Both the pink and the green are phenomena of the morning.

February 20.

 P. M. – I see directly in front [of] the Depot Lee [?] house, on the only piece of bare ground I see hereabouts, a large flock of lesser redpolls feeding. They must be picking up earth, sand, or the withered grass. They are so intent on it that they allow me to come quite near This, then is one use for the drifting of snow which lays bare some spots, however deep it may be elsewhere, — so that the birds, etc., can come at the earth. I never thought of this use before. 

First the snow fell deep and level on the 18th, then, the 19th, came high wind and plowed it out here and there to the ground; and so it will always be in some places, however deep it may have been. 

J. Farmer tells me that his grandfather once, when moving some rocks in the winter, found a striped squirrel frozen stiff. He put him in his pocket, and when he got home laid him on the hearth, and after a while he was surprised to see him running about the room as lively as ever he was. 

I notice a very pale pink reflection from snowy roofs and sides of white houses at sunrise. So both the pink and the green are phenomena of the morning, but in a much less degree, which shows that they depend more on the twilight and the grossness of the atmosphere than on the angle at which the sunlight falls.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 20, 1860

A large flock of lesser redpolls feeding. See February 12, 1860 ("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. It has a crimson or purple front and breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the lesser redpoll.

The snow fell deep and level on the 18th, then, the 19th, came high wind and plowed it out here  See February 19, 1860 ("Snow maybe near a foot deep, and now drifting.")

Both the pink and the green are phenomena of the morning, but in a much less degree. See notes to January 31, 1859 ("Also 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. . . .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."); and   December 29, 1859 ("I went to the river immediately after sunrise. I could [see] a little greenness in the ice, and also a little rose-color from the snow, but far less than before the sun set. Do both these phenomena require a gross atmosphere? . . .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. ")

“The History of Four-footed Beasts”

February 17.

P. M. — Cold and northwest wind, drifting the snow. 

3 P. M., thermometer 14º. A perfectly clear sky except one or two little cloud flecks in the southwest, which, when I look again after walking forty rods, have entirely dissolved. 

When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink, and even from white board fences. 

Grows colder yet at evening, and frost forms on the windows. 

I hear that some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week!! It was probably a shrike . 

Minott says that he hears that Heard's testimony in regard to Concord River in the meadow case was that “it is dammed at both ends and cursed in the middle,” i.e. on account of the damage to the grass there. 

We cannot spare the very lively and lifelike descriptions of some of the old naturalists.  They sympathize with the creatures which they describe. 

The artist too has done his part equally well.

Edward Topsell in his translation of Conrad Gesner, in 1607, called “The History of Four-footed Beasts” says of the antelopes that “they are bred in India and Syria , near the river Euphrates," and then — which enables you to realize the living creature and its habitat — he adds, "and delight much to drink of the cold water thereof." 

The beasts which most modern naturalists describe do not delight in anything, and their water is neither hot nor cold. Reading the above makes you want to go and drink of the Euphrates yourself, if it is warm weather. 

I do not know how much of his spirit he owes to Gesner, but he proceeds in his translation to say that "they have horns growing forth of the crown of their head, which are very long and sharp; so that Alexander affirmed they pierced through the shields of his soldiers, and fought with them very irefully: at which time his company slew as he travelled to India, eight thousand five hundred and fifty, which great slaughter may be the occasion why they are so rare and seldom seen to this day.” 

Now here something is described at any rate; it is a real account, whether of a real animal or not. You can plainly see the horns which "grew forth” from their crowns, and how well that word “irefully” describes a beast' s fighting! And then for the number which Alexander's men slew “as he travelled to India,” — and what a travelling was that, my hearers! - eight thousand five hundred and fifty, just the number you would have guessed after the thousands were given, and [an] easy one to remember too. 

He goes on to say that “their horns are great and made like a saw, and they with them can cut asunder the branches of osier or small trees , whereby it cometh to pass that many times their necks are taken in the twists of the falling boughs , whereat the beast with repining cry, bewrayeth him self to the hunters, and so is taken.” 

The artist too has done his part equally well, for you are presented with a drawing of the beast with serrated horns, the tail of a lion, a cheek tooth (canine?) as big as a boar's, a stout front, and an exceedingly “ireful” look, as if he were facing all Alexander's army. 

Though some beasts are described in this book which have no existence as I can learn but in the imagination  of the writers, they really have an existence there, which is saying not a little, for most of our modern authors have not imagined the actual beasts which they presume to describe.

The very frontispiece is a figure of “the gorgon,” which looks sufficiently like a hungry beast covered with scales, which you may have dreamed of, apparently just fallen on the track of you, the reader, and snuffing the odor with greediness. 


