P. M. — Up Assabet.
Am surprised to see how the ice lasts on the river.
It but just begins to be open for a foot or two at Merrick’s, and you see the motion of the stream. It has overflowed the ice for many rods a few feet in width. It has been tight even there (and of course everywhere else on the main stream, and on North Branch except at Loring’s Brook and under stone bridge) since January 25th, and elsewhere on the main stream since January 7th, as it still is.
That is, we may say that the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.
On the 25th I saw a load of wood drawn by four horses up the middle of the river above Fair Haven Pond. On that day, the 25th, they were cutting the last of Baker’s the greater part of it last winter, and this was the wood they were hauling off.
I see many birch scales, freshly blown over the snow. They are falling all winter.
Found, in the snow in E. Hosmer’s meadow, a gray rabbit’s hind leg, freshly left there, perhaps by a fox.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1856
The river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks. See February 12, 1856 ("Forty three days of uninterrupted cold weather.”); March 2, 1856 ("The opening in the river at Merrick’s is now increased to ten feet in width in some places."); March 12, 1856 ("The last four cold days have closed the river again against Merrick’s."); March 14, 1856 ("I still travel everywhere on the middle of the river."); March 20, 1856 ("The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half."); March 22, 1856 ("I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch."); April 3, 1856 ("The river is now generally and rapidly breaking up . . . It is now generally open about the town"); Compare February 17, 1857 ("The river is fairly breaking up . . . It is as open as the 3d of April last year, at least."); February 27, 1852 ("The North Branch, is open near Tarbell's and Harrington's, where I walked to-day, and, flowing with full tide bordered with ice on either side, sparkles in the clear, cool air, This restless and now swollen stream has burst its icy fetters."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out
Birch scales, freshly blown over the snow . . . falling all winter. See December 30, 1855 (“For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales . . .The high wind is scattering them over the snow there.”); January 7, 1856 ("I see birch scales (bird-like) on the snow on the river more than twenty rods south of the nearest and only birch, and trace them north to it"); March 2, 1856 (" Surprised to see, on the snow over the river, a great many seeds and scales of birches, though the snow had so recently fallen, there had been but little wind, and it was already spring.. . . The birches appear not to have lost a quarter of their seeds yet . . . and when the river breaks up will be carried far away, to distant shores and meadows.") See also November 1, 1853 ("The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare.”); November 4, 1853 ("The fertile catkins of the yellow birch appear to be in the same state with those of the white, and their scales are also shaped like birds, but much larger"); November 4, 1860 ("The birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north."); December 4, 1854 ("Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow."); December 4 1856 ("I I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth, under the feet of all walkers, in Boxboro and Cambridge alike! and rarely an eye distinguishes it."); December 6, 1859 ("No sooner has the snow fallen than, in the woods, it is seen to be dotted almost everywhere with the fine seeds and scales of birches and alders, — no doubt an ever-accessible food to numerous birds and perhaps mice."); December 18, 1852 ("Very cold, windy day. The crust of the slight snow covered in some woods with the scales (bird-shaped) of the birch, and their seeds."); January 7, 1853 ("Still the snow is strewn with the seeds of the birch, the small winged seeds or samarae and the larger scales or bracts shaped like a bird in flight . . .They cover the snow like coarse bran."); January 7, 1854 ("The bird-shaped scales of the white birch are blown more than twenty rods from the trees.")
February 27. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 27
See many birch scales
freshly blown over the snow –
falling all winter.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birch scales – falling all winter
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 © 2009-2026
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560227
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