A Book of the Seasons: December 5 (clear cold winter weather, a pause in boating, ice snow and solitude, winter birds, winter colors, winter sky)

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 5

I love best to have 

each thing in season only

and then do without.

December 5, 1856

There is a bright light

on the pines and on their stems –

the lichens on their bark. 

December 5, 1850

Many winter birds
have a sharp note like tinkling 
glass or icicles.
December 5, 1853

Now for the short days.

Sun behind a low cloud and

the world is darkened.

December 5, 1853

Pale blue winter sky

simple, perfectly cloudless –

a white moon half full.

December 5, 1856

To be born into

the most estimable place

in the nick of time.

December 5, 1856

December 5, 2020

Very cold last night. December 5, 1854

What a contrast between this week and last. December 5, 1856

The ground has been frozen more or less about a week. December 5, 1853

Suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter. December 5, 1859

Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep. December 5, 1858

Clear, cold winter weather. December 5, 1856

Probably river skimmed over in some places. December 5, 1854

The river is well skimmed over in most places. December 5, 1856

The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon. December 5, 1853

Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over. December 5, 1853

Got my boat in. December 5, 1853

I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating, to be obliged to get my boat in. December 5, 1856

I shall launch it again in the spring with so much more pleasure. December 5, 1856

I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times. December 5, 1856

The damp snow with water beneath . . . is frozen solid, making a crust which bears well. December 5, 1854

There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. December 5, 1856

It would be easier gathering them now than ever. December 5, 1856

Some fine straw-colored grasses . . . still rise above this crusted snow, and even a recess is melted around them. December 5, 1856

The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow. December 5, 1856

As I walk along the side of the Hill, a pair of nuthatches flit by toward a walnut, flying low in mid- course and then ascending to the tree. December 5, 1856

I hear one's faint tut tut or gnah gnah — no doubt heard a good way by its mate now flown into the next tree .December 5, 1856

It is a chubby bird, white, slate-color, and black. December 5, 1856

Saw and heard a downy woodpecker on an apple tree.  December 5, 1853

Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? December 5, 1853

The chip of the tree sparrow, also, and the whistle of the shrike, are they not wintry in the same way ? December 5, 1853

The partridge is budding on the apple tree and bursts away from the path-side. December 5, 1853

Four quails running across the Turnpike. December 5, 1859

At noon a few flakes fall. December 5, 1857

Rather hard walking in the snow. December 5, 1859

There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves December 5, 1859

The perfect silence, as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled (her axle). December 5, 1859

The stillness (motionlessness) of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses, as if they were sculptured out of marble. December 5, 1859

A fine mizzle falling and freezing to the twigs and stubble, so that there is quite a glaze. December 5, 1858

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters. December 5, 1858

These humble withered plants, which have not of late attracted your attention, now arrest it by their very stiffness and exaggerated size. December 5, 1858

Some grass culms eighteen inches or two feet high, which nobody noticed, are an inexhaustible supply of slender ice-wands set in the snow. December 5, 1858

The grasses and weeds bent to the crusty surface form arches of various forms. December 5, 1858

It is surprising how the slenderest grasses can support such a weight, but the culm is buttressed by an other icy culm or column, and the load gradually taken on. December 5, 1858

In the woods the drooping pines compel you to stoop. December 5, 1858

In all directions they are bowed down, hanging their heads. December 5, 1858

Several small white oak trees full of stiffened leaves by the roadside, strangely interesting and beautiful. December 5, 1859

The evergreens are greener than ever. There is a peculiar bright light on the pines and on their stems. The lichens on their bark reflect it. December 5, 1850

Some sugar maples, both large and small, have still, like the larger oaks, a few leaves about the larger limbs near the trunk. December 5, 1858

The large yellowish leaves of the black oak (young trees) are peculiarly conspicuous, rich and warm, in the midst of this ice and snow December 5, 1858

And on the causeway the yellowish bark of the willows gleams warmly through the ice. December 5, 1858

