The sounds of a glorious winter afternoon (the scream of a jay–cold, hard, tense, frozen music –like the winter sky)

February 12. 

February 12, 2023

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. There is very little wind, here under Fair Haven especially. I begin to dream of summer even. I take off my mittens.

This is a glorious winter afternoon. The clearness of a winter day is not impaired, while the air is still and you feel a direct heat from the sun. It is not like the relenting of a thaw with a southerly wind. There is a bright sheen from the snow, and the ice booms a little from time to time. 

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. The earth must be resonant if bare.

You hear the lisping tinkle of chickadees from time to time and the unrelenting steel-cold scream of a jay, unmelted, that never flows into a song, a sort of wintry trumpet, screaming cold; hard, tense, frozen music, like the winter sky itself; in the blue livery of winter's band. It is like a flourish of trumpets to the winter sky. There is no hint of incubation in the jay's scream. Like the creak of a cart-wheel. 

There is no cushion for sounds now. They tear our ears. 

The pond does not thunder every night, and I do not know its law exactly. I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering, for it feels scarcely perceptible changes in the weather. Who would have suspected so large and cold and thick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive? Yet it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should, as surely as the buds expand in the spring. 

For the earth is all alive and covered with feelers of sensation, papillae. The hardest and largest rock, the broadest ocean, is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube. 

Though you may perceive no difference in the weather, the pond does.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1854

I begin to dream of summer even. I take off my mittens. See January 25, 1855 ("It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . .You dispense with gloves. "); March 18, 1853 ("This the foreglow of the year, when the walker goes home at eve to dream of summer”) Compare February 1, 1856 ("We have completely forgotten the summer."); February 3, 1852 ("See if a man can think his summer thoughts now.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Walking without Gloves

This is a glorious winter afternoon. See December 10, 1856 ("A warm, clear, glorious winter day."); December 20, 1854 (“It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice.”)

The unrelenting steel-cold scream of a jay. See February 2, 1854 ("The scream of the jay is a true winter sound. It is wholly without sentiment, and in harmony with winter.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

The pond does not thunder every night. See January 1, 1853 ("I listen to the booming of the pond as if it were a reasonable creature"); January 6, 1853 ("There are thirty or forty of these [ bubbles], at least, to every square inch. These, probably, when heated by the sun, make it crack and whoop.");. January 8, 1853 ("I inferred, therefore, that all those infinite minute bubbles I had seen first on the under side of the ice were now frozen in with it, and . . . probably it is the expanding and shrinking of the air in them, as well as in the water, which cracks the ice and makes the whooping sound."); January 29, 1853 ("Melvin thinks that the "thundering" of the pond scares the pickerel."); December 25, 1853 ('About 4 p. m. the sun sunk behind a cloud, and the pond began to boom or whoop. I noticed the same yesterday at the same hour at Flint's. It is a very pleasing phenomenon, so dependent on the altitude of the sun. "); December 27, 1853 ("I went to hear the pond whoop, but did not hear much. "); March 1,1856 ("At Flint’s I find half a dozen fishing. The pond cracks a very little while I am there, say at half past ten. I think I never saw the ice so thick. It measures just two feet thick"); December 7, 1856 ("I see with surprise the pond a dumb white surface of ice speckled with snow, just as so many winters before . . . I hear, too, the familiar belching voice of the pond. "); January 23, 1858 (“Walden, I think, begins to crack and boom first on the south side, which is first in the shade, for I hear it cracking there, though it is still in the sun around me. It is not so sonorous and like the dumping of frogs as I have heard it, but more like the cracking of crockery. It suggests the very brittlest material, as if the globe you stood on were a hollow sphere of glass and might fall to pieces on the slightest touch. Most shivering, splintery, screeching cracks these are, as if the ice were no thicker than a tumbler, though it is probably nine or ten inches. Methinks my weight sinks it and helps to crack sometimes."); January 23, 1858 ("I go near enough to Flint's Pond, about 4 P. M., to hear it thundering. In summer I should not have suspected its presence an eighth of a mile off through the woods, but in such a winter day as this it speaks and betrays itself. "); January 28, 1858 ("The ice cracks suddenly with a shivering jar like crockery or the brittlest material, such as it is. And I notice, as I sit here at this open edge, that each time the ice cracks, though it may be a good distance off toward the middle, the water here is very much agitated"); December 25, 1858 (“I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. ”); December 23, 1859 ("You may walk eastward in the winter afternoon till the ice begins to look green, half to three quarters of an hour before sunset . . . Soon after, too, the ice began to boom, or fire its evening gun, another warning that the end of the day was at hand, and a little after the snow reflected a distinct rosy ligh, . . . These signs successively prompt us once more to retrace our steps. ")  See also Walden (“The pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering . . . Yet it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should”)

February 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 12

Dreaming of summer

this warm and pleasant day – I

take off my mittens.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Sounds of a glorious winter afternoon

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

tinyurl.com/hdt540212

The order of creation

February 11.

