A Wintry Scene

February 16.a

2 P. M. — To Walden. 

A snow-storm, which began in the night, - and is now three or four inches deep. The ground, which was more than half bare before, is thus suddenly concealed, and the snow lodges on the trees and fences and sides of houses, and we have a perfect wintry scene again. 

We hear that it stormed at Philadelphia yesterday morning. 

As I [look] toward the woods beyond the poorhouse, I see how the trees, especially apple trees, are suddenly brought out relieved against the snow, black on white, every twig as distinct as if it were a pen-and-ink drawing the size of nature. The snow being spread for a background, while the storm still raging confines your view to near objects, each apple tree is distinctly outlined against it. 

Suddenly, too, where of late all was tawny-brown in pastures I see a soft snowy field with the pale-brown lecheas just peeping out of it.

It is a moist and starry snow, lodging on trees, —leaf, bough, and trunk. The pines are well laden with it. How handsome, though wintry, the side of a high pine wood, well grayed with the snow that has lodged on it, and the smaller pitch pines converted into marble or alabaster with their lowered plumes like rams' heads! 

The character of the wood-paths is wholly changed by the new-fallen snow. Not only all tracks are concealed, but, the pines drooping over it and half concealing or filling it, it is merely a long chink or winding open space between the trees. 

This snow, as I have often noticed before, is composed of stars and other crystals with a very fine cotton intermixed. It lodges and rests softly on the horizontal limbs of oaks and pines. 

On the fruit and dry leafets (?) of the alders that slant over the pond it is in the form of little cones two inches high, making them snowball plants. So many little crystalline wheels packed in cotton. 

When we descend on to Goose Pond we find that the snow rests more thickly on the numerous zigzag and horizontal branches of the high blueberries that bend over it than on any deciduous shrub or tree, producing a very handsome snowy maze, and can thus distinguish this shrub, by the manner in which the snow lies on it, quite across the pond. 

It is remarkable also how very distinct and white every plane surface, as the rocks which lie here and there amid the blueberries or higher on the bank, — a place where no twig or weed rises to interrupt the pure white impression. 

In fact, this crystalline snow lies up so light and downy that it evidently admits more light than usual, and the surface is more white and glowing for it. It is semitransparent. This is especially the case with the snow lying upon rocks or musquash-houses, which is elevated and brought between you and the light. It is partially transparent, like alabaster. 

Also all the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 16, 1860

I see how the trees, especially apple trees, are suddenly brought out relieved against the snow, black on white, every twig as distinct as if it were a pen-and-ink drawing the size of nature. The snow being spread for a background, while the storm still raging confines your view to near objects, each apple tree is distinctly outlined against it  See August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects.");  January 11, 1855 ("The air so thick with snowflakes . . .Single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon"); November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects."); December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures. . .The old apple trees are very important to this landscape, they have so much body and are so dark."); February 15, 1859 ("Against the thickening air, trees are more and more distinct. The apple trees, so moist, are blacker than ever.")

When we descend on to Goose Pond we find that the snow rests more thickly on the numerous zigzag and horizontal branches of the high blueberries that bend over it than on any deciduous shrub or tree, producing a very handsome snowy maze, and can thus distinguish this shrub, by the manner in which the snow lies on it, See February 8, 1858 ("I walked about Goose Pond, looking for the large blueberry bushes. I see many which have thirty rings of annual growth. These grow quite on the edge, where they have escaped being cut with the wood, and have all the appearance of age, gray and covered with lichens, commonly crooked, zigzag, and intertwisted with their neighbors,— so that when you have cut one off it is hard to extract it, —and bending over nearly to the ice,")

All the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold. See   December 24, 1851 (Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.“); December 29, 1855 (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”); December 30, 1855 (“He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds”);  January 7, 1856 ("I go along the edge of the Hubbard Meadow woods, the north side, where the snow is gathered, light and up to my middle, shaking down birds’ nests"); January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. . . .They have only an ice egg in them now.”); February 16, 1860 ("Also all the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold.")

 February 15, 1860   <<<<<                                                                     >>>>> February 17, 1860     

This crystalline snow

lies up so light and downy –

semitransparent.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Wintry Scene

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

                                                                                             

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky.

November 29. 

