A Book of the Seasons: Plucking and stripping a pine cone.

February 21. This plucking and stripping a pine cone is a business which [the squirrel] and his family understand perfectly. That is their forte.  I doubt if you could suggest any improvement.

After ages of experiment their instinct has settled on the same method that our reason would finally, if we had to open a pine cone with our teeth; and they were thus accomplished before our race knew that a pine cone contained any seed.

He does not prick his fingers, nor pitch his whiskers, nor gnaw the solid core any more than is necessary.

Having sheared off the twigs and needles that may be in his way, – for like a skillful woodchopper he first secures room and verge enough, – he neatly cuts off the stout stem of the cone with a few strokes of his chisels, and it is his.

To be sure, he may let it fall to the ground and look down at it for a moment curiously, as if it were not his; but he is taking note where it lies and adding it to a heap of a hundred more like it in his mind, and it now is only so much the more his for his seeming carelessness.

And, when the hour comes to open it, observe how he proceeds.

He holds it in his hands, – a solid embossed cone, so hard it almost rings at the touch of his teeth.

He pauses for a moment perhaps, – but not because he does not know how to begin, – he only listens to hear what is in the wind, not being in a hurry.

He knows better than try to cut off the tip and work his way downward against a chevaux-de-frise of advanced scales and prickles, or to gnaw into the side for three quarters of an inch in the face of many armed shields.

But he does not have to think of what he knows, having heard the latest æolian rumor.

If there ever was an age of the world when the squirrels opened their cones wrong end foremost, it was not the golden age at any rate.

He whirls the cone bottom upward in a twinkling, where the scales are smallest and the prickles slight or none and the short stem is cut so close as not to be in his way, and then he proceeds to cut through the thin and tender bases of the scales, and each stroke tells, laying bare at once a couple of seeds.

He whirls the cone bottom upward in a twinkling, where the scales are smallest and the prickles slight or none and the short stem is cut so close as not to be in his way, and then he proceeds to cut through the thin and tender bases of the scales that you cannot tell how he does it till you drive him off and inspect his unfinished work.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 21, 1861

He whirls the cone bottom upward in a twinkling, and then he proceeds to cut through the thin and tender bases of the scales. See February 28, 1860 ("The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base, as if it were a stringent law among the squirrel people, — as if the old squirrels taught the young ones a few simple rules like this."); January 25, 1856 ("But the squirrel has the key to this conical and spiny chest of many apartments. He sits on a post, vibrating his tail, and twirls it as a plaything.")

 

February 13. I see where the squirrels have been eating the pitch pine cones since the last snow. February 13, 1855

February 22. Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber. I have one which was gnawed off by squirrels, apparently of full size, but which does not open. February 22, 1855

February 25.  The white pine cones have been blowing off more or less in every high wind ever since the winter began, and yet perhaps they have not more than half fallen yet.  February 25, 1860

February 27. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine, pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season. February 27, 1853

February 28. I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch pine in a field, evidently gnawed off by a squirrel, but not opened. February 28, 1858


February 28. I take up a handsomely spread (or blossomed) pitch pine cone, but I find that a squirrel has begun to strip it first, having gnawed off a few of the scales at the base. The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base, as if it were a stringent law among the squirrel people, — as if the old squirrels taught the young ones a few simple rules like this. February 28, 1860

I see, in another place under a pitch pine, many cores of cones which the squirrels have completely stripped.

March 1. I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden..  March 1, 1856.

March 3. A few rods from the broad pitch pine beyond, I find a cone which was probably dropped by a squirrel in the fall, for I see the marks of its teeth where it was cut off; and it has probably been buried by the snow till now, for it has apparently just opened, and I shake its seeds out. Not only is this cone, resting upright on the ground, fully blossomed, a very beautiful object, but the winged seeds which half fill my hand, small triangular black seeds with thin and delicate flesh colored wings, remind me of fishes. I see, in another place under a pitch pine, many cores of cones which the squirrels have completely stripped of their scales, These you find left on and about stumps where they have sat, and under the pines. Most fallen pitch pine cones show the marks of squirrels’ teeth, showing they were cut off. March 3, 1855

