 ("What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle."); January 7, 1851 ("There is no account of the blue sky in history. I must live above all in the present.");

Live in the present.

There is no account of the 

blue sky in history.

January 7, 1851

The art of walking

is to saunter daily with

no specific ends.

January 10, 1851

What measureless joy

to know nothing about the

day that is to dawn!

December 29, 1851

What you recall of a walk the second day will differ from the first. January 10, 1854

Though you walk each day, 

you do not foresee the walk

you have the next day. 

January 26, 1860

Made a fire on the ice, merely to see the flame and smell the smoke. See 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,");  February 20, 1854 ("We skate home in the dusk, with an odor of smoke in our clothes.")

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 ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt18600126

A note of recognition meant for me.

December 25

Standing by the side of the river at Eleazer Davis's Hill, -- prepared to pace across it, -- I hear a sharp fine screep from some bird, which at length I detect amid the button-bushes and willows. The screep is a note of recognition meant for me.

The bird is so very active that I can not get a steady view of it. Yet I can see a brilliant crown, even between the twigs of the button-bush and through the withered grass, when I can detect no other part. It is evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before.

This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river. If it does not visit us often it is strange that it should chose such a season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1859

The screep is a note of recognition meant for me. See  JJ Audubon ("This active little bird breeds in Labrador... It enters the United States late in September, and continues its journey beyond their limits,... remain[ing] in all the Southern and Western States the whole of that season, and leave them again about the beginning of March. They generally associate in groups, composed each of a whole family, and feed in company with the Titmice, Nuthatches, and Brown Creepers, perambulating the tops of trees and bushes, sometimes in the very depth of the forests or the most dismal swamps, while at other times they approach the plantations, and enter the gardens and yards. Their movements are always extremely lively and playful ..., and are unceasingly occupied. They have no song at this season, but merely emit now and then a low screep.”)

I can see a brilliant crown, evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before. See also December 30, 1859 ("I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow.") [Apparently this is Thoreau’s first true sighting of the golden-crested wren, having misidentified  the ruby-crested as it until he saw its ruby crest and then waivers in his naming.]  See May 7, 1854 ("A ruby-crested wren. . .Saw its ruby crest and heard its harsh note. (This was the same I have called golden-crowned ; and so described by W[ilson], I should say, except that I saw its ruby crest. . . ..Have I seen the two?)”);  May 11, 1854 (“I am in a little doubt about the wrens (I do not refer to the snuff -colored one), whether I have seen more than one. All that makes me doubt is that I saw a ruby, or perhaps it might be called fiery, crest on the last — not golden.”); April 24, 1855 ("I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, ashy-olive above and whitish beneath, with a white bar on wings, restlessly darting at insects like a flycatcher, —into the air after them. It is quite tame. A very neat bird, but does not sing now.”); April 26, 1855 (“Going over Ponkawtasset, hear a golden-crested wren, — the robin’s note, etc., —in the tops of the high wood”); April 27, 1855 (“ Few birds are heard this cold and windy morning. Hear a partridge drum before 6 A. M., also a golden-crested wren.”); May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren, . . . I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

December 25.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 25

Seeking its food here

alone this cold winter day –

its note meant for me.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  A note of recognition 

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 © 2009-2024