A true winter sunset.

December 27

High wind with more snow in the night. The snow is damp and covers the panes, darkening the room. At first I did not know that more snow had fallen, it was so drifted. Snowy ridges cross the village street and make it look as wild and bleak as a pass of the Rocky Mountains or the Sierra Nevada. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Pond up meadows and river. 

The snow blows like spray, fifteen feet high, across the fields, while the wind roars in the trees as in the rigging of a vessel. It is altogether like the ocean in a storm. The snow blowing over the ice is like a vapor rising or curling from a roof.

Most plowed fields are quite bare, but I am surprised to find behind the walls on the south side, like a skulking company of rangers in ambuscade or regular troops that have retreated to another parallel, a solid column of snow six or eight feet deep. The wind, eddying through and over the wall, is scooping it out in fantastic forms, — shells and troughs and glyphs of all kinds. Sometimes the drift is pierced with many holes as big as one's fist, where the fine snow-drift is passing through like steam. As it flows over, it builds out eaves to the bank of razor sharpness. 

It is surprising what things the snow betrays. I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice and larger animals. I see where the mouse has dived into a little hole in the snow, not larger than my thumb, by the side of a weed, and a yard further reappeared again, and so on alternately above and beneath. A snug life it lives. 

The crows come nearer to the houses, alight on trees by the roadside, apparently being put to it for food. I saw them yesterday also. 

The wind has now shaken the snow from the trees, and it lies in irregular little heaps on the snow beneath, except that there is a white ridge up and down their trunks on the northwest side, showing which side the storm came from, which, better than the moss, would enable one to find his way in the night. 

I went to hear the pond whoop, but did not hear much. 

I look far, but see no rainbow flocks in the sky. 

It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening (?) star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon. 

A TRUE WINTER SUNSET
December 27, 2017

The outline of the mountains is wonderfully distinct and hard, and they are a dark blue and very near. 

Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down. He has a vicious look, as if he had a harpoon in him.

I wish that I could buy at the shops some kind of india-rubber that would rub out at once all that in my writing which it now costs me so many perusals, so many months if not years, and so much reluctance, to erase.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 27, 1853

It is surprising what things the snow betrays. See . December 27, 1857 ("Mice have been abroad in the night.  We are almost ready to believe that they have been shut up in the earth all the rest of the year because we have not seen their tracks."): See also February 16, 1854 ("That Indian trail on the hillside about Walden is revealed with remarkable distinctness to me standing on the middle of the pond, by the slight snow which had lodged on it forming a clear white line unobscured by weeds and twigs. (For snow is a great revealer not only of tracks made in itself, but even in the earth before it fell.)"); December 8, 1855 ("Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); December 14, 1855 ("Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

The crows come nearer to the houses, alight on trees by the roadside, apparently being put to it for food. See January 23, 1852 ("The snow is so deep and the cold so intense that the crows are compelled to be very bold in seeking their food, and come very near the houses in the village."); January 7, 1856 ("The cold weather has brought the crows, and for the first time this winter I hear them cawing amid the houses. "); January 14, 1856 (" The crows are flitting about the houses and alight upon the elms. "); February 1, 1856 ("The crows have been remarkably bold, coming to eat the scraps cast out behind the houses. They alight in our yard")

There is a white ridge up and down their trunks on the northwest side, showing which side the storm came from, which, better than the moss, would enable one to find his way in the night. See note to December 23, 1851 ("There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree.")

It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. See December 27, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset . . . Venus - I suppose it is - is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight."); Compare December 23, 1851 ("The evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon."); September 18, 1858 ("The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Serene as the Sky and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon. See December 9, 1856 ("A slight blush begins to suffuse the eastern horizon, and so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame. Such is a winter eve."); January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.").  Compare January 14, 1852 ("I notice to-night, about sundown, that the clouds in the eastern horizon are the deepest indigo-blue of any I ever saw. Commencing with a pale blue or slate in the west, the color deepens toward the east.")

The mountains are a dark blue and very near. See 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")

December 27. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 27

The evening star seen 

shining brightly before the 

twilight has begun.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A true winter sunset.

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 ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531227

These are true mornings of creation, original and poetic days, not mere repetitions of the past.

January 7

January 7, 2019

The storm is over, and it is one of those beautiful winter mornings when a vapor is seen hanging in the air between the village and the woods. Though the snow is only some six inches deep, the yards appear full of those beautiful crystals (star or wheel shaped flakes), lying light, as a measure is full of grain. 

