A Book of the Seasons: February 8 (walking on snow crust, first rain, warm air, signs of spring)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

When a warm rain in the middle of the winter 

melts off the snow-ice from Walden, 

and leaves a hard, dark, or transparent ice on the middle, 

there will be a strip of rotten though thicker white ice, a rod or more wide, 

about the shores, created by this reflected heat. 

~ Walden 

February 8

My vaporous life

now radiant as frost in

a winter morning.

February 8, 1857

At this hour the crust

sparkles with a myriad

brilliant mirrors.

February 8 1856

First crust to walk on.

Now no difference between

rivers ponds and fields.

February 8, 1852

February 8, 2019

Night before last, our first rain for a long time; this afternoon, the first crust to walk on. February 8, 1852

But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow.  February 8, 1856

The last two days have been misty or rainy without sun. February 8, 1857

My diffuse and vaporous life becomes as the frost leaves and spiculae radiant as gems on the weeds and stubble in a winter morning. February 8, 1857

It is pleasant to walk over the fields raised a foot or more above their summer level, and the prospect is altogether new.   February 8, 1852

In this winter often no apparent difference between rivers, ponds and fields.  February 8, 1852

Coming home at twelve, the ice is fast melting on the trees, and I see in the drops the colors of all the gems.  February 8, 1856

At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors, one to every six inches, at least.  February 8, 1856

The warm rains have melted off the surface snow or white ice on Walden, down to the dark ice, the color of the water, only three or four inches thick. February 8, 1853

Rain, rain, rain, carrying off the snow and leaving a foundation of ice. February 8, 1854

In many places about the shore it is open a dozen feet wide, as when it begins to break up in the spring. February 8, 1858

About an old boat frozen in, I see a great many little gyrinus-shaped bugs swimming about in the water above the ice. February 8, 1860

I observe that still, for a rod or more in width around [Walden's] shores, the ice is white as snow and apparently thicker, probably owing to the reflection from the bottom from the first filling it with air-bubbles. February 8, 1853

I am surprised to find that Walden ice is only six inches thick, or even a little less, and it has not been thicker. February 8, 1858

The snow is gone off very rapidly in the night, and much of the earth is bare, and the ground partially thawed. February 8, 1857

Several strata of snow have been washed away from the drifts, down to that black one formed when dust was blowing from plowed fields.  February 8, 1857

For two nights past it has not frozen, but a thick mist has overhung the earth, and you awake to the unusual and agreeable sight of water in the streets. February 8, 1857

The snow is soft, and the eaves begin to run as not for many weeks. Thermometer at 3.30 P. M., 31°.  February 8, 1856

A clear and a pleasanter and warmer day than we have had for a long time.  February 8, 1856

Another very warm day, I should think warmer than the last. February 8, 1857

Thermometer 43.   40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. February 8, 1860

We have had much of this weather for a month past, reminding us of spring.  February 8, 1860

February may be called earine (springlike). February 8, 1860

The ground is so completely bare this winter, and therefore the leaves in the woods so dry, that on the 5th there was a fire in the woods by Walden (Wheeler’s), and two or three-acres were burned over, set probably by the engine. Such a burning as commonly occurs in the spring. February 8, 1858

A thick steam is everywhere rising from the earth and snow, and apparently this makes the clouds which conceal the sun, the air being so much warmer than the earth. February 8, 1857

This vapor from the earth is so thick that I can hardly see a quarter of a mile, and ever and anon it condenses to rain-drops, which are felt on my face. February 8, 1857

Perhaps the snow has settled considerably, for the track in the roads is the highest part.  February 8, 1856

The snow begins (at noon) to soften somewhat in the road.  February 8, 1856

When I have only a rustling oak leaf, or the faint metallic cheep of a tree sparrow, for variety in my winter walk, my life be comes continent and sweet as the kernel of a nut. February 8, 1857

I would rather hear a single shrub oak leaf at the end of a wintry glade rustle of its own accord at my approach. February 8, 1857

A different sound comes to my ear now from iron rails which are struck, as from the cawing crows, etc. February 8, 1860

There is a peculiarity in the air when the temperature is thus high and the weather fair, at this season, which makes sounds more clear and pervading, as if they trusted themselves abroad further in this genial state of the air. February 8, 1860

