Winter's Seasons

February 14.

3 P. M. – Walden road to pond, thence to Cliffs.

February 14, 2017

The slight snow of last night, lodging on the limbs of the oaks, has given them the wintry and cobwebbed appearance which distinguishes them so plainly from the pines. They are great cladonias, perchance.

Met Joshua Brown returning from the pond (Walden) without having caught a fish. Has had no luck there this winter, he thinks because of the woodcutters' falling trees on to the ice.

He, too, tells how many weighed a certain number of pounds. Four pounds and three quarters is the heaviest he ever caught, but the pickerel that ran off with his reel (before he got to it), which he did not see, he set at ten pounds.

I noticed a white pine, rotten within, near the pond, or, rather, eaten out, honeycombed, by the ants, as I think, — and I was struck by the regular cellular character of the cavities they had made, separated by thin partitions, each cell about an inch and a half long, reminding me of Chinese puzzles carved in wood.

The seeds or seed - vessels of wintergreen are conspicuous above the snow.

The winter has had its seasons somewhat in this order, as near as I now remember: 

• First there were a few glowing sunsets after raw and blustering days, setting the pines and oaks on fire with their blaze, when the summer and fall had set, — the afterglow of the year.
• Then, if I remember, came the snows, and true winter began, the snow growing gradually deeper and the cold more intense.
• I think it was before the first thaw, which this winter came before the end of December, that the main attraction in my afternoon walks ( at any rate when the days were shortest and the cold most intense ) was the western sky at and before sunset, when, through the vistas there between the clouds, you saw a singularly crystalline, vitreous sky, which perhaps is not seen at any other season of the year, at least not in such perfection. I will see if we have any more this winter.
• Well, then there was the thaw, January thaw, which this year came in December, for it is the first thaw after long - continued cold weather and snow, when we have fairly forgotten summer.[In the January thaw I should have mentioned the sand foliage in the Cut.]
• This winter was remarkable for the long continuance of severe cold weather after it had once set in.
• Latterly we have had, i.e. within a week, crusted snow, made by thaw and rain, but now I do not see the crystalline sky.
• Now we have the swollen river, and yellow water over the meadow ice to some extent.

Other epochs I might find described in my Journal.

At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; and the least inclination beyond a perpendicular in their faces is betrayed by the formation of icicles at once, which hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock.

They are now conducting downward the melting ice and snow, which drips from their points with a slight clinking and lapsing sound, but when the sun has set will freeze there and add to the icicles ' length.

Where the icicles have reached the ground and are like thick pillars, they have a sort of annular appearance, somewhat like the successive swells on the legs of tables and on bed - posts.

There is perhaps a harmony between the turner's taste and the law of nature in this instance.

The shadow of the water flowing or pulsating behind this transparent icy crust or these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.

The traveller's is so apt to be a progress more or less rapid toward his home (I have read many a voyage round the world more than half of which, certainly, was taken up with the return voyage; he no sooner is out of sight of his native hills than he begins to tell us how he got home again) that I wonder he did not stay at home in the first place.

The laws of nature always furnish us with the best excuse for going and coming. If we do not go now, we shall find our fire out.

I hate that my motive for visiting a friend should be that I want society; that it should lie in my poverty and weakness, and not in his and my riches and strength. His friendship should make me strong enough to do without him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 14, 1852 

See February 14, 1852 (version 1)

No finer walking than up or down a broad field of smooth ice like this in a cold, glittering winter day.

February 10

A very strong and a cold northwest wind to-day, shaking the house, — thermometer at 11 a. m., 14°, — consumes wood and yet we are cold, and drives the smoke down the chimney. 

I see that Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery undersides as last spring, — their first awakening, as it were. 

P. M. — The river, where open, is very black, as usual when the waves run high, for each wave casts a shadow. [Call it Black Water.] Theophrastus notices that the roughened water is black, and says that it is because fewer rays fall on it and the light is dissipated. 

