A fine, springlike morning.

9.30 A. M. — To Hill. 

A remarkably fine, springlike morning. 

The earth all bare; the sun so bright and warm; the steam curling up from every fence and roof, and carried off at an angle by the slight northwesterly air.

After those rainy days the air is apparently uncommonly clear, and hence (?) the sound of cock-crowing is so sweet, and I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows.

There is a little ice, which makes it as yet good walking, in the roads. 

The peculiar brightness and sunniness may be partly owing to the sun being reflected through the cleansed air from the more than russet, the bleached, surface of the earth. 

Methinks every squirrel will be out now. 

This is the morning. Ere long the wind will rise and this season will be over. There will probably be some wrack in the afternoon sky. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1855

After those rainy days the air is apparently uncommonly clear, and I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows. See March 15, 1854 ("The sound of Barrett's sawmill in the still morning comes over the water very loud.");April 15, 1856 ("I hear very distinctly Barrett’s sawmill at my landing."); May 8, 1857 ("I hear the sound of Barrett's sawmill with singular distinctness."); February 16, 1855 (" Sounds sweet and musical through this air, as crows, cocks, and striking on the rails at a distance.”) January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls.”); See also December 31, 1853 (“I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road. . . . He that hath ears, let him hear. Sugar is not so sweet to the palate, as sound to the healthy ear.”);