A Book of the Seasons: December 6 (walking on ice, tracking, buds and pinweed)

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

 December 6

I see boys skating

but know not when the ice froze.

So busy writing.

December 6, 1854

The mist is so thick

even the reflected mist

now veils the hillsides.

December 6, 1859

Some plants are now seen

more simply and distinctly

and to advantage.

December 6, 1856

December 6, 2024

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it. December 6, 1858

Though foul weather yesterday, this is the warmest and pleasantest day yet. December 6, 1852

Cows are turned out to pasture again. December 6, 1852

On the Corner causeway fine cobwebs glimmer in the air, covering the willow twigs and the road, and sometimes stretching from side to side above my head. December 6, 1852

I see many little gnat-like insects in the air there. December 6, 1852

Tansy still fresh, and I saw autumnal dandelion a few days since. December 6, 1852

A great slate-colored hawk sails away from the Cliffs. December 6, 1852

To Walden and Baker Bridge, in the shallow snow and mizzling rain. December 6, 1859

It is somewhat of a lichen day . . .What surprising forms and colors! Designed on every natural surface of rock or tree. . . .How naturally they adorn our works of art! December 6, 1859

And there are the various shades of green and gray beside. December 6, 1859

The mist is so thick that we cannot quite see the length of Walden as we descend to its eastern shore. December 6, 1859

You see, beneath these whitened wooded hills and shore sloping to it, the dark, half mist-veiled water. December 6, 1859

The reflections of the hillsides are so much the more unsubstantial, for we see even the reflected mist veiling them. December 6, 1859

Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze. December 6, 1858

Though it is melting, there is more ice left on the twigs in the woods than I had supposed. December 6, 1859

It is already half fallen, melting off. December 6, 1858

The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. December 6, 1858

It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. 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 6, 1858

No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. December 6, 1859

I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture. December 6, 1854

Skating is fairly begun. December 6, 1856

The river is generally frozen over, though it will bear quite across in very few places. December 6, 1856

Much of the ice in the middle is dark and thin, having been formed last night, and when you stamp you see the water trembling in spots here and there. December 6, 1856

I can walk through the spruce swamp now dry-shod, amid the water andromeda and Kalmia glauca. December 6, 1856

I feel an affection for the rich brown fruit of the panicled andromeda growing about the swamp, hard, dry, inedible, suitable to the season. December 6, 1856

The dense panicles of the berries are of a handsome form, made to endure, lasting often over two seasons, only becoming darker and gray. December 6, 1856

How handsome every one of these leaves that are blown about the snow-crust or lie neglected beneath, soon to turn to mould! December 6, 1856

Though so many oak leaves hang on all winter, you will be surprised on going into the woods at any time, only a short time after a fall of snow, to see how many have lately fallen on it and are driven about over it, so that you would think there could be none left till spring. December 6, 1856

Far the greater part of the shrub oak leaves are fallen. December 6, 1856

Against this swamp I take to the riverside where the ice will bear. December 6, 1856

White snow ice it is, but pretty smooth, but it is quite glare close to the shore and wherever the water overflowed yesterday. December 6, 1856

On the meadows, where this overflow was so deep that it did not freeze solid, it cracks from time to time with a threatening squeak. December 6, 1856

Where I crossed the river on the roughish white ice, there were coarse ripple-marks two or three feet apart and convex to the south or up-stream, extending quite across, and many spots of black ice a foot wide, more or less in the midst of the white, where probably was water yesterday. December 6, 1856

The water, apparently, had been blown southerly on to the ice already formed, and hence the ripple-marks. December 6, 1856

I see here and there very faint tracks of musk-rats or minks, made when it was soft and sloshy, leading from the springy shore to the then open middle, — the faintest possible vestiges, which are only seen in a favorable light. December 6, 1856

I see also what I take to be rabbit's tracks made in that slosh, shaped like a horse's track, only rather longer and larger. December 6, 1856

Flannery tells me he is cutting in Holbrook's Swamp, in the Great Meadows, a lonely place. He sees a fox repeatedly there, and also a white weasel,--once with a mouse in its mouth, in the swamp. December 6, 1857