P. M. — To Hill.

About three inches of snow fell last evening, and a few cows on the hillside have wandered about in vain to come at the grass. They have at length found that place high on the south side where the snow is thinnest. 

How bright and light the day now! Methinks it is as good as half an hour added to the day. 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. The pine woods snowed up look more like the bare oak woods with their gray boughs. The river meadows show now far off a dull straw-color or pale brown amid the general white, where the coarse sedge rises above the snow; and distant oak woods are now more distinctly reddish. 

It is a clear and pleasant winter day. The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. Now blue shadows, green rivers, — both which I see, — and still winter life. I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top. 

I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1858 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. Compare November 25, 1853 ("The white houses of the village, also, are remarkably distinct and bare and brought very near."); June 12, 1852 ("Nature has put no large object on the face of New England so glaringly white as a white house."); June 24, 1852 ("I have not heard that white clouds, like white houses, made any one's eyes ache.")

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. See November 13, 1858 (“Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”); November 28, 1858 (“ Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change? ”)

I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks. See 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.")

The snow has taken 

November out of the sky -- 

I see winter life. 

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

A new leaf of Nature’s Album.

January 31

P. M. —Up North Branch. 

There are a few inches of light snow on top of the little, hard and crusted, that I walked on here last, above the snow ice. The old tracks are blotted out, and new and fresher ones are to be discerned. It is a tabula rasa. 

These fresh falls of snow are like turning over a new leaf of Nature’s Album. At first you detect no track of beast or bird, and Nature looks more than commonly silent and blank. You doubt if anything has been abroad, though the snow fell three days ago, but ere long the track of a squirrel is seen making to or from the base of a tree, or the hole where he dug for acorns, and the shells he dropped on the snow around that stump. 

The wind of yesterday has shaken down countless oak leaves, which have been driven hurry-scurry over this smooth and delicate and unspotted surface, and now there is hardly a square foot which does not show some faint trace of them. They still spot the snow thickly in many places, though few can be traced to their lairs. 

More hemlock cones also have fallen and rolled down the bank. 

The fall of these withered leaves after each rude blast, so clean and dry that they do not soil the snow, is a phenomenon quite in harmony with the winter.

Perhaps the tracks of the mice are the most amusing of any, they take such various forms and, though small, are so distinct. Here is where one has come down the bank and hopped meanderingly across the river. Another an inch and a quarter wide by five, six, or seven apart from centre to centre. 

The tracks of the mice suggest extensive hopping in the night and going a-gadding. They commence and terminate in the most insignificant little holes by the side of a twig or tuft, and occasionally they give us the type of their tails very distinctly, even sidewise to the course on a bank-side.

But what track is this, just under the bank? 

It must be a bird, which at last struck the snow with its wings and took to flight. There are but four hops in all, and then it ends, though there is nothing near enough for it to hop upon from the snow. The form of the foot is somewhat like that of a squirrel, though only the outline is distinguished. The foot is about two inches long, and it about two inches from outside of one foot to outside of the other. Sixteen inches from hop to hop, the rest in proportion. Looking narrowly, I see where one wing struck the bank ten feet ahead as it passed. A quarter of a mile down-stream it occurs again, and near by still less of a track, but marks as if it had pecked in the snow.

Could it be the track of a crow with its toes unusually close together? Or was it an owl? [Probably a crow. Vide Feb. 1st. Hardly a doubt of it.]   

Some creature has been eating elm blossom-buds and dropping them over the snow. 

See also the tracks, probably of a muskrat, for a few feet leading from hole to hole just under the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 31, 1856

More hemlock cones also have fallen and rolled down the bank. ... See January 24, 1856 (“A great many hemlock cones have fallen on the snow and rolled down the hill.”); February 3, 1856 ("See many seeds of the hemlock on the snow still, and cones which have freshly rolled down the bank.")

The track of a crow with its toes unusually close together.  See January 22, 1856 ("See the track of a crow, the toes as usual less spread and the middle one making a more curved furrow in the snow than the partridge as if they moved more unstably,"); January 24, 1856 (“The tracks of a crow, like those of the 22d, with a long hind toe, nearly two inches. The two feet are also nearly two inches apart.”);  February 1, 1856 ("I have but little doubt that yesterday's track was a crow's .The two inner toes are near together; the middle, more or less curved often."); See also  January 19, 1859 ("The inner toe is commonly close to the middle one. It makes a peculiar curving track (or succession of 'curves), stepping round the planted foot each time with a sweep.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

But what track is this – 

the track of a crow with its 

toes close together?

February 1, 1856

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A new leaf of Nature’s Album.

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-560131

River and meadow concealed under a foot of snow.

February 9.

Snowed harder in the night and blowed considerably. 

It is somewhat drifted this morning. A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level. It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse.

It snows finely all day, making about twice as much as we have had on the ground before this winter.

February 9, 2025

Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter.   I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds into the yard that I went to the window at ten to look for them, and there they were.

I notice that the snow-drifts on the windows, as you see the light through them, are stratified, showing undulating, equidistant strata, alternately dark and light. 

The snow is so light and dry that it rises like spray or foam before the legs of the horses. They dash it before them upward like water. It is a handsome sight, a span of horses at a little distance dashing through it, like suds around their legs. 

Why do birds come into the yards in storms almost alone? Are they driven out of the fields and woods for their subsistence? Or is it that all places are wild to them in the storm? 

It is very dark in cellars, the windows being covered with snow.

P. M. — Up river to Hubbard’s Swamp and Wood.  The river and meadow are concealed under a foot of snow. I cannot tell when I am on it. It would be dangerous for a stranger to travel across the country now. 

The snow is so dry that but little lodges on the trees. Though I go through drifts up to my middle, it falls off at once and does not adhere to and damp my clothes at all.  

It must be very hard for our small wild animals to get along while the snow is so light. Not only the legs but the whole body of some sinks in it and leaves its trail. I see very few tracks to-day.

All over this swamp I find that the ice, upheld by the trees and shrubs, stands some two feet above the ground, the water having entirely run out beneath, and as I go along the path, not seeing any ice in snow a foot deep, it suddenly sinks with a crash for a rod around me, snow and all, and, stooping, I look through a dry cellar from one to two feet deep, in some places pretty dark, extending over the greater part of the swamp, with a perfectly level ceiling composed of ice one to two inches thick, surmounted by a foot of snow, and from the under side of the ice there depends from four to six inches a dense mass of crystals, so that it is a most sparkling grotto. 

You could have crawled round under the ice and snow all over the swamp quite dry, and I saw where the rabbits, etc., had entered there. Those crystals were very handsome, and tinkled when touched like bits of tin. I saw a similar phenomenon February 4th, on a smaller scale.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1855

A very fine and dry snow. 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, almost as much so as sand."); January 19, 1857 ("A fine dry snow, intolerable to face.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse. See January 1, 1854 ("The snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl"); December 30, 1855 ("A dry, light, powdery snow . . .T he pump has a regular conical Persian cap.")

Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter.  See  December 28, 1853 (" I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow"); March 14, 1855 ("Winter back again in prospect, and I see a few sparrows, probably tree sparrows, in the yard"); December 25, 1855 ("Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground, and with it the first tree sparrows I have noticed in the yard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

February 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 9

Drifted this morning. 

A very fine and dry snow

 about a foot deep.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, River and meadow concealed under a foot of 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-550209

A walk in new-fallen snow.

February 21.

A. M. — A fine, driving snow-storm. At noon clears up. It has now got to be such weather that after a cold morning it is colder in the house, — or we feel colder, — than outdoors, by noon, and are surprised that it is no colder when we come out.

P. M. — To Goose Pond by Tuttle Path. The snow has just ceased falling — about two inches deep, in the woods, upon the old and on bare ground. There is scarcely a track of any animal yet to be seen. You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness. 

The snow has lodged more or less in perpendicular lines on the northerly sides of trees, so that I am able to tell the points of compass as well as by the sun. I guide myself accordingly.

The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, February 21, 1854

It has now got to be such weather that after a cold morning it is colder in the house, — or we feel colder, — than outdoors . . . See February 12, 1854 ("I am not aware till I come out how pleasant a day it is. It was very cold this morning, and I have been putting on wood in vain to warm my chamber, and lo! I come forth, and am surprised to find it warm and pleasant.”)

You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness. See December 21, 1852 ("You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature.")