These men had an adequate idea of a beast, or what a beast should be, a very bellua (the translator makes the word bestia to be “a vastando”); and they will describe and will draw you a cat with four strokes, more beastly or beast - like to look at than Mr. Ruskin's favorite artist draws a tiger. They had an adequate idea of the wildness of beasts and of men, and in their descriptions and drawings they did not always fail when they surpassed nature. 

Gesner says of apes that “they are held for a subtil, ironical, ridiculous and unprofitable beast, whose flesh is not good for meat as a sheep, neither his back for burthen as an asses, nor yet commodious to keep a house like a dog, but of the Grecians termed geloto poios, made for laughter.” As an evidence of an ape's want of “discretion” he says: “A certain ape after a shipwreck, swimming to land, was seen by a country man, who thinking him to be a man in the water gave him his hand to save him, yet in the mean time asked him what countryman he was , to which he answered that he was an Athenian: Well, said the man, dost thou know Piræus (a port in Athens)? Very well, said the ape, and his wife, friends and children. Whereat the man being moved, did what he could to drown him. ”

 “They are best contented to sit aloft although tied with chains . . . . They bring forth young ones for the most part by twins, whereof they love the one and hate the other; that which they love they bear on their arms, the other hangeth at the dam' s back, and for the most part she killeth that which she loveth, by pressing it too hard: afterward, she setteth her whole delight upon the other.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1860

When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink. See 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. "); 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 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.") and note to 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").

Some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week! See February 8, 1860 ("It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard.");  February 18, 1857 ("I thought at one time that I heard a bluebird. . . . I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. . . . Here is the soft air and the moist expectant apple trees, but not yet the bluebird. They do not quite attain to song") See also December 18, 1859 ("I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight.")

February 22.

Such remarkably

pleasant weather, i  listen

for the first bluebird.

February 22, 1855

What various kinds of ice there are!

January 31. 

P. M. —— Up river across Cyanean Meadow. 

Now we have quite another kind of ice. It has rained hard, converting into a very thin liquid the snow which had fallen on the old ice, and this, having frozen, has made a perfectly smooth but white snow ice. It is white like polished marble (I call it marble ice), and the trees and hill are reflected in it, as not in the other. It is far less varied than the other, but still is very peculiar and interesting. You notice the polished surface much more, as if it were the marble floor of some stupendous hall. Yet such is its composition it is not quite so hard and metallic, I think. The skater probably makes more of a scratch. The other was hard and crystalline.

As I look south just before sunset, over this fresh and shining ice, I notice that its surface is divided, as it were, into a great many contiguous tables in different planes, somewhat like so many different facets of a polyhedron as large as the earth itself. These tables or planes are bounded by cracks, though without any appreciable opening, and the different levels are betrayed by the reflections of the light or sky being interrupted at the cracks. 

The ice formed last night is a day old, and these cracks, as I find, run generally from northeast to southwest across the entire meadow, some twenty-five or thirty rods, nearly at right angles with the river, and are from five to fifteen feet apart, while there are comparatively few cracks crossing them in the other direction. You notice this phenomenon looking over the ice some rods before you; otherwise might not observe the cracks when upon them. 

It is as if the very globe itself were a crystal with a certain number of facets. 

When I look westward now to the flat snow-crusted shore, it reflects a strong violet color. 

Also 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. Whole fields and sides of hills are often the same, but it is more distinct on these flat islands of snow scattered here and there over the meadow ice. I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters.

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? ? 

Surely the ice is a great and absorbing phenomenon. Consider how much of the surface of the town it occupies, how much attention it monopolizes! We do not commonly distinguish more than one kind of water in the river, but what various kinds of ice there are! 

Young Heywood told me that the trout which he caught in Walden was twenty-seven inches long and weighed five pounds, but was thin, not in good condition. (He saw another.) It was in the little cove between the deep one and the railroad.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1859

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. See  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. "); January 1, 1855 ("We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us"); 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 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 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.")

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. See 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?"); 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. ")

But what various kinds of ice there are! See January 26, 1859 ("What various kinds of ice there are!

A mackerel sky.

January 19. 

Wednesday. P. M. —To Great Meadows 'via Sleepy Hollow. 

It is a remarkably warm, still, and pleasant afternoon for winter, and the wind, as I discover by my handkerchief, southwesterly. 

I noticed last night, just after sunset, a sheet of mackerel sky far in the west horizon, very finely imbricated and reflecting a coppery glow, and again I saw still more of it in the east this morning at sunrise, and now, at 3.30 P. M., looking up, I perceive that almost the entire heavens are covered with a very beautiful mackerel sky. 