7.30 a. m. — Snow-fleas lie in black patches on the ice which froze last night. When I breathe on them I find them all alive and ready to skip. Also the water, when I break the ice, arouses them.

In the winter we so value the semblance of fruit that even the dry black female catkins of the alder are an interesting sight, not to mention, on shoots rising a foot or two above these, the red or mulberry male catkins, in little parcels dangling at a less than right angle with the stems, and the short female ones at their bases.

When I read of the catkins of the alder and the willow, etc., scattering their yellow pollen, they impress me as a vegetation which belongs to the earliest and most innocent dawn of nature; as if they must have preceded other trees in the order of creation, as they precede them annually in their blossoming and leafing.  

For how many aeons did the willow shed its yellow pollen annually before man was created!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 11, 1854

Snow-fleas lie in black patches. See February 2, 1854 ("As it is a melting day, the snow is everywhere peppered with snow-fleas, even twenty rods from the woods, on the pond and meadows."); February 9, 1854 (". There are snow-fleas, quite active, on the half-melted snow on the middle of Walden.") Compare March 10, 1856 ("The past has been a winter of such unmitigated severity that I have not chanced to notice a snow-flea, which are so common in thawing days. "):See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

They must have preceded other trees in the order of creation, as they precede them annually in their blossoming and leafing. See April 28, 1852 ("This may, perhaps, be nearly the order of the world's creation . . . Thus we have in the spring of the year the spring of the world represented"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

February 11.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 11

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

tinyurl.com/hdt540211

The sturdy white oak near the Derby railroad bridge

February 10. 

Up railroad to Assabet and return via Hollowell place. The river has risen again, and, instead of ice and snow, there is water over the ice on the meadows. This is the second freshet since the snows. The ice is cracked, and in some places heaved up in the usual manner. 

The sturdy white oak near the Derby railroad bridge has been cut down. It measures five feet and three inches over the stump, at eighteen inches from the ground.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 10, 1854

The sturdy white oak near the Derby railroad bridge. See April 19, 1852 ("That oak by Derby's is a grand object, seen from any side. It stands like an athlete and defies the tempests in every direction. It has not a weak point. It is an agony of strength. Its branches look like stereo typed gray lightning on the sky. But I fear a price is set upon its sturdy trunk and roots for ship-timber, for knees to make stiff the sides of ships against the Atlantic billows. Like an athlete, it shows its well- developed muscles");  December 22, 1852 ("A rambling, rocky, wild, moorish pasture, this of Hunt's, with two or three great white oaks to shade the cattle, which the farmer would not take fifty dollars apiece for, though the ship-builder wanted them."); See also  March 25, 1853 ("Measured a white oak in front of Mr. Billings's new house, about one mile beyond Saxonville,-twelve and one twelfth feet in circumference at four feet from the ground (the smallest place within ten feet from the ground), fourteen feet circumference at ground, and a great spread."); May 19, 1856 ("Returning, stopped at Barrett’s sawmill . . . He was sawing a white oak log. . . Said that about as many logs were brought to his mill as ten years ago, — he did not perceive the difference, — but they were not so large, and perhaps they went further for them"); October 29, 1860 ("I am surprised to find on this[E. Hubbard’s ] hill (cut some seven or eight years ago) many remarkably old stumps wonderfully preserved, especially on the north side the hill, — walnuts, white oak and other oaks, and black birch. One white oak is eighteen and a half inches in diameter and has one hundred and forty-three rings. This is very one-sided in its growth, the centre being just four inches from the north side, or thirty - six rings to an inch. Of course I counted the other side.Another, close by, gave one hundred and forty-one rings, another white oak fifteen and a half inches in diameter had one hundred and fifty-five rings. It has so smooth (sawed off) and solid, almost a polished or marble-Like, surface that I could not at first tell what kind of wood it was. Another white oak the same as last in rings, i. e. one hundred and fifty-five, twenty-four inches in diameter. All these were sound to the very core, so that I could see the first circles. . . For aught that appeared, they might have continued to grow a century longer. The stumps are far apart, so that this formed an open grove,"); November 13, 1860 ("On the Moore and Hosmer lot, cut in’52 (I think), west of railroad, south of Heywood’s meadow, an oak stump fifteen and a half inches in diameter, ninety three rings; another, white oak, fourteen and a half inches in diameter, ninety-four rings . . .It was a good hundred years since that old stump was cut . . .A white oak standing by the fence west of Spanish Brook dam on Morse’s lot, circumference six feet and two twelfths at three feet."); Novemberf 28 28, 1860 ("On the plain just north of the east end of G. M. B.'s oaks, many oaks were sawed off about a year ago . . . One white oak, 17 inches diameter, has 100 rings.A second, 16 1/2 inches diameter, also 100 rings.")

