An old-fashioned snow-storm.

December 23. 

December 23, 2021

Here is an old-fashioned snow-storm.

There is not much passing on railroads. The engineer says it is three feet deep above.

Walden is frozen, one third of it, though I thought it was all frozen as I stood on the shore on one side only.

There is no track on the Walden road. A traveller might cross it in the woods and not be sure it was a road.

As I pass the farmers' houses I observe the cop [sic] of the sled propped up with a stick to prevent its freezing into the snow.

The needles of the pines are drooping like cockerels' feathers after a rain, and frozen together by the sleety snow.

The pitch pines now bear their snowy fruit.

I can discern a faint foot or sled path sooner when the ground is covered with snow than when it is bare. The depression caused by the feet or the wheels is more obvious; perhaps the light and shade betray it, but I think it is mainly because the grass and weeds rise above it on each side and leave it blank, and a blank space of snow contrasts more strongly with the woods or grass than bare or beaten ground.

Even the surface of the snow is wont to be in waves like billows of the ocean.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1850

Old-fashioned snow-storm.  The surface of the snow is wont to be in waves like billows of the ocean See December 23, 1851 ("A pure and trackless white napkin covers the ground,"); See also December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified.");  December 27, 1853 ("The snow blows like spray, fifteen feet high, across the fields, while the wind roars in the trees as in the rigging of a vessel. It is altogether like the ocean in a storm"); January 9, 1859 ("The surface of the snow is in great waves whose ridges run from east to west, about a rod apart, or generally less, — say ten feet, — low and gentle swells"); February 10, 1855 ("Billows of snow succeed each other across the fields and roads, like an ocean waste.") and February 1, 1856 ("It has been what is called “an old-fashioned winter.”")

Walden is frozen, one third of it, though I thought it was all frozen as I stood on the shore on one side only. See  December 26, 1850 ("Walden not yet more than half frozen over."); December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.")  See also December 23, 1845 ("The pond froze over last night entirely for the first time, yet so as not to be safe to walk upon”) and December 11, 1858 ("Walden is about one-third skimmed over."); December 20, 1858 ("Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle")'; December 21, 1854 "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"); December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”); December 21, 1856 ("The pond is open again in the middle, owing to the rain of yesterday.") December 22, 1858 (“The pond is no more frozen than on the 20th.”); December 22, 1853 ("Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open; will probably freeze entirely to-night if this weather holds.”);  December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.”); December 24, 1859 ("There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week"); December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! "); December 25, 1858 ("Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open. One was very near the middle and deepest part, the other between that and the railroad.”);December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open.. . . the only pond hereabouts that is open.");   December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it.); December 27, 1856 "Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long southern bay.");. December 27, 1857 ("Walden is almost entirely skimmed over. It will probably be completely frozen over to-night");. December 28, 1858 (“The ice is about six inches thick.”) December 28, 1856 ("Walden completely frozen over again last night."); December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open,. . .It must be owing to the wind partly.");December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. "); December 30, 1855 ("There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined"); December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”)

The needles of the pines are drooping like cockerels' feathers after a rain, and frozen together by the sleety snow. See December 23, 1859 ("I noticed on the 18th that the plumes of the pine which had been covered with snow and glaze and were then thawed and wet with the mist and rain were very much contracted or narrowed, — and this gave a peculiar and more open character to the tree.")

The pitch pines now bear their snowy fruit.  See  December 17, 1851 ("The pitch pines hold the snow well. It lies now in balls on their plumes and in streaks on their branches.");. January 19, 1855 ("On some pitch pines it lay in fruit-like balls as big as one’s head, like cocoanuts."):January 30, 1841 ("The snow collects upon the plumes of the pitch pine in the form of a pineapple.")

I can discern a faint foot or sled path sooner when the ground is covered with snow than when it is bare.  See   November 24, 1858 ("I can not only distinguish plowed fields — regular white squares in the midst of russet — but even cart-paths, and foot or cow paths a quarter of a mile long, as I look across to Conantum."); December 16, 1857 ("Plowed grounds show white first."); February 16, 1854 ("That Indian trail on the hillside about Walden is revealed with remarkable distinctness to me standing on the middle of the pond, by the slight snow which had lodged on it forming a clear white line unobscured by weeds and twigs. (For snow is a great revealer not only of tracks made in itself, but even in the earth before it fell.) It is quite distinct in many places where you would not have noticed it before. A light snow will often reveal a faint foot or cart track in a field which was hardly discernible before, for it reprints it, as it were, in clear white type, alto-relievo.”)

