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

He who fishes a pond first in the season expects to succeed best.

January  20. 

P. M. — To Walden.

I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike — for its seeds, their well-filled granary now. There are a few tracks reaching from weed to weed, where some have run, but under the larger plants the snow is entirely trodden and blackened, proving that a large flock has been there and flown. 

Ah, our indescribable winter sky, pure and continent and clear, between emerald (?) and amber (?), such as summer never sees! What more beautiful or soothing to the eye than those finely divided or minced clouds, like down or loose-spread cotton-batting, now reaching up from the west above my head! Beneath this a different stratum, all whose ends are curved like spray or wisps, All kinds of figures are drawn on the blue ground with this fibrous white paint. 

No sooner has Walden frozen thick enough to bear than the fishermen have got out their reels and minnows, for he who fishes a pond first in the season expects to succeed best.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 20, 1853

I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow. See August 31, 1859 (" Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds."); January 6. 1858 ("I see tree sparrows twittering and moving with a low creeping and jerking motion amid the chenopodium in a field, upon the snow"); see also 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!")

Our indescribable winter sky, pure and continent and clear, See January 17, 1852 ("As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind . . .serenity, purity, beauty ineffable."); December 25, 1858 ("In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 27, 1860 ("What hieroglyphics in the winter sky!"); June 24, 1852 ("What could a man learn by watching the clouds?")

No sooner has Walden frozen thick enough to bear than the fishermen have got out their reels and minnows. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it"); January 6, 1853 (Walden apparently froze over last night. . . .. It is a dark, transparent ice, but will not bear me without much cracking.")

I wish to get on to a hill to look down on the winter landscape.

January 2. 

The trees are white with a hoar frost this morning, small leafets, a tenth of an inch long, on every side of the twigs. They look like ghosts of trees.

Took a walk on snow-shoes at 9 A. M. to Hubbard's Grove.

A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion.

P. M. - - Up Union Turnpike.

The tints of the sunset sky are never purer and ethereal than in the coldest winter days. This evening, though the colors are not brilliant, the sky is crystalline and the pale fawn-tinged clouds are very beautiful.

I wish to get on to a hill to look down on the winter landscape.

We go about these days as if we had fetters on our feet. We walk in the stocks, stepping into the holes made by our predecessors.

I noticed yesterday that the damp snow, falling gently without wind on the top of front-yard posts, had quite changed the style of their architecture, -- to the dome style of the East, a four-sided base becoming a dome at top.

I observe other revelations made by the snow.

The team and driver have long since gone by, but I see the marks of his whip-lash on the snow, -- its re coil, — but alas ! these are not a complete tally of the strokes which fell upon the oxen's back. The unmerciful driver thought perchance that no one saw him, but unwittingly he recorded each blow on the unspotted snow behind his back as in the book of life. To more searching eyes the marks of his lash are in the air.

I paced partly through the pitch pine wood and partly the open field from the Turnpike by the Lee place to the railroad, from north to south, more than a quarter of a mile, measuring at every tenth pace. The average of sixty-five measurements, up hill and down, was nine teen inches; this after increasing those in the woods by one inch each (little enough) on account of the snow on the pines.

So that, apparently, it has settled about as much as the two last snows amount to. I think there has been but little over two feet at any one time.

I think that one would have to pace a mile on a north and south line, up and down hill, through woods and fields, to get a quite reliable result. The snow will drift sometimes the whole width of a field, and fill a road or valley beyond. So that it would be well that your measuring included several such driftings.

There is very little reliance to put on the usual estimates of the depth of snow. I have heard different men set this snow at six, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight inches.

My snow-shoes sank about four inches into the snow this morning, but more than twice as much the 29th.

On north side the railroad, above the red house crossing, the cars have cut through a drift about a quarter of a mile long and seven to nine feet high, straight up and down. It reminds me of the Highlands, the Pictured Rocks, the side of an iceberg, etc. Now that the sun has just sunk below the horizon, it is wonderful what an amount of soft light [ it ] appears to be absorbing. There appears to be more day just here by its side than anywhere. I can almost see into [ it ] six inches. It is made translucent, it is so saturated with light.

I have heard of one precious stone found in Concord, the cinnamon stone.  A geologist has spoken of it as found in this town, and a farmer has described to me one which he once found, perhaps the same referred to by the other.  He said it was as large as a brick, and as thick, and yet you could distinguish a pin through it, it was so transparent.

