Another thaw

January 28

Sunday.

Grew warmer toward night and snowed; but this soon turned to heavy rain in the night, which washed all the snow off the ice, leaving only bare ground and ice the county over by next morning.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 28, 1855

Follow a fox track to its den under a rock – sat here many times.

January 27

Yesterday’s driving easterly snow-storm turned to sleet in the evening, and then to rain, and this morning it is clear and pretty cold, the wind westerly, the snow settled to three or four inches on a level, with a frozen crust and some water beneath in many places.  The crust bears where the snow is very shallow, but lets you through to water in many places on the meadow.

January 27, 2025

I come upon a fox’s track under the north end of the Cliffs and follow it. It was made last night, after the sleet and probably the rain was over, before it froze; it must have been at midnight or after. The tracks are commonly ten or twelve inches apart and each one and three quarters or two inches wide. Some times there is a longer interval and two feet fell nearer together, as if in a canter. Their tracks are larger than you would expect, as large as those of a much heavier dog, I should think.

 It doubles directly on its track in one place for a rod or two, then goes up the north end of the Cliff where it is low and went along southward just on its edge, ascending gradually. In one place it made water like a dog, and I perceive the peculiar rank fox odor without stooping. 

It did not wind round the prominent rocks, but leaped upon them as if to reconnoitre. Its route was for the most part a little below the edge of the Cliff, occasionally surmounting it. At length, after going perhaps half a mile, it turned as if to descend a dozen rods beyond the juniper, and suddenly came to end.

Looking closely I find the entrance (apparently) to its hole, under a prominent rock which seems to lie loose on the top of the ledge and about two feet from the nearest track. By stooping it had probably squeezed under this and passed into its den beneath. I can find no track leading from it. 

What a life is theirs, venturing forth only at night for their prey, ranging a great distance, trusting to pick up a sleeping partridge or a hare, and at home again before morning! With what relish they must relate their midnight adventures to one another there in their dens by day, if they have society! I had never associated that rock with a fox’s den, though perhaps I had sat on it many a time.

I come upon the track of a woodchopper, who had gone to his work early this morning across Fair Haven Pond. It suggested his hard work and little pecuniary gain, but simple life and health and contentment. As I take the back track on his trail, comparing his foot and stride with mine, I am startled to detect a slight aberration, as it were sliding in his tread, or as if he had occasionally stopped and made a fresh impress not exactly coincident with the first. 

In short, I discover ere long that he had a companion; per chance they were two thieves trying to pass for one, thought I; but the truth was the second, to save his strength in this long walk to his work through the crusty snow, had stepped with more or less precision in the tracks of his predecessor. The snow is three or four inches deep. 

I afterwards use the track of a horse in like manner to my advantage; so that my successor might have thought that a sleigh had gone along drawn by a man.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1855

Yesterday’s driving easterly snow-storm turned to sleet in the evening, and then to rain, and this morning it is clear and pretty cold, the wind westerly, the snow settled to three or four inches on a level, with a frozen crust . See December 14, 1859( "Snow-storms might be classified. .. . there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain.")

I come upon a fox’s track under the north end of the Cliffs and follow it. See February 5, 1854 ("I followed on this trail so long that my thoughts grew foxy; though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

January 27.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 27

Follow a fox track

to its den under a rock –

sat here many times.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Follow a fox track

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-550127

Now while the snow is yet falling

January 26

January 26, 2019

This morning it snows again,—a fine dry snow with no wind to speak of, giving a wintry aspect to the landscape.   

I see where a partridge has waddled through the snow still falling, making a continuous track. I look in the direction to which it points, and see the bird just skimming over the bushes fifteen rods off.

What changes in the aspect of the earth! one day russet hills, and muddy ice, and yellow and greenish pools in the fields; the next all painted white, the fields and woods and roofs laid on thick. 

The wintriest scene, —which perhaps can only be seen in perfection while the snow is yet falling, before wind and thaw begin.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 26, 1855

A fine dry snow with no wind to speak of.  See January 26, 1853 (A slight, fine snow has fallen in the night and drifted before the wind.") Compare 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."); January 19, 1857 ("A snow-storm with very high wind all last night and to-day. . . A fine dry snow, intolerable to face"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

I see where a partridge has waddled through the snow. See January 22, 1856 ("The tracks of the partridges . . . look like broad chains extending straight far over the snow."); January 22, 1860 ("I scare a partridge that was eating the buds and ends of twigs of the Vaccinium vacillans on a hillside.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

What changes in the aspect of the earth!. See  November 13, 1858 ("Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”); November 28, 1858 ("In half an hour the russet earth is painted white even to the horizon. Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change?")