December 23.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 23

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

tinyurl.com/hdt501223

A Book of the Seasons: December 22 ( first ice, second snow, tracking, winter birds, ice fishing, the westering sun, fire on ice)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

December 22

A sprinkling of snow

whitens the ice in the swamp –

I see rabbit tracks.

December 22, 1853

You cannot go out 

so early but you will find 

some wild creature's track

. December 22, 1852

Walden skimmed over

will probably freeze to-night

if this weather holds.

December 22, 1853

A narrow line of

yellow rushes lit up by

the westering sun.

December 22, 1859

December 22. 2018

Another fine winter day. December 22, 1859

In winter I can explore the swamps and ponds. December 22, 1850

A slight whitening of snow last evening, the second whitening of the winter, just enough to spoil the skating, now ten days old, on the ponds. December 22, 1853

This evening and night, the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now. December 22, 1860

The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow. December 22, 1852

You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature. December 22, 1852

Last night's sprinkling of snow does not now whiten the ground, except that here in the swamp it whitens the ice and already I see the tracks of rabbits on it. December 22, 1853

I see more tracks in the swamps than elsewhere. December 22, 1850

I see where a rabbit has hopped across [Walden] in the slosh last night, making a track larger than a man’s ordinarily is. December 22, 1858

The squirrel nests, bunches of grass and leaves high in the trees, more conspicuous if not larger now, or the glimpse of a meadow (?) mouse, give occasion for a remark. December 22, 1852

Here is a stump on which a squirrel has sat and stripped the pine cones of a neighboring tree. Their cores and scales lie all around. He knew that they contained an almond before the naturalist did. He has long been a close observer of Nature; opens her caskets. December 22, 1850

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

In a . . . nest on this island [ what I will call Sassafras Island, in Flint's Pond], ]I saw three cherry-stones, as if it had carried home this fruit to its young. It was, outside, of gnaphalium and saddled on a low limb. Could it have been a cherry-bird? December 22, 1859

What a reminiscence of summer, a fiery hangbird's nest dangling from an elm over the road when perhaps the thermometer is down to -20 (?), and the traveller goes beating his arms beneath it! December 22, 1859

It is a dark-aired winter day, yet I see the summer plants still peering above the snow. December 22, 1850

In the swamps the dry, yellowish-colored fruit of the poison dogwood hangs like jewelry on long, drooping stems. It is pleasant to meet it, it has so much character relatively to man. December 22, 1850

It is pleasant, cutting a path through the bushes in a swamp, to see the color of the different woods, – the yellowish dogwood, the green prinos (?), and, on the upland, the splendid yellow barberry. December 22, 1852

The large leafy lichens on the white pines, especially on the outside of the wood, look almost a golden yellow in the light reflected from the snow, while deeper in the wood they are ash-colored. December 22, 1859

Got a white spruce for a Christmas-tree for the town out of the spruce swamp opposite J. Farmer's. December 22, 1853

It is remarkable how few inhabitants of Concord can těll a spruce from a fir, and probably not two a white from a black spruce, unless they are together. The woodchopper, even hereabouts, cuts down several kinds of trees without knowing what they are. Neither do the spruce trees know the villager. The villager doesn't know a black spruce tree when he sees it. How slender his relation to the spruce tree! The white has taken refuge in swamps from him. It is nothing but so much evergreen to him. December 22, 1853

Three men are fishing on Flint's Pond, where the ice is seven or eight inches thick. December 22, 1859

The fisherman stands erect and still on the ice, awaiting our approach, as usual forward to say that he has had no luck. He has been here since early morning, and for some reason or other the fishes won't bite. December 22, 1859

However, the pond floor is not a bad place to spend a winter day. December 22, 1859

On what I will call Sassafras Island, in this pond, I notice the largest and handsomest high blueberry at the ground into four stems, all very large and the largest three inches in diameter (one way) at three feet high, and at the ground, where they seem to form one trunk (at least grown together), nine inches in diameter.  December 22, 1859

Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open; will probably freeze entirely to-night if this weather holds. December 22, 1853

The pond is no more frozen than on the 20th. December 22, 1858

I see in the cut near the shanty-site quite a flock of F. hyemalis and goldfinches together, on the snow and weeds and ground. December 22, 1858

Hear the well-known mew and watery twitter of the last and the drier chilt chilt of the former. December 22, 1858

These burning yellow birds with a little black and white on their coat-flaps look warm above the snow. December 22, 1858

There may be thirty goldfinches, very brisk and pretty tame. December 22, 1858

They hang head downwards on the weeds. December 22, 1858

I hear of their coming to pick sunflower seeds in Melvin’s garden these days. December 22, 1858