January 15, 2014 2:57 P.M.

This indicates a peculiar state of the atmosphere. The sky is most wonderfully and beautifully mottled with evenly distributed cloudlets, of indescribable variety yet regularity in their form, suggesting fishes’ scales, with perhaps small fish-bones thrown in here and there. It is white in the midst, or most prominent part, of the scales, passing into blue in the crannies. 

Something like this blue and white mottling, methinks, is seen on a mackerel, and has suggested the name. Is not the peculiar propriety of this term lost sight of by the meteorologists? 

It is a luxury for the eye to rest on it. What curtains, what tapestry to our halls! Directly overhead, of course, the scales or cloudlets appear large and coarse, while far on one side toward the horizon they appear very fine. It is as if we were marching to battle with a shield, a testudo, over our heads. 

I thus see a flock of small clouds, like sheep, some twenty miles in diameter, distributed with wonderful regularity. But they are being steadily driven to some new pasture, for when I look up an hour afterward not one is to be seen and [the] sky is beautifully clear. 

The form of these cloudlets is, by the way, like or akin to that of waves, of ripple-marks on sand, of small drifts, wave-like, on the surface of snow, and to the first small openings in the ice of the midstream. 

I look at a few scarlet and black oaks this afternoon. Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by (which has more than white oaks generally). As far as I observe to-day, the scarlet oak has more leaves now than the black oak. 

Gathered a scarlet oak acorn with distinct fine dark stripes or rays, such as a Quercus ilicifolia has. 

By the swamp between the Hollow and Peter’s I see the tracks of a crow or crows, chiefly in the snow, two or more inches deep, on a broad frozen ditch where mud has been taken out. The perpendicular sides of the ditch expose a foot or two of dark, sooty mud which had attracted the crows, and I see where they have walked along beneath it and peeked it. Even here also they have alighted on any bare spot where a foot of stubble was visible, or even a rock. 

Where one walked yesterday, I see, notwithstanding the effect of the sun on it, not only the foot-tracks, but the distinct impression of its tail where it alighted, counting distinctly eleven (of probably twelve) feathers,—about four inches of each, — the whole mark being some ten inches wide and six deep, or more like a semicircle than that of yesterday. 

The same crow, or one of the same, has come again to-day, and, the snow being sticky this warm weather, has left a very distinct track. The width of the whole track is about two and three quarters inches, length of pace about seven inches, length of true track some two inches (not including the nails), but the mark made in setting down the foot and withdrawing it is in each case some fifteen or eighteen inches long, for its hind toe makes a sharp scratch four or five inches long before it settles, and when it lifts its foot again, it makes two other fine scratches with its middle and outer toe on each side, the first some nine inches long, the second six. 

The inner toe is commonly close to the middle one. It makes a peculiar curving track (or succession of curves), stepping round the planted foot each time with a sweep. You would say that it toed in decidedly and walked feebly. It must be that they require but little and glean that very assiduously. 

The sweet-fern retains its serrate terminal leaves. 

Walking along the river eastward, I notice that the twigs of the black willow, many of which were broken off by the late glaze, only break at base, and only an inch higher up bend without breaking. 

I look down the whole length of the meadows to Ball’s Hill, etc. In a still, warm winter day like this, what warmth in the withered oak leaves, thus far away, mingled with pines! They are the redder for the warmth and the sun. 

At this season we do not want any more color. 

A mile off I see the pickerel-fisher returning from the Holt, taking his way across the frozen meadows before sunset toward his hut on the distant bank. I know him (looking with my glass) by the axe over his shoulder, with basket of fish and fish-lines hung on it, and the tin pail of minnows in his hand. The pail shines brightly more than a mile off, reflecting the setting sun. He starts early, knowing how quickly the sun goes down. 

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. 

The water (where open) is also green. 

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. At least such were the two evenings on which I saw it this winter.

Coming up the street in the twilight, it occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view, looking outward through the vista of our elm lined streets, than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon. Let them stand so near at least.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, January 19, 1859

Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet [in] diameter at three feet from ground. Compare November 9, 1860 ("To Inches’ Woods in Boxboro . . .the trees which I measured were (all at three feet from ground except when otherwise stated) : a black oak, ten feet circumference,. . .scarlet oak, seven feet three inches, by Guggins Brook.")

