A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

 

February 19, 2015

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

Red alder catkins

dangling in the wintry air

promise a new spring.

January 10, 1858

This increased silveriness  [of the willow] 

was obvious, I think, about the first of March . . .

 It appears to be a very gradual expansion, 

which begins in the warm days of winter. 

It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. 

It is the first decided growth I have noticed.

March 21, 1855

January 10. If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins dangling at the extremities of the twigs. January 10, 1858 

January 10. The alder is one of the prettiest of trees and shrubs in the winter, it is evidently so full of life, with its conspicuous pretty red catkins dangling from it on all sides. January 10, 1859

January 24. I walk along the sides of the stream, admiring the rich mulberry catkins of the alders, which look almost edible. They attract us because they have so much of spring in them. January 24, 1856

February 9.  I do not find any willow catkins started, though many have lost their scales. February 9, 1854

February 11. When I read of the catkins of the alder and the willow, etc., scattering their yellow pollen, they impress me as a vegetation which belongs to the earliest and most innocent dawn of nature; as if they must have preceded other trees in the order of creation, as they precede them annually in their blossoming and leafing.  For how many aeons did the willow shed its yellow pollen annually before man was created ! February 11, 1854

February 11. In the winter we so value the semblance of fruit that even the dry black female catkins of the alder are an interesting sight, not to mention, on shoots rising a foot or two above these, the red or mulberry male catkins, in little parcels dangling at a less than right angle with the stems, and the short female ones at their bases. February 11, 1854 

February 12. On the east side of the pond, under the steep bank, I see a single lesser redpoll picking the seeds out of the alder catkins, and uttering a faint mewing note from time to time on account of me, only ten feet off.   February  12, 1860

February 19. Some willow catkins have crept a quarter of an inch from under their scales and look very red, probably on account of the warm weather. February 19, 1857

February 22. My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two, and the willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish. February 22, 1854

Willow catkins show

red and yellowish pushed out

half an inch or more.

February 22, 1854

Alder catkins in 

my pitcher have shed pollen 

for a day or two.

February 22, 1854

February 23.   I have seen signs of the spring.  February 23, 1857

March 4 I see a bush of the early willow — by wall far in front of the C. Miles house — whose catkins are conspicuous thirty rods off, very decidedly green, three eighths of an inch by measure. The bush at this distance had quite a silvery look, and the catkins show some redness within. March 4, 1860

March 6.  Last Sunday I plucked some alder twigs, some aspen, and some swamp willow, and put them in water in a warm room, Immediately the alder catkins were relaxed and began to lengthen and open, and by the second day to drop their pollen; like handsome pendants they hung round the pitcher, and at the same time the smaller female flower expanded and brightened.  March 6, 1853

March 7. Methinks the buds of the early willows, the willows of the railroad bank, show more of the silvery down than ten days ago. March 7, 1855

March 8. Saw some very large willow buds expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of their scales, indistinctly carved or waved with darker lines around them. They look more like, are more of, spring than anything I have seen. March 8, 1853

March 8. You cannot say that vegetation absolutely ceases at any season in this latitude; for there is grass in some warm exposures and in springy places, always growing more or less, and willow catkins expanding and peeping out a little further every warm day from the very beginning of winter.  March 8, 1860

March 10. Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins, then the relaxing of the earlier alder catkins, then the pushing up of skunk-cabbage spathes (and pads at the bottom of water). March 10, 1853

March 10. The alder's catkins — the earliest of them — are very plainly expanding, or, rather, the scales are loose and separated, and the whole catkin relaxed.  March 10, 1853

March 10.  Each alder catkin has a clear drop at the end, though the air is filled with mist merely, which from time to time is blown in my face and I put up my umbrella . . . The willow catkins on the Miles [road] I should say had decidedly started since I was here last, and are all peeping from under their scales conspicuously. March 10, 1854

March 13. The bright catkins of the willow are the springing most generally observed. March 13, 1859

March 14. Alder scales are visibly loosened, their lower edges (i. e. as they hang) showing a line of yellowish or greenish. March 14, 1854

March 18. The willow catkins this side M. Miles's five eighths of an inch long and show some red. March 18, 1854

March 20. Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, the most forward blossom-buds. March 20, 1853

March 21. Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least. This increased silveriness was obvious, I think, about the first of March, perhaps earlier. It appears to be a very gradual expansion, which begins in the warm days of winter. It would be well to observe them once a fortnight through the winter. It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old. March 21, 1855

