The mildest and pleasantest days since November came in..

November 29, 30, and December 1. 

The snow which fell the 23d whitened the ground but a day or two. 

These have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. November 29th, walked in p. m. to old stone bridge and down bank of river by Sam Barrett's house.

When I stood on the caving swallow banks by the bridge about 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described, lighting up the pitch pines and everything. 

The patches of winter rye, at this season so green by contrast, are an interesting feature in the landscape.

When I got out of the wood, going toward Barrett's, the softness of the sunlight on the russet landscape, the smooth russet grassy fields and meadows, was very soothing, the sun now getting low in a November day. 

The stems and twigs of the maples, etc., looking down the river, were beautifully distinct. You see distinctly the form of the various clumps of maples and birches. 

Geese in river swam as fast as I walked. 

Many broken but apparently rather recent turtles' eggs on the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1852

November 29, 30, and December 1. have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. See December 2, 1859 ("Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth.”)

About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described. See November 29, 1853 ("I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.") See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 (" dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to - night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.")
");

The fruit stems of the dogwood still hold on

January 27

I have just sawed a wheel an inch and three quarters thick off the end of (apparently) a stick of red oak in my pile. I count twenty-nine rings, and about the same number of rings, or divisions of some kind, with more or less distinctness, in the bark, which is about a quarter of an inch thick. 

Is not the whole number of rings contained in the bark of all trees which have a bark externally smooth? 

This stick has two centres of growth, each a little one side of the middle. I trace one easily to a limb which was cut off close to the tree about three and a half inches above the lower side of the section. The two centres are one inch apart on the lower side, two inches and five eighths on the upper side. 

There are three complete circles to the main one on the lower side, and ten on the upper side, before they coalesce; hence it was seven years closing up through an inch and three quarters of height. 

There is a rough ridge, confined to the bark only and about a quarter of an inch  high, extending from the crotch diagonally down the tree, apparently to a point over the true centre of growth. 

P. M.—Walk on the river from the old stone to Derby’s Bridge. 

It is open a couple of rods under the stone bridge, but not a rod below it, and also for forty rods below the mouth of Loring’s Brook, along the west side, probably because this is a mill-stream. 

The only other open places within the limits mentioned yesterday are in one or two places close under the bank, and concealed by it, where warm springs issue, the river, after freezing, having shrunk and the ice settled a foot or eighteen inches there, so that you can see water over its edge. 

The white maple at Derby’s Bridge measures fifteen feet in circumference at ground, including apparently a very large sucker, and ten feet five inches, at four feet above the ground, not including sucker, there free. 

The lodging snow of January 13th, just a fortnight ago, still adheres in deep and conspicuous ridges to large exposed trees, too stubborn to be shaken by the wind, showing from which side the storm came.

The fruit stems of the dogwood still hold on, and a little fruit. 

See what I think are bass nuts on the snow on the river, at Derby’s railroad bridge, probably from up-stream.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1856

Open forty rods below the mouth of Loring’s Brook, along the west side, probably because this is a mill-stream. See January 26, 1856 ("[The river is not open], excepting the small space against Merrick’s below the Rock (now closed), since January 7th, when it closed at the Hubbard Bath, or nearly three weeks, —a long time, methinks, for it to be frozen so solidly.");  January 30, 1856 ("As I walked above the old stone bridge on the 27th, I saw where the river had recently been open under the wooded bank on the west side; and recent sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory, and also the ends of saplings and limbs of trees which had been bent down by the ice, were frozen in. In some places some water stood above the ice, and as I stood there, I saw and heard it gurgle up through a crevice and spread over the ice. This was the influence of Loring’s Brook, far above.”);  February 1, 1856 ("This has been a memorable January for snow and cold . . . The river has been closed up from end to end, with the exception of one or two insignificant openings on a few days . . . We have completely forgotten the summer. There has been no January thaw"); February 22, 1856 ([T]he river is still perfectly closed (as it has been for many weeks), both against Merrick’s and in the Assabet, excepting directly under this upper stone bridge and probably at mouth of Loring’s Brook. I am surprised that the warm weather within ten days has not caused the river to open at Merrick’s, but it was too thick to be melted); February 27, 1856 (Am surprised to see how the ice lasts on the river. It but just begins to be open for a foot or two at Merrick’s, and you see the motion of the stream. It has been tight even there (and of course everywhere else on the main stream, and on North Branch except at Loring’s Brook and under stone bridge) since January 25th…That is, we may say that the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out

The lodging snow . . . still adheres in deep and conspicuous ridges to large exposed trees . . . showing from which side the storm came.  See note to December 31, 1851 ("There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree. ")

Bass nuts.  See April 8, 1856 ("Found beneath the surface, on the sphagnum, near wrinkled shells, a little like nutmegs, perhaps bass nuts, collected after a freshet by mice! ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

January 27.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 27

The lodging snow a  

fortnight ago still adheres

to large exposed trees.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The fruit stems of the dogwood still hold on

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt18560127