The caterpillar, which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer, is frozen stiff again, the temperature being -6°

February 12. 

February 12, 2017

7.30 a. m. — 

The caterpillar, which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer, is frozen stiff again, this time not being curled up, the temperature being -6° now. Yet, being placed on the mantelpiece, it thaws and begins to crawl in five or ten minutes, before the rear half of its body is limber. Perhaps they were revived last week, when the thermometer stood at 52 and 53. 

To Worcester. 

I observe that the Nashua in Lancaster has already fallen about three feet, as appears by the ice on the trees, walls, banks, etc., though the main stream of the Concord has not begun to fall at all. (It is hardly fallen perceptibly when I return on the 14th. Am not sure it has.) The former is apparently mostly open, the latter all closed. 

When I skated on the 11th I saw several pretty large open spaces on the meadow, notwithstanding that the boys had begun to skate on the meadow the 10th and it had been steadily growing colder, and the ice was on the 11th from two and a half to three inches thick generally. These open spaces were evidently owing to the strong wind of the night before, and which was then blowing, but I neglected to observe what peculiarity there was in the locality. Perhaps it was very shallow with an uneven bottom.

H. D. Thoreau Journal, February 12, 1857

The caterpillar, which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer, is frozen stiff again. . . See February 11, 1857 (“I found another caterpillar on the ice.  . . .”)

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