It is a day for those rake and horn icicles; the water, dashing against the southeast shores where they chance to be open, i. e. free of ice, and blown a rod inland, freezes to the bushes, forming rakes and oftener horns. If twigs project above the ice-belt thus: the water freezes over them thus : — The very grass stubble is completely encased for a rod in width along the shore, and the trunks of trees for two or three feet up. 

Any sprig lying on the edge of the ice is completely crusted. Sometimes the low button-bush twigs with their few remaining small dark balls, and also the drooping corymbs of the late rose hips, are completely encased in an icicle, and you see their bright scarlet reflected through the ice in an exaggerated manner. 

If a hair is held up above the ice where this spray is blowing, it is sufficient to start a thick icicle rake or horn, for the ice forming around it becomes at once its own support, and gets to be two or three inches thick. 

Where the open water comes within half a dozen feet of the shore, the spray has blown over the intervening ice and covered the grass and stubble, looking like a glaze, — countless loby fingers and horns over some fine stubble core, — and when the grass or stem is horizontal you have a rake. Just as those great organ-pipe icicles drip from rocks have an annular structure growing downward, so these on the horizontal stubble and weeds, when directed to the point toward which the wind was blowing; i. e., they grow thus southeast. 

Then there is the thickened edge of the ice, like a cliff, on the southeast sides of openings against which the wind has dashed the waves, especially on the southeast side of broad meadows.

No finer walking in any respect than on our broad meadow highway in the winter, when covered with bare ice. If the ice is wet, you slip in rubbers; but when it is dry and cold, rubbers give you a firm hold, and you walk with a firm and elastic step. I do not know of any more exhilarating walking than up or down a broad field of smooth ice like this in a cold, glittering winter day when your rubbers give you a firm hold on the ice. 

I see that the open places froze last night only on the windward side, where they were less agitated, the waves not yet running so high there. 

A little snow, however, even the mere shavings or dust of ice made by skaters, hinders walking in rubbers very much, for though the rubber may give a good hold on clear ice, when you step on a little of the ice dust or snow you slide on that. 

Those little gyrinus-shaped bugs of the 8th, that had come out through a crevice in the ice about a boat frozen in, and were swimming about in the shallow water above the ice, I see are all gone now that that water is frozen, — have not been frozen in; so they must have returned back under the ice when it became cold, and this shows that they were not forced up accidentally in the first place, but attracted by the light and warmth, probably as those minnows were some time ago. That is, in a thaw in the winter some water-insects — beetles, etc. — will come up through holes in the ice and swim about in the sun.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 10, 1860

A very strong and a cold northwest wind to-day, shaking the house, consumes wood and yet we are cold, and drives the smoke down the chimney. See February 10, 1858 ("Grows cold toward night, and windy."); see also February 3, 1856 (“The wind whistles round the northwest corner of the house and penetrates every crevice and consumes the wood in the stoves, — soon blows it all away. An armful goes but little way. Such a day makes a great hole in the wood-pile.”); February 13, 1856 (“Grew cold again last night, with high wind. . . . I think a high wind commonly follows rain or a thaw in winter.”) and note to November 20, 1857 ("High wind in the night, shaking the house, apparently from the northwest")

Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery undersides as last  spring, — their first awakening. See  February 4, 1852 ("Anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually; . . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them. "); February 25, 1860 ("The first conspicuous silvery sheen from the needles of the white pine waving in the wind");  March 20, 1853 ("In this spring breeze, how full of life the silvery pines.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: First silvery sheen from needles of the white pine waving in the wind

The river, where open, is very black, as usual when the waves run high See  March 29, 1852 (“The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. . . . There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black. ”); April 9, 1859( "For three weeks past, when I have looked northward toward the flooded meadows they have looked dark-blue or blackish, in proportion as the day was clear and the wind high from the north west, making high waves and much shadow.”); May 8, 1854 ("They are melaina . . .  This is our black sea"); October 15, 1851 (“It is delightful to be tossed about . . . and see the waves look so angry and black.”)