Gathered a scarlet oak acorn with distinct fine dark stripes or rays, such as a Quercus ilicifolia has. See November 27, 1858 (“I find scarlet oak acorns like this

in form not essentially different from those of the black oak”); September 18, 1858 ("the small shrub oak . . .with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau The Scarlet Oak

There is most green in the ice when I go directly from the sun. See January 7, 1856 ("Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). 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.”);  Compare February 21, 1854 ("The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.”); December 25, 1858 (“The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast.”) See also  January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown); February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, When the ice turns green

The sweet-fern retains its serrate terminal leaves. See January 14, 1860 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Sweet-Fern

At this season we do not want any more color. See December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau Winter Colors

A mile off I see the pickerel-fisher returning from the Holt, taking his way across the frozen meadows before sunset toward his hut on the distant bank. He starts early, knowing how quickly the sun goes down. See December 23, 1859 ("Even the fisherman, who perhaps has not observed any sign but that the sun is ready to sink beneath the horizon, is winding up his lines and starting for home.. . . In a clear but pleasant winter day, I walk away till the ice begins to look green and I hear it boom, or perhaps till the snow reflects a rosy light") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun. See 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.”); December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. "); Decemberr 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge"); "January 1, 1855 ("We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us")

I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view . . . than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon. See December 3, 1856 (“The pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon.”); December 12, 1859 ("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."); 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. . . 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 May 8, 1853 ("The pyramidal pine-tops are now seen rising out of a reddish mistiness of the deciduous trees just bursting into leaf. A week ago the deciduous woods had not this misty look,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines 

January 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 19

Just after sunset

far in the west horizon –

a mackerel sky.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A mackerel sky

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-590119

A pink light reflected from the snow fifteen minutes before the sun sets.

January. 10. 

P. M. — Up Assabet to Sam Barrett’s Pond. 

Cold weather at last; — 8° this forenoon. This is much the coldest afternoon to bear as yet, but, cold as it is,-—four or five below at 3 P. M., — I see, as I go round the Island, much vapor blowing from a bare space in the river just below, twenty rods off. I see, in the Island wood, where squirrels have dug up acorns in the snow, and frequently where they have eaten them on the trees and dropped the shells about on the snow. 

Hemlock is still falling on the snow, like the pitch pine. The swamp white oaks apparently have fewer leaves — are less likely to have any leaves, even the small ones — than any oaks except the chinquapin, me thinks. Here is a whole wood of them above Pinxter Swamp, which you may call bare. 

Even the tawny (?) recent shoots of the black willow, when seen thickly and in the sun along the river, are a warm and interesting sight. These gleaming birch and alder and other twigs are a phenomenon still perfect, — that gossamer or cobweb-like reflection. 

The middle of the river where narrow, as south side Willow Island, is lifted up into a ridge considerably higher than on the sides and cracked broadly. 

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. 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. 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. 

At Sam Barrett’s Pond, where Joe Brown is now get ting his ice, I think I see about ten different freezings in ice some fifteen or more inches thick. Perhaps the successive cold nights might be discovered recorded in each cake of ice. 

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. 

I come across to the road south of the hill to see the pink on the snow-clad hill at sunset. 

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.

I walk back and forth in the road waiting to see the pink. 

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

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. Even after all direct sunlight is withdrawn from the hill top, as well as from the valley in which you stand, you see, if you are prepared to discern it, a faint and delicate tinge of purple or violet there. This was in a very clear and cold evening when the thermometer was -6°. 

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. 

The cold rapidly increases; it is -14° in the evening.

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

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 10, 1859



The alder is one of the prettiest of trees and shrubs in the winter. See January 10, 1858 ("If you are sick and despairing, go forth in winter and see the red alder catkins”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders

Half a dozen goldfinches feeding just like the sparrows. See November 24, 1859 ("a flock of goldfinches eating the seed of the Roman wormwood. "):  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."); January 7, 1860 ("Saw a large flock of goldfinches running and feeding amid the weeds in a pasture, just like tree sparrows.")

I begin to see a pink light reflected from the snow there about fifteen minutes before the sun sets. See December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. "); December 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge"); January 2, 1855 ("Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us."); 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."); 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.")

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. See February 7, 1855 (“The ground cracked in the night as if a powder-mill had blown up, ”) December 23, 1856 ("The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights"); 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.")

January 10. 

See 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 © 2009-2022

Between frozen spew and broken ice

January 1.

P. M. —Skate to Pantry Brook with C. 

All the tolerable skating is a narrow strip, often only two or three feet wide, between the frozen spew and the broken ice of the middle.

We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1855

Frozen spew. See December 20, 1854 (The river is "uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking.)

Pink light on the snow. See 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 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue"); 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 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. "); January 19, 1859 ("Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening.");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. "); February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”)

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

Pink light on the snow –

the shadow of the bridges

dark indigo blue.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Between frozen spew and broken ice 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550101

Jan. 1. P. M. —Skated to Pantry Brook with C. All the tolerable skating was a narrow strip, often only two or three feet wide, between the frozen spew and the broken ice of the middle.