Just this side of Bittern Cliff, I see a very remarkable track of an otter, made undoubtedly December 3d, when this snow ice was mere slosh. It had come up through a hole (now black ice) by the stem of a button-bush, and, apparently, pushed its way through the slosh, as through snow on land, leaving a track eight inches wide, more or less, with the now frozen snow shoved up two inches high on each side, i. e. two inches above the general level. December 6, 1856

Where the ice was firmer are seen only the tracks of its feet. It had crossed the open middle (now thin black ice) and continued its singular trail to the opposite shore, as if a narrow sled had been drawn bottom upward. December 6, 1856

At Bittern Cliff I saw where they had been playing, sliding, or fishing, apparently to-day, on the snow- covered rocks, on which, for a rod upward and as much in width, the snow was trodden and worn quite smooth, as if twenty had trodden and slid there for several hours. Their droppings are a mass of fishes' scales and bones, — loose, scaly black masses. December 6, 1856

At this point the black ice approached within three or four feet of the rock, and there was an open space just there, a foot or two across, which appeared to have been kept open by them. December 6, 1856

I continued along up that side and crossed on white ice just below the pond. December 6, 1856

The river was all tracked up with otters, from Bittern Cliff upward. December 6, 1856

Sometimes one had trailed his tail, apparently edge wise, making a mark like the tail of a deer mouse; sometimes they were moving fast, and there was an interval of five feet between the tracks. December 6, 1856

I saw one place where there was a zigzag piece of black ice two rods long and one foot wide in the midst of the white, which I was surprised to find had been made by an otter pushing his way through the slosh. December 6, 1856

In many places the otters appeared to have gone floundering along in the sloshy ice and water. December 6, 1856

These very conspicuous tracks generally commenced and terminated at some button-bush or willow, where a black ice now masked the hole of that date. December 6, 1856

When I speak of the otter to our oldest village doctor, who should be ex officio our naturalist, he is greatly surprised, not knowing that such an animal is found in these parts, December 6, 1856

It is surprising that our hunters know no more about them. December 6, 1856

On all sides, in swamps and about their edges and in the woods, the bare shrubs are sprinkled with buds, more or less noticeable and pretty, their little gemmae or gems, their most vital and attractive parts now, almost all the greenness and color left, greens and salads for the birds and rabbits. December 6, 1856

Each pinweed, etc., has melted a little hollow or rough cave in the snow, in which the lower part at least snugly hides. December 6, 1856

What variety the pinweeds, clear brown seedy plants, give to the fields, which are yet but shallowly covered with snow! December 6, 1856

They are never more interesting than now on Lechea Plain, since they are perfectly relieved, brown on white. December 6, 1856

You were not aware before how extensive these grain-fields. December 6, 1856

Not till the snow comes are the beauty and variety and richness of vegetation ever fully revealed. Some plants are now seen more simply and distinctly and to advantage. December 6, 1856

The pinweeds, etc., have been for the most part confounded with the russet or brown earth beneath them, being seen against a background of the same color, but now, being seen against a pure white background, they are as distinct as if held up to the sky. December 6, 1856

Some plants seen, then, in their prime or perfection, when supporting an icy burden in their empty chalices. December 6, 1856

Our eyes go searching along the stems for what is most vivacious and characteristic, the concentrated summer gone into winter quarters. December 6, 1856

For we are hunters pursuing the summer on snow-shoes and skates, all winter long. There is really but one season in our hearts. December 6, 1856

In the evening I see the spearer's light on the river. December 6, 1852

10 P. M. — Hear geese going over. December 6, 1855

*****

A Book of the Seasons: First Ice

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

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

The world can never be more beautiful than now

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

*****

April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen.")

November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.")

November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character.")

November 20, 1853 ("Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm")

November 24, 1855 ("Geese went over on the 13th and 14th, on the 17th the first snow fell, and the 19th it began to be cold and blustering") 

November 20, 1858  ("The cinnamon-brown of withered pinweeds (how long?) colors whole fields.")

November 24, 1858 ("It is lichen day.")

November 30, 1856 ("Several inches of snow,. . .. Now see . . .the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust.")

December 1, 1852 ('' At this season I observe the form of the buds which hare prepare for spring.")
December 3, 1856 ("Fewer weeds now rise above the snow. Pinweed (or sarothra) is quite concealed.")

December 4, 1856 ("Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night.")

December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.");See 

December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth.")

December 5, 1856 ("I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too ") 

December 5, 1856 ("The ice trap was sprung last night.")