Theophrastus notices that the roughened water is black, and says that it is because fewer rays fall on it and the light is dissipated. See Theophrastus On Colors (“Darkness is due to privation of light. For we see black under three different conditions. Either (1) the object of vision is naturally quite black (for black light is always reflected from black objects); or (2) no light at all passes to the eyes from the object (for an invisible object surrounded by a visible patch looks black) ; and (3) objects always appear black to us when the light reflected from them is very rare and scanty. This last condition is the reason why shadows appear black. It also explains the blackness of ruffled water, e.g. of the sea when a ripple passes over it: owing to the roughness of the surface few rays of light fall on the water and the light is dissipated, and so the part which is in shadow appears black.”)

No finer walking in any respect than on our broad meadow highway in the winter, when covered with bare ice. See February 9, 1851 ("It is easier to get about the country than at any other season."); see also note to February 13, 1859 ("Winter comes to make walking possible where there was no walking in summer.")

In a thaw in the winter some water-insects will come up through holes in the ice and swim about in the sun. See February 8, 1860 ("About an old boat frozen in, I see a great many little gyrinus-shaped bugs swimming about in the water above the ice"); March 18, 1856 ("Here they are, in the first open and smooth water, governed by the altitude of the sun") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

February 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 10

A strong northwest wind

shaking the house and driving

smoke down the chimney.

No finer walking  

this glittering winter day –

a broad field of ice.

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 © 2009-2026

Goodwin paddling up the still, dark river.

March 18

9 A. M. —Up Assebet. 

A still and warm but overcast morning, threatening rain. 

I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two, and a robin, which also has been heard a day or two. 

The ground is almost completely bare, and but little ice forms at night along the riverside. 

I meet Goodwin paddling up the still, dark river on his first voyage to Fair Haven for the season, looking for muskrats and from time to time picking driftwood—logs and boards, etc.— out of the water and laying it up to dry on the bank, to eke out his wood-pile with. He says that the frost is not out so that he can lay wall, and so he thought he go and see what there was at Fair Haven. 

Says that when you hear a woodpecker’s rat-tat-tat-tat-tat on a dead tree it is a sign of rain. 

While Emerson sits writing [in] his study this still, overcast, moist day, Goodwin is paddling up the still, dark river. Emerson burns twenty-five cords of wood and fourteen tons of coal; Goodwin perhaps a cord and a half, much of which he picks out of the river.

He says he’d rather have a boat leak some for fishing. 

I hear the report of his gun from time to time for an hour, heralding the death of a muskrat and reverberating far down the river. Goodwin had just seen Melvin disappearing up the North River, and I turn up thither after him. 

The ice-belt still clings to the bank on each side, a foot or more above the water, and is now fringed with icicles of various lengths, only an inch or two apart, where it is melting by day and dripping into the river. Being distinctly reflected, you think you see two, two feet apart, the water-line not being seen. 

I land and walk half-way up the hill. 

A red squirrel runs nimbly before me along the wall, his tail in the air at a right angle with his body; leaps into a walnut and winds up his clock. 

The reindeer lichens on the pitch pine plain are moist and flacid. 

I hear the faint fine notes of apparent nuthatches coursing up the pitch pines, a pair of them, one answering to the other, as it were like a vibrating watch-spring. Then, at a distance, that whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar, which after all I suspect may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker.

And now from far southward coming on through the air, the chattering of blackbirds, —probably red-wings, for I hear an imperfect conqueree. 

Also I hear the chill-lill or tchit-a-tchit of the slate-colored sparrow, and see it. 

On the pitch pine plain, nearly the whole of a small turtle’s egg, by the side of its excavated nest. 

Save with my boat the dead top of (apparently) a pine, divested of its bark and bleached. Before the bark fell off it was curiously etched by-worms in variously curved lines and half-circles, often with regular short recurving branches.

