February 9.
Snowed harder in the night and blowed considerably. It is somewhat drifted this morning. A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level. It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse. It snows finely all day, making about twice as much as we have had on the ground before this winter.
Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter. I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds into the yard that I went to the window at ten to look for them, and there they were.
I notice that the snow-drifts on the windows, as you see the light through them, are stratified, showing undulating, equidistant strata, alternately dark and light. The snow is so light and dry that it rises like spray or foam before the legs of the horses. They dash it before them upward like water. It is a handsome sight, a span of horses at a little distance dashing through it, like suds around their legs.
Why do birds come into the yards in storms almost alone? Are they driven out of the fields and woods for their subsistence? Or is it that all places are wild to them in the storm?
It is very dark in cellars, the windows being covered with snow.
P. M. —— Up river to Hubbard’s Swamp and Wood. The river and meadow are concealed under a foot of snow. I cannot tell when I am on it. It would be dangerous for a stranger to travel across the country now.
The snow is so dry that but little lodges on the trees. Though I go through drifts up to my middle, it falls off at once and does not adhere to and damp my clothes at all. It must be very hard for our small wild animals to get along while the snow is so light. Not only the legs but the whole body of some sinks in it and leaves its trail. I see very few tracks to-day.
All over this swamp I find that the ice, upheld by the trees and shrubs, stands some two feet above the ground, the water having entirely run out beneath, and as I go along the path, not seeing any ice in snow a foot deep, it suddenly sinks with a crash for a rod around me, snow and all, and, stooping, I look through a dry cellar from one to two feet deep, in some places pretty dark, extending over the greater part of the swamp, with a perfectly level ceiling composed of ice one to two inches thick, surmounted by a foot of snow, and from the under side of the ice there depends from four to six inches a dense mass of crystals, so that it is a most sparkling grotto.
You could have crawled round under the ice and snow all over the swamp quite dry, and I saw where the rabbits, etc., had entered there. Those crystals were very handsome, and tinkled when touched like bits of tin. I saw a similar phenomenon February 4th, on a smaller scale.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1855
A very fine and dry snow . . . See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face, almost as much so as sand."); January 19, 1857 ("A fine dry snow, intolerable to face.")
It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse. See January 1, 1854 ("The snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl "); December 30, 1855 ("A dry, light, powdery snow. . .The pump has a regular conical Persian cap.")
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 9
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
No comments:
Post a Comment