The river is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side.

February 1

As usual these broad fields of ice could not be left uncovered over the third day. It begins to spit a little snow at noon, just enough to show on the ice, the thickness of a blanket.

At 4 P.M., I find that the river rose last evening to within eight and a half inches of the rise of April 23d, 1852, and then began to fall. It has now fallen about four inches. 

Accordingly, the river falling all day, no water has burst out through the ice next the shore, and it is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side.

Apparently the thin recent ice of the night, which connects the main body with the shore, bends and breaks with the rising of the mass, especially in the morning, under the influence of the sun and wind, and the water establishes itself at a new level.

February 1, 2015

You are commonly repaid for a longer excursion than usual, and being outdoors all day, by seeing some rarer bird for the season, as yesterday a great hawk. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 1, 1855

Apparently the thin recent ice of the night, which connects the main body with the shore, bends and breaks with the rising of the mass. See January 1, 1857 ("I observe a shelf of ice . . .adhering to the walls and banks at various heights, the river having fallen nearly two feet since it first froze. . . .")

The river it is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side. See February 1, 1856 ("The river has been closed up from end to end, with the exception of one or two insignificant openings on a few days. No bare ice. "); February 7, 1854 ("The river has not been so concealed by snow before. The snow does not merely lie level on it so many inches deep, but great drifts, perchance beginning on the land, stretch quite across it, so that you cannot always tell where it is.")

A longer excursion than usual. . . yesterday a great hawk. See January 31,1855 ("An unprecedented expanse of ice. At 10 A. M., skated up the river to explore further than I had been. . . .
Returning, I see a large hawk flapping and sailing low over the meadow.")

The river is one

level white blanket of snow

quite to each shore now.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  One level white blanket of snow

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/hdt550102