The cladium (?) retains its seeds over the ice, little conical, sharp-pointed, flat-based, dark-brown, shining seeds. December 22, 1859

I look back to the wharf rock shore and see that rush (cladium I have called it), the warmest object in the landscape, — a narrow line of warm yellow rushes — for they reflect the western light, — along the edge of the somewhat snowy pond and next the snow-clad and wooded shore. December 22, 1859

This rush, which is comparatively inconspicuous in the summer, becomes thus in the winter afternoons a conspicuous and interesting object, lit up by the westering sun. December 22, 1859

Returning home just after the sun had sunk below the horizon, I saw from N. Barrett's a fire made by boys on the ice near the Red Bridge, which looked like a bright reflection of a setting sun from the water under the bridge, so clear, so little lurid, in this winter evening air. December 22, 1852

December 22, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines  

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Helianthus

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

A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cherry-bird (cedar waxwing)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

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

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now

See also Winter Colors (The solstice) (posted December 21, 2020)

 *****

December 22, 2017

March 24, 1859 ("I see a flock of goldfinches, first of spring,")

May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now.)

June 1, 1860 ("This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees, and I hear of some more similar ones found in former years, so that I think this mode of nesting their young may be the rule with them here")

June 26, 1853 ("Many of my fellow-citizens might go fishing a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, -- before they began to angle for the pond itself.”)
August 31, 1858 ("The Flint’s Pond rush appears to be Cladium mariscoides, twig rush.")

November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess.”)

November 13, 1857 (“ I see, on a white oak on Egg Rock, where the squirrels have lately made a nest for the winter of the dry oak leaves . . . I suspect it is a gray squirrel's nest.”)

November 18, 1855 ("The snow is the great track-revealer.")

November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, . . . The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)

December 4, 1860 ("The first snow, four or five inches, this evening.";

December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen. .. and whitened with snow , which was sprinkled on it this noon'")

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 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day."); 

December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year.”)

December 12, 1859 ("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.")

December 20, 1854 ("It has been a glorious winter day")

December 21, 1854 ("We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.")

December 21, 1854 "Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick")

December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.")
December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”)
December 21, 1856 ("The pond is open again in the middle, owing to the rain of yesterday.")

December 21, 1857 ("Walden and Fair Haven . . . have only frozen just enough to bear me.")

December 21, 1859 ("A fine winter day")

 

December 23, 1845 ("The pond froze over last night entirely for the first time, yet so as not to be safe to walk upon”); also Walden (("In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on the night of the 22d of December”)

December 23, 1855 ("These are the colors of the earth now.")

December 23, 1859 ("The third fine, clear, bright, and rather mild winter day")

December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.”)

December 24, 1859 ("There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week")

December 24, 1859 ("I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island.")

December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, . . . This being the only pond hereabouts that is open.”)

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.")

December 28, 1856 ("Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here.")

December 28, 1856 (". . . if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i.e. a wilder experience than the town affords.")

December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.”)

December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”)

December 31, 1853 ("This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer.")

January 1, 1856 ("Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day.")

January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. . . that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen")

January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! ")

January 5, 1860 ("I see where a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top, by the snow strewn with scales, literally blackened or darkened with them for a rod.") 

January 12, 1855 ("On Flint’s Pond I find Nat Rice fishing. He has not caught one. I asked him what he thought the best time to fish. He said, “When the wind first comes south after a cold spell, on a bright morning.”");

January 13, 1853 ("A drifting snow-storm last night and to day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.")

January 14, 1853 ("Snow freshly fallen is one thing, to-morrow it will be another. 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.")

January 22, 1854 ("No second snow-storm in the winter can be so fair and interesting as the first")

January 24, 1856 (“That Wheeler swamp is a great place for squirrels. I observe many of their tracks along the riverside there. The nests are of leaves, and apparently of the gray species.”)

January 26, 1860 ("To Eleazer Davis's Hill, and made a fire on the ice, merely to see the flame and smell the smoke.")

February 2, 1860  ("And as we were kindling a fire on the pond by the side of the island, we saw the fox himself at the inlet of the river.")

February 7, 1854 ("Made a fire on the snow-covered ice half a mile below Ball's Hill”)

February 16, 1854 ("I have not seen F . hyemalis since last fall.")

February 16, 1854 ("Snow is a great revealer not only of tracks made in itself, but even in the earth before it fell.")

February 20, 1854 ("Make a fire on the south side of the pond, using canoe birch bark and oak leaves for kindling.")

February 21, 1854 ("There is scarcely a track of any animal yet to be seen. You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.")