The wintriest scene

while the snow is yet falling –

before wind and thaw.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now while the snow is yet falling

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550126

The mystery of rose-colored ice

January 25

January 25, 2015

This morning is a perfect hunter’s morn, for it snowed about three quarters of an inch last evening, covering land and ice. 

(Is not good skating a sign of snow?) 

I  see the tracks apparently of many hunters that hastened out this morning.

It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm. The warmth and stillness in the hollows about the Andromeda Ponds are charming. You dispense with gloves.

I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice. It is covered with snow. I push it away with my hands and feet. 

At first I detect no rose tint, and suspect it may have disappeared, —faded or bleached out,—or it was a dream. At length I detect a faint tinge; I cut down a young white oak and sweep bare a larger space; I then cut out a cake.

The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope, as if it had dried on. Little balloons, with some old paint almost sealed off their spheres. It has no beauty nor brightness thus seen, no more than brick-dust.

And this it is which gave the ice so delicate a tinge, seen through that inch of clear white ice. What is it? Can it be blood?

For a week or two the days have been sensibly longer, and it is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1855

This morning is a perfect hunter’s morn. See January 16, 1853 ("It was a hunter's day. All tracks were fresh, the snow deep and light.")

Good skating  See February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating.") See also 
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

Stillness in the hollows about the Andromeda Ponds. See January 24, 1855 ("Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me."); February 13, 1859 ("The wonderful stillness of a winter day . . .It is the sabbath of the year, stillness audible")

It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . . You dispense with gloves. See January 25, 1852 ("It is glorious to be abroad this afternoon . . . The warmth of the sun reminds me of summer."); January 25, 1853 ("There is something springlike in this afternoon "); January 25, 1858 ("A warm, moist day. Thermometer at 6.30 P.M. at 49°.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the new warmth of the sun and Walking without Gloves

Rose-colored ice. See January 24, 1855 ("I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. It reminded me of red snow, and may be the same. It extended several inches into the ice, at least, and had been spread by the flowing water recently. It was this delicate rose tint, with internal bluish tinges."); 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."); March 7, 1855 ("The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle."). See also See January 22, 1860 ("At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow.")

It is quite light now when the five-o’clock train comes in. See January 25, 1853 ( The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees.") See also January 20, 1852 ("The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was.");  January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

January 25. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 25

Clear and bright, yet warm.

 It is a rare winter day –

you dispense with gloves.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The mystery of rose-colored ice

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-550125

The Andromeda Ponds – This beautiful blushing ice!

January 24

Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me. They are filled with a dense bed of the small andromeda, a dull red mass as commonly seen, brighter or translucent red looking toward the sun, grayish looking from it, two feet or more high, as thick as a moss bed, springing out of a still denser bed of sphagnum beneath.

Above the general level rise in clumps here and there the panicled andromeda, with brown clustered fruit, and the high blueberry. But I observe that the andromeda does not quite fill the pond, but there is an open wet place, with coarse grass, swamp loosestrife, and some button-bush, about a rod wide, surrounding the whole.

Dr. Harris spoke of this andromeda as a rare plant in Cambridge. There was one pond-hole where he had found it, but he believed they had destroyed it now getting out the mud. What can be expected of a town where this is a rare plant?

Here is Nature’s parlor; here you can talk with her in the lingua vernacula, if you can speak it,—if you have anything to say, —her little back sitting-room, her withdrawing, her keeping room.

January 24, 2022

I was surprised to find the ice in the middle of the last pond a beautiful delicate rose-color for two or three rods, deeper in spots. It reminded me of red snow, and may be the same. It extended several inches into the ice, at least, and had been spread by the flowing water recently. 

It was this delicate rose tint, with internal bluish tinges like mother-o’-pearl or the inside of a conch. It was quite conspicuous fifteen rods off, and the color of spring-cranberry juice. This beautiful blushing ice! What are we coming to?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1855

Those Andromeda Ponds are very attractive spots to me. A dull red mass as commonly seen, brighter or translucent red looking toward the sun, grayish looking from it. See April 19 1852 ("That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly."); January 10,1855 ("As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish.”); November 24, 1857 ("Looking toward the sun, the andromeda in front of me is a very warm red brown and on either side of me, a pale silvery brown; looking from the sun, a uniform pale brown. . . .These andromeda swamps charmed me more than twenty years sgo, — I knew not why") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

 Rose-color ice. See January 22, 1860 ("At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow.");   January 25, 1855 ("I have come with basket and hatchet to get a specimen of the rose-colored ice . . . The redness is all about an inch below the surface, the little bubbles in the ice there for half an inch vertically being coated interruptedly within or without with what looks like a minute red dust when seen through a microscope.");  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."); March 7, 1855 ("The redness in the ice appears mostly to have evaporated, so that, melted, it does not color the water in a bottle."); December 21, 1855 ("Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days . . . I see, close under the high bank on the east side, a distinct tinge of that red in the ice for a rod.")