December 5 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow.")

December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing . . .so that there is quite a glaze.")

December 5, 1859 ("There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves")

The dripping trees and

falling ice will wet you through

like rain in the woods.

Here or there one or

another rainbow color –

a small point of light.

December 6, 1858

December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond”)

December 8, 1850 ("A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home.")

December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year.")

December 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day.") 

December 13, 1852 (" About the base of the larger pin-weed, the frost formed into little flattened trumpets or bells, an inch or more long, with the mouth down about the base of the stem.")

December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but . . .I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")

December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds.") 

December 23, 1859 ("The pinweed — the larger (say thymifolia) — pods open, showing their three pretty leather-brown inner divisions open like a little calyx, a third or half containing still the little hemispherical or else triangular red dish-brown seeds.")

December 24, 1854 ("Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning, concluding with a fine rain, which produces a slight glaze, the first of the winter.")

December 26, 1855 ("After snow, rain, and hail yesterday and last night, we have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had.")
December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales.”)
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.”)
December 31, 1852 (“It is a sort of frozen rain this afternoon, which does not wet one, but makes the still bare ground slippery with a coating of ice, and stiffens your umbrella so that it cannot be shut.")
January 7, 1855 (“It is a lichen day . . . How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark!”)

January 7, 1853 ("Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight, . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran.")

January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees.")

January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it.")

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 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.”)

January 26, 1858 (“This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly encircling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed.”)

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 5, 1852 ("The stems of the white pines also are quite gray at this distance, with their lichens”)

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.”)

 February 6, 1857 ("Down railroad to see the glaze, the first we have had this year, but not a very good one.")

February 7. 1859("They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes.")

February 8, 1856 ("But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow.”)

February 8, 1857 (“The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through.”)

February 20, 1856 ("See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday.. It came out to the river through the low declivities, making a uniform broad hollow trail there without any mark of its feet. . . .Commonly seven to nine or ten inches wide, and tracks of feet twenty to twenty-four apart; but sometimes there was no track of the feet for twenty-five feet, frequently for six; in the last case swelled in the outline.”)

February 21, 1855 ("How plain, wholesome, and earthy are the colors of quadrupeds generally! . . . The white of the polar bear, ermine weasel, etc., answers to the snow; . . .There are few or no bluish animals.")

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. In the snow less than an inch deep, on the ice, each foot makes a track three inches wide, apparently enlarged in melting. The clear interval, sixteen inches; the length occupied by the four feet, fourteen inches. 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, 1855 ("Farmer showed me an ermine weasel he caught in a trap three or four weeks ago . . . All white but the tip of the tail.")

We are hunters 

pursuing the summer

on snow-shoes and skates

 all winter long.

 

There is but 

one season 

in our hearts. 

December 6, 1856

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 

December 5 <<<<<<<< December 6 >>>>>>>> December 7

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 6

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/HDT06DEC

A Book of the Seasons; December 4 (first ice, first snow, winter air, winter color, winter birds, winter granaries, Indian summer)

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

December 4

Little tree sparrow

made to withstand the winter

perched on a white birch.

December 4, 1856

The bird-like birch scales

blown into the hollows of

the thin crusted snow.

December 4, 1856

I love the colors

of Nature at this season –

browns grays blue green white.

December 4, 1856

December 4, 2017

7.30 a. m. — Take a run down the riverside. December 4, 1856

Fair Haven Pond is now open, and there is no snow. December 4, 1850

The coldest day yet, clear with considerable wind, after the first cloudless morning for a week or two. December 4, 1853

A pleasant day and yet no snow nor ice. December 4, 1855

Ceased raining and mizzling last evening, and cleared off, with a high northwest wind, which shook the house, coming in fitful gusts, but only they who slept on the west sides of houses knew of it. December 4, 1856

Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence. December 4, 1859

The first snow, four or five inches, this evening. December 4, 1860

Dark waves are chasing each other across the river from northwest to southeast and breaking the edge of the snow ice which has formed for half a rod in width along the edge, and the fragments of broken ice, what arctic voyagers call "brash," carry forward the undulation. December 4, 1856

The northeast sides of the trees are thickly incrusted with snowy shields, visible afar, the snow was so damp (at Boston it turned to rain). December 4, 1854