December 22, 2014

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

December 21  <<<<<<<<  December 22  >>>>>>>> December 23

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 22

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

A Book of the seasons: December 15 (weeds, winter eve, life)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

December 15.

December 15, 2018

My love is invulnerable. 

Meet me on that ground

and you will find me strong.

December 15, 1841

The bare landscape looks

as if covered with snow on

these bright moonlit nights.

December 15, 1853

A few clean dry weeds

seen against smooth reflecting

water between ice.

December 15, 1854

The low grass and weeds

bent down with crystalline drops

now ready to freeze.

December 15, 1855

The now dark green pines.

The oak leaves and withered weeds

bleached above the snow.

The hushed stillness of

the wood at sundown, aye

all the winter day.

Smooth serenity

and reflections of the pond,

alone free from ice.

Hooting of the owl

with the distant whistle of

a locomotive.

The last strokes of the

woodchopper who presently

bends his steps homeward.

Gilded bar of cloud

conducting my thoughts into

the eternal west.

The horizon glow,

and the hasty walk homeward.

Long winter evening.

December 15, 1856

And the trees have all

come down to the bank to see

the river go by.

December 15, 1841

December 15, 2023

A mild summer sun shines, over forest and lake. December 15, 1841

In the woods there is an inexpressible happiness. December 15, 1841.

The trees have come down to the bank to see the river go by. December 15, 1841

The water which so calmly reflects the fleeting clouds and the primeval trees I have never seen before. December 15, 1841

This old, familiar river is renewed each instant; only the channel is the same. December 15, 1841

This morning it has begun to snow apparently in earnest. December 15, 1855

The air is quite thick and the view confined. December 15, 1855

The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, which ceased in the night after some three inches had fallen, was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. December 15, 1859

There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones. December 15, 1859

Slight as this snow was, these drifts now extend back four or five feet and as high as the wall, on the north side of the Corner Bridge road. December 15, 1859

It is quite still, yet some flakes come down from one side and some from another, crossing each other like woof and warp apparently, as they are falling in different eddies and currents of air. December 15, 1855

In the midst of it, I hear and see a few little chickadees prying about the twigs of the locusts in the graveyard. December 15, 1855

They have come into town with the snow. December 15, 1855

They now and then break forth into a short sweet strain, and then seem suddenly to check them selves, as if they had done it before they thought. December 15, 1855

The snow turns to rain, and this afternoon I walk in it down the railroad and through the woods. December 15, 1855

The boys have skated a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet. December 15, 1855

I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one five eighths of an inch long. The last has apparently melted quite a cavity in the ice. How came they there? December 15, 1854

How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice! December 15, 1854

The low grass and weeds, bent down with a myriad little crystalline drops, ready to be frozen perhaps, are very interesting, but wet my feet through very soon. December 15, 1855

I seem to see somewhat more of my own kith and kin in the lichens on the rocks than in any books. December 15, 1841

A steady but gentle, warm rain. December 15, 1855

It still blows hard at 2 p. m., but it is not cold. December 15, 1856

8 p.m.. . .The high northwest wind of this morning, with what of cold we have, has made some of those peculiar rake-toothed icicles on the dead twigs, etc., about the edge of the pond at the east end. December 15, 1856

To produce this phenomenon is required only open water, a high wind, and sufficiently cold weather to freeze the spray. December 15, 1856

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

• oak leaves, bleached and withered weeds that rose above the snow,
• the now dark green of the pines, and
• perchance the faint metallic chip of a single tree sparrow;
• the hushed stillness of the wood at sundown, aye, all the winter day;
• the short boreal twilight;
• the smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice;
• the melodious hooting of the owl, heard at the same time with
• the yet more distant whistle of a locomotive,. . .
• the last strokes of the woodchopper,who presently bends his steps homeward;
• the gilded bar of cloud across the apparent outlet of the pond,
• conducting my thoughts into the eternal west;
• the deepening horizon glow; and
• the hasty walk homeward to enjoy the long winter evening.

December 15, 1856

December 15, 2023

The hooting of the owl! That is a sound which my red predecessors heard here more than a thousand years ago. December 15, 1856

It rings far and wide, occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. December 15, 1856

Saw a small flock of geese go over. December 15, 1852

Looking from my window these bright moonlight nights, the ground being still bare, the whole landscape — fields, road, and roof — has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. It is the frost. December 15, 1853

It does seem as if mine were a peculiarly wild nature, which so yearns toward all wildness. December 15, 1841

One's life, the enterprise he is here upon, should certainly be a grand fact to consider . . . A man should not live without a purpose, and that purpose must surely be a grand one. December 15, 1852

My love is invulnerable. December 15, 1841

December 15, 2019

*****

December 15, 2023

Li Po (There is bright moonlight so that it seems like frost on the ground")
Walden ("To effect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”)
Walden ("Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.")