Surprised to find ice

a delicate rose-color

like cranberry juice.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, This beautiful blushing ice! 

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-550124

The internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew

January 23

January 23, 2015

It is surprising how much work will be accomplished in such a night as the last, so many a brook will have run itself out and now be found reduced within reasonable bounds. This settling away of the water leaves much crackling white ice in the roads.

The river is higher than ever, especially the North River. I am obliged after crossing Hunt’s Bridge to keep on round to the railroad bridge at Loring’s before I can recross, it being over the road with a roar like a mill dam this side the further stone bridge, and I could not get over dry. 

I do not quite like to see so much bare ground in midwinter. 

The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse, seen in green circles on the water-washed plowed grounds, remind me of the internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1855

I do not quite like to see so much bare ground in midwinter. See January 23, 1858 ("The ground has been bare since the 11th . . .The sun, and cockcrowing, bare ground, etc., etc., remind me of March."); January 23, 1859 ("The earth being generally bare ")

The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse . . . anon to burst forth anew. See January 7, 1855 ("The delicious soft, spring-suggesting air, how it fills my veins with life ! . . . On the slopes the ground is laid bare and radical leaves revealed, crowfoot, shepherd's-purse, clover, etc., a fresh green, and, in the meadow, the skunk-cabbage buds, with a bluish bloom, and the red leaves of the meadow saxifrage; and these and the many withered plants laid bare remind me of spring."); April 25, 1855 ("Shepherd's - purse will bloom to-day, the first I have noticed which has sprung from the ground this season, or of an age.")

The internal heat and life of the globe. See January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); See also January 25, 1853 ("In winter, after middle, we are interested in what is springlike. The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees."). and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring and The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

January 23.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 23 

The internal heat 

and life of the globe, anon 

to burst forth anew.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The internal heat and life of the globe

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-550123

What a tumult at the stone bridge,

January 22.

Heavy rain in the night and half of today, with very high wind from the southward, washing off the snow and filling the road with water. The roads are well-nigh impassable to foot-travellers.  In some places for fifteen rods the whole road is like a lake from three to fifteen inches deep.

It is very exciting to see where was so lately only ice and snow, dark wavy lakes, dashing in furious torrents through the commonly dry channels under the causeways, to hear only the rush and roar of waters and look down on mad billows where in summer is commonly only dry pebbles. 

Great cakes of ice lodged and sometimes tilted up against the causeway bridges, over which the water pours as over a dam.  

What a tumult at the stone bridge, where cakes of ice a rod in diameter and a foot thick are carried round and round by the eddy in circles eight or ten rods in diameter, and rarely get a chance to go down-stream, while others are seen coming up edgewise from below in the midst of the torrent!

The muskrats driven out of their holes by the water are exceedingly numerous, yet many of their cabins are above water on the south branch. Here there are none. 

We saw fifteen or twenty, at least, between Derby's Bridge and the Tarbell Spring, either swimming with surprising swiftness up or down or across the stream to avoid us, or sitting at the water's edge, or resting on the edge of the ice (one refreshed himself there after its cold swim regardless of us, probed its fur with its nose and scratched its ear like a dog ) or on some alder bough just on the surface. 

They frequently swam toward an apple tree in the midst of the water in the vain hope of finding a resting-place and refuge there. I saw one, looking quite a reddish brown, busily feeding on some plant just at the water's edge, thrusting his head under for it. 

But I hear the sound of Goodwin's gun upstream and see his bag stuffed out with their dead bodies. 

The radical leaves of the yellow thistle are now very fresh and conspicuous in Tarbell's meadow, the rain having suddenly carried off the snow. 

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, January 22, 1855

The muskrats driven out of their holes by the water are exceedingly numerous . . . I hear the sound of Goodwin's gun upstream and see his bag stuffed out with their dead bodies. See January 22, 1859 ("Many are out in boats, steering outside the ice of the river over the newly flooded meadows, shooting musquash."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash