The oak leaves collect in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden.

February 4. 

P. M. —To Walden.

I go to walk at 3 P. M., thermometer 18°. It has been about this (and 22°) at this hour for a week or two.

All the light snow, some five inches above the crust, is adrift these days and driving over the fields like steam, or like the foam-streaks on a flooded meadow, from northwest to southeast. The surface of the fields is rough, like a lake agitated by the wind.

I see that the partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries, e. g. at my old house. They come to them after every snow, making fresh tracks, and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. 

At Tanager Glade I see where the rabbits have gnawed the bark of the shrub oaks extensively, and the twigs, down to the size of a goose-quill, cutting them off as smoothly as a knife. They have also gnawed some young white oaks, black cherry, and apple. The shrub oaks look like hedges which have been trimmed or clipped. 

I have often wondered how red cedars could have sprung up in some pastures which I knew to be miles distant from the nearest fruit-bearing cedar, but it now occurs to me that these and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds. 

The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. 

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

It now occurs to me that these [red cedar] and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds. See January 22, 1856 (“After long study with a microscope, I discover that they [crow droppings] consist of the seeds and skins and other indigestible parts of red cedar berries and some barberries . . . from the cedar woods and barberry bushes by Flint’s Pond. “) See also October 16, 1860(Looking from a hilltop, I observe that pines, white birches, red maples, alders, etc., often grow in more or less regular rounded or oval or conical patches, while oaks, chestnuts, hickories, etc., simply form woods of greater or less extent, whether by themselves or mixed, and do not naturally spring up in an oval form. This is a consequence of the different manner in which trees which have winged seeds and those which have not are planted, - the former being blown together in one direction by the wind, the latter being dispersed irregularly by animals.); September 1, 1860: ("See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it."); September 18, 1859 (How little observed are the fruits which we do not use! How few attend to the ripening and dispersion of the pine seed!);August 9, 1851(The OEnothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds?); February 25, 1851 ( the crust of the meadow afloat,. . . Here is another agent employed in the distribution of plants.)

The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them.. . .The greater part that have fallen are deposited in clear and crispy heaps in particular places. They are beds which invite the traveller to repose on them, even in this wintry weather.") and note to December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc. They are not equally diffused, but collected together here and there as if for the sake of society. ")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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

A Book of the Seasons: February 3.

February 3.

The landscape covered with snow

 seen by moonlight from these Cliffs

        gleaming in the moon 

        and of spotless white. 

Who can believe this is the habitable globe?

The landscape covered with snow --

 is this the habitable globe? 

    The scenery  is arctic, 

    A glacier crept southward.

Who can think his summer thoughts now?

February 3, 1852

The landscape covered

with snow two feet thick seen by

moonlight from these Cliffs.

February 3, 1855

Gleaming in the moon 

the spotless white scenery 

is wholly arctic.

February 3, 1852

See if a man can

think his summer thoughts in this

arctic scenery . 

February 3, 1852

Floundering through snow

up to my middle, my owl

sounds hoo hoo, ho-O.  

February 3, 1852

The skater sails midst

a moving world of snow-steam

as high as his knees.

February 3, 1855

Only a tinge of 

red along the horizon –

sunset without cloud.

February 3, 1852

February 3, 2018

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 © 2009-2021

It is a cold and windy Sunday.

February 3.

Analyzed the crow blackbird’s nest from which I took an egg last summer, eight or ten feet up a white maple by river, opposite Island. Large, of an irregular form, appearing as if wedged in between a twig and two large contiguous trunks. From outside to outside it measures from six to eight inches; inside, four; depth, two; height, six. The foundation is a loose mass of coarse strips of grape-vine bark chiefly, some eighteen inches long by five eighths of an inch mikania stems, a few cellular river weeds, as rushes, sparganium, pipe-grass, and some soft, coarse, fibrous roots. The same coarse grape-vine bark and grass and weed stems, together with some harder, wiry stems, form the sides and rim, the bark being passed around the twig. The nest is lined with the finer grass and weed stems, etc. The solid part of the nest is of half-decayed vegetable matter and mud, full of fine fibrous roots and wound internally with grass stems, etc., and some grape bark, being an inch and a half thick at bottom. Pulled apart and lying loose, it makes a great mass of material. This, like similar nests, is now a great haunt for spiders. 

