Commenced perambulating the town bounds.

September 15.

Monday.

Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.

September 15, 2017

Commenced perambulating the town bounds.

At 7. 30 A. M. rode in company with —— and Mr. —— to the bound between Acton and Concord near Paul Dudley's.

Mr. —— told a story of his wife walking in the fields somewhere, and, to keep the rain off, throwing her gown over her head and holding it in her mouth, and so being poisoned about her mouth from the skirts of her dress having come in contact with poisonous plants.

At Dudley's, which house is handsomely situated, with five large elms in front, we met the selectmen of Acton, —— and —— 

Here were five of us.  It appeared that we weighed,  —— I think about 160,  ——155,  ——about 140, ——  130, myself 127.

——  described the wall about or at Forest Hills Cemetery in Roxbury as being made of stones upon which they were careful to preserve the moss, so that it cannot be distinguished from a very old wall.

Found one intermediate bound-stone near the powder mill drying-house on the bank of the river.

The work men there wore shoes without iron tacks.

He said that the kernel-house was the most dangerous, the drying house next, the press-house next. One of the powder mill buildings in Concord? 

The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 15, 1851


Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost. See September 15, 1859 ("This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines."); September 15, 1851("The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost."); See also September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night,")

Found one intermediate bound-stone. See September 12, 1851 ("And the old selectmen tell me that, before the present split stones were set up in 1829, the bounds were marked by a heap of stones, and it was customary for each selectman to add a stone to the heap.")

He said that the kernel-house was the most dangerous. See January 7, 1853 ("The kernel-mill had blown up first, and killed three men who were in it, said to be turning a roller with a chisel. In three seconds after, one of the mixing-houses exploded.")

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

River and meadow concealed under a foot of snow.

February 9.

Snowed harder in the night and blowed considerably. 

It is somewhat drifted this morning. A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level. It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse.

It snows finely all day, making about twice as much as we have had on the ground before this winter.

February 9, 2025

Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter.   I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds into the yard that I went to the window at ten to look for them, and there they were.

I notice that the snow-drifts on the windows, as you see the light through them, are stratified, showing undulating, equidistant strata, alternately dark and light. 

The snow is so light and dry that it rises like spray or foam before the legs of the horses. They dash it before them upward like water. It is a handsome sight, a span of horses at a little distance dashing through it, like suds around their legs. 

Why do birds come into the yards in storms almost alone? Are they driven out of the fields and woods for their subsistence? Or is it that all places are wild to them in the storm? 

It is very dark in cellars, the windows being covered with snow.

P. M. — Up river to Hubbard’s Swamp and Wood.  The river and meadow are concealed under a foot of snow. I cannot tell when I am on it. It would be dangerous for a stranger to travel across the country now. 

The snow is so dry that but little lodges on the trees. Though I go through drifts up to my middle, it falls off at once and does not adhere to and damp my clothes at all.  

It must be very hard for our small wild animals to get along while the snow is so light. Not only the legs but the whole body of some sinks in it and leaves its trail. I see very few tracks to-day.

All over this swamp I find that the ice, upheld by the trees and shrubs, stands some two feet above the ground, the water having entirely run out beneath, and as I go along the path, not seeing any ice in snow a foot deep, it suddenly sinks with a crash for a rod around me, snow and all, and, stooping, I look through a dry cellar from one to two feet deep, in some places pretty dark, extending over the greater part of the swamp, with a perfectly level ceiling composed of ice one to two inches thick, surmounted by a foot of snow, and from the under side of the ice there depends from four to six inches a dense mass of crystals, so that it is a most sparkling grotto. 

You could have crawled round under the ice and snow all over the swamp quite dry, and I saw where the rabbits, etc., had entered there. Those crystals were very handsome, and tinkled when touched like bits of tin. I saw a similar phenomenon February 4th, on a smaller scale.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1855

A very fine and dry snow. See  December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face, almost as much so as sand."); January 19, 1857 ("A fine dry snow, intolerable to face.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse. See January 1, 1854 ("The snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl"); December 30, 1855 ("A dry, light, powdery snow . . .T he pump has a regular conical Persian cap.")

Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter.  See  December 28, 1853 (" I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow"); March 14, 1855 ("Winter back again in prospect, and I see a few sparrows, probably tree sparrows, in the yard"); December 25, 1855 ("Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground, and with it the first tree sparrows I have noticed in the yard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

February 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 9

Drifted this morning. 

A very fine and dry snow

 about a foot deep.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, River and meadow concealed under a foot of snow

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550209

Ice glistening in the sun.

March 29.

Coldest night. Pump freezes so as to require thawing. 

See two marsh hawks, white on rump. 

A gull of pure white, - a wave of foam in the air. How simple and wave-like its outline, two curves, - all wing - like a birch scale.

Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open. Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun. 

A hen-hawk, - two - circling over Cliffs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1854

A gull of pure white. See March 22, 1858 ("We see many gulls on the very opposite side of the meadow, near the woods. They look bright-white, like snow on the dark-blue water. It is surprising how far they can be seen, how much light they reflect, and how conspicuous they are.")

Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open. See March 29, 1855 ("Fair Haven Pond only just open over the channel of the river"). See also March 28, 1855 ("The river has not yet quite worn its way through Fair Haven Pond, but probably will to-morrow."); March 28, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond is open."); March 30, 1852 (" Fair Haven Pond is open over the channel of the river, . . .The slight current there has worn away the ice. I never knew before exactly where the channel was")

Thin cakes of ice at a distance now and then blown up on their edges glistening in the sun. See March 29, 1855 ("A field of ice nearly half as big as the pond has drifted against the eastern shore and crumbled up against it, forming a shining white wall of its fragments.”)

See two marsh hawks, white on rump. ... A hen-hawk, - two - circling over Cliffs. See March 29, 1858 ("Hearing a quivering note of alarm from some bird, I look up and see a male hen-harrier, the neatly built hawk, sweeping over the hill."); See also   March 15, 1860 ("These [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 27, 1855 (“See my frog hawk. . . .It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump.");  March 30, 1856 ("See probably a hen hawk (?) ... may have been a marsh hawk or harrier.")

What HDT calls the "marsh hawk/hen harrier" is the northern harrier. The “hen-hawk” is the red-tailed hawk. ~ zphx  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier).; The hen-hawk

March 29. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 29

A gull of pure white

outline simple and wave-like –

two curves in the air.

When the morning wind rises, how the leaves come down in showers.

October 15

October 15

Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise. And now, when the morning wind rises, how the leaves come down in showers after this touch of the frost! They suddenly form thick beds or carpets on the ground in this gentle air, — or without wind, — just the size and form of the tree above.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 15, 1853

Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise. See October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . .  Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen.”) See also September 15, 1851 ("Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.") October 1, 1860 (“Remarkable frost and ice this morning; quite a wintry prospect. The leaves of trees stiff and white at 7 A.M.”); October 16, 1856 (“Ground all white with frost.”)

How the leaves come down in showers . . . suddenly form thick beds or carpets on the ground just the size and form of the tree above. See October 15, 1856 ("Large fleets of maple and other leaves are floating on its surface as I go up the Assabet, leaves which apparently came down in a shower with yesterday morning's frost.”) See also October 14, 1857 ("On the causeway I pass by maples here and there which are bare and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant clothing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever, on one side on the ground, making nearly as regular a figure as lately on the tree. I should rather say that I first observed the trees thus flat on the ground like a permanent colored and substantial shadow, and they alone suggested to look for the trees that had borne them.")

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

Morning wind rises–

the leaves come down in showers

after this first frost . . .

suddenly they form

thick beds just the size and form

of the tree above.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, How the leaves come down in showers.

 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

tinyurl.com/HDT531015