9 A. M. — To Hill. 

It snowed so late last night, and so much has fallen from the trees, that I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown. The fox has been beating the bush along walls and fences. The surface of the snow in the woods is thickly marked by the snow which has fallen from the trees on to it. The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated. 

By 10.30 A.M. it begins to blow hard, the snow comes down from the trees in fine showers, finer far than ever falls direct from the sky, completely obscuring the view through the aisles of the wood, and in open fields it is rapidly drifting. It is too light to make good sleighing. 

By 10 o'clock I notice a very long level stratum of cloud not very high in the southeastern sky, — all the rest being clear, — which I suspect to be the vapor from the sea. This lasts for several hours. 

These are true mornings of creation, original and poetic days, not mere repetitions of the past. There is no lingering of yesterday's fogs, only such a mist as might have adorned the first morning. 

P. M. – I see some tree sparrows feeding on the fine grass seed above the snow, near the road on the hillside below the Dutch house. They are flitting along one at a time, their feet commonly sunk in the snow, uttering occasionally a low sweet warble and seemingly as happy there, and with this wintry prospect before them for the night and several months to come, as any man by his fireside. One occasionally hops or flies toward another, and the latter suddenly jerks away from him. They are reaching or hopping up to the fine grass, or oftener picking the seeds from the snow. At length the whole ten have collected within a space a dozen feet square, but soon after, being alarmed, they utter a different and less musical chirp and flit away into an apple tree.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 7, 1858

The storm is over and it is one of those beautiful winter mornings.

I feel spirits rise.

The life, the joy that is in

blue sky after storm!

January 7, 1851

See January 7, 1853 ("This is one of those pleasant winter mornings when you find the . . . air is serene and the sun feels gratefully warm an hour after sunrise.") 

These are true mornings of creation, original and poetic days. See December 31, 1855 (“It is one of the mornings of creation.”); January 20, 1855 (“The world is not only new to the eye, but is still as at creation.”); January 23, 1860 ("Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I recommence life.”); January 26, 1853 (“There are from time to time mornings, both in summer and winter, when especially the world seems to begin anew,”);  and A Week, Wednesday ("Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward morning.")

The fox has been beating the bush along walls and fences.  See January 7, 1857 ("Going down path to the spring, I see where some fox (apparently) has passed down it.”); January 7, 1860 (“I saw yesterday the track of a fox, and in the course of it a place where he had apparently pawed to the ground, eight or ten inches, and on the just visible ground lay frozen a stale-looking mouse, probably rejected by him.”) See also January 21, 1857 (“It is remarkable how many tracks of foxes you will see quite near the village, where they have been in the night, and yet a regular walker will not glimpse one oftener than once in eight or ten years. ”); February 2, 1860 (“And as we were kindling a fire on the pond by the side of the island , we saw the fox himself at the inlet of the river . He was busily examining along the sides of the pond by the button - bushes and willows , smelling in the snow . Not appearing to regard us much , he slowly explored along the shore of the pond thus , half - way round it ; at Pleasant Meadow , evidently looking for mice ( or moles ? ) in the grass of the bank , smelling in the shallow snow there amid the stubble , often retracing his steps and pausing at particular spots”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

January 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 7

 These poetic days

 true mornings of creation

 not repetitions.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  These are true mornings of creation

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-580107

Very gusty day.

March 2

At Cambridge. Very gusty day. An inch or two of snow falls, — all day about it, — and strangely blown away.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 2, 1857

An inch or two of snow falls. See March 2, 1858 ("Snowed last night and this morning, about seven inches deep."); March 2, 1856 ("Has snowed three or four inches —very damp snow — in the night;")

March 2.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 2

Very gusty day. 

An inch or two of snow falls, — 

strangely blown away.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Very gusty day. 

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

An old-fashioned winter continues.

February 17

Some three or four inches of snow fallen in the night and now blowing. 

February 17, 2020

At noon begins to snow again, as well as blow. Several more inches fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1856

Snow again, as well as blow. See January 2, 1856 ("Probably the coldest morning yet, our thermometer 6° below zero at 8 A.M."); January 10, 1856 ("The weather has considerably moderated; -2° at breakfast time (it was -8° at seven last evening)."); February 1, 1856 ("It has been what is called 'an old-fashioned winter.'"); February 6, 1856 (This winter has been remarkable for the abundance of snow.");  February 11, 1856 ("Israel Rice says that he does not know that he can remember a winter when we had as much snow as we have had this winter. "); February 12, 1856 ("forty three days of uninterrupted cold weather . . . twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!"); February 19, 1856 (“ There are five and one half inches more in the wood than on the 12th. and I think this is about the average of what fell on the 17th (night and day). Accordingly, the snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter. I think if the drifts could be fairly measured it might be found to be seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level.”) See also Donald Sutherland, The Long, Hard Winter of 1855-56

February 17. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 17

Three or four inches 

snow in the night now blowing –

snow again at noon.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, An old-fashioned winter continues

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560217

I see the great tracks of white rabbits that have run and frisked in the night along the pond-side.