March 5.  White pine cones half fallen. March 5, 1860

March 6. Part of the pitch pine cones are yet closed. March 6, 1853

March 7. Picked up a very handsome white pine cone some six and a half inches long by two and three eighths near base and two near apex, perfectly blossomed. It is a very rich and wholesome brown color, of various shades as you turn it in your hand, —a light ashy or gray brown, somewhat like unpainted wood. as you look down on it, or as if the lighter brown were covered with a gray lichen, seeing only those parts of the scales always exposed, —with a few darker streaks or marks and a drop of pitch at the point of each scale. Within, the scales are a dark brown above (i.e. as it hangs) and a light brown beneath, Very distinctly being marked beneath by the same darker brown, down the centre and near the apex somewhat anchor wise.  March 7, 1855

March 21.  I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on.  March 21, 1859

April 2. I find under one small pitch pine tree a heap of the cones which have been stripped of their scales, evidently by the red squirrels, the last winter and fall, they having sat upon some dead limbs above. They were all stripped regularly from the base upward, excepting the five to seven uppermost and barren scales, making a pretty figure. I counted two hundred and thirty-nine cones under this tree alone, and most of them lay within two feet square upon a mass of the scales one to two inches deep and three or four feet in diameter. There were also many cones under the surrounding pines. Those I counted would have made some three quarts or more. These had all been cut off by the squirrels and conveyed to this tree and there stripped and eaten. They appeared to have devoured all the fruit of that pitch pine grove, and probably it was they that nibbled the wintergreen. No fruit grows in vain. The red squirrel harvests the fruit of the pitch pine. His body is about the color of the cone. I should like to get his recipe for taking out pitch, for he must often get his chaps defiled, methinks. These were all fresh cones, the fruit of last year, perhaps. There was a hole in the ground where they lodged by that tree. April 2, 1859


April 19. As dryness will open the pitch pine cone, so moisture closes it up again. April 19, 1856

June 25. I am too late for the white pine flowers. The cones are half an inch long and greenish, and the male flowers effete. June 25, 1852 

September 1.Green white pine cones are thrown down. An unusual quantity of these have been stripped for some time past, and I see the ground about the bases of the trees strewn with them. September 1, 1859

September 9.  Wednesday. P. M. – To the Hill for white pine cones. Very few trees have any. I can only manage small ones, fifteen or twenty feet high, climbing till I can reach the dangling green pickle-like fruit in my right hand, while I hold to the main stem with my left. The cones are now all flowing with pitch, and my hands are soon so covered with it that I cannot easily cast down the cones where I would, they stick to my hands so. I cannot touch the basket, but carry it on my arm; nor can I pick up my coat, which I have taken off, un less with my teeth, or else I kick it up and catch it on my arm. Thus I go from tree to tree, from time to time rubbing my hands in brooks and mud-holes, in the hope of finding something that will remove pitch like grease, but in vain. It is the stickiest work I ever did. I do not see how the squirrels that gnaw them off and then open them scale by scale keep their paws and whiskers clean. They must know of, or possess, some remedy for pitch that we know nothing of. How fast I could collect cones, if I could only contract with a family of squirrels to cut them off for me! Some are already brown and dry and partly open, but these commonly have hollow seeds and are worm-eaten. The cones collected in my chamber have a strong spirituous scent, almost rummy, or like a molasses hogshead, agreeable to some.  September 9, 1857

September 16. I see green and closed cones beneath, which the squirrels have thrown down. On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun. In one small wood, all the white pine cones are on the ground, generally unopened, evidently freshly thrown down by the squirrels, and then the greater part have already been stripped. They begin at the base of the cone, as with the pitch pine. It is evident that they have just been very busy throwing down the white pine cones in all woods. Perhaps they have stored up the seeds separately. September 16, 1858

September 18.  There is an abundant crop of cones on the white pines this year, and they are now for the most part brown and open.  The tops of the high trees for six or ten feet downward are quite browned with them, hanging straight downward.  It is worth a long walk to look from some favorable point over a pine forest whose tops are thus covered with the brown cones just opened, — from which the winged seeds have fallen or are ready to fall.  How little observed are the fruits which we do not use! How few attend to the ripening and dispersion of the pine seed!  September 18, 1859

September 18. White pine cones (a small crop), and all open that I see. [Are they not last year's ?] September 18, 1860

September 24. I walk to that very dense and handsome white pine grove east of Beck Stow’s Swamp . . . The ground was completely strewn with white pine cones, apparently thrown down by the squirrels, still generally green and closed, but many stripped of scales, about the base of almost every pine, sometimes all of them. Now and for a week a good time to collect them. You can hardly enter such a wood but you will hear a red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. It is the sound most native to the locality. September 24, 1857