March 21. Everywhere for several days the alder catkins have dangled long and loose, the most alive apparently of any tree. They seem to welcome the water which half covers them. The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. March 21, 1859

March 22.. The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower.  March 22, 1853

March 22.The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water, and C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow. March 22, 1854

March 22. The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow. March 22, 1856

March 22. The phenomena of an average March . . . willow catkins become silvery, aspens downy; osiers, etc., look bright, white maple and elm buds expand and open, oak woods thin-leaved; alder and hazel catkins become relaxed and elongated. March 22, 1860

March 23.  For a week past the elm buds have been swollen. The willow catkins have put out.  March 23, 1851

March 23. The alders are almost generally in full bloom, and a very handsome and interesting show they make with their graceful tawny pendants, inclining to yellow. They shake like ear-drops in the wind, perhaps the first completed ornaments with which the new year decks herself. Their yellow pollen is shaken down and colors my coat like sulphur as I go through them. March 23, 1853

*****

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Geese Overhead
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• I begin to think that my wood will last
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• Skunks Active
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The Crowing of Cocks, the Cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The New Warmth of the Sun
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• The Woodchuck Ventures Out
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDTcatkins

Farewell, my friend (by moonlight all is simple)

 

 

We drifted apart

asteroids tumbling in space

the heat of the sun.

(April 25)

The other day I rowed in my boat

 a free even lovely young lady

and as I plied the oars

 she sat in the stern

 and there was

nothing but she

 between me

and the sky.

Along the river

the memory of roses --

late rose now in prime.

Thoughts of autumn and

the memory of past years

occupy my mind.

What you can recall of a walk

on the second day will differ from

what you remember on the first day --

as to one who is

journeying amid mountains

any view changes.

Farewell, my friend

my path inclines

 to this side the mountain,

yours to that --

for a long time you have appeared

further and further off to me --

I see that you will at length

 disappear altogether--

 for a season my path

seemed lonely without you --

the memory of me is steadily

passing away from you --

 my path grows narrower and steeper

and the night is approaching.

 I am struck by this sudden solitude

and remoteness that these places have acquired.

This evening for the first time the new moon

is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

She who was as the morning light to me
is now neither the morning star
nor the evening star.

[June 19, 1840,  March 28, 1856,  July 23, 1860, 

July 31, 1856,  January 10, 1854, December 8, 1850 , October 27, 1851]

This moment in memory

half the leaves of our love

are still on the tree

and half have fallen

like a reflection.

(October 16)

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting;  May 27, 1859 ("These expressions of the face of Nature are as constant and sure to recur as those of the eyes of maidens, from year to year, — sure to be repeated as long as time lasts.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Farewell my friend

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

tinyurl.com/HDTfarewellmyfriend

A Book of the Seasons: January 10 (walking, Andromeda phenomenon, admiring buds, alder catkins, sunset colors)

 

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

January 10

The art of walking

is to saunter daily with

no specific ends.

January 10, 1851

What you recall of

a walk the second day will

differ from the first.

January 10, 1854

Translucent red leaves –

andromeda lit up like

cathedral windows.

January 10, 1855

Cold and blustery.

Crows flapping and sailing and

buffeting about.

January 10, 1855

To wade through the swamps,

all snowed up, untracked by man,

admiring the buds.

January 10, 1856

Red alder catkins

dangling in the wintry air

promise a new spring.

January 10, 1858

I walk back and forth

in the road waiting to see

pink light from the snow.

January 10, 1859

The village windows

reflect the setting sun with

a dazzling glitter

January 10, 1859

The kitchen windows were magnificent last night, with their frost sheaves, surpassing any cut or ground glass. January 10, 1856

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

Issa

The fourth remarkably mild day. January 10, 1853

The weather has considerably moderated; - 2° at breakfast time (it was — 8° at seven last evening); but this has been the coldest night probably. January 10, 1856

Cold weather at last; -8° this forenoon. This is much the coldest afternoon to bear as yet, . . .-— four or five below at 3 P. M.. January 10, 1859

P. M. – To Goose Pond across Walden. January 10, 1858

The north side of Walden is a warm walk in sunny weather. January 10, 1858

The alder is one of the prettiest of trees and shrubs in the winter, it is evidently so full of life, with its conspicuous pretty red catkins dangling from it on all sides. January 10, 1859

If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins dangling at the extremities of the twigs, all in the wintry air, like long, hard mulberries, promising a new spring and the fulfillment of all our hopes. January 10, 1858

We prize any tenderness, any softening, in the winter, – catkins, birds’ nests, insect life, etc., etc. The most I get, perchance, is the sight of a mulberry-like red catkin which I know has a dormant life in it, seemingly greater than my own. January 10, 1858

