I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

September 23

Notwithstanding the fog, the fences this morning are covered with so thick a frost that you can write your name anywhere with your nail.

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, many bushes spring up which afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever.

The sumach are among the reddest leaves at present.

The telegraph harp sounds strongly to-day, in the midst of the rain. I put my ear to the trees and I hear it working terribly within, and anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is if you had entered some world - famous cathedral, resounding to some vast organ.

The fibres of all things have their tension, and are strained like the strings of a lyre. I feel the very ground tremble under my feet as I stand near the post. This wire vibrates with great power, as if it would strain and rend the wood.

What an awful and fateful music it must be to the worms in the wood! No better vermifuge were needed. No danger that worms will attack this wood; such vibrating music would thrill them to death.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1851

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. See  February 14, 1856 ("In all the little valleys in the woods and sprout-lands, and on the southeast sides of hills, the oak leaves which have blown over the crust are gathered in dry and warm-looking beds. . . No doubt they are of service to conceal and warm the rabbit and partridge and other beasts and birds."); March 17, 1860 ("The rabbit and partridge can eat wood; therefore they abound and can stay here all the year."); November 18, 1851 (".Here hawks also circle by day, and chickadees are heard, and rabbits and partridges abound. . . .You must be conversant with things for a long time to know much about them,. . . as the partridge and the rabbit are acquainted with the thickets and at length have acquired the color of the places they frequent."); Walden (" All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath”); December 1, 1856 ("Well named shrub oak. Low, robust, hardy, indigenous. Well known to the striped squirrel and the partridge and rabbit"); December 11, 1854 ("A gray rabbit scuds away over the crust in the swamp on the edge of the Great Meadows beyond Peter’s. A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing,"); December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc"); December 31, 1855 ("I see many partridge-tracks in the light snow, where they have sunk deep amid the shrub oaks; also gray rabbit and deer mice tracks");

.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden. See August 25, 1859 ("I see, after the rain, when the leaves are rustling and glistening in the cooler breeze and clear air, quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden"); September 1, 1854 (" A still, cloudy, misty day, through which has fallen a very little rain this forenoon already. Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden."); September 17, 1858 ("Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden, etc");September 25, 1859 (" The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered. . . and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it. "); October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings")

A Blanding's Turtle on the hot sand of the new road at Beck Stow's Swamp.

July 6 . 

P. M. - To Beck Stow's.

Euphorbia maculata, good while.

Polygonum aviculare, a day or two.

Now a great show of elder blossoms.

Polygala sanguinea, apparently a day or more.

Galium asprellum in shade; probably earlier in sun.

Partridges a third grown.

Veery still sings and toad rings.

On the hot sand of the new road at Beck Stow's, headed toward the water a rod or more off, what is probably Cistudo Blandingii; had some green conferva (?) on its shell and body.

Length of upper shell, 6 inches; breadth behind, 4 5/8 ; tail beyond shell, 2 1/4.

Did not see it shut its box; kept running out its long neck four inches or more; could bend it directly back to the posterior margin of the second [?] dorsal plate.

Ran out its head further and oftener than usual.

The spots pale-yellow or buff.

Upper half of head and neck blackish, the former quite smooth for 13 inches and finely sprinkled with yellowish spots, the latter warty The snout lighter, with five perpendicular black marks.

Eyes large (?), irides dull green-golden.

Under jaw and throat clear chrome-yellow.

Under parts of neck and roots of fore legs duller yellow; inner parts behind duller yellow still.

Fore legs with black scales, more or less yellow spotted above; at root and beneath pale-yellow and yellowish.

Hind legs uniformly black above and but little lighter beneath.

Tail black all round.

No red or orange about the animal.

No hook or notch to jaw.

Plantain, some days, and gnaphalium, apparently two or three days.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 6, 1854

Beck Stow's. See July 17, 1852 ("Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! . . .deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step. . . and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

Partridges a third grown. See July 5, 1856 ("Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste into the woods from off the railroad. ");July 5, 1857 ("Partridges big as quails"); July 7, 1854 ("Disturb two broods of partridges this afternoon, — one a third grown, flying half a dozen rods over the bushes, yet the old, as anxious as ever, rushing to me with the courage of a hen.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

On the hot sand of the new road at Beck Stow's, what is probably Cistudo Blandingii. See March 13, 1859 (“On the northeast part of the Great Fields, I find the broken shell of a Cistudo Blandingii, on very dry soil. This is the fifth, then, I have seen in the town. All the rest were three in the Great Meadows (one of them in a ditch) and one within a rod or two of Beck Stow's Swamp”)

 A Blanding's Turtle 

on the hot sand of the new 

road at Beck Stow's Swamp

A summer begun

 June 8.