October 6. Going through Ebby Hubbard's woods, I see thousands of white pine cones on the ground, fresh light brown, which lately opened and shed their seeds and lie curled up on the ground. The seeds are rather pleasant or nutritious tasting, taken in quantity, like beech nuts, methinks.  October 6, 1857

October 8. At length I discover some white pine cones, a few, on Emerson Heater Piece trees. They are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them. The tip of each scale is covered with fresh flowing pitch. October 8, 1856

October 13. So far as I have observed, if pines or oaks bear abundantly one year they bear little or nothing the next year.  This year, so far as I observe, there are scarcely any white pine cones. October 13, 1860

October 15.  Go to look for white pine cones, but see none.October 15, 1855 

October 19. I see at last a few white pine cones open on the trees, but almost all appear to have fallen. October 19, 1855

 

November 3. I see many white pine cones fallen and open, with a few seeds still in them. November 3, 1853

November 4. I have failed to find white pine seed this year, though I began to look for it a month ago. The cones were fallen and open. Look the first of September.  November 4, 1855

 November 14. It is a general and sudden bursting or expanding of all the scales with a sharp crackling sound and motion of the whole cone, as by a force pent up within it. I suppose the strain only needed to be relieved in one point for the whole to go off..November 14, 1855


November 20. the whole cone opens its scales with a smart crackling. November 20, 1855

December 8. I visit the door of many a squirrel’s burrow, and see his nutshells and cone-scales and tracks in the sand, but a snow would reveal much more. December 8, 1855

December 17.  The snow being some three or four inches deep,  . . .You see many places where they [squirrels] 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 cutting them off so early, — thus to preserve them under the snow (not dispersed). . December 17, 1859

January 6. 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 . . . 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. January 6, 1854

January 8. All of the pitch pine cones that I see, but one, are open. January 8, 1856

January 13. Picked up a pitch pine cone which had evidently been cut off by a squirrel. The successive grooves made by his teeth while probably he bent it down were quite distinct. The woody stem was a quarter of an inch thick, and I counted eight strokes of his chisel. January 13, 1855

January 13. I see under some sizable white pines in E. Hubbard's wood, where red squirrels have run about much since this snow. They have run chiefly, perhaps, under the surface of the snow, so that it is very much under mined by their paths under these trees, and every now and then they have come to the surface, or the surface has fallen into their gallery. They seem to burrow under the snow about as readily as a meadow mouse. There are also paths raying out on every side from the base of the trees. And you see many holes through the snow into the ground where they now are, and other holes where they have probed for cones and nuts. 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 13, 1860


January 17. I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). As I approach, I have a glimpse of one or two red squirrels gliding off silently along the branches of the pines, etc. They are gone so quickly and noiselessly, perhaps keeping the trunk of the tree between you and them, that [you] would not commonly suspect their presence if you were not looking for them. But one that was on the snow ascended a pine and sat on a bough with its back to the trunk as if there was nothing to pay. Yet when I moved again he scud up the tree, and glided across on some very slender twigs into a neigh boring tree, and so I lost him. Here is, apparently, a settlement of these red squirrels. There are many holes through the snow into the ground, and many more where they have probed and dug up a white pine cone, now pretty black and, for aught I can see, with abortive or empty seeds; yet they patiently strip them on the spot, or at the base of the trees, or at the entrance of their holes, and evidently find some good seed. The snow, however, is strewn with the empty and rejected seeds. They seem to select for their own abode a hillside where there are half a dozen rather large and thick white pines near enough together for their aerial travelling, and then they burrow numerous holes and depend on finding (apparently) the pine cones which they cast down in the summer, before they have opened. In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources. January 17, 1860


January 22. At Walden, near my old residence, I find that since I was here on the 11th, apparently within a day or two, some gray or red squirrel or squirrels have been feeding on the pitch pine cones extensively. The snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales they have dropped while feeding overhead. I count the cores of thirty-four cones on the snow there, and that is not all. Under another pine there are more than twenty, and a well-worn track from this to a fence post three rods distant, under which are the cores of eight cones and a corresponding amount of scales. The track is like a very small rabbit. They have gnawed off the cones which were perfectly closed. I see where one has taken one of a pair and left the other partly off. He had first sheared off the needles that were in the way, and then gnawed off the sides or cheeks of the twig to come at the stem of the cone, which as usual was cut by successive cuts as with a knife, while bending it.




