The snow has taken all the November out of the sky.

November 29. 

P. M. — To Hill.

About three inches of snow fell last evening, and a few cows on the hillside have wandered about in vain to come at the grass. They have at length found that place high on the south side where the snow is thinnest. 

How bright and light the day now! Methinks it is as good as half an hour added to the day. 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. The pine woods snowed up look more like the bare oak woods with their gray boughs. The river meadows show now far off a dull straw-color or pale brown amid the general white, where the coarse sedge rises above the snow; and distant oak woods are now more distinctly reddish. 

It is a clear and pleasant winter day. The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. Now blue shadows, green rivers, — both which I see, — and still winter life. I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top. 

I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1858 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. Compare November 25, 1853 ("The white houses of the village, also, are remarkably distinct and bare and brought very near."); June 12, 1852 ("Nature has put no large object on the face of New England so glaringly white as a white house."); June 24, 1852 ("I have not heard that white clouds, like white houses, made any one's eyes ache.")

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. See November 13, 1858 (“Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”); November 28, 1858 (“ Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change? ”)

I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks. See January 7, 1858 ("I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown . . .The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated.")

The snow has taken 

November out of the sky -- 

I see winter life. 

How silent are the footsteps of Spring!

March 30

March 30, 2016

P. M. — To Walden and Fair Haven. 

Still cold and blustering. I come out to see the sand and subsoil in the Deep Cut, as I would to see a spring flower, some redness in the cheek of Earth.

These cold days have made the ice of Walden dry and pretty hard again at top. It is just twenty-four inches thick in the middle, about eleven inches of snow ice. It has lost but a trifle on the surface. The inside is quite moist, the clear ice very crystalline and leaky, letting the water up from below, so as to hinder my cutting. It seems to be more porous and brittle than the snow ice. 

I go to Fair Haven via the Andromeda Swamps. The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. There is a little bare ground in and next to the swampy woods at the head of Well Meadow, where the springs and little black rills are flowing. I see already one blade, three or four inches long, of that purple or lake grass, lying flat on some water, between snow—clad banks, — the first leaf with a rich bloom on it. 

How silent are the footsteps of Spring! 

There, too, where there is a fraction of the meadow, two rods over, quite bare, under the bank, in this warm recess at the head of the meadow, though the rest of the meadow is covered with snow a foot or more in depth, I am surprised to see the skunk cabbage, with its great spear-heads open and ready to blossom (i. e. shed pollen in a day or two); and the Caltha palustris bud, which shows yellowish; and the golden saxifrage, green and abundant; also there are many fresh tender leaves of (apparently) the gold thread in open meadow there, all surrounded and hemmed in by snow, which has covered the ground since Christmas and stretches as far as you can see on every side; and there are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw. 

The spring advances in spite of snow and ice, and cold even. 

The ground under the snow has long since felt the influence of the spring sun, whose rays fall at a more favorable angle. The tufts or tussocks next the edge of the snow were crowned with dense phalanxes of stiff spears of the stiff triangularish sedge-grass, five inches high but quite yellow with a very slight greenness at the tip, showing that they pushed up through the snow, which melting, they had not yet acquired color. This is the greatest growth of any plant I have seen. I had not suspected any. 

I can just see a little greening on our bare and dry south bank. In warm recesses and clefts in meadows and rocks in the midst of ice and snow, nay, even under the snow, vegetation commences and steadily advances. 

I find Fair Haven Pond and the river lifted up a foot or more, the result of the long, steady thaw in the sun. The water of the pond and river has run over the meadows, mixing with and partly covering the snow, making it somewhat difficult to get into the river on the east side. On the east side of the pond, the ice next the shore is still frozen to the bottom under water by one edge, while the other slants upward to meet the main body of the ice of the pond. This sort of canal on one or both sides of the river is from a rod to three or four rods wide. This is the most decided step toward breaking up as yet.

But the pond and river are very solid yet. I walk over the pond and down on the middle of the river to the bridge, without seeing an opening. 

See probably a hen-hawk (?) (black tips to wings), sailing low over the low cliff next the river, looking probably for birds. [May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.] 

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. I think that even the hen-hawk is here in winter only as the robin is. 