Cutting old trees. See  January 22, 1852 ("I love to look at Ebby Hubbard's oaks and pines on the hillside from Brister's Hill. Am thankful that there is one old miser who will not sell nor cut his woods. ... It concerns us all whether these proprietors choose to cut down all the woods this winter or not"); March 11, 1852 (The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing?").

Old growth specimens. In 1860, as part of his study of forest succession HDT was to measure old trees in detail. See October 19, 1860 (" I can easily find in countless numbers in our forests, frequently in the third succession, the stumps of the oaks that were cut near the end of the last century. Perhaps I can recover thus generally the oak woods of the beginning of the last century." October 20, 1860 ("[At Hubbard's wood] the very oldest evidences of a tree are a hollow three or four feet across, - the grave of an oak that was cut or died eighty or a hundred years ago there."); November 1, 1860 ("Measure some pine stumps on Tommy Wheeler's land, about that now frosty hollow, cut ... four years ago. One, having 164 rings, sprang up at least one hundred and sixty-eight years ago, or about the year 1692, or fifty-seven years after the settlement, 1635"); November 13, 1860 ("A white birch (Betula alba) west edge of Trillium Wood, two feet seven inches circumference at three feet"); November 14, 1860 ("The red maple on south edge of Trillium Wood is six feet three inches in circumference at three feet"); December 1, 1860 ("Measure a great red maple near the south end of E. Hubbard's swamp, dividing in two at the ground, the largest trunk 7 feet and 10 inches at three feet") ; see also January 27, 1856 ("The white maple at Derby’s Bridge measures fifteen feet in circumference at ground,").

See also November 10, 1860 (Inches Wood); November 5, 1860 (Blood's oak lot.) and November 2, 1860 (Wetherbee's old oak lot).

February 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 10

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

February belongs to the Spring.

February 9

The water was several inches deep in the road last evening, but it has run nearly dry by morning. 

It has cleared off very pleasant and is still quite warm. 

Some of these thaws succeed suddenly to intensely cold weather, and the sky that was tense like a bow that is bent is now relaxed.  

There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning, perhaps the light being diffused by vapor. It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in. 

February 9, 2019

And the brightness of the morning is increased tenfold by the sun reflected from broad sheets of rain and melted snow water. The sun is reflected from a hundred rippling sluices of snow-water finding its level in the fields. 

The voices of the school-children sound like spring. 

The jays are more lively than usual. 

There are snow-fleas, quite active, on the half-melted snow on the middle of Walden. 

The hollows about Walden, still bottomed with snow, are filled with greenish water like its own.  

I do not hear Therien's axe far of late. The moment I came on his chopping-ground, the chickadees flew to me, as if glad to see me. They are a peculiarly honest and sociable little bird. I saw them go to his pail repeatedly and peck his bread and butter. They came and went a dozen times while I stood there. He said that a great flock of them came round him the other day while he was eating his dinner and lit on his clothes “just like flies.” One roosted on his finger, and another pecked a piece of bread in his hand. They are considerable company for the woodchopper. I heard one wiry phe-be. They love to hop about wood freshly split. Apparently they do not leave his clearing all day. They were not scared when he threw down wood within a few feet of them. When I looked to see how much of his bread and butter they had eaten, I did not perceive that any was gone. He could afford to dine a hundred.

I do not find any willow catkins started, though many have lost their scales. I have brought home some alder and sweet-gale and put them in water. The black birch has a slender sharp bud, much like the shad bush. 

I have seen two red squirrels and heard a third since the snow covered the ground. I have seen one gray one, but traces of many. 

February 9, 2019

Is not January alone pure winter? December belongs to the fall; is a wintry November: February, to the spring; it is a snowy March. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1854

There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning . See February 8, 1860 ("There is a peculiarity in the air when the temperature is thus high and the weather fair, at this season,"); February 12, 1856 ("How different the sunlight over thawing snow from the same over dry, frozen snow! The former excites me strangely, and I experience a springlike melting in my thoughts.") See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, A Change in the Air

It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Listening for the Bluebird

And the brightness of the morning is increased tenfold by the sun reflected from broad sheets of rain and melted snow water. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring,Braided ripples of melting snow

There are snow-fleas, quite active, on the half-melted snow on the middle of Walden.  See January 30, 1860 ("he snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter. It seems not merely to enjoy this interval like other animals, but then chiefly to exist. It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element.") See alsoA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea

The hollows about Walden, still bottomed with snow, are filled with greenish water like its own. See Febrruary 14, 1854 ("I perceive that some of these pools by the Walden road which on the 9th looked so green have frozen blue.")