One or two small, perhaps dead, certainly unripe ones were taken off and left unopened. I find that many of those young pines are now full of unopened cones, which apparently will be two years old next summer, and these the squirrel now eats. There are also some of them open, perhaps on the most thrifty twigs. January 22, 1856

January 23. I see where the squirrels have torn the pine cones in pieces to come at their seeds. And in some cases the mice have nibbled the buds of the pitch pines, where the plumes have been bent down by the snow.  January 23, 1852

January 25. A closed pitch pine cone gathered January 22d opened last night in my chamber. If you would be convinced how differently armed the squirrel is naturally for dealing with pitch pine cones, just try to get one off with your teeth. He who extracts the seeds from a single closed cone with the aid of a knife will be constrained to confess that the squirrel earns his dinner. It is a rugged customer, and will make your fingers bleed. But the squirrel has the key to this conical and spiny chest of many apartments. He sits on a post, vibrating his tail, and twirls it as a plaything. January 25, 1856

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Plucking and Stripping a Pine Cone.

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

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

In winter I can explore the swamps and ponds.

December 22.

The apples are now thawed. This is their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and uneatable are now filled with a rich, sweet cider which I am better acquainted with than with wine.

And others, which have more substance, are a sweet and luscious food, — in my opinion of more worth than the pineapples which are imported from the torrid zone. Those which a month ago I tasted and repented of it, which the farmer willingly left on the tree, I am now glad to find have the property of hanging on like the leaves of the shrub oak.

It is a way to keep cider sweet without boiling. Let the frost come to freeze them first solid as stones, and then the sun or a warm winter day for it takes but little heat — to thaw them, and they to have borrowed a flavor from heaven through the medium of the air in which they hang.

I find when I get home that they have thawed in my pocket and the ice is turned to cider. But I suspect that after the second freezing and thawing they will not be so good. I bend to drink the cup and save my lappets.

What are the half-ripe fruits of the torrid south, to this fruit matured by the cold of the frigid north. There are those crabbed apples with which I cheated my companion, and kept a smooth face to tempt him to eat. Now we both greedily fill our pockets with them, and grow more social with their wine.

Was there one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled branches that our sticks could not dislodge it? It is a fruit never brought to market that I am aware of, quite distinct from the apple of the markets, as from dried apple and cider.

It is not every winter that produces it in perfection.

In winter I can explore the swamps and ponds. It is a dark-aired winter day, yet I see the summer plants still peering above the snow.

There are but few tracks in all this snow. It is the Yellow Knife River or the Saskatchewan.

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.

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.

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.

I see more tracks in the swamps than elsewhere.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 22, 1850

I see more tracks in the swamps than elsewhere. See December 22, 1853 ("Here in the swamp it whitens the ice and already I see the tracks of rabbits on it.") 

Here is a stump on which a squirrel has sat and stripped the pine cones of a neighboring tree. See December 22, 1859  ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left the trunks on the snow.")

Ash-colored lichens

look golden yellow in light

reflected from snow. 

A dozen robins to-day on the ground on Ebby Hubbard's hill by the Yellow Birch Swamp.

February 28. 

2 P. M. — Thermometer 52; wind easterly. To Conantum. 

I am surprised to see how my English brook cress has expanded or extended since I saw it last fall to a bed four feet in diameter, as if it had grown in the water, though it is quite dirty or muddied with sediment. Many of the sprigs turn upwards and just rest on the water at their ends, as if they might be growing. It has also been eaten considerably by some inhabitant of the water. I am inclined to think it must grow in the winter. 

What is that bluish bulb now apparently beginning to shoot in the water there, floating loose (not the water purslane )?

I suppose they are linarias which I still see flying about. 

Passed a very little boy in the street to-day, who had on a home-made cap of a woodchuck-skin, which his father or elder brother had killed and cured, and his mother or elder sister had fashioned into a nice warm cap. I was interested by the sight of it, it suggested so much of family history, adventure with the chuck, story told about [it], not without exaggeration, the human parents' care of their young these hard times. Johnny was promised many times, and now the work has been completed, — a perfect little idyl, as they say. The cap was large and round, big enough, you would say, for the boy's father, and had some kind of cloth visor stitched to it. The top of the cap was evidently the back of the woodchuck, as it were expanded in breadth, contracted in length, and it was as fresh and handsome as if the woodchuck wore it himself. The great gray-tipped wind hairs were all preserved, and stood out above the brown only a little more loosely than in life. 