For twenty-five rods the Corner road is impassable to horses, because of their slumping in the old snow; and a new path has been dug, which a fence shuts off the old. Thus they have served the roads on all sides the town.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1856

See probably a hen hawk (?) ... may have been a marsh hawk or harrier. See March 27, 1855 (“See . . . [the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male.] Slate-colored; . . . black tips to wings and white rump.”); March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks (?), white on rump... think I saw a hen-hawk”);  March 6, 1858 ("I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter."); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks[hen-hawks], as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters. . . . An easily recognized figure anywhere.”); March 23, 1859 (“. . .we saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk. Note What HDT calls the "marsh hawk/hen harrier" is the northern harrier.   The “hen-hawk” is the red-tailed  hawk. ~ zphx

The south hillsides no sooner begin to be bare, and the striped squirrels and birds resort there, than the hawks come from southward to prey on them. See March 30, 1853 ("Hawks are hunting now. You have not to sit long on the Cliffs before you see one.") 

The snow is a foot and more in depth there still. See February 19, 1856 (" seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level."); March 26, 1857 ("Men will hardly believe me when I tell them of the thickness of snow and ice at this time last year.")

Man comes out of his

winter quarters this month as

lean as a woodchuck.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  How silent are the footsteps of Spring!

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 © 2009-2025

*****

Rob and Eldred cut down trees at both views it really has improved things, the view spectacular but it is a sad day for the trees there is of course a jumble at the base. We survey the upper view around sunset. And somehow in the dark coming to the Moss Trail up the trail we go and then made a trail at the top of it I thought towards our land but when we left the marked area we walked and walked and talked and said she frankly didn't know where we were I got out the compass and we were headed east we found the main  Kendall trail and presently she said I think we should cut through here we come out somewhat south of where we usually do to ascend what I call the Saddletrail and go to sit at the view again. 20160330 Zphx

Truly a memorable 10th of March.

March 10

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). 

March 10, 2019

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 sportsman 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.")

A bluebird would look as much out of place now as the 10th of January. See March 9, 1856 ("The aspect of the earth is that of the middle of January in a severe winter. Yet this is about the date that bluebirds arrive commonly."); Compare March 10, 1852 ("I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together."); March 10, 1853 ("The warble of the first bluebird from that scraggy apple orchard yonder. When this is heard, then has spring arrived."); March 10, 1859 ("I hear the warble of my first Concord bluebird, borne to me from the hill through the still morning air, and, looking up, I see him plainly, though so far away, a dark speck in the top of a walnut.")

The snow of the 28th is driving like steam over the fields, drifting into the roads.

January 30

8 A. M. -- It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot.  Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything.

As I walked above the old stone bridge on the 27th, I saw where the river had recently been open under the wooded bank on the west side; and recent sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory, and also the ends of saplings and limbs of trees which had been bent down by the ice, were frozen in. In some places some water stood above the ice, and as I stood there, I saw and heard it gurgle up through a crevice and spread over the ice. This was the influence of Loring’s Brook, far above.

P. M. -- Measure to see what difference there is in the depth of the snow . . .

. . .  The Andromeda calyculata is now quite covered, and I walk on the crust over an almost uninterrupted plain there; only a few blueberries and last, I break through. It is so light beneath that the crust breaks there in great cakes under my feet, and immediately falls about a foot, making a great hole, so that once pushing my way through — for regularly stepping is out of the question in the weak places —makes a pretty good path. 

By the railroad against Walden I hear the lisping of a chickadee, and see it on a sumach. It repeatedly hops to a bunch of berries, takes one, and, hopping to a more horizontal twig, places it under one foot and hammers at it with its bill. The snow is strewn with the berries under its foot, but I can see no shells of the fruit. Perhaps it clears off the crimson only. Some of the bunches are very large and quite upright there still. 

Again, I suspect that on meadows the snow is not so deep and has a firmer crust. In an ordinary storm the depth of the snow will be affected by a wood twenty or more rods distant, or as far as the wood is a fence.

There is a strong wind this afternoon from northwest, and the snow of the 28th is driving like steam over the fields, drifting into the roads. On the railroad causeway it lies in perfectly straight and regular ridges a few feet apart, northwest and southeast. It is dry and scaly, like coarse bran. Now that there is so much snow, it slopes up to the tops of the walls on both sides. 