This had none of the dry delicate powdery beauties of a common first snow. December 4, 1854

Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river. December 4, 1853

Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. December 4, 1853

The ice of Goose Pond already has a dusty look. It shows the crystals distinctly. December 4, 1853

The snow has now settled, owing to the rain, . . ., and there is a slight crust to it. December 4, 1856

It is remarkably good sleighing to-day, considering the little snow and the rain of yesterday, but it is slippery and hobbly for walkers. December 4, 1856

Scare up a few sparrows, which take shelter in Keyes's arborvitae row. December 4, 1856

An F. hyemalis also. December 4, 1856

I notice that the swallow-holes in the bank . . . which is partly washed away. December 4, 1856 

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow. December 4, 1854

I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. December 4, 1856

So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. December 4, 1856

How many thousand acres are there now of pitchered blue-curls and ragged wormwood rising above the shallow snow? . . .the first snow comes and reveals them. December 4, 1856

Then I come to fields in which the fragrant everlasting, straw-colored and almost odorless, and the dark taller St. John's-wort prevail. December 4, 1856

The granary of the birds. December 4, 1856

Saw and heard cheep faintly one little tree sparrow, the neat chestnut crowned and winged and white-barred bird, perched on a large and solitary white birch. So clean and tough, made to withstand the winter. December 4, 1856

This color reminds me of the upper side of the shrub oak leaf. December 4, 1856

The shrub oak fire burns briskly as seen from the Cliffs. December 4, 1850

 

The younger osiers on Shattuck’s row do shine. December 4, 1855

In the sprout-land by the road, in the woods. . . much gray goldenrod is mixed with the shrub oak. December 4, 1856

It reminds me of the color of the rabbits which run there. December 4, 1856

I love the few homely colors of Nature at this season, — her strong wholesome browns, her sober and primeval grays, her celestial blue, her vivacious green, her pure, cold, snowy white. December 4, 1856

It is an important relief to the eyes which have long rested on snow to rest on brown oak leaves and the bark of trees. December 4, 1856

We have [the greatest variety] in the colors of the withered oak leaves. The white, so curled and shrivelled and pale; the black (?), more flat and glossy and darker brown; the red, much like the black, but perhaps less dark, and less deeply cut. The scarlet still occasionally retains some blood in its veins. December 4, 1856

The evergreens are greener than ever. December 4, 1850

Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night. December 4, 1856

 It is a close contest between day and night, heat and cold. December 4, 1856

In the horizon I see a succession of the brows of hills, bare or covered with wood, -- look over the eyebrows of the recumbent earth. These are separated by long valleys filled with vapory haze. December 4, 1850

If there is a little more warmth than usual at this season, then the beautiful air which belongs to winter is perceived and appreciated. December 4, 1850

Though the sun is now an hour high, there is a peculiar bright light on the pines and on their stems. The lichens on their bark reflect it. December 4, 1850

Nature feeds her children chiefly with color. December 4, 1856

From year to year we look at Nature with new eyes. December 4, 1856

It is a beautiful, almost Indian-summer, afternoon. December 4, 1850

 

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-Curls

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

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

 A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

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

*****

March 14, 1855 (“I observe the tracks of sparrows leading to every little sprig of blue-curls amid the other weeds which (its seemingly empty pitchers) rises above the snow. There seems, however, to be a little seed left in them. This, then, is reason enough why these withered stems still stand, - that they may raise these granaries above the snow for the use of the snowbirds.”)
October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree")

 October 30, 1853 ("When the forest and fields put on their sober winter hue, we begin to look more to the sunset for color and variety.")
November 1, 1857 ("I see that the sun, when low, will shine into a thick wood, which you had supposed always dark, as much as twenty rods, lighting it all up, making the gray, lichen-clad stems of the trees all warm and bright with light");
November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “);
November 25, 1850 (“I found Fair Haven skimmed entirely over. . . ice on the water and winter in the air, but yet not a particle of snow on the ground")
November 25, 1850 (“This afternoon the air was indescribably clear and exhilarating, and though the thermometer would have shown it to be cold, I thought that there was a finer and purer warmth . . .The landscape looked singularly clean and pure and dry, the air, like a pure glass, being laid over the picture. . . ice on the water and winter in the air“)
November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.”)
November 30, 1856 (“Now see the empty chalices of the blue-curls and the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust.”)
November 30, 1853 ("An abundance of withered sedges and other coarse grasses, which in the summer you scarcely noticed, now cover the low grounds, -- the granary of the winter birds.")