If not a mountain of light, it was a brickbatful, at any rate.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 2, 1854

A flock of snow buntings. See January 2, 1856 ("They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.");  December 29, 1853 ("These are the true winter birds . . . these winged snowballs."); January 6, 1856 ("While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings.”); January 6, 1859 (“They made notes when they went,—sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

I wish to get on to a hill to look down on the winter landscape. See May 3, 1852 (“How cheering and glorious any landscape viewed from an eminence!”); December 31, 1854 ("How glorious the perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape!"); December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail."); December 9, 1856 ("A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape.”)

I have heard different men set this snow at six, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight inches. See January 12, 1856 ("Though the snow is only ten inches deep on a level, farmers affirm that it is two feet deep, confidently.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 2.

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: The season of two twilights.

 

December 11

By mid-afternoon 

I will see the sun setting 

far through the woods.

That peculiar

clear greenish sky in the west

like a molten gem.

The day is short and 

we now have these early still 

clear winter sunsets. 

Two twilights merely --

the morning and the evening

now make the whole day.

December 11, 1854 

Winter sky; winter sunsets

December 8, 1854 (“There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm”)

 

December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”)

 December 9, 1859 (" I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. . . .[T]here is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge. Thus, methinks, it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer")

 Decenber 10 1856 ("I see the sun set from the side of Nawshawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. . . .on my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light."")

 December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. )

 December 18, 1853 ("The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky. ")

December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass.")

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

December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.")

 December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ?”)

December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour.")

December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon.")

January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")

 January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. . . .As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind.")

January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Season of Two Twilights

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

Looking at this hour into the soft western sky

January 9

At sundown to Walden. 

Standing on the middle of Walden I see with perfect distinctness the form and outlines of the low hills which surround it, though they are wooded, because they are quite white, being covered with snow, while the woods are for the most part bare or very thin-leaved. I see thus the outline of the hills eight or ten rods back through the trees.

This I can never do in the summer, when the leaves are thick and the ground is nearly the same color with them. These white hills are now seen as through a veil of stems. Immediately after the wood was cut off, this outline, of course, was visible at all seasons, but the wood, springing up again, concealed it, and now the snow has come to reveal the lost outline. 

The sun has been set some minutes, and as I stand on the pond looking westward toward the twilight sky, a soft, satiny light is reflected from the ice in flakes here and there, like the light from the under side of a bird’s wing. 

January 9, 2021

It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky. I am inclined to measure the angle at which pine bough meets the stem. That soft, still, cream-colored sky seems the scene, the stage or field, for some rare drama to be acted on. 

C. says the winter is the sabbath of the year. 

The perfect Winter days are cold, but clear and bright.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 9, 1859

It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky. See December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. "); December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. . . I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 19, 1859 ("It occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view, looking outward through the vista of our elm lined streets, than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon.");

Western sky full of

soft pure light after sunset –

the outlines of pines.

December 25, 1858

Night comes on early.  

Pine tree tops outlined against

the cold western sky.

December 12, 1859

I am inclined to measure the angle at which pine bough meets the stem See November 21, 1850 ("Seeing the sun falling on a distant white pinewood with mingled gray and green, in an angle where this forest meets a hill covered with shrub oaks, affects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth. It is a place far away, yet actual and where I have been. It is like looking into dreamland. It is one of the avenues to my future")

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

January 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 9

Looking at this hour

into the soft western sky

the pines so distinct.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Looking at this hour into the soft western sky

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-590109 

Winter sky

February 17. 

February 17, 2018

Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day, when I travelled, as it were, between the portals of the night, and the path was narrow as well as blocked with snow. Then, too, the sun has the last opportunity to fill the air with vapor.

I see on the Walden road that the wind through the wall is cutting through the drifts, leaving a portion adhering to the stones. 

It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest. 

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. 

I saw Patrick Riordan carrying home an armful of fagots from the woods to his shanty, on his shoulder. How much more interesting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, or perchance to steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat must be sweet. 

It was something to hear that the women of Waltham used the Parmelia saxatilis ( ?) in dyeing. 

If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those  interested in botany are acquainted with Linnaeus. 

His "Philosophia Botanica," which Rousseau, Sprengel, and others praised so highly, — I doubt if it has ever been translated into English. It is simpler, more easy to understand, and more comprehensive, than any of the hundred manuals to which it has given birth. A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. 

