A distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from the ice, half an hour before sunset.

January 23.

January 23, 2019

The freshet is now frozen over, but not thick enough to bear without cracking, and that peculiar whitish ice like bread or mortar that has run over is seen four to six feet in width all along the shore and about trees, posts, rocks, etc. It is produced by the water, probably, still rising after the freezing in the night and flowing back over the ice in a semiliquid state, or like soft solder, —a rough or wrinkled or rippled dirty white surface, often stained with the bank, yellowish or brown. 

There is a cold northwest wind, and I notice that the snow-fleas which were so abundant on this water yesterday have hopped to some lee, i. e., are collected like powder under the southeast side of posts or trees or sticks or ridges in the ice. You are surprised to see that they manage to get out of the wind. On the southeast side of every such barrier along the shore there is a dark line or heap of them. 

I see one of those glow-worm like creatures frozen in, sticking up perpendicular, half above the ice.

Going over the Hosmer pasture this side Clamshell southwestward, I thought I saw much gossamer on the grass, but was surprised to find that it was the light reflected from the withered grass stems which had been bent or broken by the snow (now melted). It looked just like gossamer even within ten [?] feet,— most would have taken it for that, — also these fine gleaming lines (like those of the alders and birch twigs, etc.) were very distinctly parts of an arc of a large circle,— the lower side of it,—as you looked toward the sun, the light being necessarily so reflected. This is a remarkable instance of the November, or rather winter, light reflected from twigs and stubble. The grass stood just like an abundant gossamer. 

The earth being generally bare, I notice on the ice where it slopes up eastward a little, a distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from it generally, half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1859

I see one of those glow-worm like creatures frozen in. See January 22, 1859 ("It is about half an inch long by one eleventh of an inch wide, dusky reddish brown above, lighter beneath, with a small black flattish head and about four short antennae, six legs under the forward part of the body, which last consists of twelve ring-like segments. There is one row of minute light-colored dots down the middle of the back,")

A remarkable instance of the winter light reflected from twigs and stubble. See January 4, 1858 ("It is surprising how much sunny light a little straw that survives the winter will reflect. ")

Distinct rosy light (or pink) half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it. See January 10, 1859  ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun. "); January 19, 1859 ("I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun, but very little on the hills. Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening."). Compare January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last  pond a beautiful delicate rose-color"); January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice"); February 23, 1855 ("See at Walden . . .ice formed over the large square where ice has been taken out for Brown’s ice-house has a decided pink or rosaceous tinge."); March 4, 1855 ("Returning by the Andromeda Ponds, I am surprised to see the red ice visible still . . .It is melted down to the red bubbles, and I can tinge my finger with it there by rubbing it in the rotted ice.");