A Book of the Seasons: December 5 (clear cold winter weather, a pause in boating, ice snow and solitude, winter birds, winter colors, winter sky)

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 5

I love best to have 

each thing in season only

and then do without.

December 5, 1856

There is a bright light

on the pines and on their stems –

the lichens on their bark. 

December 5, 1850

Many winter birds
have a sharp note like tinkling 
glass or icicles.
December 5, 1853

Now for the short days.

Sun behind a low cloud and

the world is darkened.

December 5, 1853

Pale blue winter sky

simple, perfectly cloudless –

a white moon half full.

December 5, 1856

To be born into

the most estimable place

in the nick of time.

December 5, 1856

December 5, 2020

Very cold last night. December 5, 1854

What a contrast between this week and last. December 5, 1856

The ground has been frozen more or less about a week. December 5, 1853

Suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter. December 5, 1859

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

Clear, cold winter weather. December 5, 1856

Probably river skimmed over in some places. December 5, 1854

The river is well skimmed over in most places. December 5, 1856

The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon. December 5, 1853

Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over. December 5, 1853

Got my boat in. December 5, 1853

I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating, to be obliged to get my boat in. December 5, 1856

I shall launch it again in the spring with so much more pleasure. 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 damp snow with water beneath . . . is frozen solid, making a crust which bears well. December 5, 1854

There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. December 5, 1856

It would be easier gathering them now than ever. December 5, 1856

Some fine straw-colored grasses . . . still rise above this crusted snow, and even a recess is melted around them. December 5, 1856

The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow. December 5, 1856

As I walk along the side of the Hill, a pair of nuthatches flit by toward a walnut, flying low in mid- course and then ascending to the tree. December 5, 1856

I hear one's faint tut tut or gnah gnah — no doubt heard a good way by its mate now flown into the next tree .December 5, 1856

It is a chubby bird, white, slate-color, and black. December 5, 1856

Saw and heard a downy woodpecker on an apple tree.  December 5, 1853

Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? December 5, 1853

The chip of the tree sparrow, also, and the whistle of the shrike, are they not wintry in the same way ? December 5, 1853

The partridge is budding on the apple tree and bursts away from the path-side. December 5, 1853

Four quails running across the Turnpike. December 5, 1859

At noon a few flakes fall. December 5, 1857

Rather hard walking in the snow. December 5, 1859

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

The perfect silence, as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled (her axle). December 5, 1859

The stillness (motionlessness) of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses, as if they were sculptured out of marble. December 5, 1859

A fine mizzle falling and freezing to the twigs and stubble, so that there is quite a glaze. December 5, 1858

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters. December 5, 1858

These humble withered plants, which have not of late attracted your attention, now arrest it by their very stiffness and exaggerated size. December 5, 1858

Some grass culms eighteen inches or two feet high, which nobody noticed, are an inexhaustible supply of slender ice-wands set in the snow. December 5, 1858

The grasses and weeds bent to the crusty surface form arches of various forms. December 5, 1858

It is surprising how the slenderest grasses can support such a weight, but the culm is buttressed by an other icy culm or column, and the load gradually taken on. December 5, 1858

In the woods the drooping pines compel you to stoop. December 5, 1858

In all directions they are bowed down, hanging their heads. December 5, 1858

Several small white oak trees full of stiffened leaves by the roadside, strangely interesting and beautiful. December 5, 1859

The evergreens are greener than ever. There is a peculiar bright light on the pines and on their stems. The lichens on their bark reflect it. December 5, 1850

Some sugar maples, both large and small, have still, like the larger oaks, a few leaves about the larger limbs near the trunk. December 5, 1858

The large yellowish leaves of the black oak (young trees) are peculiarly conspicuous, rich and warm, in the midst of this ice and snow December 5, 1858

And on the causeway the yellowish bark of the willows gleams warmly through the ice. December 5, 1858

The birches are still upright, and their numerous parallel white ice-rods remind me of the recent gossamer-like gleams which they reflected. December 5, 1858

Half a mile off, a tall and slender pitch pine against the dull-gray mist, peculiarly monumental. December 5, 1859

Many living leaves are very dark red now. . .  the checkerberry, andromeda, low cedar, and more or less lambkill. December 5, 1853

