in Thoreau’s Journal:

Clear cold winter weather—what a contrast between this week & last when I talked of setting out apple trees! 

My themes shall not be far fetched—I will tell of homely everyday phenomena & adventures— Friends—! society—!  It seems to me that I have an abundance of it— there is so much that I rejoice & sympathize with—& men too that I never speak to but only know & think of.  What you call bareness & poverty—is to me simplicity: God could not be unkind to me if he should try. I love the winter with its imprisonment & its cold—for it compels the prisoner to try new fields & resources—

I love to have the river closed up for a season & 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 sea-side 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.