Sheeny snow-crust to-day.

High winds last night and this morning. The house shakes, and the beds and tables rock. It clears off in the night, and this morning is clear and cold.

The high wind takes off the oak leaves. I see them scrambling up the slopes of the Deep Cut, hurry-scurry over the slippery snow-crust, like a flock of squirrels.

The ice on Walden is of a dull white as I look directly down on it, but not half a dozen rods distant on every side it is a light-blue color.

From Pine Hill, looking westward, I see the snowcrust shine in the sun as far as the eye can reach, – snow which fell but yesterday morning; then, before night, came the rain; then, in the night, the freezing northwest wind. 

Where day before yesterday was half the ground bare, is this sheeny snow-crust to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 29, 1852

To get the value of the storm.

February 28

To-day it snows again, covering the ground. 

To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, and we be as it were turned inside out to it, and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.

February 28, 2015

The snow finally turns to a drenching rain.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, February 28, 1852

To-day it snows again, covering the ground . . .The snow finally turns to a drenching rain. See February 26, 1854:

Morning snow turns to

fine freezing rain with a glaze

changing to pure rain.

We must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, and we become storm men. See March 31, 1852 ("I sometimes feel that I need to sit in a far-away cave through a three weeks' storm, cold and wet, to give a tone to my system."); April 19 1852 (" When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’);  August 31, 1852 ("It is worth the while to have had a cloudy, even a stormy, day for an excursion, if only that you are out at the clearing up."); December 25, 1856 ("Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”); January 27, 1858 (" The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life . . . more at home for being abroad, more comfortable for being wet.") ; March 8, 1859 ("If the weather is thick and stormy enough, if there is a good chance to be cold and wet and uncomfortable, in other words to feel weather-beaten, you may consume the afternoon to advantage thus browsing along the edge of some near wood which would scarcely detain you at all in fair weather, and you will be as far away there as at the end of your longest fair-weather walk, and come home as if from an adventure.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walking in the Rain and THE SNOW MAN BY WALLACE STEVENS:

 

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

February 28.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  February 28 

Snows again to-day

covering the ground then turns

to a drenching rain.

To get the value 

of the storm we must be out 

long and travel far.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  To get the value of the storm.

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/hdt18550228

Feb. 28. To - day it snows again , covering the ground . To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it , so that it may fairly penetrate our skin , and we be as it were turned inside out to it , and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten , so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men . Some men speak of having been wetted to the skin once as a memorable event in their lives, which, notwithstanding the croakers, they survived . The snow is finally turned to a drenching rain .

Shall not I too resume my spring life?

February 27

The mosses now are in fruit - or have sent up their filaments with calyptrae.

Half the ground is covered with snow. It is a moderately, cool and pleasant day near the end of winter. We have almost completely forgotten summer. This has truly been a month of crusted snow. Now the snow-patches, which partially melt one part of the day or week, freeze at another, so that the walker traverses them with tolerable ease.

Cross the river on ice. 

Near Tarbell's and Harrington's the North Branch has burst its icy fetters. This restless and now swollen stream, flowing with with ice on either side, sparkles in the clear, cool air. As I stand looking up it westward for half a mile where it winds slightly under a high bank, its surface is lit up with a fine-grained silvery sparkle.

If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope?

To-night a circle round the moon.


H. D Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1852

The mosses now are in fruit. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Mosses Bright Green 

This restless and now swollen stream, flowing with with ice on either side, sparkles in the clear, cool air. . . . shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope?  See January 28, 1853 ("The sun-sparkles where the river is open are very cheerful to behold."); March 20, 1853 ("The wind blows eastward over the opaque ice in vain till it slides on to the living water surface where it raises a myriad brilliant sparkles on the bare face of the pond, an expression of glee, of youth, of spring, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within it and of the sands on its shore.")

Bright and immortal

the unfettered stream sparkles

in the clear cool air.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shall not I too resume my spring life?

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-520227

Now we begin to see lichens.

February 26.

The east side of Deep Cut nearly dry; sand has ceased flowing; west side just beginning. 

Now we begin to see the Cladonia rangiferina ("reindeer moss") in the dry pastures.

Observe for the first time on and about Bear Hill in Lincoln the "greenish straw-colored" Parmelia conspersa, a very handsome and memorable lichen, which every child has admired. I love to find it where the rocks will split into their laminae so that I can easily carry away a specimen.