It seems to dread the winter less than other plants. It has a certain heyday and cheery look, and less stiff than most, with more of the flexible grace of summer. January 10, 1859

With those dangling clusters of red catkins which it switches in the face of winter, it brags for all vegetation. It is not daunted by the cold, but hangs gracefully still over the frozen stream. January 10, 1859

These gleaming birch and alder and other twigs are a phenomenon still perfect, — that gossamer or cobweb-like reflection. January 10, 1859

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of taking walks daily . . . who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering. January 10, 1851

When we were walking last evening, Tappan admired the soft rippling of the Assabet under Tarbell's bank. January 10, 1854

One could have lain all night under the oaks there listening to it . January 10, 1854

Westward forty rods, the surface of the stream reflected a silvery whiteness, but gradually darkened thence eastward, till beneath us it was almost quite black. January 10, 1854

What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day . . .  as any view changes to one who is journeying amid mountains when he has increased the distance. January 10, 1854

The near and bare hills covered with snow look like mountains, but the mountains in the horizon do not look higher than hills. January 10, 1851

I frequently see a hole in the snow where a partridge has squatted, the mark or form of her tail very distinct. January 10, 1851

Cold and blustering as it is, the crows are flapping and sailing about and buffeting one another as usual. January 10, 1855

I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state. January 10, 1854

The sportsmen chose the late thaw to go after quails. January 10, 1854 

They come out at such times to pick the horse-dung in the roads, and can be traced thence to their haunts. January 10, 1854

I mistook the creaking of a tree in the woods the other day for the scream of a hawk. How numerous the resemblances of the animate to the inanimate ! January 10, 1854

I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now, these bitter cold days when the snow lies deep on the ground. January 10, 1856

I need travel but little way from the town to get to a Nova Zembla solitude, — to wade through the swamps, all snowed up, untracked by man, into which the fine dry snow is still drifting. January 10, 1856

To Beck Stow’s. The swamp is suddenly frozen up again, and they are carting home the mud which was dug out last fall, in great frozen masses. January 10, 1855

The twigs of the Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to .a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a. bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath, project above the ice. January 10, 1855

Then there is the Andromeda calyculata, its leaves. . . pale-brown beneath, reddish above, with minute whitish dots. January 10, 1855

As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown. January 10, 1855

The leaves of the lambkill, now recurved, are more or less reddish. January 10, 1855

The great buds of the swamp-pink, on the central twig, clustered together, are more or less imbrowned and reddened. January 10, 1855

We are reduced to admire buds, even like the partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice, —the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, the rapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and cracked blueberry. January 10, 1856

Went a-chestnutting this afternoon to Smith's wood-lot near the Turnpike. January 10, 1853

Carried four ladies. I raked. We got six and a half quarts, the ground being bare and the leaves not frozen. January 10, 1853

Many chestnuts are still in the burs on the ground. January 10, 1853

Aunt found a twig which had apparently fallen prematurely, with eight small burs, all within the compass of its five or six inches, and all but one full of nuts. January 10, 1853

See, returning, amid the Roman wormwood in front of the Monroe place by the river, half a dozen goldfinches feeding just like the sparrows. How warm their yellow breasts look! They utter the goldfinches’ watery twitter still. January 10, 1859

I walk back and forth in the road waiting to see the pink. January 10, 1859

Who can foretell the sunset – what it will be? January 10, 1851

About half an hour before sunset this intensely clear cold evening (thermometer at five -6°), I observe all the sheets of ice (and they abound everywhere now in the fields), when I look from one side about at right angles with the sun’s rays, reflect a green light. This is the case even when they are in the shade. January 10, 1859

Standing thus on one side of the hill, I begin to see a pink light reflected from the snow there about fifteen minutes before the sun sets. January 10, 1859

This gradually deepens to purple and violet in some places, and the pink is very distinct, especially when, after looking at the simply white snow on other sides, you turn your eyes to the hill. January 10, 1859

This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun. January 10, 1859

I hear the ground crack with a very loud sound and a great jar in the evening and in the course of the night several times. It is once as loud and heavy as the explosion of the Acton powder-mills. January 10, 1859

This cracking is heard all over New England, at least, this night. January 10, 1859

The windows on the skirts of the village reflect the setting sun with intense brilliancy, a dazzling glitter, it is so cold. January 10, 1859

******

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

A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The andromeda phenomenon

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

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

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, When the ice turns green

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

******

March 27, 1857 ("The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory.").
April 19 1852 ("That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly")
April 20, 1854 ("I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water. ")

May 5, 1852 ("I succeed best when I recur to my experience not too late, but within a day or two; when there is some distance, but enough of freshness. ")

August 4, 1856 ("Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat.")