The snow has lodged more or less in perpendicular lines on the northerly sides of trees. See December 23, 1851 ("There is a narrow ridge of snow, a white line, on the storm side of the stem of every exposed tree. “); January 5, 1852 ("To-day the trees are white with snow . . . and have the true wintry look, on the storm side. Not till this has the winter come to the forest.”); December 26, 1855 (“The ice is chiefly on the upper and on the storm side of twigs”); January 14, 1856 ("I think that you can best tell from what side the storm came by observing on which side of the trees the snow is plastered.“)

The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.  See January 7, 1856 ("Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it."); February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green..."). See also note to January 27, 1854 ("Walden ice has a green tint close by, but is distinguished by its blueness at a distance.")

Snow is a great revealer.

February 16 

By this time in the winter I do not look for those clear, sparkling mornings and delicate leaf frosts, which, methinks, occur earlier in the winter, as if the air of winter was somewhat tarnished and debauched, — had lost its virgin purity. 

Every judgment and action of a man qualifies every other, i. e. corrects our estimate of every other, as, for instance, a man's idea of immortality who is a member of a church, or his praise of you coupled with his praise of those whom you do not esteem. For in this sense a man is awfully consistent, above his own consciousness. 

All a man's strength and all his weakness go to make up the authority of any particular opinion which he may utter. He is strong or weak with all his strength and weakness combined. 

If he is your friend, you may have to consider that he loves you, but perchance he also loves gingerbread.

It must be the leaves of the Chimaphila umbellate, spotted wintergreen, which Channing left here day before yesterday.

Snows again this morning.

For the last month the weather has been remarkably changeable; hardly three days together alike. That is an era not yet arrived, when the earth, being partially thawed, melts the slight snows which fall on it. 

P. M. — To Walden and Flint's; return by Turnpike. 

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.) It is quite distinct in many places where you would not have noticed it before. A light snow will often reveal a faint foot or cart track in a field which was hardly discernible before, for it reprints it, as it were, in clear white type, alto-relievo.

See two large hawks circling over the woods by Walden, hunting, — the first I have seen since December 15th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 16, 1854

Snows again this morning. See February 16, 1852 ("The surface of the snow which fell last night is coarse like bran, with shining flakes."); February 16, 1856 ("It has been trying to snow for two days. About one inch fell last night, but it clears up at noon, and sun comes out very warm and bright."); February 16, 1860 ("A snow-storm, which began in the night, - and is now three or four inches deep.  . . . this crystalline snow lies up so light and downy that it evidently admits more light than usual, and the surface is more white and glowing for it. It is semitransparent")

By this time in the winter I do not look for those clear, sparkling mornings and delicate leaf frosts, which, methinks, occur earlier in the winter. See  February 16, 1852 ("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."); See also December 31, 1855 ("It is one of the mornings of creation, and the trees, shrubs, etc., etc., are covered with a fine leaf frost, as if they had their morning robes on, seen against the sun."); February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. . . .. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”); February 12, 1855 (“All trees covered this morning with a hoar frost, very handsome looking toward the sun, —the ghosts of trees.”); February 12, 1854 ("To make a perfect winter day like this, you must have a clear, sparkling air, with a sheen from the snow, sufficient cold, little or no wind; and the warmth must come directly from the sun. It must not be a thawing warmth. The tension of nature must not be relaxed."); February 14, 1855 ("There is also another leaf or feather frost on the trees, weeds, and rails. . . .These ghosts of trees are very handsome and fairy-like."); February 17, 1852 ("Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life")

As if the air of winter was somewhat tarnished and debauched, — had lost its virgin purity. Compare July 18, 1854 (“The atmosphere now imparts a bluish or glaucous tinge to the distant trees. A certain debauched look. This a crisis in the season.”)

That Indian trail on the hillside about Walden. See December 23, 1850 ("I can discern a faint foot or sled path sooner when the ground is covered with snow than when it is bare")  Also Walden, The Ponds ("I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hill side, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land. This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo.")

See two large hawks circling over the woods by Walden, hunting, See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March; see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk

February 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 16

February 14, 1854   <<<<<<<                                                                   >>>>>>> February 17, 1854

Two large hawks circling 

over the woods by Walden – 

the first I have seen. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Snow is a great revealer

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540216

Trackless snow

December 26.

This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep. I go out at 2.30, just as it ceases. Now is the time, before the wind rises or the sun has shone, to go forth and see the snow on the trees. 

It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. And every twig thus laden is as still as the hillside itself. 