J\

June 8, 2018

Here it is the 8th of June, and the grass is growing apace. In the front yards of the village they are already beginning to cut it. The fields look luxuriant and verdurous, but, as the weather is warmer, the atmosphere is not so clear.

In distant woods the partridge sits on her eggs, and at evening the frogs begin to dream and boys begin to bathe in the river and ponds.

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.

The cars come and go with such regularity and precision, and the whistle and rumble are heard so far, that town clocks and family clocks are already half dispensed with, and it is easy to foresee that one extensive well-conducted and orderly institution like a railroad will keep time and order for a whole country. The startings and arrivals of the cars are the epochs in a village day.

Not till June can the grass be said to be waving in the fields. When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1850

 When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun. See June 8, 1859 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella.. . .When you go forth to walk at 2 p. m. you see perhaps, in the south west or west or maybe east horizon, a dark and threatening mass of cloud showing itself just over the woods, its base horizontal and dark, with lighter edges where it is rolled up to the light, while all beneath is the kind of dark slate of falling rain. These are summer showers, come with the heats of summer."); See also June 1, 1853 (" Summer begins now about a week past, with the expanded leaves, the shade and warm weather."); June 9, 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,. . . It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. . . . It suggests also the creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly begun."); June 11, 1856 ("It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th :• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.") and See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Waving grasses, Buttercups, and Shade

Few men do not love better to give advice than to give assistance.

June 4. 


To-day, June 4th, I have been tending a burning in the woods. 

Ray was there. It is a pleasant fact that you will know no man long, however low in the social scale, however poor, miserable, intemperate, and worthless he may appear to be, a mere burden to society, but you will find at last that there is something which he understands and can do better than any other. I was pleased to hear that one man had sent Ray as the one who had had the most experience in setting fires of any man in Lincoln.

***

There are few men who do not love better to give advice than to give assistance.

***

The fire stopped within a few inches of a partridge's nest to-day, June 4th, whom we took off in our hands and found thirteen creamy-colored eggs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1850

The different moods or degrees of wildness and poetry of which the song of birds is the keynote

May 11.


5 A. M. -- In the morning and evening waters are still and smooth, and dimpled by innate currents only, not disturbed by foreign winds and currents of the air, and reflect more light than at noonday.

P. M. – To Corner Spring via Hubbard's Bathing Place.

The buck-bean is budded, but hard to find now.

The Viola lanceolata is now abundant thereabouts, me thinks larger and quite as fragrant (which is not saying much) as the blanda. How long has it been open? 

May 11, 2019

It is a warm afternoon, and great numbers of painted and spotted tortoises are lying in the sun in the meadow.

I notice that the thin scales are peeling off of one of the painted and curled up more than half an inch at the edges, and others look as if they had just lost them, the dividing-line being of a dull cream color.

Has this lying in the sun anything to do with it? 

I nearly stepped upon a song sparrow and a striped snake at the same time. The bird fluttered away almost as if detained. I thought it was a case of charming, without doubt, and should think so still if I had not found her nest with five eggs there, which will account for her being so near the snake that was about to devour her.

The amelanchier has a sickish fragrance.

It must be the myrtle-bird which is now so common in Hubbard's Meadow Woods or Swamp, with a note somewhat like a yellow bird's, striped olive-yellow and black on back or shoulders, light or white beneath, black dim; restless bird; sharp head.

The catbird has a squeaking and split note with some clear whistles.

The late pipes (limosum?), now nearly a foot high, are very handsome, like Oriental work, their encircled columns of some precious wood or gem, or like small bamboos, from Oriental jungles. Very much like art.

The gold-thread, apparently for a day or two, though few flowers compared with buds; not at once referred to its leaf, so distant on its thread-like peduncle.

The water-saxifrage also for a day or two in some places, on its tall, straight stem, rising from its whorl of leaves.

Sorrel now fairly out in some places. I will put it under May 8th.

A high blueberry by Potter's heater piece.

A yellow lily.

The red-eye at the spring; quite a woodland note.

The different moods or degrees of wildness and poetry of which the song of birds is the keynote. The wood thrush Mr. Barnum never hired nor can, though he could bribe Jenny Lind and put her into his cage.

How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds, while I sit by the spring! They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice.  Its twigs feel with pleasure their little feet clasping them.

I hear the distant drumming of a partridge. Its beat, however distant and low, falls still with a remarkably forcible, almost painful, impulse on the ear, like veritable little drumsticks on our tympanum, as if it were a throbbing or fluttering in our veins or brows or the chambers of the ear, and belonging to ourselves, — as if it were produced by some little insect which had made its way up into the passages of the ear, so penetrating is it. It is as palpable to the ear as the sharpest note of a fife.