 August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.):

August 14, 1856 ("Just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook”)

September 25, 1858 ("Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.")

October 12, 1858 ("The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. ")

October 18, 1856 ("Within this thick prickly bur the nuts are about as safe until they are quite mature, as a porcupine behind its spines.")
October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts.");

October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders.");
October 24, 1857 ("I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. ")

October 24, 1857 ("To Smith's chestnut grove. . . . I get a couple of quarts of chestnuts by patiently brushing the thick beds of leaves aside with my hand in successive concentric circles till I reach the trunk; . . .It is best to reduce it to a system. Of course you will shake the tree first, if there are any on it. The nuts lie commonly two or three together, as they fell. . . .As I go stooping and brushing the leaves aside by the hour, I am not thinking of chestnuts merely, but I find myself humming a thought of more significance.")

October 26, 1853 ("Now leaves are off, or chiefly off, I begin to notice the buds of various form and color and more or less conspicuous, prepared for another season, — partly, too, perhaps, for food for birds.")

October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”)
November 6, 1853 ("The plump, roundish, club-shaped, well-protected buds of the alders, and rich purplish or mulberry catkins, three, four, or five together. ")

November 24, 1859 ("a flock of goldfinches eating the seed of the Roman wormwood. "):

November 24, 1857 ("Looking toward the sun, the andromeda in front of me is a very warm red brown and on either side of me, a pale silvery brown; looking from the sun, a uniform pale brown. . . .These andromeda swamps charmed me more than twenty years sgo, — I knew not why —")

November 25, 1860 (“I see a very great collection of crows far and wide on the meadows, evidently gathered by this cold and blustering weather.”)

November 28, 1856 ("To chestnut wood by Turnpike, to see if I could find my comb, probably lost out of my pocket when I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago. Unexpectedly find many chestnuts in the burs which have fallen some time ago. Many are spoiled, but the rest,. . . are softer and sweeter than a month ago, very agreeable to my palate")
December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring.")

December 5, 1856 ("I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold,")

December 8, 1850 ("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 12, 1856 (“At the wall between Saw Mill Brook Falls and Red Choke-berry Path, . . see where they [squirrels] have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces. I, too, dig many burs out of the snow with my foot”)

December 19, 1850 ("The catkins of the alders are as tender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries.")

December 19, 1856 ("[I]n Amherst, I had been awaked by the loud cracking of the 'ground, which shook the house like the explosion of a powder-mill. . . . This is a sound peculiar to the coldest nights.")

December 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge")
December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color.")

 December 22, 1859 ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left the trunks on the snow.")

December 22, 1858 ("a flock of F. hyemalis and goldfinches together, on the snow and weeds and ground. Hear the well-known mew and watery twitter of the last . . . These burning yellow birds with a little black and white on their coat-flaps look warm above the snow.")

December 23, 1859 ("You may walk eastward in the winter afternoon till the ice begins to look green, half to three quarters of an hour before sunset, the sun having sunk behind you to the proper angle. Then it is time to turn your steps homeward.")

December 23, 1856 ("The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights")

December 25, 1858 (“The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast.”)

December 27, 1852 ("Found chestnuts quite plenty to-day.")

December 29, 1859 ("To-night I notice the rose-color in the snow and the green in the ice at the same time, having been looking out for them.")

December 29, 1851 ("What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle.")

What measureless joy

to know nothing about the

day that is to dawn!

December 29, 1851

December 31, 1852 ("I was this afternoon gathering chestnuts at Saw Mill Brook. I have within a few weeks spent some hours thus, scraping away the leaves with my hands and feet over some square rods, and have at least learned how chestnuts are planted and new forests raised.")

January 2, 1855 ("Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us.")

January 3, 1858 ("Going to the Andromeda Ponds, I was greeted by the warm brown-red glow of the Andromeda calyculata toward the sun. I see where I have been through, the more reddish under sides apparently being turned up. ")

January 5, 1851 ("The catkins of the alders are now frozen stiff !!")

January 7, 1851 ("There is no account of the blue sky in history. I must live above all in the present.")

Live in the present.

There is no account of the 

blue sky in history.