The low hills in the northeast beyond Bedford, seen from Bear Hill about 4.30 P. M., were remarkably dark blue, much more blue than the mountains in the northwest. The sky was in great part concealed by white clouds. Had this blue the same cause with the blue in the crevices of the snow? 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 26, 1852

Now we begin to see the Cladonia rangiferina.  See November 30, 1853 ("Now, first since spring, I take notice of the cladonia lichens, which the cool fall rains appear to have started."); December 7, 1853 ("I observe the beds of greenish cladonia lichens."); February 5, 1860 ("I see where crows have pecked the tufts of cladonia lichens which peep out of the snow."); March 12, 1859 (" It is a very barren, exhausted soil, where the cladonia lichens abound . . . the very visible green of the cladonias thirty rods off, and the rich brown fringes where the broken sod hung over the edge of the sand-bank . . . methinks these terrestrial lichens were never more fair and prominent. On some knolls these vivid and rampant lichens as it were dwarf the oaks."); March 14, 1857 ("Now each hill is a dry moss-bed, of various species of cladonia.");  June 25, 1852 ("The light, dry cladonia lichens on the brows of hills reflect the moonlight well, looking like rocks.")

The "greenish straw-colored" Parmelia conspersa, a very handsome and memorable lichen.  See January 26, 1852 ("The beauty of lichens, with their scalloped leaves, the small attractive fields, the crinkled edge! I could study a single piece of bark for hour."); February 6, 1852 ("Near the C. Miles house there are some remarkably yellow lichens (parmelias?) on the rails, – ever as if the sun were about to shine forth clearly . . . Found three or four parmelias caperata) in fruit on a white oak on the high river-bank between Tarbell's and Harrington’s"); March 18, 1852 ("There is more rain than snow now falling, and the lichens, especially the Parmelia conspersa, appear to be full of fresh fruit, though they are nearly buried in snow."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens and the lichenst .

Had this blue the same cause with the blue in the crevices of the snow? See January 9, 1852 ("The sky shut out by snow-clouds . . . I see little azures, little heavens, in the crannies and crevices . . . Apparently the snow absorbs the other rays and reflects the blue"); January 14, 1852 ("There is no blueness in the ruts and crevices in the snow to-day. What kind of atmosphere does this require? . . . It is one of the most interesting phenomena of the winter."); January 18, 1852 ("To-day, again, I see some of the blue in the crevices of the snow. Perhaps the snow in the air, as well as on the ground, takes up the white rays and reflects the blue."); January 26, 1852 ("To-day I see . . . a slight blueness in the chinks, it being cloudy and melting.")

The low hills in the northeast . . . were remarkably dark blue. Compare  January 16, 1860 ("The hills eight or ten miles west are white, but the mountains thirty miles off are blue, though both may be equally white at the same distance."); November 13, 1851("The mountains are of an uncommonly dark blue to-day. Perhaps this is owing . . . to the greater clearness of the atmosphere, which brings them nearer"); March 31, 1853 ("When the air is a little hazy, the mountains are particularly dark blue.'); August 25, 1853 ("Seen through this lower stratum, the mountain is a very dark blue."); September 27, 1853 ("From our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains.")

We begin to see 

the Cladonia lichen 

in the dry pastures.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now we begin to see lichens.

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

Railroad geology

November 3

November 3. 

A violent easterly storm in the night clears up at noon.

I notice that the surface of the railroad causeway, composed of gravel, is singularly marked, as if stratified like some slate rocks, on their edges, so that I can tell within a small fraction of a degree from what quarter the rain came. These lines, as it were of stratification, are perfectly parallel, and straight as a ruler, diagonally across the flat surface of the causeway for its whole length. 

Behind each little pebble, as a protecting boulder, an eighth or a tenth of an inch in diameter, extends northwest a ridge of sand an inch or more, which it has protected from being washed away, while the heavy drops driven almost horizontally have washed out a furrow on each side, and on all sides are these ridges, half an inch apart and perfectly parallel.

All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye, and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most.*

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, November 3, 1861

*[This is the final entry; Thoreau dies May 6, 1862.]

The surface of the railroad causeway. . .is singularly marked, as if stratified . . . so that I can tell . . . from what quarter the rain came. See December 31 1850 ("In the cut by the Pond the . . . the stratum deposited by the side of the road in the winter can permanently be distinguished from the summer one . . ..")

Unnoticed by most. See March 27, 1853 ("so minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it."); August 19, 1856 (“a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all.”)

I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven.

May 18, 2018

In all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven. I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever.  It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. Fair Haven Lake in the south, with its pine-covered island and its meadows, the hickories putting out fresh young yellowish leaves, and the oaks light-grayish ones, while the oven-bird thrums his sawyer-like strain, and the chewink rustles through the dry leaves or repeats his jingle on a tree-top, and the wood thrush, the genius of the wood, whistles for the first time his clear and thrilling strain, – it sounds as it did the first time I heard it. The sight of these budding woods intoxicates me.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1850

See November 21, 1850 ("I see Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over it. I do not see how it could be improved. Yet I do not see what these things can be."); April 14, 1852 ("The different parts of Fair Haven Pond -- the pond . . . the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all, looking for his prey . . . So perfectly calm and beautiful, and yet no man looking at it this morning but myself.");  May 17, 1853 ("I sit now on a rock on the west slope of Fair Haven orchard, an hour before sunset, this warm, almost sultry evening, the air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms . . . the sun partly concealed behind a low cloud in the west, the air cleared by last evening's thunder-shower, the river now beautifully smooth . . . full of light and reflecting the placid western sky and the dark woods which overhang it. I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been. . . The perfect smoothness of Fair Haven Pond, full of light and reflecting the wood so distinctly, while still occasionally the sun shines warm and brightly from behind a cloud, giving the completest contrast of sunshine and shade, is enough to make this hour memorable."); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

I sit on this rock

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, No landscape can make me forget Fair Haven.