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping. December 5, 1853

The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened. December 5,1853

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. December 5, 1856

A white moon, half full, in the pale or dull blue heaven and a whiteness like the reflection of the snow, extending up from the horizon all around a quarter the way up to the zenith. December 5, 1856 (This at 4 p. m. December 5, 1856)

The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky. December 5, 1856

Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused, so that it seemed much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before. December 5, 1853

In the horizon I see a succession of the brows of hills, - the eyebrows of the recumbent earth - separated by long valleys filled with vapory haze.   December 5, 1850

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

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold. December 5, 1856

December 5, 2014

*****

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in Boat out

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines  

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

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Anthropic Principle

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon

*****

December 5, 2023

February 19, 1854 ("Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world?”)
April 13, 1852 ("The imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts.”)
April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season").
August 3, 1852 ("By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe.")
August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.")
August 22, 1854 ("There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case.")
August 23, 1853 ("Live in each season as it passes.")
August 23, 1853 ("Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end")
September 9, 1854 ("The earth is the mother of all creatures.")

November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.")

November 20, 1857 ("I see a few flakes of snow, two or three only, like flocks of gossamer, straggling in a slanting direction to the ground, unnoticed by most, in a rather raw air.")

 November 26, 1860 ("I detect it on the trunk of an oak much nearer than I suspected, and its mate or companion not far off.")

November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.") 

December 1, 1857 ("I hear the faintest possible quivet from a nuthatch, quite near me on a pine. I thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter")

December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat,")

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, 1853 ("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, 1856 ("Each day at present, the wriggling river nibbles off the edges of the trap which have advanced in the night.")

December 7, 1856 (The winters come now as fast as snowflakes. It was summer, and now again it is winter."")

December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick.”)

December 8, 1850 ("The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!”)

December 8, 1859 ("The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.")
December 9, 1855 ("At 8.30 a fine snow begins to fall, increasing very gradually, perfectly straight down, till in fifteen minutes the ground is white . . . But in a few minutes it turns to rain, and so the wintry landscape is postponed for the present.”)

December 9, 1856 ("Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,")
December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")

December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day.”)
December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be,")
December 16, 1857 ("Begins to snow about 8 A. M., and in fifteen minutes the ground is white, but it soon stops.")

December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset, which at midday appears to rest on its axle! ")

December 24, 1854 ("A slight glaze, the first of the winter. This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind.")
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.")

December 26, 1855 ("The weeds and grasses, being so thickened by this coat of ice, appear much more numerous in the fields. It is surprising what a bristling crop they are.")

December 5, 2020

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

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 4 <<<<<<<< December 5  >>>>>>>> December 6

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 5 

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

The great rise and fall of the pond.

December 5. 

P. M. — Rowed over Walden! 

A dark, but warm, misty day, completely overcast. 

This great rise of the pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge, — pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, etc., — and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore. 

The rise and fall of the pond serves this use at least. 

This fluctuation, though it makes it difficult to walk round it when the water is highest, by killing the trees makes it so much the easier and more agreeable when the water is low. 

By this fluctuation, this rise of its waters after long intervals, it asserts its title to a shore, and the trees can not hold it by right of possession. 

But unlike those waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is cleanest when the water is lowest. 

I have been surprised to observe how surely the water standing for a few months about such trees would kill them. 

On the side of the pond next my house a row of pitch pines fifteen feet high was killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to their encroachments; and their size may indicate how many years had elapsed since the last rise.

I have been surprised to see what a rampart has been formed about many ponds, — in one place at Walden, but especially at Flint's Pond, where it occurs between the pond and a swamp, as if it were the remains of an Indian swamp fort, — apparently by the action of the waves and the ice, several feet in height and containing large stones and trees. 

These lips of the lake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to time.

I saw some dimples on the surface, and, thinking it was going to rain hard immediately, the air being full of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars to row homeward. Already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking; but suddenly the dimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch which the noise of my oars had scared into the depths. I saw their schools dimly disappearing.

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the other hand directly and manifestly related to Concord River, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds, through which in some other geological period it may have flowed thither, and by a little digging, which God forbid, could probably be made to flow thither again. 