What a difference between life in the city and in the country at present, — between walking in Washington Street, threading your way between countless sledges and travellers, over the discolored snow, and crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 30, 1856

It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot. Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything. See December 14, 1859 (" . . . Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it.")
 
sawdust and shavings from the pail-factory. . . .   See “Pail-stuff"

By the railroad against Walden I hear the lisping of a chickadee, and see it on a sumach. See Janaury 30, 1854("As we walk up the river, a little flock of chickadees flies to us from a wood-side fifteen rods off, and utters their lively day day day,.) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter 

What a solemn silence reigns here! See January 21, 1853 ("The silence rings; it is musical and thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible."); August 11, 1853 ("What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection  . . . The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence."); August 2, 1854 ("As I go up the hill, surrounded by its shadow, while the sun is setting, I am soothed by the delicious stillness of the evening . . . It is the first silence I have heard for a month")

January 30.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 30

Crossing Walden Pond –

spotless snow, blue shadows and

a solemn silence.

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 ©  2009-2023

I am in raptures at my own shadow

January 18

P. M. —To Walden to learn the temperature of the water. 

The snow is so deep at present in the streets that it is very difficult turning out, and there are cradle-holes between this and the post-office. The sidewalks being blotted out, the street, like a woodman’s path, looks like a hundred miles up country. 

I see where children have for some days come to school across the fields on the crust from Abiel Wheeler’s to the railroad crossing. I see their tracks in the slight snow upon the crust which fell the 14th. They save a great distance and enjoy the novelty.

January 18, 2026

This is a very mild, melting winter day, but clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden. The snow lies very level there, about ten inches deep, and for the most part bears me as I go across with my hatchet. 

I think I never saw a more elysian blue than my shadow. I am turned into a tall blue Persian from my cap to my boots, such as no mortal dye can produce, with an amethystine hatchet in my hand. 

I am in raptures at my own shadow. What if the substance were of as ethereal a nature? Our very shadows are no longer black, but a celestial blue.

This has nothing to do with cold, methinks, but the sun must not be too low. 

I clear a little space in the snow, which is nine to ten inches deep over the deepest part of the pond, and cut through the ice, which is about seven inches thick, only the first four inches, perhaps, snow ice, the other three clear. The moment I reach the water, it gushes up and overflows the ice, driving me out this yard in the snow, where it stood at last two and a half inches deep above the ice. 

The thermometer indicates 331/2° at top and 342/3° when drawn up rapidly from thirty feet beneath. So, apparently, it is not much warmer beneath. 

Observe some of those little hard galls on the high blueberry, peeked or eaten into by some bird (or possibly mouse), for the little white grubs which lie curled up in them. 

What entomologists the birds are! Most men do not suspect that there are grubs in them, and how secure the latter seem under these thick dry shells! Yet there is no secret but it is confided to some one.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 18, 1856

To Walden to learn the temperature of the water. See January 11, 1856 ("The temperature of the body of Walden may perhaps range from 85° . . . down to 32°")

This is a very mild, melting winter day, but clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden. I think I never saw a more elysian blue than my shadow. See December 31, 1854 ("The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue.’); February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow.”);  January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. "); January 30, 1856 ("Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects.") Also see note to January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)

What entomologists the birds are! Compare January 16, 1860 ("[T]here is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird.") See also January 24, 1859 ("This ice is a good field for an entomologist.")

January 18.  See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 18

Our very shadows

are no longer black but a

celestial blue.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  I am in raptures at my own shadow

 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-560118

Walking without gloves

January 15

A fine, clear winter day. 

P. M. —To Hemlocks on the crust, slumping in every now and then. 

A bright day, not cold. I can comfortably walk without gloves, yet my shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. 

I cross the river on the crust with some hesitation. The snow appears considerably deeper than the 12th, maybe four or five inches deeper, and the river is indicated by a mere depression in it.

In the street not only fences but trees are obviously shortened, as by a flood. You are sensible that you are walking at a level a foot or more above the usual one. 

Seeing the tracks where a leaf had blown along and then tacked and finally doubled and returned on its trail, I think it must be the tracks of some creature new to me. 

I find under the hemlocks, in and upon the snow, apparently brought down by the storm, an abundance of those little dead hemlock twigs described on the 13th. They are remarkably slender, and without stiffness like the fir (and I think spruce) twigs, and this gives the hemlock its peculiar grace. These are not yet curved much, and perhaps they got that form from being placed in the nest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1856

A bright day, not cold. I can comfortably walk without gloves. See  January 25, 1855 ("It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . . You dispense with gloves.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Walking without Gloves

My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. See February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow. It suggests that there may be some thing divine, something celestial, in me.”); January 18, 1856 ("I am in raptures at my own shadow.")   Also see note to January 6, 1856 ("The blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)

Seeing the tracks where a leaf had blown along and then tacked and finally doubled and returned on its trail, I think it must be the tracks of some creature new to me. See January 7, 1857 ("Some might not suspect the cause of these fine and delicate traces, for the cause is no longer obvious.”)