The birches are still upright, and their numerous parallel white ice-rods remind me of the recent gossamer-like gleams which they reflected. December 5, 1858

Half a mile off, a tall and slender pitch pine against the dull-gray mist, peculiarly monumental. December 5, 1859

Many living leaves are very dark red now. . .  the checkerberry, andromeda, low cedar, and more or less lambkill. December 5, 1853

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping. December 5, 1853

The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened. December 5,1853

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. December 5, 1856

A white moon, half full, in the pale or dull blue heaven and a whiteness like the reflection of the snow, extending up from the horizon all around a quarter the way up to the zenith. December 5, 1856 (This at 4 p. m. December 5, 1856)

The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky. December 5, 1856

Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused, so that it seemed much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before. December 5, 1853

In the horizon I see a succession of the brows of hills, - the eyebrows of the recumbent earth - separated by long valleys filled with vapory haze.   December 5, 1850

I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too. December 5, 1856

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold. December 5, 1856

December 5, 2014

*****

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in Boat out

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

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

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Birches in Season

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Anthropic Principle

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon

*****

December 5, 2023

February 19, 1854 ("Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world?”)
April 13, 1852 ("The imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts.”)
April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season").
August 3, 1852 ("By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe.")
August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.")
August 22, 1854 ("There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case.")
August 23, 1853 ("Live in each season as it passes.")
August 23, 1853 ("Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end")
September 9, 1854 ("The earth is the mother of all creatures.")

November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.")

November 20, 1857 ("I see a few flakes of snow, two or three only, like flocks of gossamer, straggling in a slanting direction to the ground, unnoticed by most, in a rather raw air.")

 November 26, 1860 ("I detect it on the trunk of an oak much nearer than I suspected, and its mate or companion not far off.")

November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.") 

December 1, 1857 ("I hear the faintest possible quivet from a nuthatch, quite near me on a pine. I thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter")

December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat,")

December 4, 1856 ("Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night.")
December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.")
December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.")
December 4, 1856 ("Each day at present, the wriggling river nibbles off the edges of the trap which have advanced in the night.")

December 7, 1856 (The winters come now as fast as snowflakes. It was summer, and now again it is winter."")

December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick.”)

December 8, 1850 ("The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!”)

December 8, 1859 ("The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.")
December 9, 1855 ("At 8.30 a fine snow begins to fall, increasing very gradually, perfectly straight down, till in fifteen minutes the ground is white . . . But in a few minutes it turns to rain, and so the wintry landscape is postponed for the present.”)

December 9, 1856 ("Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,")
December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")

December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day.”)
December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be,")
December 16, 1857 ("Begins to snow about 8 A. M., and in fifteen minutes the ground is white, but it soon stops.")

December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset, which at midday appears to rest on its axle! ")

December 24, 1854 ("A slight glaze, the first of the winter. This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind.")
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.")

December 26, 1855 ("The weeds and grasses, being so thickened by this coat of ice, appear much more numerous in the fields. It is surprising what a bristling crop they are.")

December 5, 2020

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

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 4 <<<<<<<< December 5  >>>>>>>> December 6

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  December 5 

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 4 (first ice, first snow, winter air, winter color, winter birds, winter granaries, Indian summer)

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 4

Little tree sparrow

made to withstand the winter

perched on a white birch.

December 4, 1856

The bird-like birch scales

blown into the hollows of

the thin crusted snow.

December 4, 1856

I love the colors

of Nature at this season –

browns grays blue green white.

December 4, 1856

December 4, 2017

7.30 a. m. — Take a run down the riverside. December 4, 1856

Fair Haven Pond is now open, and there is no snow. December 4, 1850

The coldest day yet, clear with considerable wind, after the first cloudless morning for a week or two. December 4, 1853

A pleasant day and yet no snow nor ice. December 4, 1855

Ceased raining and mizzling last evening, and cleared off, with a high northwest wind, which shook the house, coming in fitful gusts, but only they who slept on the west sides of houses knew of it. December 4, 1856

Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence. December 4, 1859

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

Dark waves are chasing each other across the river from northwest to southeast and breaking the edge of the snow ice which has formed for half a rod in width along the edge, and the fragments of broken ice, what arctic voyagers call "brash," carry forward the undulation. December 4, 1856

The northeast sides of the trees are thickly incrusted with snowy shields, visible afar, the snow was so damp (at Boston it turned to rain). December 4, 1854

This had none of the dry delicate powdery beauties of a common first snow. December 4, 1854

Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river. December 4, 1853

Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. December 4, 1853

The ice of Goose Pond already has a dusty look. It shows the crystals distinctly. December 4, 1853

The snow has now settled, owing to the rain, . . ., and there is a slight crust to it. December 4, 1856

It is remarkably good sleighing to-day, considering the little snow and the rain of yesterday, but it is slippery and hobbly for walkers. December 4, 1856

Scare up a few sparrows, which take shelter in Keyes's arborvitae row. December 4, 1856

An F. hyemalis also. December 4, 1856

I notice that the swallow-holes in the bank . . . which is partly washed away. December 4, 1856 

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow. December 4, 1854

I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. December 4, 1856

So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. December 4, 1856

How many thousand acres are there now of pitchered blue-curls and ragged wormwood rising above the shallow snow? . . .the first snow comes and reveals them. December 4, 1856

Then I come to fields in which the fragrant everlasting, straw-colored and almost odorless, and the dark taller St. John's-wort prevail. December 4, 1856

The granary of the birds. December 4, 1856

Saw and heard cheep faintly one little tree sparrow, the neat chestnut crowned and winged and white-barred bird, perched on a large and solitary white birch. So clean and tough, made to withstand the winter. December 4, 1856

This color reminds me of the upper side of the shrub oak leaf. December 4, 1856

The shrub oak fire burns briskly as seen from the Cliffs. December 4, 1850

 

The younger osiers on Shattuck’s row do shine. December 4, 1855

In the sprout-land by the road, in the woods. . . much gray goldenrod is mixed with the shrub oak. December 4, 1856

It reminds me of the color of the rabbits which run there. December 4, 1856

I love the few homely colors of Nature at this season, — her strong wholesome browns, her sober and primeval grays, her celestial blue, her vivacious green, her pure, cold, snowy white. December 4, 1856

It is an important relief to the eyes which have long rested on snow to rest on brown oak leaves and the bark of trees. December 4, 1856

We have [the greatest variety] in the colors of the withered oak leaves. The white, so curled and shrivelled and pale; the black (?), more flat and glossy and darker brown; the red, much like the black, but perhaps less dark, and less deeply cut. The scarlet still occasionally retains some blood in its veins. December 4, 1856

The evergreens are greener than ever. December 4, 1850

Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night. December 4, 1856

 It is a close contest between day and night, heat and cold. December 4, 1856

In the horizon I see a succession of the brows of hills, bare or covered with wood, -- look over the eyebrows of the recumbent earth. These are separated by long valleys filled with vapory haze. December 4, 1850

If there is a little more warmth than usual at this season, then the beautiful air which belongs to winter is perceived and appreciated. December 4, 1850

Though the sun is now an hour high, there is a peculiar bright light on the pines and on their stems. The lichens on their bark reflect it. December 4, 1850

Nature feeds her children chiefly with color. December 4, 1856

From year to year we look at Nature with new eyes. December 4, 1856

It is a beautiful, almost Indian-summer, afternoon. December 4, 1850

 

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-Curls

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

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, Indian Summer

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

*****

March 14, 1855 (“I observe the tracks of sparrows leading to every little sprig of blue-curls amid the other weeds which (its seemingly empty pitchers) rises above the snow. There seems, however, to be a little seed left in them. This, then, is reason enough why these withered stems still stand, - that they may raise these granaries above the snow for the use of the snowbirds.”)
October 22, 1858 ("I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree")