December 26, 2013

The sight of the pure and trackless road up Brister's Hill, with branches and trees supporting snowy burdens bending over it on each side, would tempt us to begin life again. 

The ice is covered up, and skating gone. The bare hills are so white that I cannot see their outlines against the misty sky. The snow lies handsomely on the shrub oaks, like a coarse braiding in the air. They have so many small and zigzag twigs that it comes near to filling up with a light snow to that depth. 

The hunters are already out with dogs to follow the first beast that makes a track. 

Saw a small flock of tree sparrows in the sprout- lands under Bartlett's Cliff. Their metallic chip is much like the lisp of the chickadee. 

All weeds, with their seeds, rising dark above the snow, are now remarkably conspicuous, which before were not observed against the dark earth. 

I passed by the pitch pine that was struck by lightning. I was impressed with awe on looking up and seeing that broad, distinct spiral mark, more distinct even than when made eight years ago, as one might groove a walking-stick, — mark of an invisible and in tangible power, a thunderbolt, mark where a terrific and resistless bolt came down from heaven, out of the harmless sky, eight years ago. It seemed a sacred spot. 

I felt that we had not learned much since the days of Tullus Hostilius. It at length shows the effect of the shock, and the woodpeckers have begun to bore it on one side. 

Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail. It dove and swam a few rods under water, and, when on the surface, kept turning round and round warily and nodding its head the while. This being the only pond hereabouts that is open.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 26, 1853

The first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep. See December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.").See also note to November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.”)

It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. See November 24, 1858 (“Being very moist, it had lodged on every twig, and every one had its counterpart in a light downy white one, twice or thrice its own depth, resting on it."): December 24, 1856 ("The snow collects and is piled up in little columns like down about every twig and stem, and this is only seen in perfection, complete to the last flake, while it is snowing, as now.”); February 21, 1854 ("You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.”); January 14, 1853 ("White walls of snow rest on the boughs of trees, in height two or three times their thickness.”)

Begin life again: See January 23, 1860 ("Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I recommence life.”)

All weeds, with their seeds, rising dark above the snow, are now remarkably conspicuous, which before were not observed against the dark earth.  See December 26, 1855 ("But the low and spreading weeds in the fields and the wood-paths are the most interesting.”); See also November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)

Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, ... It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail....This being the only pond hereabouts that is open. See December 27, 1852 (“Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. ... A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

It has snowed for hours

and, as it ceases, we go out

to see the new snow.

Gently fallen snow

has formed an upright wall on

the slenderest twig.

And every twig

thus laden is as still as

the hillside itself.

All weeds with their seeds,

rising dark above the snow,

now conspicuous.

The branches and trees

supporting snowy burdens

bend over the road.

This pure and trackless

road up Brister's Hill  tempts us

to start life again.

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Thus beautiful the snow.

January 14

Snows all day.

The place of the sun appears through the storm about three o'clock, a sign that it is near its end, though it still snows as hard as ever. It is a very light snow, lying like down or feathery scales. Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw. These thin crystals are piled about a foot deep all over the country, but as light as bran.

White walls of snow rest on the boughs of trees, in height two or three times their thickness. Already, before the storm is over, the surface of the snow in the high woods is full of indentations and hollows where some of this burden has fallen.

And now the snow has quite ceased, blue sky appears, and the sun goes down in clouds. The surface of fields, as I look toward the western light, appears as if different kinds of flakes drifted together, some glistening scales, others darker; or perhaps the same reflected the light differently from different sides of slight drifts or undulations on the surface. 

Thus beautiful the snow. These starry crystals, descending profusely, have woven a pure white garment, over all the fields.

Snow freshly fallen is one thing, to-morrow it will be another. 

It is now pure and trackless. Walking three or four miles in the woods, I see but one track of any kind, yet by to-morrow morning there will he countless tracks of all sizes all over the country.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 14, 1853

It is now pure and trackless, yet by to-morrow morning there will he countless tracks. See February 21, 1854 (“You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.”); January 31, 1856 (“These fresh falls of snow are like turning over a new leaf of Nature’s Album.”)

The days are now sensibly longer

January 20

It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day . . .  The morning and the evening are full of news to me.  My walks are full of incidents . . . To see the sun rise or go down every day! 

It requires more than a day's devotion
to know and to possess the wealth of a day. 