January 15. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 15

A bright day, not cold.

Celestial blue shadow,

walking without gloves.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Walking without gloves.

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-560115

I am come forth to observe the drifts.

January 6


High wind and howling and driving snowstorm all night, now much drifted. There is a great drift in the front entry and at the crack of every door and on the window-sills. Great drifts on the south of walls.

Clears up at noon, when no vehicle had passed the house. 

Frank Morton has brought home, and I opened, that pickerel of the 4th. It is frozen solid. Yellow spawn as big as a pin-head, with smaller between, enwraps its insides the whole length, half an inch thick. It must spawn very early then. I find in its gullet, or paunch, or maw (the long white bag), three young perch, one of them six inches long, and the tail of a fourth. Its belly was considerably puffed out. 

Two of the perch lay parallel, side by side, of course head downward, in its gullet(?). The upper and largest perch was so high that he was cut in two in the middle in cutting off the head. And yet it was caught in endeavoring to swallow another large minnow! 

This is what you may call voracity. 

P. M. -— To Drifting Cut. 

The snow is now probably more than a foot deep on a level. 

While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings. What a pity our yard was made so tidy in the fall with rake and fire, and we have now no tall crop of weeds rising above this snow to invite these birds! 

I am come forth to observe the drifts. They are, as usual, on the south side of the walls and fences and, judging from the direction of their ridges, the wind was due north. 

Behind Monroe’s tight board fence it is a regularly swelled, unbroken bank, but behind the wall this side carved into countless scallops, perforations, scrolls, and copings. 


An open wall is, then, the best place for a drift. Yet these are not remarkably rich. The snow was perhaps too dry. Perhaps six more inches on a level has fallen, or more. It has not lodged on the trees.

Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks. 

On the north side of the Cut, above the crossing, the jutting edges of the drift are quite handsome upon the bank. The snow is raised twelve feet above the track, and it is all scalloped with projecting eaves or copings, like turtle-shells. 

They project from three to five feet, and I can stand under them. They are in three or four great layers, one lapping over another like the coarse edge of a shell. Looking along it, they appear somewhat thus : —

Often this coping has broken by its own weight, and great blocks have fallen down the bank, like smoothed blocks of white marble.

The exquisite purity of the snow and the gracefulness of its curves are remarkable. 

Bobcat
January 6, 2016

Around some houses there is not a single track. Neither man, woman, nor child, dog nor cat nor fowl, has stirred out to-day. There has been no meeting. Yet this afternoon, since the storm, it has not been very bad travelling.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 6, 1856

High wind and howling and driving snowstorm all night, now much drifted . . . Great drifts on the south of walls. See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north");  December 15, 1859 ("The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, . . .was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones.");  January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals, . . . thin and partly transparent . . ., perfect little wheels with six spokes.”); January 7, 1856 ("The whole surface of the snow on fields and river is composed now of flat, rough little drifts, like the surface of some rough slaty rocks."); February 8, 1856 ("For two or three weeks, successive light and dry snows have fallen on the old crust and been drifting about on it, leaving it at last three quarters bare and forming drifts against the fences, etc., or here and there low, slaty, fractured ones in mid-field, or pure white hard-packed ones. These drifts on the crust are commonly quite low and flat.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

Hurried rippling notes of . . . of snow buntings coming to alight . . . a sound almost as if made with their wings. See  January 6, 1859 ("sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring."); See also January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion.");January 21, 1857  ("Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter,") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Bunting (Emberiza nivalis) 

Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks. See January 4, 1856 ("I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow.") See alsoo  February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue rather than black."): December 31, 1854 ("A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue."); February 10, 1855 ("I go across Walden. My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow."); January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold."); January 18, 1856 ("Clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden . . . I am in raptures at my own shadow . . . Our very shadows are no longer black, but a celestial blue. This has nothing to do with cold, methinks, but the sun must not be too low."); January 30, 1856 ("Crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!"); March 10, 1856 ("The blue shadows on snow are as fine as ever."); March 30, 1856 ("There are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw.")