As if he put his head into the belly of a woodchuck, having cut off his tail and legs and substituted a visor for the head. The little fellow wore it innocently enough, not knowing what he had on, forsooth, going about his small business pit-a-pat; and his black eyes sparkled beneath it when I remarked on its warmth , even as the woodchuck's might have done. Such should be the history of every piece of clothing that we wear. 

As I stood by Eagle Field wall, I heard a fine rattling sound, produced by the wind on some dry weeds at my elbow. It was occasioned by the wind rattling the fine seeds in those pods of the indigo-weed which were still closed, — a distinct rattling din which drew my attention to it, — like a small Indian's calabash. Not a mere rustling of dry weeds, but the shaking of a rattle, or a hundred rattles, beside. 

Looking from Hubbard's Bridge, I see a great water bug even on the river, so forward is the season. 

I take up a handsomely spread (or blossomed) pitch pine cone, but I find that a squirrel has begun to strip it first, having gnawed off a few of the scales at the base. The squirrel always begins to gnaw a cone thus at the base, as if it were a stringent law among the squirrel people, — as if the old squirrels taught the young ones a few simple rules like this. 

C. saw a dozen robins to-day on the ground on Ebby Hubbard's hill by the Yellow Birch Swamp. 

One tells me that George Hubbard told him he saw blackbirds go over this forenoon. 

One of the Corner Wheelers feels sure that he saw a bluebird on the 24th, and says he saw a sheldrake in the river at the factory "a month ago." I should say that the sheldrake was our hardiest duck. 

It suggests from what point of view Gesner (or his translator) describes an animal, — how far he takes into account man's relation to it, — that he commonly gives the “epithets” which have been applied to it. He deals in description, and epithets are a short description. And the translator says to the reader, “All these rows and ranks of living four-footed beasts are as letters and midwives to save the reverence which is due to the Highest (that made them ) from perishing within you.” 

I hear this account of Austin: An acquaintance who had bought him a place in Lincoln took him out one day to see it, and Austin was so smitten with the quiet and retirement and other rural charms that he at once sold his house in Concord, bought a small piece of rocky pasture in an out-of-the way part of this out-of-the-way town and with the funds raised by the sale of his old house built him a costly stone house upon it. Now he finds that this retirement (or country life) is the very thing which he does not want, but, his property being chiefly invested in the house, he is caught in a trap, as it were, for he cannot sell it, though he advertises it every year.

As for society, he has none; his neighbors are few and far between, and he never visits them nor they him. They can do without him, being old settlers, adscripti glebae. 

He found one man in the next town who got his living by sporting and fishing, and he has built him a little hut and got him to live on his place for society and help fulness. He cannot get help either for the outdoor or indoor work. There are none thereabouts who work by the day or job, and servant-girls decline to come so far into the country. Surrounded by grain-fields, he sends to Cambridge for his oats, and, as for milk, he can scarcely get any at all, for the farmers all send it to Boston, but he has persuaded one to leave some for him at the depot half a mile off.

As it is important to consider Nature from the point of view of science, remembering the nomenclature and system of men, and so, if possible, go a step further in that direction, so it is equally important often to ignore or forget all that men presume that they know, and take an original and unprejudiced view of Nature, letting her make what impression she will on you, as the first men, and all children and natural men still do. For our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed up with error than our sympathies are. 

As I go down the Boston road, I see an Irishman wheeling home from far a large damp and rotten pine log for fuel. He evidently sweats at it , and pauses to rest many times. He found, perhaps, that his wood-pile was gone before the winter was, and he trusts thus to contend with the remaining cold. I see him unload it in his yard before me and then rest himself. The piles of solid oak wood which I see in other yards do not interest me at all, but this looked like fuel. It warmed me to think of it. He will now proceed to split it finely, and then I fear it [will] require almost as much heat to dry it, as it will give out at last. 

How rarely we are encouraged by the sight of simple actions in the street! We deal with banks and other institutions, where the life and humanity are concealed, — what there is. I like at least to see the great beams half exposed in the ceiling or the corner.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 28, 1860


I suppose they are linarias which I still see flying about See January 8, 1860 ("When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch! [Were they not linarias? Vide Jan. 24, 27, 29.]")