If, by living thus "reserved and austere" like a hermit in the woods so long, it has acquired such wonderful depth and purity, who would not regret that the impure waters of Flint's Pond should be mingled with it, or itself should go waste its sweetness in the ocean wave? 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1852

The rise and fall of the pond. See Walden ("The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when it was at least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. . . . This makes a difference of level, at the outside, of six or seven feet; . . . It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their greatest height at the same time with the latter. The same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White Pond."). See also December 8, 1852 ("The recent water-line at Walden is quite distinct, though like the limit of a shadow, on the alders about eighteen inches above the present level."); December 13, 1852 ("I judge from [Mr. Weston's] account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden."); November 26, 1858 (“Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years. . . ., and what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are. I begin to suspect, therefore, that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers”); April 3, 1859 ("The pond [White Pond] is quite high (like Walden, which, as I noticed the 30th ult., had risen about two feet since January, and perhaps within a shorter period), and the white sand beach is covered.") Compare August 19, 1854 ("Flint's Pond has fallen very much since I was here. The shore is so exposed that you can walk round, which I have not known possible for several years, and the outlet is dry. But Walden is not affected by the drought.") And see R. Primack,racing Water Levels at Walden Pond. (2016); Walden Pond - Water Level Changes (2018)

These lips of the lake See Walden ("On the side of the pond next my house, a row of pitch pines fifteen feet high has been killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to their encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have elapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the lake on which no beard grows.By this fluctuation the pond asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the lake on which no beard-grows. It licks its chaps from time to time.")

I saw some dimples on the surface. See November 9, 1858 ("As I stood upon Heywood’s Peak, I observed in the very middle of the pond, which was smooth and reflected the sky there, what at first I took to be a sheet of very thin, dark ice two yards wide drifting there,. . .But, suspecting what it was, I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes continually coming to the surface there together.")

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet. See August 24, 1860 ("As it has no outlet, Walden is a well, rather. It is not a superficial pond, not in the mere skin of the earth. It goes deeper. It reaches down to where the temperature of the earth is unchanging.")

A similar chain of ponds, through which in some other geological period it may have flowed. see April 19 1852 ("Crossed by the chain of ponds to Walden. The first, looking back, appears elevated high above Fair Haven between the hills above the swamp, and the next higher yet. Each is distinct, a wild and interesting pond with its musquash house.")

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses recall past winters.

December 5. 

Some sugar maples, both large and small, have still, like the larger oaks, a few leaves about the larger limbs near the trunk. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing to the twigs and stubble, so that there is quite a glaze. The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters. These humble withered plants, which have not of late attracted your attention, now arrest it by their very stiffness and exaggerated size. Some grass culms eighteen inches or two feet high, which nobody noticed, are an inexhaustible supply of slender ice-wands set in the snow. The grasses and weeds bent to the crusty surface form arches of various forms. It is surprising how the slenderest grasses can support such a weight, but the culm is buttressed by an other icy culm or column, and the load gradually taken on. 

In the woods the drooping pines compel you to stoop. In all directions they are bowed down, hanging their heads. 

The large yellowish leaves of the black oak (young trees) are peculiarly conspicuous, rich and warm, in the midst of this ice and snow, and on the causeway the yellowish bark of the willows gleams warmly through the ice. 

The birches are still upright, and their numerous parallel white ice-rods remind me of the recent gossamer-like gleams which they reflected. 

How singularly ornamented is that salamander! Its brightest side, its yellow belly, sprinkled with fine dark spots, is turned downward. Its back is indeed ornamented with two rows of bright vermilion spots, but these can only be detected on the very closest inspection, and poor eyes fail to discover them even then, as I have found.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1858

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters.See December 26, 1855("The weeds and grasses, being so thickened by this coat of ice, appear much more numerous in the fields. It is surprising what a bristling crop they are."); December 5, 1859 ("The perfect silence -- the stillness and motionless of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses; it is as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled on her axle")

That salamander! See December 3, 1858 ("The salamander above named, found in the water of the Pout’s Nest, is the Salamandra symmetrica It is some three inches long, brown (not dark-brown) above and yellow with small dark spots beneath, and the same spots on the sides of the tail; a row of very minute vermilion spots, not detected but on a close examination, on each side of the back")

A few flakes

December 5. 