Of course, that bird can drum with its wings on a log which can go off with such a powerful whir, beating the air. I have seen a thoroughly frightened hen and cockerel fly almost as powerfully, but neither can sustain it long. Beginning slowly and deliberately, the partridge's beat sounds faster and faster from far away under the boughs and through the aisles of the wood until it becomes a regular roll, but is speedily concluded. 

How many things shall we not see and be and do, when we walk there where the partridge drums! 

As I stand by the river in the truly warm sun, I hear the low trump of a bullfrog, but half sounded, - doubting if it be really July, some bassoon sounds, as it were the tuning that precedes the summer's orchestra; and all is silent again.

How the air is saturated with sweetness on causeways these willowy days! The willow alone of trees as yet makes light, often rounded masses of verdure in large trees, stage above stage. But oftenest they are cut down at the height of four or five feet and spread out thence.

There appear to be most clouds in the horizon on (one) of these days of drifting downy clouds, because, when we look that way, more fall within our field of view, but when we look upward, overhead we see the true proportion of clear blue.

The mountains are something solid which is blue, a terra firma in the heavens; but in the heavens there is nothing but the air.

Blue is the color of the day, and the sky is blue by night as well as by day, because it knows no night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 11, 1853

May 11, See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 11

It is a warm afternoon, and great numbers of painted and spotted tortoises are lying in the sun in the meadow. See May 10, 1857 ("Now the Emys picta lie out in great numbers, this suddenly warm weather.")

I nearly stepped upon a song sparrow so near a snake that was about to devour her. See May 19, 1856 ("Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris . . .. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. ")

The different moods or degrees of wildness and poetry of which the song of birds is the keynote. See May 11, 1854 ("The true poet will ever live aloof from society, wild to it, as the finest singer is the wood thrush, a forest bird.")

 How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds . . .  They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice. See May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather."); (May 15, 1859 (“Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. ”);May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”);May 18, 1856 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce."); May 23, 1857("This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding,")

It must be the myrtle-bird which is now so common in Hubbard's Meadow Woods or Swamp. See May 1, 1855 ("The myrtle-bird is one of the commonest and tamest birds now. It catches insects like a pewee, darting off from its perch and returning to it, and sings something like a-chill chill, chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee,"); May 4, 1855 ("Myrtle-birds numerous, and sing their tea lee, tea lee in morning"); May 7, 1852 (" One or more little warblers in the woods this morning are new to the season, myrtlebirds among them.")

Beginning slowly and deliberately, the partridge's beat sounds faster and faster from far away under the boughs and through the aisles of the wood until it becomes a regular roll.  See April 19, 1860 ("You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.");April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate.")

The sky is blue by night as well as by day. See note to January 21, 1853 (''The blueness of the sky at night — the color it wears by day — is an everlasting surprise to me.")

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 ©  2009-2021

A low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west – coppery yellow.

January 6

A low, narrow, clear

segment of sky in the west -

coppery yellow.

January 6, 1854

Walked Tappan in P. M. down railroad to Heywood Brook, Fair Haven, and Cliffs.

At every post along the brook-side, and under almost every white pine, the snow strewn with the scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. They have sat on every post and dropped them for a great distance, also acorn-shells.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales, i. e. of catkins; also, here and there, the large glaucous lichens (cetrarias?).

Showed Tappan a small shad bush, which interested him and reminded him of a greyhound, rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow.

To return to the squirrels, I saw where they had laid up a pitch pine cone in the fork of a rider in several places.

Many marks of partridges, and disturbed them on evergreens.

A winter (?) gnat out on the bark of a pine.

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice.

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown.

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset, or just after (all the rest overcast), of the coppery yellow, perhaps, of some of Gilpin's pictures, all spotted coarsely with clouds like a leopard's skin.

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before. Do they go into the snow at night? 

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow.

H. D. Thoreau Journal, January 6, 1854

A small shad bush. . . rising so slender and graceful with its narrow buds above the snow. See November 4, 1854 ("The shad-bush buds have expanded into small leaflets); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring, "); 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry

The scales and seeds of white pine cones left by the squirrels. See January 13, 1860 ("The scales of the white pine cones are scattered about here and there. They seek a dry place to open them, — a fallen limb that rises above the snow, or often a lower dead stub projecting from the trunk of the tree.");  January 22,  1856 ("he snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales they have dropped while feeding overhead.").See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

The surface of the snow was sometimes strewn with the small alder scales. See December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales."); January 5, 1851 ("The catkins of the alders are now frozen stiff !!") January 20, 1860 (" The snow along the sides of the river is also all dusted over with birch and alder seed, and I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

Winter gnats? See February 2, 1854 ("The winter gnat is seen in the warm air.");  March 19, 1858  ("Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

On Fair Haven we slumped nearly a foot to the old ice. See January 6, 1855 ("The skating is for the most part spoiled by a thin, crispy ice on top of the old ice, which is frozen in great crystals and crackles under your feet.")