Pere Buteux, going on commission to the Attikamegues in 1651, describes a fall away up there, where a river falls into a sort of trough or cradle a hundred paces long. 

“In this cradle the river boils (bouillonne) in such a fashion, that if you cast a stick (baston) into it, it remains some time without appearing, then all at once it elevates itself (il s’éléve en haut) to the height of two pikes, at forty or fifty paces from the place where you cast it in.” 

It is to be observed that in the old deed of the Hunt farm, written in 1701, though the whole, consisting of something more than one hundred and fifty acres, is minutely described in thirteen different pieces, no part is described as woodland or wood-lot, only one piece as partly unimproved. This shows how little account was made of wood. Mr. Nathan Brooks reminds me that not till recently, i. e. not till within forty years, have wood-lots begun to be taxed for anything like their full value.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 18, 1857

I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two. See March 18, 1852 ("I hear the song sparrow's simple strain, most genuine herald of the spring.”); March 11, 1854 ("On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song sparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from alder to alder. This pleasant morning after three days' rain and mist, they generally forthburst into sprayey song from the low trees along the river. The developing of their song is gradual but sure, like the expanding of a flower. This is the first song I have heard."); March 27, 1857 ("But now chiefly there comes borne on the breeze the tinkle of the song sparrow along the river side”); March 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides.”). See also Henry Thoreau,  A Book of the Seasons: the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia).
[Goodwin] says that when you hear a woodpecker’s rat-tat-tat-tat-tat on a dead tree it is a sign of rain. See March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”); March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings.");  March 13, 1855 (“I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.”); March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

That whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar . . .  may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker.  See March 13, 1853 (“But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter,”); February 18, 1857 (" I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”) ; March 17, 1857 (“It is only some very early still, warm, and pleasant morning in February or March that I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound.”);  March 5, 1859 ("I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it.. . .It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker!  . . .  It is the spring note of the nuthatch")

The slate-colored sparrow/dark-eyed junco. See March 20, 1852 ("And now, within a day or two, I have noticed the chubby slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis?), and I drive the flocks before me on the railroad causeway as I walk. It has two white feathers in its tail.”); March 15, 1854 (“Hear on the alders by the river the lill lill lill lill of the first F. hyemalis,”)

A winter eve in memory.

December 15

It still blows hard at 2 p. m., but it is not cold.

8 p.m.- To Walden. 

The high northwest wind of this morning, with what of cold we have, has made some of those peculiar rake-toothed icicles on the dead twigs, etc., about the edge of the pond at the east end. To produce this phenomenon is required only open water, a high wind, and sufficiently cold weather to freeze the spray. 

I observe B 's boat left out at the pond, as last winter. When I see that a man neglects his boat thus, I do not wonder that he fails in his business. It is not only shiftlessness or unthrift, but a sort of filthiness to let things go to wrack and ruin thus. 

December 15, 2023

I still recall to mind that characteristic winter eve of December 9th; the cold, dry, and wholesome diet my mind and senses necessarily fed on, —

· oak leaves, bleached and withered weeds that rose above the snow,

· the now dark green of the pines, and

· perchance the faint metallic chip of a single tree sparrow;

· the hushed stillness of the wood at sundown, aye, all the winter day;

· the short boreal twilight;

· the smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice;

· the melodious hooting of the owl, heard at the same time with the yet more distant whistle of a locomotive, more aboriginal, and perchance more enduring here than that, heard above the voices of all the wise men of Concord, as if they were not (how little he is Anglicized!);

· the last strokes of the woodchopper, who presently bends his steps homeward;

· the gilded bar of cloud across the apparent outlet of the pond, conducting my thoughts into the eternal west;

· the deepening horizon glow; and

· the hasty walk homeward to enjoy the long winter evening.

The hooting of the owl! That is a sound which my red predecessors heard here more than a thousand years ago. It rings far and wide, occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. There is no whisper in it of the Buckleys, the Flints, the Hosmers who recently squatted here, nor of the first parish, nor of Concord Fight, nor of the last town meeting. 

