Measuring snow at every ten paces for two hundred paces.

December 30.

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. 

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday in Abiel Wheeler's wood by the railroad, near the pond. In going a quarter of a mile it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches. Then went to Potter's wood, by Lincoln road, near Lincoln line, and paced straight through a level wood where there was no drift perceptible, measuring at every ten paces for two hundred paces, and the average was twenty and one half inches. 

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels, probably gray ones, leading straight to or from the feet of the largest pines and oaks, which they had plainly ascended.

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake, though not commonly classed with those that hibernate. The summer circulations are to some extent stopped; the range of his afternoon walk is somewhat narrower; he is more or less confined to the highway and wood-path; the weather oftener shuts him up in his burrow; he begins to feel the access of dormancy and to assume the spherical form of the marmot; the nights are longest; he is often satisfied if he only gets out to the post-office in the course of the day.  Most men do not now extend their walks beyond the village street. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1853

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open. See December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”) See also December 30, 1855 ("There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined.”),December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.”); January 1, 1856 (“Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath.  . . . A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.”)See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.. See December 30, 1855 ("The snow which began last night has continued to fall very silently but steadily, and now it is not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet"): December 30, 1859 ("I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, - the deepest snow yet.”); and note to January 16, 1856 ("With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction to the traveller; he easily steps over them. Often they are buried. I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now.")

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels See December 30, 1855 ("The track of a squirrel on the Island Neck. Tracks are altered by the depth of the snow . . .The snow is too deep and soft yet for many tracks. No doubt the mice have been out beneath it.") See also December 22, 1852 ("The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow . . . You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature."): ); December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice"); December 27, 1857 ("Mice have been abroad in the night. We are almost ready to believe that they have been shut up in the earth all the rest of the year because we have not seen their tracks."); December 31, 1853 ("This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer."); January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. . . that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen"); January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! "); January 7, 1858 ("I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown. . . .The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated.")

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake.See January 14, 1852 ("We are related to all nature, animate and inanimate, and accordingly we share to some extent the nature of the dormant creatures. We all feel somewhat confined by the winter. The nights are longer, and we sleep more.")