 October 30, 1853 ("When the forest and fields put on their sober winter hue, we begin to look more to the sunset for color and variety.")
November 1, 1857 ("I see that the sun, when low, will shine into a thick wood, which you had supposed always dark, as much as twenty rods, lighting it all up, making the gray, lichen-clad stems of the trees all warm and bright with light");
November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “);
November 25, 1850 (“I found Fair Haven skimmed entirely over. . . ice on the water and winter in the air, but yet not a particle of snow on the ground")
November 25, 1850 (“This afternoon the air was indescribably clear and exhilarating, and though the thermometer would have shown it to be cold, I thought that there was a finer and purer warmth . . .The landscape looked singularly clean and pure and dry, the air, like a pure glass, being laid over the picture. . . ice on the water and winter in the air“)
November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.”)
November 30, 1856 (“Now see the empty chalices of the blue-curls and the rich brown-fruited pinweed above the crust.”)
November 30, 1853 ("An abundance of withered sedges and other coarse grasses, which in the summer you scarcely noticed, now cover the low grounds, -- the granary of the winter birds.")

December 1, 1856 (“The blue-curls' chalices stand empty, and waiting evidently to be filled with ice.”)
December 1. 1856 ("The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch")
December 2, 1857 ("Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice”)

December 3, 1853 ("Look at the fields, russet and withered, and the various sedges and weeds with dry bleached culms.")
December 3, 1853 ("Saw two tree sparrows . . . busily and very adroitly picking the seeds out of the larch cones. ")
December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning.”)
December 3, 1854 ("Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon.")
December 3, 1855 ("A pleasant day. No snow yet . . . nor do I see any ice to speak of. ")
December 3, 1858 ("A deliciously mild afternoon, though the ground is covered with snow.")

 

Smooth white reaches of 

ice as long as the river's 

dark-blue artery. 

December 4, 1856

Dark waves chasing each 

other across the river –

breaking the snow ice.

December 4, 1856

December 5, 1853 ("Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.")
December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.")
December 5, 1854 ("Probably river skimmed over in some places. ")
December 5, 1856 ("The river is well skimmed over in most places. ")
December 5, 1856 ("Clear, cold winter weather.")
December 5, 1856 ("I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times.")
December 5, 1856 ("The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow.")
December 5, 1858 ("The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters.")

December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep.")

December 7, 1852 ("Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer.")

December 8, 1850 ("A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice. This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.")

 December 8, 1854 ("How black the water where the river is open when I look from the light, by contrast with the surrounding white, the ice and snow!")
December 11, 1855 ("The incredible phenomenon of small birds in winter. There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances.")

December 8, 1852 ("Another Indian-summer day.")

December 11, 1853 (" Almost a complete Indian-summer day, clear and warm.")

December 13, 1857 ("This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear,. . . I see those same two tortoises (of Dec. 2d), moving about in the same place under the ice, which I can not crack with my feet.”)

December 14, 1851 ("The now dry and empty but clean-washed cups of the blue-curls spot the half snow-covered grain-fields.  ")

December 14, 1852 ("The dried chalices of the Rhexia Virginica stand above the snow, and the cups of the blue-curls. ")

December 17, 1856 ("That feeble cheep of the tree sparrow, like the tinkling of an icicle, or the chafing of two hard shrub oak twigs, is probably a call to their mates, by which they keep together. These birds, when perched, look larger than usual this cold and windy day; they are puffed up for warmth, have added a porch to their doors.")
December 18, 1852 ("The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds.");
December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail.”);
December 26, 1853 ("The first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”);
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.")
December 28, 1856 ("Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here");
December 29, 1856 (". Do not the F. hyemalis, lingering yet, and the numerous tree sparrows foretell an open winter?")
December 30, 1855 ("For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales. I go now through the birch meadow southwest of the Rock. The high wind is scattering them over the snow there.")
December 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue. The pines look very dark. The white oak leaves are a cinnamon-color, the black and red oak leaves a reddish brown or leather-color.’)
December 31, 1851 ("The round greenish-yellow lichens on the white pines loom through the mist. . . . They eclipse the trees they cover.")

