February 12.
Wednesday.
A beautiful day, with but little snow or ice on the ground. Though the air is sharp, as the earth is half bare the hens have strayed to some distance from the barns. The hens, standing around their lord and pluming themselves and still fretting a little, strive to fetch the year about.
A thaw has nearly washed away the snow and raised the river and the brooks and flooded the meadows, covering the old ice, which is still fast to the bottom.
I find that it is an excellent walk for variety and novelty and wildness, to keep round the edge of the meadow, — the ice not being strong enough to bear and transparent as water, — on the bare ground or snow, just between the highest water mark and the present water line, — a narrow, meandering walk, rich in unexpected views and objects.
The earth is so bare that it makes an impression on me as if it were catching cold.
Along the channel of the river I see at a distance thin cakes of ice forced upon their edges and reflecting the sun like so many mirrors, whole fleets of shining sails, giving a very lively appearance to the river. The flakes of ice stand on their edges, like a fleet beating up-stream against the sun, a fleet of ice-boats.
Wednesday.
A beautiful day, with but little snow or ice on the ground. Though the air is sharp, as the earth is half bare the hens have strayed to some distance from the barns. The hens, standing around their lord and pluming themselves and still fretting a little, strive to fetch the year about.
A thaw has nearly washed away the snow and raised the river and the brooks and flooded the meadows, covering the old ice, which is still fast to the bottom.
I find that it is an excellent walk for variety and novelty and wildness, to keep round the edge of the meadow, — the ice not being strong enough to bear and transparent as water, — on the bare ground or snow, just between the highest water mark and the present water line, — a narrow, meandering walk, rich in unexpected views and objects.
The earth is so bare that it makes an impression on me as if it were catching cold.
Along the channel of the river I see at a distance thin cakes of ice forced upon their edges and reflecting the sun like so many mirrors, whole fleets of shining sails, giving a very lively appearance to the river. The flakes of ice stand on their edges, like a fleet beating up-stream against the sun, a fleet of ice-boats.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1851
I saw to-day something new to me as I walked along the edge of the meadow. Every half-mile or so along the channel of the river I saw at a distance where apparently the ice had been broken up while freezing by the pressure of other ice, — thin cakes of ice forced up on their edges and reflecting the sun like so many mirrors, whole fleets of shining sails, giving a very lively appearance to the river, — where for a dozen rods the flakes of ice stood on their edges, like a fleet beating up-stream against the sun, a fleet of ice-boats.
It is remarkable that the cracks in the ice on the meadows sometimes may be traced a dozen rods from the water through the snow in the neighboring fields.
It is only necessary that man should start a fence that Nature should carry it on and complete it.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 12
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
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