The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear.

March 28

P. M. —— To Cliffs, along river. 

It is colder than yesterday; wind strong from northwest. The mountains are still covered with snow. They have not once been bare. 

I go looking for meadow mice nests, but the ground is frozen so hard, except in the meadow below the banks, that I cannot come at them. 

That portion of the meadow next the upland, which is now thawed, has already many earth worms in it. I can dig a quantity of them,—I suspect more than in summer. Moles might already get their living there. 

A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. It at first glance reminds me of a bright freckled leaf, skunk-cabbage scape, perhaps. They are generally quite still at this season, or only slowly put their heads out (of their shells). 

I see where a skunk (apparently) has been probing the sod, though it is thawed but a few inches, and all around this spot frozen hard still. I dig up there a frozen and dead white grub, the large potato grub; this I think he was after. The skunk’s nose has made small round holes such as a stick or cane would make. 

The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow. 

I run about these cold and blustering days, on the whole perhaps the worst to bear in the year, — partly because they disappoint expectation, — looking almost in vain for some animal or vegetable life stirring. The warmest springs hardly allow me the glimpse of a frog’s heel as he settles himself in the mud, and I think I am lucky if I see one winter-defying hawk or a hardy duck or two at a distance on the water. 

As for the singing of birds, — the few that have come to us, — it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear. 

We still walk on frozen ground, though in the garden I can thrust a spade in about six inches. 

Over a great many acres, the meadows have been cut up into great squares and other figures by the ice of February, as if ready to be removed, sometimes separated by narrow and deep channels like muskrat paths, but oftener the edges have been raised and apparently stretched and, settling, have not fallen into their places exactly but lodged on their neighbors. Even yet you see cakes of ice surmounted by a shell of meadow-crust, which has preserved it, while all around is bare meadow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1855

Colder . . . wind strong from northwest. The mountains are still covered with snow. See March 11, 1854 ("The distant mountains are all white with snow while our landscape is nearly bare");  March 20, 1853 ("The mountains are white with snow, and sure as the wind is northwest it is wintry.");April 4, 1859 ("When I look with my glass, I see the cold and sheeny snow still glazing the mountains. This it is which makes  the wind so piercing cold."); . April 12, 1855 ("The mountains are again thickly clad with snow, and, the wind being northwest, this coldness is accounted for") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

I go looking for meadow mice nests. See   March 15, 1855 ("Mr. Rice tells me that  . . . he heard a squeaking and found that he was digging near the nest of what he called a " field mouse," – by his description probably the meadow mouse. It was made of grass, etc., and, while he stood over it, the mother, not regarding him, came and carried off the young, one by one. . . and finally she took the nest itself."); March 22, 1855 ("A (probably meadow) mouse nest in the low meadow by stone bridge."); April 7, 1855 ("A mouse-nest of grass, in Stow's meadow east of railroad, on the surface . . . I think is the nest of the meadow mouse.") [Thoreau's meadow mouse or "short-tailed meadow mouse" (Arvicola hirsuta) s now known as Microtus pennsylvanicus, meadow Vole.] See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

 A yellow-spotted tortoise in a still ditch, which has a little ice also. See March 26, 1860 ("The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55, — thirty-three days. "); February 23, 1857 (“See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood.”); March 10, 1853 ("I find a yellow-spotted tortoise (Emys guttata) in the brook.”); March 18, 1854 (" C. has already seen a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch.”); March 23, 1858 ("See something stirring amid the dead leaves in the water at the bottom of a ditch, in two or three places, and presently see the back of a yellow-spotted turtle."); March 27, 1853 ("I see but one tortoise (Emys guttata) in Nut Meadow Brook now; the weather is too raw and gusty."); March 28, 1852 (" A yellow-spotted tortoise by the causeway side in the meadow near Hubbard's Bridge. "); March 28, 1857 ("The Emys guttata is found in brooks and ditches. I passed three to-day, lying cunningly quite motionless, with heads and feet drawn in, on the bank of a little grassy ditch, close to a stump, in the sun, on the russet flattened grass, . . .Do I ever see a yellow-spot turtle in the river? "); April 1, 1857 ("Up Assabet. See an Emys guttata sunning on the bank. I had forgotten whether I ever saw it in this river") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

I see where a skunk (apparently) has been probing the sod.  See February 24, 1857 ("I have seen the probings of skunks for a week or more.); February 25, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February."); March 30, 1855 ("Not till late could the skunk find a place where the ground was thawed on the surface.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; Skunks Active

The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow.  See March 29, 1855 ("Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river. ");  See also March 29, 1854 (" Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open."); March 30, 1852 ("From the Cliffs I see that Fair Haven Pond is open over the channel of the river . . . I never knew before exactly where the channel was."); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year or not till April 13 as in '56.")

As for the singing of birds, — the few that have come to us, — it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. See March 28, 1853 ("Too cold for the birds to sing much.")

The bluebird’s warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bluebird in Early Spring.