January 8

P. M. — To Walden. 

The snow is about a foot, or probably a little more, deep on a level, and considerably drifted, but on the pond it is not more than five inches deep on an average, being partly turned into snow ice by the sinking of the ice, and perhaps partly blown off.

Many catbird-nests about the pond. In apparently one I see a snake’s slough interwoven. 

The leaves of red oak shrubs are still quite bloody-colored. 

All of the pitch pine cones that I see, but one, are open. 

I see prying into the black fruit of the alder, along the pond-side, a single probably lesser redpoll yellowish breast and distinct white bar on wing.

Monroe is fishing there. As usual, a great pickerel had bitten and ran off, and was lost, he supposed, among the brush by the shore. He tells of an eel up the North Branch that weighed seven pounds; also that George Melvin, spearing one night, speared a large owl (probably cat owl) that sat near by. 

For a couple of days the cars have been very much delayed by the snow, and it is now drifting somewhat. The fine dry snow is driving over the fields like steam, if you look toward the sun, giving a new form to the surface, spoiling the labor of the track-repairers, gradually burying the rails. 

The surface of the snow on the pond is finely scored in many places by the oak leaves which have been blown across it. They have furrowed deeper than a mouses track and might puzzle a citizen. They are more frisky than a squirrel. 

Many of the young oaks appear not to have lost any leaves yet. They are so full of them that they still sustain some masses of snow, as if there were birds nests for a core. 

I see the great tracks of white rabbits that have run and frisked in the night along the pond-side.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 8, 1856

Many catbird-nests about the pond. See Also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Catbird nests

All of the pitch pine cones that I see, but one, are open. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pitch Pine in Winter

See  January 1, 1856 ("I see the tracks apparently of a white rabbit, afterward many tracks of gray rabbits, and where they had squatted under or rather by the side of an alder stem or the like, and left many balls in the pure snow. Many have run in one course.");  January 2, 1856 ("There were many white rabbits’ tracks in those woods, and many more of the gray rabbit, but the former broke through and made a deep track, "); February 17, 1854 ("The track of the white rabbit is gigantic compared with that of the gray one. Indeed few of our wild animals make a larger track with their feet alone. Where I now stand, the track of all the feet has an expanse of seven to fifteen inches, — this at intervals of from two to three feet, — and the width at the two fore feet is five inches.")

January 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 8

Tracks of white rabbits 

that run and frisk in the night 

along the pond-side.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The great tracks of white rabbits

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560108

I am come forth to observe the drifts.

January 6


High wind and howling and driving snowstorm all night, now much drifted. There is a great drift in the front entry and at the crack of every door and on the window-sills. Great drifts on the south of walls.

Clears up at noon, when no vehicle had passed the house. 

Frank Morton has brought home, and I opened, that pickerel of the 4th. It is frozen solid. Yellow spawn as big as a pin-head, with smaller between, enwraps its insides the whole length, half an inch thick. It must spawn very early then. I find in its gullet, or paunch, or maw (the long white bag), three young perch, one of them six inches long, and the tail of a fourth. Its belly was considerably puffed out. 

Two of the perch lay parallel, side by side, of course head downward, in its gullet(?). The upper and largest perch was so high that he was cut in two in the middle in cutting off the head. And yet it was caught in endeavoring to swallow another large minnow! 

This is what you may call voracity. 

P. M. -— To Drifting Cut. 

The snow is now probably more than a foot deep on a level. 

While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings. What a pity our yard was made so tidy in the fall with rake and fire, and we have now no tall crop of weeds rising above this snow to invite these birds! 

I am come forth to observe the drifts. They are, as usual, on the south side of the walls and fences and, judging from the direction of their ridges, the wind was due north. 

Behind Monroe’s tight board fence it is a regularly swelled, unbroken bank, but behind the wall this side carved into countless scallops, perforations, scrolls, and copings. 


An open wall is, then, the best place for a drift. Yet these are not remarkably rich. The snow was perhaps too dry. Perhaps six more inches on a level has fallen, or more. It has not lodged on the trees.

Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks. 