January 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 6

High wind and howling

and driving snowstorm all night,

now much drifted.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  I am come forth to observe the drifts.

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-560106

Blue shadows on the snow.

January 4

A clear, cold day. 

P. M. — To Walden to examine the ice. 

I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow. I see a little of it to-day. 

December 29th there were eight or ten acres of Walden still open. That evening it began to snow and snowed all night, and the remainder of the pond was frozen on that and the succeeding night. 

But on January 1st I was surprised to find all the visible ice snow ice, when I expected that only the eight or ten acres would be; but it appeared that the weight of the snow had sunk the ice already formed and then partly dissolved in the water, which rose above it and partly was frozen with it. The whole ice January 1st was about six inches thick, and I should have supposed that over the greater part of the pond there would be a clear ice about two inches thick on the lower side, yet, where I cut through near the shore, I distinguished two kinds of ice, the upper two and a half inches thick and evidently snow ice, the lower about four inches thick and clearer, yet not remarkably clear. 

Some fishermen had, apparently by accident, left two of their lines there, which were frozen in. I could see their tracks leading from hole to hole, where they had run about day before yesterday, or before the snow, and their dog with them. And the snow was stained with tobacco-juice. They had had lines set in two or three distant coves. 

They had, apparently, taken no fish, for they had cut no well to put them in. I cut out the lines, the ice being about an inch thick around them, and pulled up a fine yellow pickerel which would weigh two pounds or more. At first I thought there was none, for he was tired of struggling, but soon I felt him. The hook had caught in the out side of his jaws, and the minnow hung entire by his side. It was very cold, and he struggled but a short time, not being able to bend and quirk his tail; in a few minutes became quite stiff as he lay on the snowy ice. The water in his eyes was frozen, so that he looked as if he had been dead a week. 

About fifteen minutes after, thinking of what I had heard about fishes coming to life again after being frozen, on being put into water, I thought I would try it. This one was to appearance as completely dead as if he had been frozen a week. I stood him up on his tail without bending it. I put him into the water again without removing the hook. The ice melted off, and its eyes looked bright again; and after a minute or two I was surprised by a sudden, convulsive quirk of the fish, and a minute or two later by another, and I saw that it would indeed revive, and drew it out again. 

Yet I do not believe that if it had been frozen solid through and through it would have revived, but only when it is superficially frozen. This reminded me of the pickerel which I caught here under similar circumstances for Peter Hutchinson, and thrust my mittened hands in after. When I put this pickerel in again after half an hour, it did not revive, but I held it there only three or four minutes, not long enough to melt the ice which encased it. 

Another man had passed since the last snow fell, and pulled up at least one of the lines. I knew it was to-day and not yesterday by the character of his track, for it was made since the stiff crust formed on this snow last night, a broad depression cracking the crust around; but yesterday it was comparatively soft and moist. 

It is snapping cold this night (10 P. M.). I see the frost on the windows sparkle as I go through the passageway with a light.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal,  January 4, 1856

Yet I do not believe that if it had been frozen solid through and through it would have revived. See March 20, 1857 ("When I began to tell him of my experiment on a frozen fish, [Agassiz] said that Pallas had shown that fishes were frozen and thawed again, but I affirmed the contrary, and then Agassiz agreed with me.")

I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow. See February 10, 1855 ("I go across Walden. My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow. ")and note to January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.")

I see the frost on the windows sparkle as I go through the passageway with a light. See December 28, 1859 ("In the morning the windows are like ground glass (covered with frost), and we cannot see out.");  February 5, 1855 ("It was quite cold last evening, and I saw the scuttle window reflecting the lamp from a myriad brilliant points when I went up to bed.")

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

Issa

I knew it was to-day and not yesterday by the character of his track, for it was made since the stiff crust formed on this snow last night, a broad depression cracking the crust around; but yesterday it was comparatively soft and moist. See  January 3, 1856 ("I see where a squirrel, gray or red, dug through the snow last night in search of acorns. I know it was last night, for it was while the last snow was falling, and the tracks are partly filled by it . . . I see where it sat in a young oak and ate an acorn, dropping the shells on the snow beneath, for there is no track to the shells, but only to the base of the oak.")

This snapping cold night

frost on windows sparkle as

I pass with a light.

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 © 2009-2025