The partridges were budding on the Fair Haven orchard, and flew for refuge to the wood, twenty minutes or more after sundown. See February 18, 1852 ("I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard")

There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset.  See January 2, 1854 ("The tints of the sunset sky are never purer and ethereal than in the coldest winter days. "); January 5, 1852 ("I thought I saw an extensive fire in the western horizon . It was a bright coppery-yellow fair-weather cloud along the edge of the horizon  gold with some alloy of copper"); January 7, 1852 ("I go forth each afternoon and look into the west a quarter of an hour before sunset , with fresh curiosity , to see what new picture will be painted there") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

Gilpin. William Gilpin, English writer, printmaker, clergyman and schoolmaster, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque. See January 8, 1854 ("Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch therefore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast. . . . By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foundation for harmony." I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head.")

I took up snow in the tracks at dark, but could find no fleas in it then, though they were exceedingly abundant before.  See January 5, 1854 ("The snow is covered with snow-fleas . . . sprinkled like pepper for half a mile in the tracks of a woodchopper in deep snow."); January 9, 1854 ("Find many snow-fleas, apparently frozen, on the snow. "); January 10, 1854 ("I cannot thaw out to life the snow-fleas which yesterday covered the snow like pepper, in a frozen state.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow. See December 18, 1855 ("See to-day a dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice."); December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice. . . .The spiders lie torpid and plain to see on the snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spiders on Ice

January 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 6.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt540106

The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground.

November 8

Mayweed and shepherd’s-purse.

10 A. M. — Our first snow, the wind southerly, the air chilly and moist; a very fine snow, looking like a mist toward the woods or horizon, which at 2 o’clock has not whitened the ground. The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess.

P. M. – To riverside as far down as near Peter’s, to look at the water-line before the snow covers it.

By Merrick’s pasture it is mainly a fine, still more or less green, thread-like weed or grass of the river bottom (?), sedges, utricularias (that coarse one especially, whose name I am not sure of, with tassels (?), yellow water ranunculus, potamogeton’s translucent leaves, a few flags and pontederia stems.

By Peter’s there was much of that coarse triangular cellular stem mentioned yesterday as sparganium (?). I would not have thought it so common.

There is not so much meadow grass or hay as I expected, for that has been raked and carried off.

The pads, too, have wasted away and the pontederias’ leaves, and the stems of the last for the most part still adhere to the bottom.

Three larks rise from the sere grass on Minott’s Hill before me, the white of their outer tail-feathers very conspicuous, reminding me of arctic snowbirds by their size and form also.

The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground now, but it has not overcome the russet of the grass ground.

November 8, 2023

Birds generally wear the russet dress of nature at this season. They have their fall no less than the plants; the bright tints depart from their foliage or feathers, and they flit past like withered leaves in rustling flocks.

The sparrow is a withered leaf.

The Stellaria media still blooms in Cheney’s garden, and the shepherd’s-purse looks even fresher. This must be near the end of the flower season.

Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song.

And the last striped squirrel, too, perchance, yesterday. They, then, do not go into winter quarters till the ground is covered with snow.

The partridges go off with a whir, and then sail a long way level and low through the woods with that impetus they have got, displaying their neat forms perfectly.

The yellow larch leaves still hold on, — later than those of any of our pines.

I noticed the other day a great tangled and netted mass of an old white pine root lying upon the surface, nearly a rod across and two feet or more high, too large even to be turned up for a fence. 

It suggested that the roots of trees would be an interesting study. There are the small thickly interwoven roots of the swamp white oaks on the Assabet.

At evening the snow turned to rain, and the sugaring soon disappeared. 

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, November 8, 1853 

Our first snow. The children greet it with a shout. See November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”) See also note to November 29, 1856 ("This the first snow I have seen")

The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground now, but it has not overcome the russet of the grass ground.  See December 3, 1856 ("The sight of the sedgy meadows that are not yet snowed up while the cultivated fields and pastures are a uniform white.") See also November 24, 1858 ("Plowed ground is quite white.); November 24, 1860 (“The plowed fields were for a short time whitened”);  October 19, 1854 (“The country above Littleton (plowed ground) more or less sugared with snow,”); December 16, 1857 ("Plowed grounds show white first.”)

Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

And the last striped squirrel, too, perchance, yesterday. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Squirrel

Three larks rise from the sere grass on Minott’s Hill before me, the white of their outer tail-feathers very conspicuous. See October 13, 1855 ("Larks in flocks in the meadows, showing the white in their tails as they fly, sing sweetly as in spring."); October 18, 1858 ("See larks, with their white tail-feathers, fluttering low over the meadows these days"); November 1, 1853  ("I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler's meadow on left of the Corner road, singing exactly as in spring and twittering also, but rather faintly or suppressedly.");  See also June 30, 1851 ("The lark sings a note which belongs to a New England summer evening."); August 4, 1852 ("I must make a list of those birds which, like the lark and the robin, if they do not stay all the year, are heard to sing longest of those that migrate."); October 6, 1851 ("I hear a lark singing this morn (October 7th ), and yesterday saw them in the meadows. Both larks and blackbirds are heard again now occasionally, seemingly after a short absence, as if come to bid farewell")

Birds generally wear the russet dress of nature at this season. . . and they flit past like withered leaves in rustling flocks. The sparrow is a withered leaf. See January 24, 1860 ("These birds, though they have bright brown and buff backs, hop about amid the little inequalities of the pasture almost unnoticed, such is their color and so humble are they.")

Birds in russet dress now flit past like withered leaves in rustling flocks.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground

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-531108

Birds are commonly very rare in the winter

January 22. 

P. M. — Up river to Fair Haven Pond; return via Andromeda Ponds and railroad. 

Overcast, but some clear sky in southwest horizon; mild weather still. 

Where the sedge grows rankly and is uncut, as along the edge of the river and meadows, what fine coverts are made for mice, etc., at this season! It is arched over, and the snow rests chiefly on its ends, while the middle part is elevated from six inches to a foot and forms a thick thatch, as it were, even when all is covered with snow, under which the mice and so forth can run freely, out of the way of the wind and of foxes. 

After a pretty deep snow has just partially melted, you are surprised to find, as you walk through such a meadow, how high and lightly the sedge lies up, as if there had been no pressure upon it. It grows, perhaps, in dense tufts or tussocks, and when it falls over, it forms a thickly thatched roof. Nature provides shelter for her creatures in various ways. 

If the musquash, etc., has no longer extensive fields of weed and grass to crawl in, what an extensive range it has under the ice of the meadows and river sides! for, the water settling directly after freezing, an icy roof of indefinite extent is thus provided for it, and it passes almost its whole winter under shelter, out of the wind and invisible to men. 

The ice is so much rotted that I observe in many places those lunar-shaped holes, and dark places in the ice, convex up-stream, some times double-lunar. 

I perceive that the open places in the river do not preserve the same relative importance that they had December 29th. Then the largest four or five stood in this order: (1) below boat's place, (2) below junction, (3) Barrett's Bar, (4) Clamshell or else Hubbard's large as Hubbard's Bath. Which of the others is largest I am not quite sure. 

In other words, below junction and Hubbard's Bath (if not also Clamshell, not seen) retain about their former size, while below boat's place and Barrett's Bar have been diminished, especially below boat's place. 

Birds are commonly very rare in the winter. They are much more common at some times than at others. I see more tree sparrows in the beginning of the winter (especially when snow is falling) than in the course of it. I think that by observation I could tell in what kind of weather afterward these were most to be seen. 

Crows come about houses and streets in very cold weather and deep snows, and they are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i. e., when cocks crow. 

For the most part, lesser redpolls and pine grosbeaks do not appear at all. 

Snow buntings are very wandering. They were quite numerous a month ago, and now seem to have quit the town. They seem to ramble about the country at will. 

C. says that he followed the track of a fox all yesterday afternoon, though with some difficulty, and then lost it at twilight. I suggested that he should begin next day where he had left off, and that following it up thus for many days he might catch him at last. 

"By the way," I asked, "did you go the same way the fox did, or did you take the back track?" 

"Oh," said he, "I took the back track. It would be of no use to go the other way, you know." 

Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent for a while and gain a breathing-spell. 

I see, in one of those pieces of drifted meadow (of last spring) in A. Wheeler's cranberry meadow, a black willow thus transplanted more than ten feet high and five inches in diameter. It is quite alive. 

The snow-fleas are thickest along the edge of the wood here, but I find that they extend quite across the river, though there are comparatively few over the middle. There are generally fewer and fewer the further you are from the shore. Nay, I find that they extend quite across Fair Haven Pond. There are two or three inches of snow on the ice, and thus they are revealed. There are a dozen or twenty to a square rod on the very middle of the pond. When I approach one, it commonly hops away, and if it gets a good spring it hops a foot or more, so that it is at first lost to me. Though they are scarcely the twentieth of an inch long they make these surprising bounds, or else conceal themselves by entering the snow. We have now had many days of this thawing weather, and I believe that these fleas have been gradually hopping further and further out from the shore. 