December 15, 2023

April 29, 1852 (“The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something.”)
August 8, 1852 ("When the play - it may be the tragedy of life - is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, ")
August 30, 1856 (“Many of our days should be spent, not in vain expectations and lying on our oars, but in carrying out deliberately and faithfully the hundred little purposes which every man's genius must have suggested to him. Let not your life be wholly without an object, though it be only to ascertain the flavor of a cranberry, for it will not be only the quality of an insignificant berry that you will have tasted, but the flavor of your life to that extent, and it will be such a sauce as no wealth can buy”)
September 8, 1858 ("It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs, for the reward of activity and energy is that if you do not accomplish the object you had professed to yourself, you do accomplish something else.”)
October 18, 1855 (“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”)
November 12, 1853 ("The meadows . . . look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.")
November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight.")
November 18, 1857 "Each man's necessary path, though as obscure and apparently uneventful as that of a beetle in the grass, is the way to the deepest joys he is susceptible of.”)
November 18, 1851(".Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl, — hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo.. . . It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods, suggesting a vast undeveloped nature . . . I rejoice that there are owls. They represent the stark, twilight, unsatisfied thoughts I have. . . This sound faintly suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live.") 

November 28, 1853 ("Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear.")
December 1, 1857 ("I hear of two more flocks of geese going over to-day.”)
December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture.")
December 6, 1855 ("10 P. M. — Hear geese going over.”)
December 9, 1856 ("I hear only the strokes of a lingering woodchopper at a distance, and the melodious hooting of an owl, which is as common and marked a sound as the axe or the locomotive whistle."

)December 9, 1856 ("The sun is near setting, away beyond Fair Haven. A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape. Indeed, the winter day in the woods or fields has commonly the stillness of twilight. The pond is perfectly smooth and full of light. . . .Such is a winter eve")
December 10, 1856 ("the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light.")
December 10, 1856 ("The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night.")
December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely.”)
December 12, 1851 ("I wish for leisure and quiet to let my life flow in its proper channels, with its proper currents; when I might not waste the days.")
December 13, 1858 ("And on those fine grass heads which are bent over in the path the fine dew-like drops are frozen separately like a string of beads")
December 13, 1855 ("The countless flakes, seen against the dark evergreens like a web that is woven in the air, impart a cheerful and busy aspect to nature.")
.December 14, 1851 ("The chickadees remind me of Hudson's Bay for some reason. I look on them as natives of a more northern latitude")
December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.")
December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . .That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, . . . A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused.”)
December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct.")
December 14, 1859 ("This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north")
December 14, 1855 (" Looking more closely at the light snow... I found that it was sprinkled all over ... with regular star-shaped cottony flakes with six points, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and on an average a half an inch apart. It snowed geometry.")

December 16, 1852 ("Observe the reflection of the snow on Pine Hill from Walden")
December 16, 1855 ("Steady, gentle, warm rain all the forenoon, and mist and mizzling in the afternoon,")
December 16, 1855 ("As we go over the bridge, admire the reflection of the trees and houses from the smooth open water over the channel, where the ice has been dissolved by the rain.")
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.")
December 20, 1854 ( P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven.”)
December 20, 1854 ("If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice.")

December 20, 1856 ("Rain more or less all day.")
December 20, 1855 ("A few chickadees busily inspecting the buds at the willow-row ivy tree, for insects, with a short, clear chink from time to time, as if to warn me of their neighborhood")
December 22, 1855 ("Warm rain and frost coming out and muddy walking.")
December 23, 1851 ("Gradually the sun sinks, the air grows more dusky, and I perceive that if it were not for the light reflected from the snow it would be quite dark. The woodchopper has started for home.")
December 28 1852 ("Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe,")
December 28, 1858 ("I notice a few chickadees there in the edge of the pines, in the sun, lisping and twittering cheerfully to one another, with a reference to me, I think, — the cunning and innocent little birds. ")

December 29, 1841 ("One does not soon learn the trade of life. That one may work out a true life requires more art and delicate skill than any other work.")

Hearing the whistle

of the locomotive takes

me out of body.

I see clearly what

at other times I only

dimly remember.

The earth's extent

the freedom of all nature

and the sky's depth.

December 31, 1853

January 11, 1852 ("Let me not live as if time was short")

December 15, 2014

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

December 15

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2023

tinyurl.com/hdt15dec