The great gray-tipped wind hairs were all preserved, and stood out above the brown only a little more loosely than in life,  -- his black eyes sparkled beneath it when I remarked on its warmth , even as the woodchuck's might have done.See May 30, 1859 ("Its colors were gray, reddish brown, and blackish, the gray-tipped wind hairs giving it a grizzly look above, and when it stood up its distinct rust-color beneath was seen, while the top of its head was dark-brown, becoming black at snout, as also its paws and its little rounded ears."); April 29, 1855 ("See his shining black eyes and black snout and his little erect ears. He is of a light brown forward at this distance (hoary above, yellowish or sorrel beneath), gradually darkening backward to the end of the tail, which is dark-brown. The general aspect is grizzly.")

C. saw a dozen robins to-day. See February 25, 1857 ("Goodwin says he saw a robin this morning.”); February 25, 1859 ("I hear that robins were seen a week or more ago."); February 27, 1857 ("Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature.")

Looking from Hubbard's Bridge, I see a great water bug even on the river, so forward is the season.C. saw a dozen robins to-day.One tells me that George Hubbard told him he saw blackbirds go over this forenoon. One of the Corner Wheelers feels sure that he saw a bluebird on the 24th See . March 10, 1855 ("You are always surprised by the sight of the first spring bird or insect; they seem premature, and there is no such evidence of spring as themselves, so that they literally fetch the year about. It is thus when I hear the first robin or bluebird or, looking along the brooks, see the first water-bugs out circling. But you think, They have come, and Nature cannot recede.")

Says he saw a sheldrake in the river at the factory "a month ago." I should say that the sheldrake was our hardiest duck .See March 1, 1856 ("It is remarkable that though I have not been able to find any open place in the river almost all winter,. . . Coombs should (as he says) have killed two sheldrakes at the falls by the factory, a place which I had forgotten, some four or six weeks ago. Singular that this hardy bird should have found this small opening,. . .If there is a crack amid the rocks of some waterfall, this bright diver is sure to know it. Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up."); February 27, 1860 ("This is the first bird of the spring that I have seen or heard of.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)

It is equally important often to ignore or forget all that men presume that they know, and take an original and unprejudiced view of Nature, letting her make what impression she will on you, as the first men, and all children and natural men still do. See October 13, 1857 ("We ordinarily do not see what is before us, but what our prejudices presume to be there."); October 4, 1859 (“It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know. I do not get nearer by a hair's breadth to any natural object so long as I presume that I have an introduction to it from some learned man. To conceive of it with a total apprehension I must for the thousandth time approach it as something totally strange. If you would make acquaintance with the ferns you must forget your botany. You must get rid of what is commonly called knowledge of them. Not a single scientific term or distinction is the least to the purpose, for you would fain perceive something, and you must approach the object totally unprejudiced You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be. In what book is this world and its beauty described? Who has plotted the steps toward the discovery of beauty? You have got to be in a different state from common. Your greatest success will be simply to perceive that such things are."); November 21, 1850(" I begin to see ... an object when I cease to understand it "); February 14, 1851 ("We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see")

What a bountiful supply of winter food.

January 20. 

2 P. M. — 39°. Up Assabet. 

The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them! No sooner has fresh snow fallen and covered up the old crop than down comes a new supply all the more distinct on the spotless snow. 

Here comes a little flock of chickadees, attracted by me as usual, and perching close by boldly; then, descending to the snow and ice, I see them pick up the hemlock seed which lies all around them. Occasionally they take one to a twig and hammer at it there under their claws, perhaps to separate it from the wing, or even the shell. 

The snowy ice and the snow on shore have been blackened with these fallen cones several times over this winter. 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. 

At R.W.E.'s red oak I see a gray squirrel, which has been looking after acorns there, run across the river. The half-inch snow of yesterday morning shows its tracks plainly. They are much larger and more like a rabbit's than I expected.   The squirrel runs in an undulating manner, though it is a succession of low leaps of from two and a half to three feet. Each four tracks occupy a space some six or seven inches long. Each foot-track is very distinct, showing the toes and protuberances of the foot, and is from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters long. The clear interval between the hind and fore feet is four to five inches. The fore feet are from one and a half to three inches apart in the clear; the hind, one to two inches apart. 

I see that what is probably the track of the same squirrel near by is sometimes in the horseshoe form, i. e., when its feet are all brought close together:  the open side still forward. I must have often mistaken this for a rabbit. But is not the bottom of the rabbit's foot so hairy that I should never see these distinct marks or protuberances? 