At noon a few flakes fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1857

See  December 16, 1857 ("Begins to snow about 8 A. M., and in fifteen minutes the ground is white, but it soon stops."); December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.")/ See also  November 20, 1857 ("I see a few flakes of snow, two or three only, like flocks of gossamer, straggling in a slanting direction to the ground, unnoticed by most, in a rather raw air.");  December 9, 1855 ("At 8.30 a fine snow begins to fall, increasing very gradually, perfectly straight down, till in fifteen minutes the ground is white . . . But in a few minutes it turns to rain, and so the wintry landscape is postponed for the present.”); and  note to November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.")

Born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time.

December 5. 

Clear, cold winter weather. What a contrast between this week and last, when I talked of setting out apple trees! 

December 5,  2020

P. M. — Walked over the Hill. 

The Indians have at length got a regular load of wood. It is odd to see a pile of good oak wood beside their thin cotton tents in the snow, the wood-pile which is to be burnt within is so much more substantial than the house. Yet they do not appear to mind the cold, though one side the tent is partly open, and all are flapping in the wind, and there is a sick child in one. The children play in the snow in front, as before more substantial houses. 

The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear, — wherever there is least current, as in broad places, or where there is least wind, as by the bridges. The ice trap was sprung last night. 

As I walk along the side of the Hill, a pair of nuthatches flit by toward a walnut, flying low in mid- course and then ascending to the tree. I hear one's faint tut tut or gnah gnah — no doubt heard a good way by its mate now flown into the next tree — as it is ascending the trunk or branch of a walnut in a zigzag manner, hitching along, prying into the crevices of the bark; and now it has found a savory morsel, which it pauses to devour, then flits to a new bough. It is a chubby bird, white, slate-color, and black. 

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. A white moon, half full, in the pale or dull blue heaven and a whiteness like the reflection of the snow, extending up from the horizon all around a quarter the way up to the zenith. I can imagine that I see it shooting up like an aurora. This at 4 p. m. About the sun it is only whiter than elsewhere, or there is only the faintest possible tinge of yellow there. 

There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. 

The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow. Some fine straw-colored grasses, as delicate as the down on a young man's cheek, still rise above this crusted snow, and even a recess is melted around them, so gently has it been deposited. 

The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky. 

This morning I saw Riordan's cock thrust out the window on to the snow to seek his sustenance, and now, as I go by at night, he is waiting on the front door-step to be let in. 

My themes shall not be far-fetched. I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures. Friends ! Society! It seems to me that I have an abundance of it, there is so much that I rejoice and sympathize with, and men, too, that I never speak to but only know and think of. 

What you call bareness and poverty is to me simplicity. God could not be unkind to me if he should try. 

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold, for it compels the prisoner to try new fields and resources. 

I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating, to be obliged to get my boat in. I shall launch it again in the spring with so much more pleasure. This is an advantage in point of abstinence and moderation compared with the seaside boating, where the boat ever lies on the shore.  I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times. 

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. I find it invariably true, the poorer I am, the richer I am. What you consider my disadvantage, I consider my advantage. While you are pleased to get knowledge and culture in many ways, I am delighted to think that I am getting rid of them. 

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. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1856



The ice trap was sprung last night. See 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. ") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice.

I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating. See December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat."); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in Boat out.

I love best to have each thing in its season only. See August 23, 1853 ("Live in each season as it passes."); November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.");  August 22, 1854 ("There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case."); April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season").

A pair of nuthatches flit by toward a walnut. See November 26, 1860 ("I detect it on the trunk of an oak much nearer than I suspected, and its mate or companion not far off.");   December 1, 1857  ("I  thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter, as if it did not breed here, but wintered here.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. A white moon, half full,  See January 1, 1852 ("Moon little more than half full. Not a cloud in the sky.") April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December  Moonlight

I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures. Compare October 18, 1856 ("Give me simple, cheap, and homely themes.")

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold. See December 8, 1850 ("The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!”);  April 13, 1852 ("The imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts.”)

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. See Henry Thoreau, A Week (Wednesday) ("I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources."); August 3, 1852 ("By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe."); August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower."); August 23, 1853 ("Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end"); February 19, 1854 ("Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world?”) Walden ("Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength."); September 9, 1854 ("The earth is the mother of all creatures."); December 11, 1855 ("The-winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

December 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 5

Pale blue winter sky

simple, perfectly cloudless –

a white moon half full.

To be born into

the most estimable place

in the nick of time.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Born into the most estimable place in the nick of time.

