Many of the roads about the town, closed by the snow for more than a month, are just beginning to be open.

February 7. 

Another warm day, the snow fast going off. 

I am surprised to see over Walden Pond, which is covered with puddles, that seething or shimmering in the air which is observed over the fields in a warm day in summer, close over the ice for several feet in height, notwithstanding that the sky is completely overcast. 

The thermometer was at 52° when I came out at 3 p.m. 

The water on the ice is for the most part several inches deep, and trees reflected in it appear as when seen through a mist or smoke, apparently owing to the color of the ice. 

It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my greatcoat and carry it on my arm. 

Now the hollows are full of those greenish pods. 

As I was coming through the woods from Walden to Hayden's, I heard a loud or tumultuous warbling or twittering of birds coming on in the air, much like a flock of red-wings in the spring, and even expected to see them at first, but when they came in sight and passed over my head I saw that they were probably redpolls. They fly rather slowly. 

Hayden the elder tells me that the quails have come to his yard every day for almost a month and are just as tame as chickens. They come about his wood-shed, he supposes to pick up the worms that have dropped out of the wood, and when it storms hard gather together in the corner of the shed. He walks within, say, three or four feet of them without disturbing them. They come out of the woods by the graveyard, and some times they go down toward the river. They will be about his yard the greater part of the day; were there yesterday, though it was so warm, but now probably they can get food enough elsewhere. They go just the same to Poland's, across the road. 

About ten years ago there was a bevy of fifteen that used to come from the same woods, and one day, they being in the barn and scared by the cat, four ran into the hay and died there. The former do not go to the houses further from the woods. 

Thus it seems in severe winters the quails venture out of the woods and join the poultry of the farmer's yard, if it be near the edge of the wood. It is remarkable that this bird, which thus half domesticates itself, should not be found wholly domesticated before this. 

Several men I have talked with froze their ears a fortnight ago yesterday, the cold Friday; one who had never frozen his ears before. 

Many of the roads about the town, which for long distances have been completely closed by the snow for more than a month, are just beginning to be open. The sleighs, etc., which have all this time gone round through the fields, are now trying to make their way through in some places. I do not know when they have been so much obstructed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 7, 1857

It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my greatcoat and carry it on my arm. See February 16, 1856 ("The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts; the cocks crow more than usual in barns; my greatcoat is an incumbrance."); March 20, 1855 ("It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.")

Froze their ears a fortnight ago yesterday, the cold Friday [of 1857] . . . See January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording, . . . Ink froze. Had to break the ice in my pail with a hammer.. . .I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day."); see also February 7, 1855 ("The coldest night for a long, long time. People dreaded to go to bed.. . .The cold has stopped the clock.  . . .The old folks still refer to the Cold Friday,. . . But they say this is as cold as that was.")

According to Historic Storms of New England 180 "January 19, 1810, is the date of the famous day known in the annals of New England as "Cold Friday." It was said to have been the severest day experienced here from the first settlement of the country to that time.” See also New England Historical Society, The Cold Friday of 1810 ("What made the Cold Friday so lethal was the sudden, steep drop in temperature that caught people unaware")

In severe winters the quails venture out of the woods and join the poultry of the farmer's yard, if it be near the edge of the wood. See January 17, 1856 ("Henry Shattuck tells me that the quails come almost every day and get some saba beans within two or three rods of his house . . .Probably the deep snow drives them to it. ");  February 6, 1857 ("One who has seen them tells me that a covey of thirteen quails daily visits Hayden's yard and barn, where he feeds them and can almost put his hands on them.")