To-day, perchance, it is water, a day or two later ice, and no fleas are seen on it. Then snow comes and covers the ice, and if there is no thaw for a month, you see no fleas for so long. But, at least soon after a thaw, they are to be seen on the centre of ponds at least half a mile across. Though this is my opinion, it is by no means certain that they come here thus, for I am prepared to believe that the water in the middle may have had as many floating on it, and that these were afterward on the surface of the ice, though unseen, and hence under the snow when it fell, and ready to come up through it when the thaw came. 

But what do they find to eat in apparently pure snow so far from any land? Has their food come down from the sky with the snow? They must themselves be food for many creatures. This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow. 

I see some insects, of about this form on the snow: 

I scare a partridge that was eating the buds and ends of twigs of the Vaccinium vacillans on a hillside. 

At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow. 

The leaves of the water andromeda are evidently more appressed to the twigs, and showing the gray under sides, than in summer.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 22, 1860

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

The water settling directly after freezing, an icy roof of indefinite extent is thus provided for it, and it passes almost its whole winter under shelter, out of the wind and invisible to men.   Compare January 22, 1859 (".Many are out in boats, steering outside the ice of the river over the newly flooded meadows, shooting musquash."); January 22, 1855 ("The muskrats driven out of their holes by the water are exceedingly numerous . . .We saw fifteen or twenty, at least, between Derby's Bridge and the Tarbell Spring, either swimming with surprising swiftness up or down or across the stream to avoid us, or sitting at the water's edge, or resting on the edge of the ice.") See also January 3, 1860 ("Melvin thinks that the musquash eat more clams now than ever, and that they leave the shells in heaps under the ice. As the river falls it leaves them space enough under the ice along the meadow's edge and bushes. I think he is right. He speaks of the mark of the tail, which is dragged behind them, in the snow."); January 24, 1856 ("I have not been able to find any tracks of muskrats this winter. I suspect that they very rarely venture out in winter with their wet coats "); January 27, 1860 (" I occasionally hear a musquash plunge under the ice next the shore.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

Snow buntings are very wandering. They were quite numerous a month ago, and now seem to have quit the town.  See December 23, 1859 ("Then here they come, with a stiff rip of their wings as they suddenly wheel, and those peculiar rippling notes, flying low quite across the meadow, . . . Indeed, the flock, flying about as high as my head, divides, and half passes on each side of me. Thus they sport over these broad meadows of ice this pleasant winter day. ")

Crows are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, i. e., when cocks crow. See January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls."); . March 16, 1858 ("The crowing of cocks and the cawing of crows tell the same story. The ice is soggy and dangerous to be walked on.")

"By the way," I asked, "did you go the same way the fox did, or did you take the back track?" See February 5, 1854 ("I followed on this trail so long that my thoughts grew foxy; though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step.")

Minott says the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent. See January 30, 1855 (" Minott . . .told how Jake Lakin lost a dog, a very valuable one, by a fox leading him on to the ice on the Great Meadows and drowning him.")

At the west end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw. See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last [Andromeda] pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. . . .This beautiful blushing ice! What are we coming to?"); January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice.. . . The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope. . ."); March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still . . .It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.")

A warm reddish color revealed by the snow / blueness of the air.

January 14

About an inch more snow fell this morning. An average snow-storm is from six to eight inches deep on a level. 

The snow having ceased falling this forenoon, I go to Holden Wood, Conantum, to look for tracks. It is too soon. I see none at all but those of a hound, and also where a partridge waded through the light snow, apparently while it was falling, making a deep gutter. 

Yesterday there was a broad field of bare ice on each side of the river, i. e. on the meadows, and now, though it is covered with snow an inch deep, as I stand on the river or even on Fair Haven Hill a quarter to half a mile off, I can see where the ice is through the snow, plainly, trace its whole outline, it being quite dark compared with where the snow has fallen on snow. In this case a mantle of light snow even an inch thick is not sufficient to conceal the darkness of the ice beneath it, where it is contrasted with snow on snow. 

Those little groves of sweet-fern still thickly leaved, whose tops now rise above the snow, are an interesting warm brown-red now, like the reddest oak leaves. Even this is an agreeable sight to the walker over snowy fields and hillsides. It has a wild and jagged leaf, alternately serrated. A warm reddish color revealed by the snow.

It is a mild day, and I notice, what I have not observed for some time, that blueness of the air only to be perceived in a mild day. I see it between me and woods half a mile distant. The softening of the air amounts to this. The mountains are quite invisible. You come forth to see this great blue presence lurking about the woods and the horizon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 14, 1860

Too soon to look for tracks. See January 14, 1853 ("It is now pure and trackless. Walking three or four miles in the woods, I see but one track of any kind, yet by to-morrow morning there will he countless tracks of all sizes all over the country.")