January 7, 1851

January 7, 1855 ("Here comes a little flock of titmice, plainly to keep me company, with their black caps and throats making them look top-heavy, restlessly hopping along the alders, with a sharp, clear, lisping note")

January 7, 1856 ("At breakfast time the thermometer stood at - 12°. Earlier it was probably much lower. Smith’s was at -24° early this morning.")

January 7, 1857 ("I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified. I get away a mile or two from the town into the stillness and solitude of nature, with rocks, trees, weeds, snow about me . . . and it is as if I had come to an open window. I see out and around myself. )

January 7, 1856 (“ It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.”)

January 7, 1860 ("Saw a large flock of goldfinches running and feeding amid the weeds in a pasture, just like tree sparrows.")

January 8, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun falling on the snow-banks today make them glow almost yellow.")

January 8, 1856 ("I see prying into the black fruit of the alder, along the pond-side, a single probably lesser redpoll yellowish breast and distinct white bar on wing.")

January 9, 1856 ("Clear, cold morning. Probably it has been below zero for the greater part of the day.")

January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky")

January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")

January 11, 1859 ("It would appear then that the ground cracks on the advent of very severe cold weather. I had not heard it before, this winter. It was so when I went to Amherst a winter or two ago. )
January 11, 1859 ("At 6 A. M. -22° and how much more I know not, ours having gone into the bulb")

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 19, 1859 ("I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun, but very little on the hills. Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening.")

January 19, 1859 ("To-night I notice, this warm evening, that there is most green in the ice when I go directly from the sun. There is also considerable when I go directly toward it, but more than that a little one side; but when I look at right angles with the sun, I see none at all.") 

Janusry 20, 1859 ("The green of the ice and water begins to be visible about half an hour before sunset. Is it produced by the reflected blue of the sky mingling with the yellow or pink of the setting sun?")

January 23, 1859 ("I notice on the ice where it slopes up eastward a little, a distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from it generally, half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it.")

January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording . . .I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day.")

January 24, 1860 ("See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad.")

 January 24, 1855 ("Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me. They are filled with a dense bed of the small andromeda, a dull red mass as commonly seen, brighter or translucent red looking toward the sun, grayish looking from it.")

January 25, 1858 ('What a rich book might be made about buds.")

January 25, 1853 ("I still pick chestnuts.")

January 25, 1856 ("The hardest day to bear that we have had, for, beside being 5° at noon and at 4 P. M., there is a strong northwest wind. It is worse than when the thermometer was at zero all day. ")

January 26, 1860 ("Though you walk every day, you do not foresee the kind of walking you will have the next day")

Though you walk each day, 

you do not foresee the walk

you have the next day. 

January 26, 1860

January 26, 1857 ("Another cold morning. None looked early, but about eight it was -14°");

January 29, 1858 ("I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow's, north of the new road. For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes. . . The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-vessels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions")

January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale.")

January 31, 1859 ("Perhaps the green seen at the same time in ice and water is produced by the general yellow or amber light of this hour, mingled with the blue of the reflected sky.")

January 31, 1859 (" The pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. . . . I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters.")

February 7, 1855 ("Thermometer at about 7.30 A. M. gone into the bulb, -19° at least. The cold has stopped the clock.")

February 7, 1855 ("The coldest night for a long, long time. People dreaded to go to bed. The ground cracked in the night as if a powder-mill had blown up")

February 11, 1854 ("Snow-fleas lie in black patches on the ice which froze last night. When I breathe on them I find them all alive and ready to skip.")

February 11, 1854 ("In the winter we so value the semblance of fruit that even the dry black female catkins of the alder are an interesting sight, not to mention, on shoots rising a foot or two above these, the red or mulberry male catkins, in little parcels dangling at a less than right angle with the stems, and the short female ones at their bases.")

February 12, 1855 (" I see at Warren’s Crossing where, last night perhaps, some partridges rested in this light, dry, deep snow. They must have been almost completely buried. They have left their traces at the bottom. They are such holes as would be made by crowding their bodies in backwards, slanting-wise, while perhaps their heads were left out.")

February 13, 1855 ("The tracks of partridges are more remarkable in this snow than usual, it is so light, being at the same time a foot deep. In one place, when alighting, the primary quills, five of them, have marked the snow for a foot. I see where many have dived into the snow, apparently last night, . . .They appear to have dived or burrowed into it, then passed along a foot or more underneath and squatted there, perhaps, with their heads out, and have invariably left much dung at the end of this hole. I scared one from its hole only half a rod in front of me now at 11 A.M")

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 

January 9  <<<<<<<< January 10 >>>>>>>>  January 11

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 10

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