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDT561205

A Book of the Seasons: December 5.

December 5.

I love best to have 

each thing in its season and

not at other times.

 December 5, 1856

Now for the short days.
Sun behind a low cloud and
the world is darkened.
December 5, 1853


Many winter birds
have a sharp note like tinkling
glass or icicles.
December 5, 1853

Perfectly cloudless
pale or dull blue winter sky –
a white moon half full.
December 5, 1856

 A half full white moon

in a pale blue and cloudless

simple winter sky.

December 5, 1856

To be born into
the most estimable place
in the nick of time.
December 5, 1856



Stiffened ice-coated
weeds and grass on the causeway
recall past winters.
December 5, 1858


The yellowish bark
of willows on the causeway
gleams warmly through ice.
December 5, 1858

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 © 2009-2020

Damp snow frozen solid

December 5.

Very cold last night. Probably river skimmed over in some places. The damp snow with water beneath (in all five or six inches deep and not drifted, notwithstanding the wind) is frozen solid, making a crust which bears well. This, I think, is unusual at this stage of the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1854

Probably river skimmed over in some places. See December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.") December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places . . . Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 5, 1856 (The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear")

We head out around 7 pm in a light snow. thirty degrees. o the view. on the way trim the branches from the hemlock that has fallen over the trial. the valley is illuminated by a dome of clouds back lit by the full moon.  it is light enough to walk without a headlamp where there is snow .  We go over the east side and up the gulf to the top of the mountain and sit. Deccember 5, 2014

Now for the short days and early twilight.

December 5

Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.

Many living leaves are very dark red now. Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over. The ground has been frozen more or less about a week, not very hard. 

See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping. The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened. 

The partridge budding on the apple tree bursts away from the path-side. 

Suddenly the whole atmosphere fills with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused. It seems much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1853

Got my boat in. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

The river frozen over thinly in most places. Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.  See  December 5, 1856 ("The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear, — wherever there is least current, as in broad places, or where there is least wind, as by the bridges. The ice trap was sprung last night.") See also .  December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. (Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.)") December 4, 1856 ("Each day at present, the wriggling river nibbles off the edges of the trap which have advanced in the night. It is a close contest between day and night, heat and cold. ");  December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick.”); December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,"); December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")

Now for the short days and early twilight. See note to December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day.”)

December 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 5 

Now for the short days –

sun behind a low cloud and

the world is darkened.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Now for the short days and early twilight.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531205

Dec. 5. P. M. 

Got my boat in.

The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.

4 P. M. To Cliffs.

Many living leaves are very dark red now, the only effect of the frost on them, — the checkerberry, andromeda, low cedar, and more or less lambkill, etc. 

Saw and heard a downy woodpecker on an apple tree.

Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? The chip of the tree sparrow, also, and the whistle of the shrike, are they not wintry in the same way? And the sonorous hooting owl? But not so the jay and Fringilla linaria, and still less the crow.

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping.

The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened.

The partridge is budding on the apple tree and bursts away from the path-side.

Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.

The ground has been frozen more or less about a week, not very hard.

Probably stiffened the 3d so as to hinder spading, but softened afterward.

I rode home from the woods in a hay-rigging, with a boy who had been collecting a load of dry leaves for the hog-pen; this the third or fourth load.

Two other boys asked leave to ride, with four large empty box-traps which they were bringing home from the woods. It was too cold and late to follow box-trapping longer. They had caught five rabbits this fall, baiting with an apple.

Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused, so that it seemed much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before.

Apparently not till the sun had sunk thus far did I stand in the angle of reflection.

It is a startling thought that the Assyrian king who with so much pains recorded his exploits in stone at Nineveh, that the story might come down to a distant generation, has indeed succeeded by those means which he used.

All was not vanity, quite.

Layard, at the lake of Wan, says:

 “Early next morning I sought the inscriptions which I had been assured were graven on the rocks near an old castle, standing on a bold projecting promontory above the lake.

After climbing up a dangerous precipice by the help of two or three poles, in which large nails had been inserted to afford a footing, I reached a small natural cave in the rock.

A few crosses and ancient Armenian letters were rudely cut near its entrance.

There was nothing else, and I had to return as I best could, disappointed, as many a traveller has been under similar circumstances before me.”

They were not old enough; that was all.

Wait a thousand years and you will not be disappointed.