I see where a partridge waded through the light snow, apparently while it was falling, making a deep gutter.  See January 26, 1855 ("This morning it snows again. . .I see where a partridge has waddled through the snow still falling, making a continuous track. I look in the direction to which it points, and see the bird just skimming over the bushes fifteen rods off.")

A warm reddish color revealed by the snow. See November 14, 1858 ("Now I begin to notice the silver downy twigs of the sweet-fern in the sun (lately bare). "); November 17, 1858 ("Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner"); November 26, 1858 ("A good many leaves of the sweet-fern, though withered now, still hold on; so that this shrub may be put with the oaks in this respect. So far as I remember, it is peculiar among shrubs in this.");December 7, 1857 ("I observe that the recent shoots of the sweet-fern — which, like many larger bushes and trees, have a few leaves in a tuft still at their extremities – toward the sun are densely covered with a bright, warm, silvery down, which looks like frost, so thick and white . . .I would rather sit at this table with the sweet-fern twigs between me and the sun than at the king’s."); January 19, 1859 ("The sweet-fern retains its serrate terminal leaves.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sweet-Fern

January 14. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 14

Warm reddish color.

A wild and jagged leaf

revealed by the snow.

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

tinyurl.com/hdt18600114

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

December 17.

P. M. — To Walden.

The snow being some three or four inches deep, I see rising above it, generally, at my old bean-field, only my little white pines set last spring in the midst of an immense field of Solidago nemoralis, with a little sweet-fern (i.e. a large patch of it on the north side).

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

By the side of the Pout's Nest, I see on the pure white snow what looks like dust for half a dozen inches under a twig. Looking closely, I find that the twig is hardhack and the dust its slender, light-brown, chaffy looking seed, which falls still in copious showers, dusting the snow, when I jar it; and here are the tracks of a sparrow which has jarred the twig and picked the minute seeds a long time, making quite a hole in the snow. The seeds are so fine that it must have got more snow than seed at each peck. But they probably look large to its microscopic eyes.

I see, when I jar it, that a meadow-sweet close by has quite similar, but larger, seeds.

This the reason, then, that these plants rise so high above the snow and retain their seed, dispersing it on the least jar over each successive layer of snow beneath them; or it is carried to a distance by the wind.

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds, while I find only a few nuts still!

These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender. What the cereals are to men, these are to the sparrows. The only threshing they require is that the birds fly against their spikes or stalks.

A little further I see the seed-box (?) (Ludwigia) full of still smaller, yellowish seeds.

And on the ridge north is the track of a partridge amid the shrubs. It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few. Also, here only, or where it has evidently jarred them down — whether intentionally or not, I am not sure — are the large oval seeds of the stiff-stalked lespedeza, which I suspect it ate, with the sumach berries. There is much solid food in them. When the snow is deep the birds could easily pick the latter out of the heads as they stand on the snow.

I observe, then, eaten by birds to-day, the seed of hardhack and meadow-sweet, sumach, and probably lespedeza, and even seed-box.

Under the hill, on the southeast side of R. W. E.'s lot, where the hemlock stands, I see many tracks of squirrels. The dark, thick green of the hemlock (amid the pines) seems to attract them as a covert. The snow under the hemlock is strewn with the scales of its cones, which they (and perhaps birds?) have stripped off, and some of its little winged seeds. It is pleasant to see the tracks of these squirrels (I am not sure whether they are red or gray or both, for I see none) leading straight from the base of one tree to that of another, thus leaving untrodden triangles, squares, and polygons of every form, bounded by much trodden highways.

One, two, three, and the track is lost on the upright bole of a pine, — as if they had played at base-running from goal to goal, while pine cones were thrown at them on the way. The tracks of two or three suggest a multitude. You come thus on the tracks of these frisky and volatile (semivolitant) creatures in the midst of perfect stillness and solitude, as you might stand in a hall half an hour after the dancers had departed.

I see no nests in the trees, but numerous holes through the snow into the earth, whence they have emerged. They have loitered but little on the snow, spending their time chiefly on the trees, their castles, when abroad.

The snow is strewn not only with hemlock scales, but, under other trees, with the large white pine scales for rods together where there is no track, the wind having scattered them as they fell, and also the shells of hickory-nuts. It reminds me of the platform before a grocery where nuts are sold.

You see many places where they have probed the snow for these white pine cones, evidently those which they cut off green and which accordingly have not opened so as to drop the seeds. This was perhaps the design in cut ting them off so early, — thus to preserve them under the snow (not dispersed). Do they find them by the scent?

At any rate they will dig down through the snow and come right upon a pine cone or a hickory-nut or an acorn, which you and I cannot do.

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen.