Jan. 2. I see, in the path near Goose Pond, where the rabbits have eaten the bark of smooth sumachs and young locusts rising above the snow; also bar berry. Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges, etc., on the snow was a dark indigo blue.

Last rays of the sun. The finest days of the year

December 21

Winter Solstice 2019

It snowed slightly this morning, so as to cover the ground half an inch deep. 

Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick. It must have frozen, the whole of it, since the snow of the 18th, – probably the night of the 18th. It is very thickly covered with what C. calls ice-rosettes, i.e. those small pinches of crystallized snow, – as thickly as if it had snowed in that form. I think it is a sort of hoar frost on the ice. It was all done last night, for we see them thickly clustered about our skate-tracks on the river, where it was quite bare yesterday. 

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. Take Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still. 

The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. 

I see the feathers of a partridge strewn along on the snow a long distance, the work of some hawk perhaps, for there is no track.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 21, 1854

Walden is frozen over . . . probably the night of the 18th. See December 21, 1855 ("Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove."); December 21, 1856 ("The pond [Walden] is open again in the middle, owing to the rain of yesterday."); See also December 19, 1854 ("Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before."); A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

What C. calls ice-rosettes. . . a sort of hoar frost on the ice. See December 28, 1852 ("The rosettes in the ice, as Channing calls them, now and for some time have attracted me."); January 7, 1856 ("It is completely frozen at the Hubbard’s Bath bend now, — a small strip of dark ice, thickly sprinkled with those rosettes of crystals, two or three inches in diameter"); February 2, 1860 ('With February we have genuine winter again. Almost all the openings in the river are closed again, and the new ice is covered with rosettes"); February 13, 1859 ("Ice which froze yesterday and last night is thickly and evenly strewn with fibrous frost crystals . . . sometimes arranged like a star or rosette, one for every inch or two . . . I think that this is the vapor from the water which found its way up through the ice and froze in the night"); December 29, 1859 ("On the thin black ice lately formed on these open places, the breath of the water has made its way up through and is frozen into a myriad of little rosettes.")

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. See December 10, 1853 (”These are among the finest days in the year.”); May 21, 1854 ("the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds."); October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.")

The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. See 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."); December 20, 1854 ("In some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge"); January 2, 1855 ("Yesterday we saw the pink light on the snow within a rod of us."); 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."); 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.")

December 21. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 21

Last rays of the sun

falling on the Baker Farm

reflect a clear pink.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The finest days of the year

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-541221

A glorious winter day.

December 20

7 A. M. —To Hill. 

The coldest morning as yet. The river appears to be frozen everywhere. Where was water last night is a firm bridge of ice this morning. The snow which has blown on to the ice has taken the form of regular star-shaped crystals, an inch in diameter. 

I see the mother-o’-pearl tints now, at sunrise, on the clouds high over the eastern horizon before the sun has risen above the low bank in the east. The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass. 

Here are some crows already seeking their breakfast in the orchard, and I hear a red squirrel’s reproof. The woodchoppers are making haste to their work far off, walking fast to keep warm, before the sun has risen, their ears and hands well covered, the dry, cold snow squeaking under their feet.

P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven. C.’s skates are not the best, and beside he is far from an easy skater, so that, as he said, it was killing work for him. Time and again the perspiration actually dropped from his forehead on to the ice, and it froze in long icicles on his beard. 

December 20,  2014

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. 

Cold as it is, the sun seems warmer on my back even than in summer, as if its rays met with less obstruction. And then the air is so beautifully still; there is not an insect in the air, and hardly a leaf to rustle. If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. 

The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue as I look back half a mile at them, and, in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge. 

I am surprised to find how fast the dog can run in a straight line on the ice. I am not sure that I can beat him on skates, but I can turn much shorter. 

It is very fine skating for the most part. All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly; but in some places for a quarter of a mile it is uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking. 

At sun down or before, it begins to belch. It is so cold that only in one place did I see a drop of water flowing out on the ice.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 20, 1854

The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown. . . See December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”); December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, . . .giving it a slight greenish tinge.”)

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. See December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, is as it was designed and made to be.”); December 21, 1854 ("We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. See December 15, 1854 ("I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one . . .. How came they there?”);

The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue . . . and, in some places. . .the snow has a pinkish tinge. See January 1, 1855 ("We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue.") and note to January 31, 1859 ("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")

December 20.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 20

Glorious winter,

its elements so simple –

clear air, white snow, ice.

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-541220