P. M. — Up North Branch. A strong northwest wind (and thermometer 11°), driving the surface snow like steam. About five inches of soft snow now on ice.

See many seeds of the hemlock on the snow still, and cones which have freshly rolled down the bank.

Track some mice to a black willow by riverside, just above spring, against the open swamp; and about three feet high, in apparently an old woodpecker’s hole, was probably the mouse-nest, a double handful, consisting, four ninths, of fine shreds of inner bark, perhaps willow or maple; three ninths, the greenish moss, apparently, of button-bush; two ninths, the gray-slate fur, apparently, of rabbits or mice. Half a dozen hog’s bristles might have been brought by some bird to its nest there. These made a very warm and soft nest. 

Get some kind of vireo’s nest from a maple far up the stream, a dozen feet high, pensile; within, almost wholly rather coarse grape-vine shreds; without, the same and bark, covered with the delicate white spider-nests (?), birch-bark shreds, and brown cocoon silk. 

Returning, see near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree, from which at the same instant a small bird, perhaps a. creeper or nuthatch, flitted timidly away. The shrike was apparently in pursuit. 

We go wading through snows now up the bleak river, in the face of the cutting northwest wind and driving snow-steam, turning now this ear, then that, to the wind, and our gloved hands in our bosoms or pockets. Our tracks are obliterated before we come back. 

How different this from sailing or paddling up the stream here in July, or poling amid the rocks! Yet still, in one square rod, where they have got out ice and a thin transparent-ice has formed, I can see the pebbly bottom the same as in summer. 

It is a cold and windy Sunday. 

The wind whistles round the northwest corner of the house and penetrates every crevice and consumes the wood in the stoves, — soon blows it all away. An armful goes but little way. Such a day makes a great hole in the wood-pile. It whisks round the corner of the house, in at a crevice, and flirts off with all the heat before we have begun to feel it. 

Some of the low drifts but a few inches deep, made by the surface snow blowing, over the river especially, are of a fine, pure snow, so densely packed that our feet make hardly any impression on them. 

River still tight at Merrick’s. 

There comes a deep snow in midwinter, covering up the ordinary food of many birds and quadrupeds, but anon a high wind scatters the seeds of pines and hemlocks and birch and alder, etc., far and wide over the surface of the snow for them. 

You may now observe plainly the habit of the rabbits to run in paths about the swamps. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 3, 1856

See many seeds of the hemlock on the snow still, and cones which have freshly rolled down the bank. See January 14, 1857 ("Up Assabet on ice. . . . Hemlock seeds are scattered over the snow.");January 20, 1860 ("The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels."); January 24, 1856 (" A great many hemlock cones have fallen on the snow and rolled down the hill."); January 31, 1856 ("More hemlock cones also have fallen and rolled down the bank. ').

There comes a deep snow in midwinter, covering up the ordinary food of many birds and quadrupeds, but anon a high wind scatters the seeds of pines and hemlocks and birch and alder, etc., far and wide over the surface of the snow for them.  See January 20,1860 ("What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them! No sooner has fresh snow fallen and covered up the old crop than down comes a new supply all the more distinct on the spotless snow. The snowy ice and the snow on shore have been blackened with these fallen cones several times over this winter.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 3

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

A Book of the Seasons: February 2.

February 2.

Walk as usual 

on the fresh track of a fox

in very thin snow.

February 2, 1860

tinyurl.com/hdt18600202

kindling a fire on

the pond by the island –

see the fox himself.

February 2, 1860

The fox seems to get

his living by industry

and perseverance.

February 2, 1860

Fresh track of a fox 

peculiarly pointed

in very thin snow. 

February 2, 1860

The scream of the jay

wholly without sentiment

a true winter sound.

February 2, 1854

February 2

This crossroad of light
in the gulfstream of winter
near the shores of spring.

February 2, 1854
tinyurl.com/hdt18540204

 In the meanwhile 

we hear the distant note 

of a hooting owl.

February 2, 1855

February 2, 2016

I feel in the dark

the vital presence of all

the woodland creatures.

February 2, 2014

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 © 2009-2016

An old-fashioned winter continues.

February 2

February 2, 2016

Snows again last night, perhaps an inch, erasing the old tracks and giving us a blank page again, restoring the purity of nature. 