December 1, 1856 (“The blue-curls' chalices stand empty, and waiting evidently to be filled with ice.”)
December 1. 1856 ("The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch")
December 2, 1857 ("Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice”)

December 3, 1853 ("Look at the fields, russet and withered, and the various sedges and weeds with dry bleached culms.")
December 3, 1853 ("Saw two tree sparrows . . . busily and very adroitly picking the seeds out of the larch cones. ")
December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning.”)
December 3, 1854 ("Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon.")
December 3, 1855 ("A pleasant day. No snow yet . . . nor do I see any ice to speak of. ")
December 3, 1858 ("A deliciously mild afternoon, though the ground is covered with snow.")

 

Smooth white reaches of 

ice as long as the river's 

dark-blue artery. 

December 4, 1856

Dark waves chasing each 

other across the river –

breaking the snow ice.

December 4, 1856

December 5, 1853 ("Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.")
December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.")
December 5, 1854 ("Probably river skimmed over in some places. ")
December 5, 1856 ("The river is well skimmed over in most places. ")
December 5, 1856 ("Clear, cold winter weather.")
December 5, 1856 ("I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times.")
December 5, 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow.")
December 5, 1858 ("The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters.")

December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep.")

December 7, 1852 ("Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer.")

December 8, 1850 ("A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice. This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.")

 December 8, 1854 ("How black the water where the river is open when I look from the light, by contrast with the surrounding white, the ice and snow!")
December 11, 1855 ("The incredible phenomenon of small birds in winter. There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances.")

December 8, 1852 ("Another Indian-summer day.")

December 11, 1853 (" Almost a complete Indian-summer day, clear and warm.")

December 13, 1857 ("This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear,. . . I see those same two tortoises (of Dec. 2d), moving about in the same place under the ice, which I can not crack with my feet.”)

December 14, 1851 ("The now dry and empty but clean-washed cups of the blue-curls spot the half snow-covered grain-fields.  ")

December 14, 1852 ("The dried chalices of the Rhexia Virginica stand above the snow, and the cups of the blue-curls. ")

December 17, 1856 ("That feeble cheep of the tree sparrow, like the tinkling of an icicle, or the chafing of two hard shrub oak twigs, is probably a call to their mates, by which they keep together. These birds, when perched, look larger than usual this cold and windy day; they are puffed up for warmth, have added a porch to their doors.")
December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds.");
December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.”);
December 26, 1853 ("The first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”);
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.")
December 28, 1856 ("Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here");
December 29, 1856 (". Do not the F. hyemalis, lingering yet, and the numerous tree sparrows foretell an open winter?")
December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales. I go now through the birch meadow southwest of the Rock. The high wind is scattering them over the snow there.")
December 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue. The pines look very dark. The white oak leaves are a cinnamon-color, the black and red oak leaves a reddish brown or leather-color.’)
December 31, 1851 ("The round greenish-yellow lichens on the white pines loom through the mist. . . . They eclipse the trees they cover.")

The tree sparrow comes

from the north in the winter

to get its dinner

January 16, 1860

December 4, 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 

December  3 <<<<<<<<  December 4  >>>>>>>> December 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 4

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 powder-mill blown up

January 7

To Nawshawtuct. 

This is one of those pleasant winter mornings when you find the river firmly frozen in the night, but still the air is serene and the sun feels gratefully warm an hour after sunrise, — though so fair, a healthy whitish vapor fills the lower stratum of the air, concealing the mountains, — the smokes go up from the village, you hear the cocks with immortal vigor, and the children shout on their way to school, and the sound made by the sonorousness in the earth. 

All nature is but braced by the cold. It gives tension to both body and mind. 

Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight, —  a hawk or dove. The least touch or jar shakes them off, and it is difficult to bring the female catkins home in your pocket. They cover the snow like coarse bran. 

On breaking the male catkins, I am surprised to see the yellow anthers so distinct, promising spring. I did not suspect that there was so sure a promise or prophecy of spring. These are frozen in December or earlier, — the anthers of spring, filled with their fertilizing dust. 