Saw in [it] a good-sized black duck, which did not dive while I looked. I suspect it must have been a Fuligula, though I saw no white.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1859

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds. These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender.  See January 16, 1860 ("Though you may have never noticed this shrub, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to it, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seed that falls from it. The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.")

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen. Saw in it a good-sized black duck. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. . . . A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.")

The night comes on early these days

December 12

P. M. — To Pine Hill and round Walden. 

Seeing a little hole in the side of a dead white birch, about six feet from the ground, I broke it off and found it to be made where a rotten limb had broken off. The hole was about an inch over and was of quite irregular and probably natural outline, and, within, the rotten wood had been removed to the depth of two or three inches, and on one side of this cavity, under the hole, was quite a pile of bird-droppings. The bottom was an irregular surface of the rotten wood, and there was nothing like a nest. The diameter of the birch was little more than two inches, — if at all. 

Probably it was the roosting-place of a chickadee.  

There is a certain Irish woodchopper who, when I come across him at his work in the woods in the winter, never fails to ask me what time it is, as if he were in haste to take his dinner-pail and go home. This is not as it should be. 

Every man, and the woodchopper among the rest, should love his work as much as the poet does his. All good political arrangements proceed on this supposition. If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rotteneness at the foundation of our community.

December 12, 2013

The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. 

The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice. 

So, perchance, if a still finer substance should fall from heaven (iodine ?), something delicate enough to receive the trace of their footsteps, we should see where unsuspected spirits and faery visitors had hourly crossed our steps, had held conventions and transacted their affairs in our midst. No doubt such subtle spirits transact their affairs in our midst, and we may perhaps in vent some sufficiently delicate surface to catch the impression of them. 

If in the winter there are fewer men in the fields and woods, — as in the country generally, — you see the tracks of those who had preceded you, and so are more reminded of them than in summer. 

As I talked with the woodchopper who had just cleared the top of Emerson's I got a new view of the mountains over his pile of wood in the foreground. They were very grand in their snowy mantle, which had a slight tinge of purple. But when afterward I looked at them from a higher hill, where there was no wood pile in the foreground, they affected me less. It is now that these mountains, in color as well as form, most resemble the clouds.

I am inclined to think of late that as much depends on the state of the bowels as of the stars. As are your bowels, so are the stars.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 12, 1859

Probably it was the roosting-place of a chickadee. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

Every man, and the woodchopper among the rest, should love his work as much as the poet does his. See Walden, An artist in the city of Kouroo ("in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, "); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. . . . The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); November 20, 1851("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man"); December 13, 1851 ("This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time."); June 15, 1852 ("Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love, and pay him well."); April 8, 1854 ("A day or two surveying is equal to a journey");April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing, that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light."); April 30, 1856 (" You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.")

The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. See December 3, 1856 ("For years my appetite was so strong that I fed — I browsed — on the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon"); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”); 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 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); 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.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Season of Two Twilights

The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice. See November 18, 1855 ("The snow is the great track-revealer."); December 8, 1854 ("Already foxes have left their tracks.!"); December 8, 1855 ("Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); December 11, 1854 ("A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing, making five or six as it were finger-marks."); December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me.");  December 14, 1855 ("By the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell."); December 19, 1850 ("Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new-fallen snow, till I came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. "):December 27, 1853 ("It is surprising what things the snow betrays . . . no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice and larger animals.")

[In the winter] you see the tracks of those who had preceded you, and so are more reminded of them than in summer. See November 15, 1858 ("You are now reminded occasionally in your walks that you have contemporaries, and perchance predecessors. I see the track of a fox . . . and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog."); November 28, 1858 ("I cannot now walk without leaving a track behind me; that is one peculiarity of winter walking. Anybody may follow my trail. I have walked, perhaps, a particular wild path along some swamp-side all summer, and thought to myself, I am the only villager that ever comes here. But I go out shortly after the first snow has fallen, and lo, here is the track of a sportsman and his dog in my secluded path, and probably he preceded me in the summer as well."); December 7, 1856 ("I see the track of one skater who has preceded me this morning.")

In their snowy mantle, which had a slight tinge of purple . . . It is now that these mountains, in color as well as form, most resemble the clouds. See December 12, 1852 ("From Cliffs I see snow on the mountains. Last night's rain was snow there"); see also October 13, 1852 (" The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple."); ); October 20, 1852 (“I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them”);; November 4, 1857 ("The mountains north . . . stand out grand and distinct, a decided purple."). November 30, 1852 (" the sparkling windows and vanes of the village, seen under and against the faintly purple-tinged, slate-colored mountains ")

December 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 12

Night comes on early –

pine tree tops outlined against 

the cold western sky.

It is now mountains

have a slight tinge of purple –

resembling the clouds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The night comes on early these days

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-591212