According to Linnaeus's classification, I come under the head of the Miscellaneous Botanophilists, — " Botanophili sunt, qui varia de vegetabilibus tradiderunt, licet ea non proprie de scientiam Botanicam spectant," — either one of the Biologi (Panegyrica plerumque exclamarunt) or Poetae.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1852

The peculiarity of those western vistas. See January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. “); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. . . .Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.”); February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. See March 5, 1852 ("The minute apothecium of the pertusaria, which the woodchopper never detected, occupies so large a space in my eye at present”)

The morning and the evening literally make the whole day. See December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)

A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. See March 12, 1852 (“I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the “Philosophia Botanica,” with the names annexed , than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach .”)

I come under the head of the miscellaneous botanophilists:(“Lovers of botany are those who have handed down various things about plants although they look at these things not exclusively concerning the knowledge of botany." ) [On Feb 3 Thoreau had checked out Linnaeus' Philosophia botanica by Carl von Linnaeus from Harvard Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290).]

Born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time.

December 5. 

Clear, cold winter weather. What a contrast between this week and last, when I talked of setting out apple trees! 

December 5,  2020

P. M. — Walked over the Hill. 

The Indians have at length got a regular load of wood. It is odd to see a pile of good oak wood beside their thin cotton tents in the snow, the wood-pile which is to be burnt within is so much more substantial than the house. Yet they do not appear to mind the cold, though one side the tent is partly open, and all are flapping in the wind, and there is a sick child in one. The children play in the snow in front, as before more substantial houses. 

The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear, — wherever there is least current, as in broad places, or where there is least wind, as by the bridges. The ice trap was sprung last night. 

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. 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 — as it is ascending the trunk or branch of a walnut in a zigzag manner, hitching along, prying into the crevices of the bark; and now it has found a savory morsel, which it pauses to devour, then flits to a new bough. It is a chubby bird, white, slate-color, and black. 

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. 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. I can imagine that I see it shooting up like an aurora. This at 4 p. m. About the sun it is only whiter than elsewhere, or there is only the faintest possible tinge of yellow there. 

There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. 

The johnswort and the larger pinweed are conspicuous above the snow. Some fine straw-colored grasses, as delicate as the down on a young man's cheek, still rise above this crusted snow, and even a recess is melted around them, so gently has it been deposited. 

The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky. 

This morning I saw Riordan's cock thrust out the window on to the snow to seek his sustenance, and now, as I go by at night, he is waiting on the front door-step to be let in. 

My themes shall not be far-fetched. I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures. Friends ! Society! It seems to me that I have an abundance of it, there is so much that I rejoice and sympathize with, and men, too, that I never speak to but only know and think of. 

What you call bareness and poverty is to me simplicity. God could not be unkind to me if he should try. 

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold, for it compels the prisoner to try new fields and resources. 

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. I shall launch it again in the spring with so much more pleasure. This is an advantage in point of abstinence and moderation compared with the seaside boating, where the boat ever lies on the shore.  I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times. 

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. I find it invariably true, the poorer I am, the richer I am. What you consider my disadvantage, I consider my advantage. While you are pleased to get knowledge and culture in many ways, I am delighted to think that I am getting rid of them. 

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. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1856



The ice trap was sprung last night. See 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. ") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice.

I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating. See December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat."); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Boat in Boat out.

I love best to have each thing in its season only. See August 23, 1853 ("Live in each season as it passes."); 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.");  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."); 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").

A pair of nuthatches flit by toward a walnut. See 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.");   December 1, 1857  ("I  thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter, as if it did not breed here, but wintered here.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. A white moon, half full,  See January 1, 1852 ("Moon little more than half full. Not a cloud in the sky.") April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December  Moonlight

I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures. Compare October 18, 1856 ("Give me simple, cheap, and homely themes.")

I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold. See 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!”);  April 13, 1852 ("The imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts.”)

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. See Henry Thoreau, A Week (Wednesday) ("I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources."); 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 23, 1853 ("Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end"); February 19, 1854 ("Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world?”) Walden ("Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength."); September 9, 1854 ("The earth is the mother of all creatures."); 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.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

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

Pale blue winter sky

simple, perfectly cloudless –

a white moon half full.

To be born into

the most estimable place

in the nick of time.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Born into the most estimable place in the nick of time.

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/HDT561205