This squirrel ran up a maple till he got to where the stem was but little bigger than his body, and then, getting behind the gray-barked stem, which was almost exactly the color of its body, it clasped it with its fore feet and there hung motionless with the end of its tail blowing in the wind. As I moved, it steadily edged round so as to keep the maples always between me and it, and I only saw its tail, the sides of its body projecting, and its little paws clasping the tree. It remained otherwise perfectly still as long as I was thereabouts, or five or ten minutes. There was a leafy nest in the tree.

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

The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them! See December 31, 1859 ("There is a great deal of hemlock scales scattered over the recent snow (at the Hemlocks), . . .and I see the tracks of small birds that have apparently picked the seeds from the snow also. Some of the seeds have blown at least fifteen rods southeast. So the hemlock seed is important to some birds in the winter.")

Here comes a little flock of chickadees, attracted by me as usual. See October 15, 1856 ("The chickadees are hopping near on the hemlock above. They resume their winter ways before the winter comes.");  October 17, 1856 ("I heard a smart tche-day-day-day close to my ear, and, looking up, see four of these birds, which had come to scrape acquaintance with me, hopping amid the alders within three and four feet of me. I had heard them further off at first, and they had followed me along the hedge.");  October 23, 1852 ("The chickadees flit along, following me inquisitively a few rods with lisping, tinkling note, — flit within a few feet of me from curiosity, head downward on the pines.");. November 9, 1850 ("The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note"); December 1, 1853 ("I hear their faint, silvery, lisping notes, like tinkling glass, and occasionally a sprightly day-day-day, as they inquisitively hop nearer and nearer to me. They are our most honest and innocent little bird, drawing yet nearer to us as the winter advances, and deserve best of any of the walker."); December 3, 1856 ("they will flit after and close to you, and naively peck at the nearest twig to you, as if they were minding their own business all the while without any reference to you."); 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."); January 30, 1854 ("As we walk up the river, a little flock of chickadees flies to us from a wood-side fifteen rods off, and utters their lively day day day, and follows us along a considerable distance, flitting by our side on the button-bushes and willows. It is the most, if not the only, sociable bird we have.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed. See January 20, 1855 ("Our lesser redpoll . . . I heard its mew about the house early this morning before sunrise . . . I see the tracks of countless little birds, probably redpolls, where these have run over broad pastures and visited every weed"); See also January 19, 1855 ("At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pig weed in the garden. Almost all have more or less crimson; a few are very splendid, with their particularly bright crimson breasts. The white on the edge of their wing-coverts is very conspicuous. "); January 24, 1860 ("See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. They are distinct enough from the goldfinch, their note more shelly and general as they fly, and they are whiter, without the black wings, beside that some have the crimson head or head and breast. They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse. "); January 27, 1860 ("Half a dozen redpolls busily picking the seeds out of the larch cones behind Monroe's."); January 29, 1860 ("To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Lesser Redpoll

Walden apparently froze over last night.

January 6. 

Walden apparently froze over last night. 

It is but little more than an inch thick, and two or three square rods by Hubbard's shore are still open. A dark, transparent ice. It would not have frozen entirely over, as it were in one night, or maybe a little more, and yet have been so thin next the shore as well as in the middle, if it had not been so late in the winter, and so ready to freeze. It is a dark, transparent ice, but will not bear me without much cracking. 

As I walked along the edge, I started out three little pickerel no longer than my finger from close to the shore, which went wiggling into deeper water like bloodsuckers or pollywogs. 

When I lie down on it and examine it closely, I find that the greater part of the bubbles which I had thought were within its own substance are against its under surface, and that they are continually rising up from the bottom, — perfect spheres, apparently, and very beautiful and clear, in which I see my face through this thin ice (perhaps an inch and an eighth), from one eightieth of an inch in diameter, or a mere point, up to one eighth of an inch. 

There are thirty or forty of these, at least, to every square inch. These, probably, when heated by the sun, make it crack and whoop. There are, also, within the substance of the ice, oblong perpendicular bubbles half an inch long, more or less, by about one thirtieth of an inch, and these are commonly widest at the bottom (?), or, oftener, separate minute spherical bubbles of equal or smaller diameter, one directly above another, like a string of beads, perhaps the first stage of the former. But these internal bubbles are not nearly so numerous as those in the water beneath. 

It may be twenty-four hours since the ice began to form decidedly. 