It may be even a trifle deeper now than hitherto.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 2, 1856

Erasing old tracks and giving us a blank page. See January 31, 1856 ("These fresh falls of snow are like turning over a new leaf of Nature’s Album.")

Snows again last night

erasing old tracks gives us 

a blank page again.

A Book of the Seasons: February 1.

February 1

The river is one

level white blanket of snow

quite to each shore now.

February 1, 1855

I see a pitch pine

seed blown thirty rods from J.

Hosmer’s little grove.

February 1, 1856

Old-fashioned winter

memorable snow and cold

summer forgotten

February 1, 1856

Blue jays chickadees

common in the village –

more than usual.

February 1, 1856

A snow bunting flock

and that black and white effect

when they fly past you

February 1, 1857

The shaking surface

composed in part of sphagnum

is really floating.

February 1, 1858

An ice-belt adheres

to the steep shores – thick ice bent

under its own weight.

February 1. 1859

Only five degrees.

A cold day. Colder toward night.

Frost forms on windows.

February 1, 1860

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

“An old-fashioned winter.”

February 1 

P. M. — Up river. 

What gives to the excrements of the fox that clay color often, even at this season? Left on an eminence. 

I scent a fox’s trail this afternoon (and have done so several times before), where he crossed the river, just three rods distant. Looked sharp, and discover where it had stopped by a prominence. Yet he could not have passed since last night, or twelve hours before, it being near the village. How widely they range these nights! 

The snow is somewhat banked toward the sides of the river, but shows darker-yellowish or icy in the middle. 

Lichens, blown from the black willows, lie here and there on the snow. 

Nut Meadow Brook open for some distance in the meadow. I am affected by the sight of some green polygonum leaves there. Some kind of minnow darts off. 

I see where a crow has walked along its side. In one place it hopped, and its feet were side by side, as in the track of yesterday, though a little more spread, the toes. I have but little doubt that yesterday’s track was a crow’s. The two inner toes are near together; the middle, more or less curved often. 

I see a gray rabbit amid the young oaks in Hubbard’s riverside grove, curled and shrunk up, squatting on the snow. I advance and begin to sketch it, when it plunges into a little hole in the snow by its side, the entrance to its burrow, three inches wide by a little more in length. The track of its foot is about one inch wide. 

I see a pitch pine seed, blown thirty rods from J. Hosmer’s little grove. 

This has been a memorable January for snow and cold. 

It has. been excellent sleighing ever since the 26th of December, — not less than a foot at any time since January 6th on a level in open fields, in swamps much more. Cars have been detained; the wood-lots for the most part inaccessible. The river has been closed up from end to end, with the exception of one or two insignificant openings on a few days. No bare ice. 

The crows have been remarkably bold, coming to eat the scraps cast out behind the houses. They alight in our yard. 

I think I have not noticed a tree sparrow during the month. Blue jays and chickadees also common in the village, more than usual. 

We have completely forgotten the summer. There has been no January thaw, though one prophesied it a fortnight ago because he saw snow-fleas. 

The ponds are yielding a good crop of ice. The eaves have scarcely run at all. 

It has been what is called “an old-fashioned winter.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 1, 1856

I scent a fox’s trail this afternoon (and have done so several times before) . . . See February 24, 1854 ("The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk.")

The snow is somewhat banked toward the sides of the river, but shows darker-yellowish or icy in the middle. Compare February 1, 1855 ("[The river] is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side.").

The crows have been remarkably bold, coming to eat the scraps cast out behind the houses. See January 7, 1856("The cold weather has brought the crows, and for the first time this winter I hear them cawing amid the houses.");January 14, 1856 ("The crows are flitting about the houses and alight upon the elms."): January 23, 1852 ("The snow is so deep and the cold so intense that the crows are compelled to be very bold in seeking their food, and come very near the houses in the village.").  Also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The American Crow

We have completely forgotten the summer. See February 3, 1852 ("The landscape covered with snow two feet thick, . . .The scenery is wholly arctic. See if a man can think his summer thoughts now.");
February 9, 1851 ("We have forgotten summer and autumn. Though the days are much longer, the cold sets in stronger than ever.");February 27, 1852 (" We have almost completely forgotten summer."); December 29, 1853 ("The thoughts and associations of summer and autumn are now as completely departed from our minds as the leaves are blown from the trees. ")

Old-fashioned winter

memorable snow and cold

summer forgotten

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, “An old-fashioned winter.” 

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