About ten minutes before 10 a. m., I heard a very loud sound, and felt a violent jar, which made the house rock and the loose articles on my table rattle, which I knew must be either a powder-mill blown up or an earthquake. Not knowing but another and more violent might take place, I immediately ran down-stairs, but I saw from the door a vast expanding column of whitish smoke rising in the west directly over the powder-mills four miles distant. It was unfolding its volumes above, which made it widest there. In three or four minutes it had all risen and spread itself into a lengthening, somewhat copper-colored cloud parallel with the horizon from north to south, and about ten minutes after the explosion it passed over my head, being several miles long from north to south and distinctly dark and smoky toward the north, not nearly so high as the few cirrhi in the sky. 

I jumped into a man's wagon and rode toward the mills. In a few minutes more, I saw behind me, far in the east, a faint salmon-colored cloud carrying the news of the explosion to the sea, and perchance over [the] head of the absent proprietor. Arrived probably before half past ten. There were perhaps thirty or forty wagons there. 

The kernel-mill had blown up first, and killed three men who were in it, said to be turning a roller with a chisel. In three seconds after, one of the mixing-houses exploded. The kernel-house was swept away, and fragments, mostly but a foot or two in length, were strewn over the hills and meadows, as if sown, for thirty rods, and the slight snow then on the ground was for the most part melted around. The mixing-house, about ten rods west, was not so completely dispersed, for most of the machinery remained, a total wreck. 

The press-house, about twelve rods east, had two thirds [of] its boards off, and a mixing-house next westward from that which blew up had lost some boards on the east side. The boards fell out (i. e. of those buildings which did not blow up), the air within apparently rushing out to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the explosions, and so, the powder being bared to the fiery particles in the air, another building explodes. The powder on the floor of the bared press-house was six inches deep in some places, and the crowd were thoughtlessly going into it. 

A few windows were broken thirty or forty rods off. Timber six inches square and eighteen feet long was thrown over a hill eighty feet high at least, — a dozen rods; thirty rods was about the limit of fragments. The drying-house, in which was a fire, was perhaps twenty-five rods distant and escaped. Every timber and piece of wood which was blown up was as black as if it had been dyed, except where it had broken on falling; other breakages were completely concealed by the color. I mistook what had been iron hoops in the woods for leather straps. 

Some of the clothes of the men were in the tops of the trees, where undoubtedly their bodies had been and left them. The bodies were naked and black, some limbs and bowels here and there, and a head at a distance from its trunk. The feet were bare; the hair singed to a crisp. 

I smelt the powder half a mile before I got there. 

Put the different buildings thirty rods apart, and then but one will blow up at a time. 

Brown thinks my red-headed bird of the winter the lesser redpoll. He has that fall snowbird, he thinks the young of the purple finch. What is my pine knot of the sea? Knot, or ash-colored sandpiper? or phala- rope? Brown's pine knot looks too large and clumsy. He shows me the spirit duck of the Indians, of which Peabody says the Indians call it by a word meaning spirit, "because of the wonderful quickness with which it disappears at the twang of a bow." 

I perceive (?) the increased length of the day on returning from my afternoon walk. Can it be? The sun sets only about five minutes later, and the day is about ten minutes longer.

Le Jeune thus describes the trees covered with ice in Canada in the winter of '35 and '36 (he appears to be at Quebec):  There was a great wind from the north east, accompanied by a rain which lasted a very long time, and by a cold great enough to freeze these waters as soon as they touched anything, so that, as this rain fell on the trees from the summit (cime) to the foot, there was formed (il s'y fit) a crystal of ice, which enchased both trunk (tige) and branches, so that for a very long time all our great woods appeared only a forest of crystal; for in truth the ice which clothed them universally everywhere (partout) was thicker than a testoon (epaisse de plus d'un teston); in a word all the bushes and all that was above the snow was environed on all sides and enchased in (avec) ice; the savages have told me that it does not happen often so (de meme)."

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1853

Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight. See January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it") See also note to December 6, 1859 ("No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders").


Put the different buildings thirty rods apart, and then but one will blow up at a time. See July 21, 1859 ("As you draw near the powder-mills, you see the hill behind bestrewn with the fragments of mills which have been blown up in past years, — the fragments of the millers having been removed, — and the canal is cluttered with the larger ruins. The very river makes greater haste past the dry-house, as it were for fear of accidents.") Nathan Pratt purchased a mill pond dam on the Assabet River and converted the former sawmill to a powder mill in 1835. The first explosion, in the first year the mills were operating, killed four men in 1836. The last three explosions in 1940 ended gunpowder production, and the dam at the original mill pond site is now being used to generate hydroelectricity for municipal Concord. The body of water created by the dam goes by the name Ripple Pond, and is located in Acton and Maynard.~ Wikipedea

I perceive  the increased length of the day.The sun sets only about five minutes later, and the day is about ten minutes longer. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”); January 25, 1855 ("For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in.)

January 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 7

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

That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

December 6. 

P. M. — To Walden and Baker Bridge, in the shallow snow and mizzling rain. 

It is somewhat of a lichen day. The bright-yellow sulphur lichens on the walls of the Walden road look novel, as if I had not seen them for a long time. Do they not require cold as much as moisture to enliven them? What surprising forms and colors! Designed on every natural surface of rock or tree. Even stones of smaller size which make the walls are so finished, and piled up for what use? How naturally they adorn our works of art! 

See where the farmer has set up his post-and-rail fences along the road. The sulphur lichen has, as it were, at once leaped to occupy the northern side of each post, as in towns handbills are pasted on all bare surfaces, and the rails are more or less gilded with them as if it had rained gilt. The handbill which nature affixes to the north side of posts and trees and other surfaces. 

And there are the various shades of green and gray beside. 

Though it is melting, there is more ice left on the twigs in the woods than I had supposed. 

The mist is so thick that we cannot quite see the length of Walden as we descend to its eastern shore. The reflections of the hillsides are so much the more unsubstantial, for we see even the reflected mist veiling them. You see, beneath these whitened wooded hills and shore sloping to it, the dark, half mist-veiled water. 

For two rods in width next the shore, where the water is shallowest and the sand bare, you see a strip of light greenish two or three rods in width, and then dark brown (with a few green streaks only) where the dark sediment of ages has accumulated. 

And, looking down the pond, you see on each side successive wooded promontories — with their dim reflections — growing dimmer and dimmer till they are lost in the mist. The more distant shores are a mere dusky line or film, a sort of concentration of the mistiness. 

In the pure greenish stripe next the shore I saw some dark-brown objects above the sand, which looked very much like sea turtles in various attitudes. One appeared holding its great head up toward the surface. 

They were very weird-like and of indefinite size. I supposed that they were stumps or logs on the bottom, but was surprised to find that they were a thin and flat collection of sediment on the sandy bottom, like that which covered the bottom generally further out. 

When the breeze rippled the surface some distance out, it looked like a wave coming in, but it never got in to the shore. 

No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. Thus it is alternate snow and seeds.

Returning up the railroad, I see the great tufts of sedge in Heywood's meadow curving over like locks of the meadow's hair, above the snow.  These browned the meadow considerably. 

Then came a black maze, of alders moistened by the rain, which made a broad black belt between the former brown and the red-brown oaks higher up the hillside. 

The white pines now, seen through the mist, the ends of their boughs drooping a little with the weight of the glaze, resemble very much hemlocks, for the extremities of their limbs always droop thus, while pines are commonly stiffly erect or ascendant.

***

I took out my boots, which I have not worn since last spring, with the mud and dust of spring still on them, and went forth in the snow. That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.

H. .D. Thoreau,  Journal, December 6, 1859

It is somewhat of a 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.”); and note to February 7. 1959("I see the sulphur lichens on the rails brightening with the moisture I feel like studying them again as a relisher or tonic, to make life go down and digest well, as we use pepper and vinegar and salads. They are a sort of winter greens which we gather and assimilate with our eyes.")


No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice. See November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."; )December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.");See December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth."); December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds. "); December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales.”); January 7, 1853 ("Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight, . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran."); January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees."); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it").


That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter. See November 28, 1850 ("Within a day or two the walker finds gloves to be comfortable, and begins to think of an outside coat and of boots. Embarks in his boots for the winter voyage."); December 3, 1856 ("The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter's wood.”); December 8, 1852 ("One cannot burn or bury even his old shoes without a feeling of sadness and compassion");compare March 30, 1860 (“It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel lightfooted.”)