Rose-colored ice

February 23. 

Clear, but a very cold north wind. 

I see great cakes of ice, a rod or more in length and one foot thick, lying high and dry on the bare ground in the low fields some ten feet or more beyond the edge of the thinner ice, washed up by the last rise (the 18th).

See at Walden this afternoon that the grayish ice formed over the large square where ice has been taken out for Brown’s ice-house has a decided pink or rosaceous tinge. 

I see no cracks in the ground this year yet. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 23, 1855

Ice formed over the large square where ice has been taken out for Brown’s ice-house has a decided pink or rosaceous tinge.  See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. It reminded me of red snow, and may be the same. It extended several inches into the ice, at least, and had been spread by the flowing water recently. It was this delicate rose tint, with internal bluish tinges ...") Also January 27, 1854 (" Cut this afternoon a cake of ice out of Walden and brought it home in a pail, another from the river, and got a third, a piece of last year's ice from Sam Barrett's Pond, at Brown's ice-house, and placed them side by side . . .”)

I see no cracks in the ground this year yet. See  February 7, 1855 (“The ground cracked in the night as if a powder-mill had blown up, ”); February 26, 1855 ("I see some cracks in a plowed field”);  December 19, 1856 (“In Amherst, I had been awaked by the loud cracking of the 'ground, which shook the house like the explosion of a powder-mill. In the morning there was to be seen a long crack across the road in front.”); December 23, 1856 (“The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights”); January 11, 1859 (“The ground cracks on the advent of very severe cold weather. I had not heard it before, this winter. It was so when I went to Amherst a winter or two ago.”)