Sound is not abrupt, piercing, or rending, but softly sweet and musical. It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard. February 8, 1860

Riordan's solitary cock, standing on such an icy snow-heap, feels the influence of the softened air, and the steam from patches of bare ground here and there, and has found his voice again. February 8, 1857

The warm air has thawed the music in his throat, and he crows lustily and unweariedly, his voice rising to the last. February 8, 1857

Music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent. I hear it in the softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter.  February 8, 1857

I walked about Goose Pond, looking for the large blueberry bushes. February 8, 1858

For two or three weeks, successive light and dry snows have fallen on the old crust and been drifting about on it, leaving it at last three quarters bare and forming drifts against the fences, etc., or here and there low, slaty, fractured ones in mid-field, or pure white hard-packed ones. These drifts on the crust are commonly quite low and flat.  February 8, 1856

This crust is cracked like ice into irregular figures a foot or two square.  February 8, 1856

Walking over Hubbard's broad meadow on the softened ice, I admire the markings in it. . . . far more regular and beautiful than I can draw. February 8, 1860

Some heard a loud cracking in the ground or ice last night.  February 8, 1856

It is exciting to walk over the moist, bare pastures, though slumping four or five inches, and see the green mosses again. February 8, 1857

The ground is so bare that I gathered a few Indian relics. February 8, 1857

The smallest and lightest-colored object that falls on the ice begins thus at once to sink through it, the sun as it were driving it; and a great many, no doubt, go quite through. This is especially common after a long warm spell like this. February 8, 1860

I see hundreds of oak leaves which have sunk deep into the ice. February 8, 1860

Here is a scarlet oak leaf which has sunk one inch into the ice, and the leaf still rests at the bottom of this mould. February 8, 1860

Its stem and lobes and all their bristly points are just as sharply cut there as is the leaf itself, fitting the mould closely and tightly, and, there being a small hole or two in the leaf, the ice stands up through them half an inch high, like so many sharp tacks. February 8, 1860

Indeed, the leaf is sculptured thus in bas-relief, as it were, as sharply and exactly as it could be done by the most perfect tools in any material. February 8, 1860

You see these leaves at various depths in the ice, — many quite concealed by new ice formed over them, for water flows into the mould and thus a cast of it is made in ice. February 8, 1860

One would think that the forms of ice-crystals must include all others. February 8, 1860

The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through. I should not wonder if one went up and down the whole length of the river. February 8, 1857

The river has risen, and the water is pretty well over the meadows. If this weather holds a day or two longer, the river will break up generally. February 8, 1857

The sun is from time to time promising to show itself through the mist, but does not.February 8, 1857

I cut through, five or six rods from the east shore of Fair Haven, and find seven inches of snow, nine inches of snow ice and eight of water ice, — seventeen of both. February 8, 1856

The water rises to within half an inch of the top of the ice.  February 8, 1856

In some places more than half the whole depth is ice. The thinnest ice is 17 inches; the thickest, 20+.  February 8, 1856

The water rises above the ice in some cases.  February 8, 1856

By . . . simplicity of life . . . I am solidified and crystallized, as a vapor or liquid by cold.  February 8, 1857

It is a singular concentration of strength and energy and flavor. February 8, 1857

My life is like a stream that is suddenly dammed and has no outlet; but it rises the higher up the hills that shut it in, and will become a deep and silent lake. February 8, 1857

Commenced snowing last evening about 7 o’clock,—a fine, dry snow,—and this morning it is about six inches deep and still snows a little. February 8, 1855

Continues to snow finely all day. February 8, 1855

Hayden senior (sixty-eight years old) tells me that he has been at work regularly with his team almost every day this winter, in spite of snow and cold. Even that cold Friday, about a fortnight ago,. . . the thermometer, even at 12.45 p.m., was at -9°, with a very violent wind from the northwest, this was as bad as an ordinary arctic day. February 8, 1857

However, he froze his ears that Friday. Says he never knew it so cold as the past month. February 8, 1857

Coldest day yet; -22 ° at least (all we can read), at 8 A. M., and, (so far) as I can learn, not above -6 ° all day.  February 8, 1861

February 8, 2019