Walk down the Boston road. 

It is good to look off over the great unspotted fields of snow, the walls and fences almost buried in it and hardly a turf or stake left bare for the starving crows to light on. There is no track nor mark to mar its purity beyond the single sled track, except where, once in half a mile, some traveller has stepped aside for a sleigh to pass. 


The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 20, 1852

It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. See January 20, 1855 ("How new all things seem! . . . The world is not only new to the eye, but is still as at creation; every blade and leaf is hushed; not a bird or insect is heard; only, perchance, a faint tinkling sleigh-bell in the distance . .. I sit looking up at the mackerel sky and also at the neighboring wood so suddenly relieved of its snowy burden . . .Very musical and even sweet now, like a horn, is the hounding of a foxhound heard now in some distant wood, while I stand listening in some far solitary and silent field."); January 20, 1853 ("What more beautiful or soothing to the eye than those finely divided or minced clouds . . . now reaching up from the west above my head!"); January 20, 1856 ("What a different aspect the river’s brim now from what it wears in summer!"); January 20, 1859 ("What a singular element is this water!"); January 20, 1860 ("What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them! ");

The green of the ice

begins to be visible

just before sunset.

January 20, 1859

See also A Day's Devotion 

The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late."); January 24, 1852 ("The sun sets about five.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

January 20. See A Book of the Seasons, , by Henry Thoreau, January 20

*****

Jan. 20. Walked down the Boston road. It was good to look off over the great unspotted fields of snow, the walls and fences almost buried in it and hardly a turf or stake left bare for the starving crows to light on. There is no track nor mark to mar its purity be yond the single sled track, except where, once in half a mile, some traveller has stepped aside for a sleigh to pass.

The farmers nowadays can cart out peat and muck over the frozen meadows. Somewhat analogous, me- thinks, the scholar does; drives in with tight-braced energy and winter cheer on to his now firm meadowy grounds, and carts, hauls off, the virgin loads of fer tilizing soil which he threw up in the warm, soft summer. We now bring our muck out of the meadows, but it was thrown up first in summer.

The scholar's and the farmer's work are strictly analogous.

Easily he now conveys, sliding over the snow-clad ground, great loads of fuel and of lumber which have grown in many summers, from the forest to the town. He deals with the dry hay and cows, the spoils of summer meads and fields, stored in his barns, doling it out from day to day, and manufactures milk for men. When I see the farmer driving into his barn-yard with a load of muck, whose blackness contrasts strangely with the white snow, I have the thoughts which I have described. He is doing like myself.

My barn-yard is my journal.

I do not know but it is too much to read one news paper in a week, for I now take the weekly Tribune, and for a few days past, it seems to me, I have not dwelt in Concord; the sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. To read of things distant and sounding betrays us into slighting these which are then apparently near and small. We learn to look abroad for our mind and spirit's daily nutriment, and what is this dull town to me? what are these plain fields and the aspects of this earth and these skies ?

All summer and far into the fall I unconsciously went by the newspapers and the news, and now I find it was because the morning and the evening were full of news to me. My walks were full of incidents. 

I attended not to the affairs of Europe, but to my own affairs in Concord fields.

To see the sun rise or go down every day would preserve us sane forever, — so to relate ourselves, for our mind's and body's health, to a universal fact.

 Last spring our new stone bridge was said to be about to fall. The selectmen got a bridge architect to look at it and, acting on his advice, put up a barrier and warned travellers not to cross it. Of course, I be lieved with the rest of my neighbors that there was no immediate danger, for there it was standing, and the barrier knocked down, that travellers might go over, as they did with few exceptions. But one day, riding that way with another man, and reflecting that I had never looked into the condition of the bridge myself, and if it should fall with us on it, I should have reason to say what a fool I was to go over when I was warned, I made him stop on this side, merely for principle's sake, and walked over while he rode before, and I got in again at the other end. I paid that degree of respect to the advice of the bridge architect and the warning of the selectmen. It was my companion's daily thoroughfare.

Greeley says of London, " The morning to sleep, the afternoon to business, and the evening to enjoyment, seems the usual routine with the favored classes." They have no morning life then. They are afternoon men. To begin the day at noon!

The days are now sensibly longer, and half past five is as light as five was.

To see the sun rise

or go down every day

full of news to me.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The days are now sensibly longer

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

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