On the north side of the Cut, above the crossing, the jutting edges of the drift are quite handsome upon the bank. The snow is raised twelve feet above the track, and it is all scalloped with projecting eaves or copings, like turtle-shells. 

They project from three to five feet, and I can stand under them. They are in three or four great layers, one lapping over another like the coarse edge of a shell. Looking along it, they appear somewhat thus : —

Often this coping has broken by its own weight, and great blocks have fallen down the bank, like smoothed blocks of white marble.

The exquisite purity of the snow and the gracefulness of its curves are remarkable. 

Bobcat
January 6, 2016

Around some houses there is not a single track. Neither man, woman, nor child, dog nor cat nor fowl, has stirred out to-day. There has been no meeting. Yet this afternoon, since the storm, it has not been very bad travelling.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 6, 1856

High wind and howling and driving snowstorm all night, now much drifted . . . Great drifts on the south of walls. See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north");  December 15, 1859 ("The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, . . .was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones.");  January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals, . . . thin and partly transparent . . ., perfect little wheels with six spokes.”); January 7, 1856 ("The whole surface of the snow on fields and river is composed now of flat, rough little drifts, like the surface of some rough slaty rocks."); February 8, 1856 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

Hurried rippling notes of . . . of snow buntings coming to alight . . . a sound almost as if made with their wings. See  January 6, 1859 ("sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring."); See also January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion.");January 21, 1857  ("Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter,") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Bunting (Emberiza nivalis) 

Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks. See January 4, 1856 ("I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow.") See alsoo  February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue rather than black."): December 31, 1854 ("A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue."); February 10, 1855 ("I go across Walden. My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow."); January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold."); January 18, 1856 ("Clear and bright, yet I see the blue shadows on the snow at Walden . . . I am in raptures at my own shadow . . . Our very shadows are no longer black, but a celestial blue. This has nothing to do with cold, methinks, but the sun must not be too low."); January 30, 1856 ("Crossing Walden Pond, a spotless field of snow surrounded by woods, whose intensely blue shadows and your own are the only objects. What a solemn silence reigns here!"); March 10, 1856 ("The blue shadows on snow are as fine as ever."); March 30, 1856 ("There are as intense blue shadows on the snow as I ever saw.")

January 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 6

High wind and howling

and driving snowstorm all night,

now much drifted.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  I am come forth to observe the drifts.

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560106

Skating through snow.

February 3

This will deserve to be called the winter of skating. 

P. M. — Skating through snow. Skate up the river with Tappan in spite of the snow and wind. It has cleared up, but the snow is on a level strong three quarters of an inch deep (seemingly an inch), but for the most part blown into drifts three to ten feet wide and much deeper (with bare intervals) under a strong northwesterly wind. 

February 3

It is a novel experience, this skating through snow, sometimes a mile without a bare spot, this blustering day. 

On the whole the snow is but a slight obstruction. We skate with much more facility than I had anticipated; I would not have missed the experience for a good deal. 

We go up the Pantry Meadow above the old William Wheeler house, and come down this meadow again with the wind and snow dust, spreading our coat-tails, like birds, though somewhat at the risk of our necks if we strike a foul place. I find that I can sail on a tack pretty well, trimming with my skirts. Sometimes we have to jump suddenly over some obstacle which the snow has concealed, to save our necks. 

It is worth the while for one to look back against the sun and wind and see the other sixty rods off coming, floating down like a graceful demon in the midst of the broad meadow all covered and lit with the curling snow-steam.

Looking toward the sun and wind, you see a broad river half a mile or more in width, its whole surface lit and alive with flowing streams of snow, in form like the steam which curls along a river’s surface at sunrise, and in midst of this moving world sails down the skater, majestically, as if on the surface of water while the steam curls as high as his knees.

                           ***

I still recur in my mind to that skate of the 3lst. I was thus enabled to get a bird’s-eye view of the river, -— to survey its length and breadth within a few hours, connect one part (one shore) with another in my mind, and realize what was going on upon it from end to end, —to know the whole as I ordinarily knew a few miles of it only.

It is all the way of one character, — a meadow river, or dead stream,—Musketicook,—the abode of muskrats, pickerel, etc., crossed within these dozen miles each way, —or thirty in all, —by some twenty low wooden bridges, connected with the mainland by willowy causeways. Thus the long, shallow lakes divided into reaches. 