The tree sparrow comes

from the north in the winter

to get its dinner

January 16, 1860

December 4, 2020 

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  3 <<<<<<<<  December 4  >>>>>>>> December 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 4

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

A Book of the Seasons: Winter Colors (The solstice)

solstice 2019

We are tempted to call these

 the finest days of the year. 

  December 21, 1854

Now the sun sets suddenly without a cloud, and with scarcely any redness following, so pure is the atmosphere, only a faint rosy blush along the horizon.  December 19, 1851

A faint rosy blush,

horizon without a cloud -- 

sun sets suddenly.

December 19, 1851

Walden froze completely over last night. . . and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick, a transparent green ice, through which I see the bottom where it is seven or eight feet deep. December 19, 1856

Walden froze last night.

Transparent green ice through which

I see the bottom.

December 19, 1856

Red, white, green, and, in the distance, dark brown are the colors of the winter landscape. December 20, 1851

Red, white, green colors 

and, in the distance, dark brown --

The winter landscape.

December 20, 1851

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. December 20, 1854 

The icy water

reflecting the warm colors

of the sunset sky.

December 20, 1855

Long after the sun has set

and downy clouds have turned dark

and the shades of night

have taken possession of the east

some rosy clouds will be seen

in the upper sky

over the portals of the darkening west. 

December 21, 1851

Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still. The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. December 21, 1854

Dark evergreen woods,

untrodden snow pure and still --

these the finest days.

December 21, 1854

Last rays of the sun 

falling on the Baker Farm 

reflect a clear pink.

December 21, 1854

A few simple colors now prevail. December 21, 1855

I look back to the wharf rock shore and see . . , 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

A narrow line of

yellow rushes lit up by 

the westering sun.

December 22, 1859

A narrow white line

of snow on the storm side of

every exposed tree.

December 23, 1851

These are the colors of the earth now:

• all land that has been some time cleared, except it is subject to the plow, is russet;
• the color of withered herbage and the ground finely commixed, a lighter straw-color where are rank grasses next water;
• sprout-lands, the pale leather-color of dry oak leaves;
• pine woods, green;
• deciduous woods (bare twigs and stems and withered leaves commingled), a brownish or reddish gray;
• maple swamps, smoke-color;
• land just cleared, dark brown and earthy;
• plowed land, dark brown or blackish;
• ice and water, slate-color or blue;
• andromeda swamps, dull red and dark gray;
• rocks, gray.

December 23, 1855

You may walk eastward in the winter afternoon till the ice begins to look green, half to three quarters of an hour before sunset, the sun having sunk behind you to the proper angle. Then it is time to turn your steps homeward. . . . I ascended Ball's Hill to see the sun set. How red its light at this hour! I covered its orb with my hand, and let its rays light up the fine woollen fibres of my glove. They were a dazzling rose-color. December 23, 1859

Now all the clouds grow black, and I give up to-night; but unexpectedly, half an hour later when I look out, having got home, I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon. December 23, 1851

Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .some of them, when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps , with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. December 24, 1851

December 24, 2015

I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand? . . . I witness a beauty in the form or coloring of the clouds which addresses itself to my imagination. . . . I, standing twenty miles off, see a crimson cloud in the horizon. You tell me it is a mass of vapor which absorbs all other rays and reflects the red, but that is nothing to the purpose, for this red vision excites me, stirs my blood, makes my thoughts flow, and I have new and indescribable fancies. December 25, 1851


The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast.  . . . How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. Unless you watch it, you do not know when the sun goes down. It is like a candle extinguished without smoke. A moment ago you saw that glittering orb amid the dry oak leaves in the horizon, and now you can detect no trace of it. In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour.

Full of soft pure light

western sky after sunset,

the outlines of pines.

December 25, 1858

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Winter Colors (The solstice)

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