Mrs. Moody very properly calls eating nuts "a mouse like employment." It is quite too absorbing; you can't read at the same time, as when you are eating an apple.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, December 15, 1856

That characteristic winter eve of December 9th. See December 9, 1856 ("Such is a winter's eve.")

I observe B 's boat left out at the pond, as last winter . . . See January 5, 1856 ("Boats . . . half filled with ice and almost completely buried in snow, so neglected by their improvident owners . . .") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

The smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice. See December 15, 1854 ("How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice!"). See also December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct."); December 20, 1855 ("How placid, like silver or like steel in different lights, the surface of the still, living water between these borders of ice, reflecting the weeds and trees, and now the warm colors of the sunset sky! ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

The hooting of the owl! . . . grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. See. December 9, 1856 ("Every week almost I hear the loud voice of the hooting owl, though I do not see the bird more than once in ten years"); December 19, 1856 ("More than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well . . . It sounds now, hoo | hoo hoo (very fast) | hoo-rer | hoo."); See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl

December 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 15

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

Thin and fragile leaf crystals melt under my breath.

January 1

P. M. —To Walden. 

January 1, 2016

Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath. This is now, therefore, bare, while the river, which was frozen before, is covered with snow.

A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.

The track-repairers have shovelled four little paths by the sides of the rails, all the way from the depot to Walden. As I went by the engine-house, I saw great icicles four feet long hanging from the eastern eaves, like slender pointed spears, the last half blown aside by the wind: and still more.

By the side of the Deep Cut are the tracks of probably tree sparrows about the weeds, and of partridges.

On the ice at Walden are very beautiful great leaf crystals in great profusion. 

The ice is frequently thickly covered with them for many rods. They seem to be connected with the rosettes,—a running together of them. They look like a loose web of small white feathers springing from a tuft of down, for their shafts are lost in a tuft of fine snow like the down about the shaft of a feather, as if a feather bed had been shaken over the ice.

They are, on a close examination, surprisingly perfect leaves, like ferns, only very broad for their length and commonly more on one side the midrib than the other. They are from an inch to an inch and a half long and three quarters wide, and slanted, where I look, from the southwest.

They have, first, a very distinct midrib, though so thin that they cannot be taken up; then, distinct ribs branching from this, commonly opposite, and minute ribs springing again from these last, as in many ferns, the last running to each crenation in the border. How much further they are subdivided, the naked eye cannot discern.

They are so thin and fragile that they melt under your breath while looking closely at them.

A fisherman says they were much finer in the morning. In other places the ice is strewn with a different kind of frostwork in little patches, as if oats had been spilled, like fibres of asbestos rolled, a half or three quarters of an inch long and an eighth or more wide. Here and there patches of them a foot or two over. Like some boreal grain spilled.

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. 

January 1, 2017

On the north shore, near the railroad, I see the tracks apparently of a white rabbit, afterward many tracks of gray rabbits, and where they had squatted under or rather by the side of an alder stem or the like, and left many balls in the pure snow. Many have run in one course.

In the midst of them I see the track of a large rabbit, probably a white one, which was evidently on the full spring. Its tracks are four feet apart, and, unlike the others, which are on the surface even of this light snow, these break through deep, making a hole six inches over. Why was this one in such haste?

I conclude to trace him back and find out. His bounds grow greater and greater as I go back, now six feet quite, and a few rods further are the tracks of a fox (possibly a dog, but I think not) exactly on the trail! A little further, where the rabbit was ascending a considerable slope, through this snow nearly a foot deep, the bounds measure full seven feet, leaving the snow untouched for that space between.

It appears that the fox had started the rabbit from a bank on which it was resting, near a young hemlock, and pursued it only a dozen rods up the hill, and then gave up the chase,—and well he might, methought.