                                     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-500518

It is a natural resurrection, an experience of immortality.

February 24.

I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. The cock-crowing and even the telegraph harp prophesy it, even though the ground is for the most part covered by snow.

February 24, 2024

I am too late by a day or two for the sand foliage on the east side of the Deep Cut. The frost is partly come out of this bank, and it is become dry again in the sun. It is glorious to see the soil again, here where a shovel, perchance, will enter it and find no frost.

I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. The very sound of men's work reminds, advertises, me of the coming of spring.

Observe the poplar's swollen buds and the brightness of the willow's bark. It is a natural resurrection, an experience of immortality.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 24, 1852

I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. See February 24, 1857 ("It seems to be one of those early springs of which we have heard but have never experienced. Perhaps they are fabulous."); February 24, 1860 ("A very spring-like day, so much sparkling light in the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Change in the Air

I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. See February 16, 1855 ("Sounds sweet and musical through this air . . .  striking on the rails at a distance.”); April 9, 1853 ("The sound of the laborers' striking the iron rails of the railroad with their sledges, as in the sultry days of summer, -- resounds, as it were, from the hazy sky as a roof, -- a more confined and . . . domestic sound echoing along between the earth and the low heavens.”)

Observe the poplar's swollen buds. See  February 6, 1856 ("The down is just peeping out from some of the aspen buds."); February 27. 1852 ("The buds of the aspen show a part of their down or silky catkins. ")

The brightness of the willow's bark. See February 24, 1855 ("The brightening of the willows or of osiers, —that is a season in the spring, showing that the dormant sap is awakened. . . You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them.”  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

Observe the poplar's

swollen buds and the brightness

of the willow's bark.

Though snow covers ground
the quality of the air
reminds me of spring.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. A natural resurrection

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-520224

Drifting snow, blue sky.

February 16 

This afternoon there is a clear, bright air, which, though cold and windy, I love to inhale. The sky is a much fairer and undimmed blue than usual. The surface of the snow which fell last night is coarse like bran, with shining flakes. 

I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. As I walk the bleak Walden road, it blows up over the highest drifts in the west, lit by the westering sun like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind.

By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department.

Linnæus says elementa are simple, naturalia composed by divine art. And these two embrace all things on earth. Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 16, 1852

Clear, bright air, undimmed blue sky. See January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm! "); February 12, 1860 ("Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds")

I see the steam-like snow-dust . . . like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind. See February 9, 1855 ("The snow is so light and dry that it rises like spray or foam before the legs of the horses.")

By the artificial system we learn the names of plants. Seee January 15, 1853 ("Science suggests the value of mutual intelligence. I have long known this dust, but, as I did not know the name of it, i. e . what others called it, I therefore could not conveniently speak of it. . ."); August 29, 1858 ("With the knowledge of the name comes a distincter recognition and knowledge of the thing. . . . My knowledge now becomes communicable and grows by communication. I can now learn what others know about the same thing."); February 18, 1860 ("As soon as I begin to be aware of the life of any creature, I at once forget its name. To know the names of creatures is only a convenience to us at first, but . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned.")

Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia. Compare February 18, 1852 ("It is impossible for the same person to see things from the poet's point of view and that of the man of science."); November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”)  [On Feb 3 Thoreau had checked out Linnaeus' Philosophia botanica by Carl von Linnaeus from Harvard Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290)

This cold afternoon

I inhale the clear bright air --

the sky undimmed blue.

Snow lit by the sun

blows like the spray on a beach

in this northwest wind.

Walden road to pond, thence to Cliffs.

February 14.

This winter was remarkable for the long continuance of severe cold weather after it had once set in. Latterly, i.e. within a week, we have had crusted snow made by thaw and rain. Now we have the swollen river, and yellow water over the meadow ice.


The slight snow of last night, lodging on the limbs of the oaks, has given them the wintry and cobwebbed appearance that distinguishes them so plainly from the pines.  

The seeds or seed-vessels of wintergreen are conspicuous above the snow.


At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; icicles at once hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock. The melting ice and snow now drips from their points with a slight clinking and lapsing sound. Where the icicles have reached the ground they are like thick pillars or the legs of tables and bed-posts. The shadow of the water flowing and pulsating behind this transparent icy crust or these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 14, 1852

icicles . . .hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes . . . See January 11, 1854 ("Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes . . .”)