Keeping a journal.

January 25. 

In keeping a journal of one's walks and thoughts it seems to be worth the while to record those phenomena which are most interesting to us at the time. Such is the weather. 

It makes a material difference whether it is foul or fair, affecting surely our mood and thoughts. Then there are various degrees and kinds of foulness and fairness. 

It may be cloudless, or there may be sailing clouds which threaten no storm, or it may be partially overcast. 

On the other hand it may rain, or snow, or hail, with various degrees of intensity. It may be a transient thunder-storm, or a shower, or a flurry of snow, or it may be a prolonged storm of rain or snow. Or the sky may be overcast or rain-threatening. 

So with regard to temperature. It may be warm or cold. Above 40° is warm for winter. One day, at 38 even, I walk dry and it is good sleighing; the next day it may have risen to 48, and the snow is rapidly changed to slosh. 

It may be calm or windy. 

The finest winter day is a cold but clear and glittering one. There is a remarkable life in the air then, and birds and other creatures appear to feel it, to be excited and invigorated by it. 

Also warm and melting days in winter are inspiring, though less characteristic. 

I will call the weather fair, if it does not threaten rain or snow or hail; foul, if it rains or snows or hails, or is so overcast that we expect one or the other from hour to hour. 

To-day it is fair, though the sky is slightly overcast, but there are sailing clouds in the southwest. 

The river is considerably broken up by the recent thaw and rain, but the Assabet much the most, probably because it is swifter and, owing to mills, more fluctuating. When the river begins to break up, it becomes clouded like a mackerel sky, but in this case the blue portions are where the current, clearing away the ice beneath, begins to show dark. The current of the water, striking the ice, breaks it up at last into portions of the same form with those which the wind gives to vapor. First, all those open places which I measured lately much enlarge themselves each way. 

Saw A. Hosmer approaching in his pung. He calculated so that we should meet just when he reached the bare planking of the causeway bridge, so that his horse might as it were stop of his own accord and no other excuse would be needed for a talk. 

He says that he has seen that little bird (evidently the shrike) with mice in its claws. Wonders what has got all the rabbits this winter. Last winter there were  hundreds near his house; this winter he sees none.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1860

In keeping a journal of one's walks and thoughts it seems to be worth the while to record those phenomena which are most interesting to us at the time. See February 5, 1855 ("In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings.") See also Do not tread on the heels your experience.

The river is considerably broken up by the recent thaw and rain. See January 25, 1853 ("There is something springlike in this afternoon . . . I am surprised to see Flint's Pond a quarter part open."); February 12, 1860 ("I see . . . here and there, where the agitated surface of the river is exposed, the blue-black water. That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-Out