In a rabbit’s track the two forefeet are the furthest apart. This chase occurred probably in the night, either the last or night before, when there was not a man within a mile; but, treading on these very deep and distinct tracks, it was as if I had witnessed it, and in imagination I could see the sharp eyes of the crafty fox and the palpitating breast of the timorous rabbit, listening behind.

We unwittingly traverse the scenery of what tragedies! Every square rod, perchance, was the scene of a life or death struggle last night. As you track the rabbit further off, its bounds becoming shorter and shorter, you follow also surely its changing moods from desperate terror till it walks calmly and reassured over the snow without breaking its very slight crust, — perchance till it gnaws some twig composedly, —and in the other direction you trace the retreating steps of the disappointed fox until he has forgotten this and scented some new game, maybe dreams of partridges or wild mice.

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1856 

A very small patch of Walden looks at a little distance exactly like open water, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water. See April 13, 1856 (“[D]ark-green clear ice . . . At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still . . .it is blue as in summer.“); December 18, 1852 ("I slid over it with a little misgiving, mistaking the ice before me for water. “)

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. See December 28, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords");  June 26, 1853 ("Fishing is often the young man's introduction to the forest and wild. As a hunter and fisher he goes thither until at last the naturalist or poet distinguishes that which attracted him first, and he leaves the gun and rod behind.”); December 22, 1859 ("The fisherman stands erect and still on the ice, awaiting our approach, as usual forward to say that he has had no luck. He has been here since early morning, and for some reason or other the fishes won't bite. You won't catch him here again in a hurry. They all tell the same story. The amount of it is he has had "fisherman's luck," and if you walk that way you may find him at his old post to-morrow. . . .[T]he pond floor is not a bad place to spend a winter day"); May 6, 1858 ("One man shall derive from the fisherman’s story more than the fisher has got who tells it")

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately. See January 2, 1856 (“As for the fox and rabbit race described yesterday, I find that the rabbit was going the other way, and possibly the fox was a rabbit, for, tracing back the rabbit, I found that it had first been walking with alternate steps, fox-like.”)

January 1. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, January 1

While looking closely,

thin and fragile leaf crystals

melt under my breath.

Here two fishermen

know not why they have no bites

this clear winter day.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A clear winter day.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560101

A very large hawk

April 3,  2015

April 3

It is somewhat warmer, but still windy, and I go to sail down to the Island and up to Hubbard’s Causeway.



Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. It is a coolness like that of March 29th and 30th, pleasant to breathe, and, perhaps, like that, presaging decidedly warmer weather. It is an amelioration, as nature does nothing suddenly.

The shores are lined with frozen spray-like foam, with an abrupt edge, a foot high often on the waterside. Occasionally where there are twigs there is a nest of those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction.

I see many hens feeding close to the river’s edge, like the crows, - and robins and blackbirds later, - and I have no doubt they are attracted by a like cause. The ground being first thawed there, not only worms but other insect and vegetable life is accessible there sooner than elsewhere.

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black.

Returning, when off the hill am attracted by the noise of crows, which betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle, sitting on a maple beneath them. Now and then they dive at him, and at last he sails away low round the hill, as if hunting.

The hillside is alive with sparrows, red-wings, and the first grackles 
[rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] I have seen.  I detected them first by their more rasping note . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 3, 1855

Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. Compare April 3, 1852 ("It is very cold and windy, and I miss my gloves, left at home. Colder than the last moon"); See March 20, 1855 (“It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm . . . At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.”);  April 26, 1860 ("To-day it is 53° at 2 P. M., yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings. What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. It is the northwest wind makes it cold.")

A coolness like that of March 29th and 30th. See March 29, 1855 ("I inhale with pleasure the cold but wholesome air . . . This, which is a chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refreshing to me."); March 30, 1855 ("To-day and yesterday have been bright, windy days. —west wind, cool, yet, compared with the previous colder ones, pleasantly, gratefully cool to me on my cheek.")

