Truly a memorable 10th of March.

March 10.

March 10, 2019

Thermometer at 7 A. M. 6° below zero. Dr. Bartlett’s, between 6.30 and 7 A. M., was at -13°; Smith’s at -13° or -14°, at 6 A. M. 

P. M. —Up river to Hubbard Bridge. 

Thermometer +9° at 3.30 P. M. (the same when I return at five). 

The snow hard and dry, squeaking under the feet; excellent sleighing. A biting northwest wind compels to cover the ears. It is one of the hardest days of the year to bear. Truly a memorable 10th of March. 

There is no opening yet in the main stream at Prichard’s, Hubbard Bath, or the Clamshell, or probably anywhere but at Merrick’s, and that a dozen rods long by ten feet; and it is tight and strong under the bridges.

A bluebird would look as much out of place now as the 10th of January. I suspect that in speaking of the springing of plants in previous years I have been inclined to make them start too early generally. 

The ice on ponds is as solid as ever. There has been no softening of it. Now is a good time to begin to cut; only its great thickness would hinder you.  The blue shadows on snow are as fine as ever. 

It is hard to believe the records of previous years. I have not seen a tree sparrow, methinks, since January. Probably the woods have been so generally buried by the snow this winter that they have migrated further south. There has not been one in the yard the past winter, nor a redpoll. I saw perhaps one redpoll in the town; that is all. 

The pinched crows are feeding in the road to-day in front of the house and alighting on the elms, and blue jays also, as in the middle of the hardest winter, for such is this weather. The blue jays hop about in yards. 

The past has been a winter of such unmitigated severity that I have not chanced to notice a snow-flea, which are so common in thawing days. 

I go over the fields now in any direction, sinking but an inch or two to the old solid snow of the winter. In the road you are on a level with the fences, and often considerably higher, and sometimes, where it is a level causeway in summer, you climb up and coast down great swells of hard-frozen snow, much higher than the fences. I may say that I have not had to climb a fence this winter, but have stepped over them on the snow. 

Think of the art of printing, what miracles it has accomplished! Covered the very waste paper which flutters under our feet like leaves and is almost as cheap, a stuff now commonly put to the most trivial uses, with thought and poetry! The woodchopper reads the wisdom of ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it. When we ask for a scrap of paper for the most trivial use, it may have the confessions of Augustine or the sonnets of Shakespeare, and we not observe it. The student kindles his fire, the editor packs his trunk, the sports man loads his gun, the traveller wraps his dinner, the Irishman papers his shanty, the schoolboy peppers the plastering, the belle pins up her hair, with the printed thoughts of men. Surely he who can see so large a portion of earth’s surface thus darkened with the record of human thought and experience, and feel no desire to learn to read it, is without curiosity. He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born. 

Still there is little or no chopping, for it will not pay to shovel the snow away from the trees; unless they are quite large, and then you must work standing in it two feet deep. There is an eddy about the large trees be side, which produces a hollow in the snow about them, but it lies close up to the small ones on every side. 

10 P. M.—Thermometer at zero. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 10, 1856

It is one of the hardest days of the year to bear. Truly a memorable 10th of March. . . a winter of such unmitigated severity . . .10 P. M.—Thermometer at zero. Compare March 10, 1853 ("This is the first really spring day. . . . Something analogous to the thawing of the ice seems to have taken place in the air. At the end of winter there is a season in which are are daily expecting spring, and finally a day when it arrives.”); March 10, 1859 ("These earliest spring days are peculiarly pleasant. . . .The combination of this delicious air, which you do not want to be warmer or softer, with the presence of ice and snow, you sitting on the bare russet portions, the south hillsides, of the earth, this is the charm of these days. It is the summer beginning to show itself like an old friend in the midst of winter.")