I see, on the sandy bottom a few inches beneath, the white cases of caddis-worms made of the white quartz sand or pebbles. And the bottom is very much creased or furrowed where some creature has travelled about and doubled on its tracks, — perhaps the caddis-worm, for I find one or two of the same in the furrows, though the latter are deep and broad for them to make. 

This morning the weeds and twigs and fences were covered with what I may call a leaf frost, the leaves a third of an inch long, shaped somewhat like this, with triangular points, but very thin. Another morning there will be no frost. 

I forgot to say yesterday that I picked up four pignuts by the squirrel's hole, from which he had picked the meat, having gnawed a hole about half the diameter of the nut in width on each side. After I got home I observed that in each case the holes were on the sides of the nut and not on the edges, and I cut into a couple with my knife in order to see certainly which was the best way to get at the meat. 

Cutting into the edge, I came upon the thick partition which runs the whole length of the nut, and then came upon the edges of the meats, and finally was obliged to cut away a good part of the nut on both edges before I could extract the meat, because it was held by the neck in the middle. 

But when I cut holes on the sides, not only the partitions I met with were thin and partial, but I struck the meats broadside and extracted them with less trouble. It may be that it is most convenient for the squirrel to hold the nut thus, but I think there is a deeper reason than that. 

I observe that, out of six whole pignuts which I picked from a tree, three are so cracked transversely to the division of the meat that I can easily pry them open with my knife. 

They hang on as food for animals.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 6, 1853

Walden apparently froze over last night. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. A black and white duck on it."); . January 2, 1853 ("Walden begins to freeze in the coves or shallower water on the north side, where it was slightly skimmed over several weeks ago"); January 3, 1853 ("Walden not yet frozen.")

When I lie down on it and examine it closely, I find that the greater part of the bubbles are continually rising up from the bottom, — perfect spheres, very beautiful and clear, in which I see my face through this thin ice. June 3, 1854 ("On the pond we make bubbles with our paddles on the smooth surface, in which little hemispherical cases we see ourselves and boat, small, black and distinct, with a fainter reflection on the opposite side of the bubble (head to head).")

This morning the weeds and twigs and fences were covered with what I may call a leaf frost. See December 31, 1855 ("It is one of the mornings of creation, and the trees, shrubs, etc., etc., are covered with a fine leaf frost, as if they had their morning robes on, seen against the sun.")

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 © 2009-2022

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 chickadee's note has a new significance

October 11

P.M. — To Cliffs.

October 11, 2019

Looking under large oaks, black and white, the acorns appear to have fallen or been gathered by squirrels, etc. I see in many distant places stout twigs (black or scarlet oak) three or four inches long which have been gnawed off by the squirrels, with four to seven acorns on each, and left on the ground. These twigs have been gnawed off on each side of the nuts in order to make them more portable, I suppose. The nuts all abstracted and sides of the cups broken to get them out.  

The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance. 

There was a very severe frost this morning (ground stiffened), probably a chestnut-opening frost, a season ripener, opener of the burs that inclose the Indian summer. Such is the cold of early or middle October. The leaves and weeds had that stiff, hoary appearance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 11, 1859

Looking under large oaks, black and white, the acorns appear to have fallen or been gathered by squirrels. See October 11, 1860 ("The best time to gather these nuts is now -, when a strong wind has arisen suddenly in the day, before the squirrels precede you.")

The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance. See  October 4, 1859 ('I hear . . . the sweet phe-be of the chickadee.”); October 5, 1858 ("Phebe note of Chickadee often these days");  October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen. “); October 10, 1851 ("The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard."); October 10, 1856 ("The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards");  October 13, 1852 ("It is a clear, warm, rather Indian-summer day . . . The chickadees take heart, too, and sing above these warm rocks."); October 13, 1859  (“The chickadee seems to lisp a sweeter note”); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish."); October 15, 1856 ("The chickadees . . . resume their winter ways before the winter comes.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A very severe frost this morning. See October 1, 1860 (“Remarkable frost and ice this morning; quite a wintry prospect. The leaves of trees stiff and white.”);  October 14, 1860 ("This year, on account of the very severe frosts, the trees change and fall early, or fall before fairly changing."); October 15, 1853 ("Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise."); October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . . .Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen.”); October 17, 1851("A severe frost this morning, which puts us one remove further from summer.")

October 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 11

The chickadee's note

has a new significance

in cooler weather.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

  The chickadee's note has a new significance

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/HDT591011