Nature does nothing suddenly. See September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace."); June 14, 1851 ("How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! "); January 26, 1858 ("Nature loves gradation.");  November 17, 1858 ("Nature is moderate and loves degrees.");  January 14, 1861 ("Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be.")

Those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direction. See April 2, 1855 ("The wind is still very strong and cold from the north west . . . blowing the water . . . over the rocks and bushes along the shore, where it freezes in the shape of bulls’ horns.")

See several pairs of ducks, mostly black. See April 7, 1853 ("We cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?).  It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The noise of crows . . . betray to me a very large hawk, large enough for an eagle. See April 6, 1856 ("The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting.); April 8, 1854 ("It sailed and circled along over the low cliff, and the crows dived at it in the field of my glass . . . It was undoubtedly a white-headed eagle.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

Rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds . . . after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle. See April 9, 1855 ("Wilson says that the only note of the rusty grackle is a chuck, though he is told that at Hudson’s Bay, at the breeding-time, they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a chuck, but a fine shrill whistle."); April 11, 1856 (" See a male and female rusty grackle alight on an oak near me, the latter apparently a flaxen brown, with a black tail. She looks like a different species of bird. Wilson had heard only a tchuck from the grackle, but this male, who was courting his mate, broke into incipient warbles, like a bubble burst.");  April 14, 1855 ("I see half a dozen crow blackbirds uttering their coarse rasping char char. . . They also attain to a clear whistle with some effort, but seem to have some difficulty in their throats yet."): March 29, 1853 ("It would be worth the while to attend more to the different notes of the blackbirds.");March 29, 1858 ("I see what I suppose is the female rusty grackle; black body with green reflections and purplish-brown head and neck, but I notice no light iris. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: The grackle arrives.

April 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 3

A very large hawk

large enough for an eagle

mobbed by noisy crows.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A very large hawk

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550403

Ice organ pipes

January 11.

Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes. 

I walk the whole length of the Cliffs, just at the base of the rocks, for this purpose. 

These great organ-pipes are formed where the water flows over triangular projections of the rocks. These solid, pipe-like icicles commonly unite by their sides and form rows of pillars or irregular colonnades, run together, between which here and there you can insert your hand.   

And behind these perpendicular pipes, or congregated pillars, or colonnades run together, are formed the prettiest little aisles or triangular alcoves with lichen-clad sides. 

Then the ice spreads out in a thin crust over the rock, with an uneven surface as of bubbling water, and you can see the rock indistinctly through ice three or four inches thick, and so on, by successive steps or shelves down the rock.

It is now quite cold, and in many places only a sharp spear of purest crystal, which does not reach the rock below, is left to tell of the water that has flowed here. 

The perpendicularity of the icicles contrasts strangely with the various angles of the rocks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 11, 1854

Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes. See February 14, 1852 ("At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; icicles at once hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock.  . . . The shadow of the water flowing and pulsating behind . . .these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.”); March 3, 1857 ("[W]hen the rill reaches the perpendicular face of the cliff, its constant drip at night builds great organ-pipes of a ringed structure, which run together, buttressing the rock.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 11

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

Walden road to pond, thence to Cliffs.

February 14.

This winter was remarkable for the long continuance of severe cold weather after it had once set in. Latterly, i.e. within a week, we have had crusted snow made by thaw and rain. Now we have the swollen river, and yellow water over the meadow ice.


The slight snow of last night, lodging on the limbs of the oaks, has given them the wintry and cobwebbed appearance that distinguishes them so plainly from the pines.  

The seeds or seed-vessels of wintergreen are conspicuous above the snow.


At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; icicles at once hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock. The melting ice and snow now drips from their points with a slight clinking and lapsing sound. Where the icicles have reached the ground they are like thick pillars or the legs of tables and bed-posts. The shadow of the water flowing and pulsating behind this transparent icy crust or these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 14, 1852

icicles . . .hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes . . . See January 11, 1854 ("Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes . . .”)