These long causeways all under water and ice now, only the bridges peeping out from time to time like a dry eyelid. You must look close to find them in many cases. Mere islands are they to the traveller, in the waste of water and ice. Only two villages lying near the river, Concord and Wayland, and one at each end of this thirty miles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 3, 1855

I still recur in my mind to that skate of the 31st. See January 31, 1855 (“An unprecedented expanse of ice. At 10 A. M., skated up the river to explore further than I had been.”)  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating and compare April 6, 1856  (("There has been no skating the last winter, the snow having covered the ice immediately after it formed.")

A bird’s-eye view of the river . . . It is all the way of one character, — a meadow river, or dead stream,—Musketicook,—. . . long, shallow lakes divided into reaches. See April 7, 1853 ("The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows."); April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought."); July 30, 1859 ("It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill.")

February 3. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 3

This skating through snow

a mile without a bare spot

this blustering day. 

The skater sails midst

a moving world of snow-steam

as high as his knees.

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Skating through snow.

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-550203

High wind and drifting snow.

February 23. 

This forenoon a driving storm, very severe. The snow drives horizontally from the north or northwesterly, in long waving lines like the outline of a swell or billow. The flakes do not fall perceptibly for the width of a house.

This afternoon fair, but high wind and drifting snow. The fine snow drives along over the field like steam curling from a roof, forming architectural drifts.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 23, 1854

The snow drives horizontally from the north or northwesterly. See December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face."); February 3, 1854 ("A driving snow-storm again") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified

The fine snow drives along over the field like steam curling from a roof. See December 24, 1850 (". . . like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain."); January 19, 1852 ("The snow blowing far off in the sun . . .looks like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning.") ; February 16, 1852 ("I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. . . .like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind.");  February 3, 1855 (" Alive with flowing streams of snow, in form like the steam which curls along a river’s surface at sunrise.”); January 19,1860 (“This snow looks just like vapor curling along over the surface, long waving lines producing the effect of a watered surface in motion.”)

We form a work crew and snowshoe up past the "junction" to a spot where we plan to make a clearing for the wildlife. The snow is just right. temperature 45 degrees. we need no gloves. working steadily i cut the larger saplings, and she takes the smaller ones with a clipper or handsaw. i fell them all to the west and then cut again and throw over the bank. It is late afternoon. clear air. sunlight in and out of clouds over the adirondacks as we work in this one small spot.

the sun begins to slant through the trees. it is a pretty walk up to the view in this light. the sun setting  to the south over Giant, just before we arrive.


in one spot working

steadily late afternoon

sun slants through the trees.

February 23, 2014 zphx

Measuring snow at every ten paces for two hundred paces.

December 30

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. 

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday in Abiel Wheeler's wood by the railroad, near the pond. In going a quarter of a mile it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches. Then went to Potter's wood, by Lincoln road, near Lincoln line, and paced straight through a level wood where there was no drift perceptible, measuring at every ten paces for two hundred paces, and the average was twenty and one half inches. 

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels, probably gray ones, leading straight to or from the feet of the largest pines and oaks, which they had plainly ascended.

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake, though not commonly classed with those that hibernate. The summer circulations are to some extent stopped; the range of his afternoon walk is somewhat narrower; he is more or less confined to the highway and wood-path; the weather oftener shuts him up in his burrow; he begins to feel the access of dormancy and to assume the spherical form of the marmot; the nights are longest; he is often satisfied if he only gets out to the post-office in the course of the day.  Most men do not now extend their walks beyond the village street. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1853

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open. See December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”) See also December 30, 1855 ("There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined.”),December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.”); January 1, 1856 (“Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath.  . . . A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.”)See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.. See December 30, 1855 ("The snow which began last night has continued to fall very silently but steadily, and now it is not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet"): December 30, 1859 ("I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, - the deepest snow yet.”); and note to January 16, 1856 ("With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction to the traveller; he easily steps over them. Often they are buried. I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now.")

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels See December 30, 1855 ("The track of a squirrel on the Island Neck. Tracks are altered by the depth of the snow . . .The snow is too deep and soft yet for many tracks. No doubt the mice have been out beneath it.") See also December 22, 1852 ("The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow . . . You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature."): ); December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice"); December 27, 1857 ("Mice have been abroad in the night. We are almost ready to believe that they have been shut up in the earth all the rest of the year because we have not seen their tracks."); December 31, 1853 ("This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer."); January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. . . that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen"); January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! "); January 7, 1858 ("I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown. . . .The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated.")

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake.See January 14, 1852 ("We are related to all nature, animate and inanimate, and accordingly we share to some extent the nature of the dormant creatures. We all feel somewhat confined by the winter. The nights are longer, and we sleep more.")