The chickadees flew to me, as if glad to see me.  They are a peculiarly honest and sociable little bird . . . They are considerable company for the woodchopper.  See December 1, 1853 ("They are our most honest and innocent little bird, drawing yet nearer to us as the winter advances, and deserve best of any of the walker."); December 3, 1856 ("Six weeks ago I noticed the advent of chickadees and their winter habits. As you walk along a wood-side, a restless little flock of them, whose notes you hear at a distance, will seem to say, "Oh, there he goes! Let's pay our respects to him." And they will flit after and close to you, and naively peck at the nearest twig to you, as if they were minding their own business all the while without any reference to you."); December  23, 1845 ("Therien, the woodchopper, was here yesterday, and while I was cutting wood, some chickadees hopped near pecking the bark and chips and the potato-skins I had thrown out. "What do you call them," he asked. I told him."What do you call them," asked I. "Mezezence[?]," I think he said. "When I eat my dinner in the woods," said he, "sitting very still, having kindled a fire to warm my coffee, they come and light on my arm and peck at the potato in my fingers. I like to have the little fellers about me." Just then one flew up from the snow and perched on the wood I was holding in my arms, and pecked it, and looked me familiarly in the face. Chicadee-dee-dee-dee-dee, while others were whistling phebe,—phe-bee,—in the woods behind the house.")  See also J. J. Audubon ("The sound of an axe in the woods is sufficient to bring forth several of these busy creatures, and having discovered the woodman, they seem to find pleasure in his company. If, as is usually the case, he is provided with a dinner, the Chickadee at once evinces its anxiety to partake of it, and loses no opportunity of accomplishing its object."); Walden ("In the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chickadees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers; and he said that he “liked to have the little fellers about him.");  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

I heard one wiry phe-be. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the spring note of the chickadee

 I do not find any willow catkins started, though many have lost their scales. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

February belongs to the spring. See February 2, 1854 ("Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that, you get into the gulfstream of winter, nearer the shores of spring."); February 2, 1854 ("Already we begin to anticipate spring, and this is an important difference between this time and a month ago. We begin to say that the day is springlike"); February 8, 1860 ("February may be called earine (springlike)") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

I do not hear Therien's axe far of late. See November 15, 1851 ("Asked Therien this afternoon if he had got a new idea this summer."); December 24, 1853 ("Saw Therien yesterday afternoon chopping for Jacob Baker in the rain. I heard his axe half a mile off, and also saw the smoke of his fire,"); December 29, 1853 ("I asked Therien yesterday if he was satisfied with himself. I was trying to get a point d'appui within him, a shelf to spring an arch from, to suggest some employment and aim for life."); February 9, 1854 (""); February 5, 1855 ("Found Therien cutting down the two largest chestnuts in the wood-lot behind where my house was. On the butt of one about two feet in diameter I count seventy-five rings. T. soon after breaks his axe in cutting through a knot in this tree, which he is cutting up for posts. He broke out a piece half an inch deep. This he says often happens. Perhaps there is some frost in his axe. Several choppers have broken their axes to-day.")

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

The sun reflected from

a hundred rippling sluices –

melted snow-water.

Listening for the 

first bluebird in this warm moist 

softened sunlit air.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February belongs to the Spring

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/hdt40204

High wind in the night and now, the rain being over. Does it not usually follow rain-storms at this season, to dry up the water? 

It has cleared off very pleasant and is still quite warm. 

9 A. M. To Pine Hill. Some of these thaws succeed suddenly to intensely cold weather, and the sky that was tense like a bow that is bent is now relaxed. There is a peculiar softness and luminousness in the air this morning, perhaps the light being diffused by vapor. 

It is such a warm, moist, or softened, sunlit air as we are wont to hear the first bluebird's warble in.  

And the brightness of the morning is increased tenfold by the sun reflected from broad sheets of rain and melted snow water, and also, in a peculiar manner, from the snow on the sides of the Deep Cut . The crowing of cocks and the voices of the school-children sound like spring. I hear the sound of the horses' feet on the bared ice dred rippling sluices of snow-water finding its level in the fields. 

Are not both sound and light condensed or contracted by cold? The jays are more lively than usual. That lichen with a white elastic thread for core is like a tuft of hair on the trees, sometimes springing from the centre of another, larger , flat lichen . ) There are snow - fleas , quite active , on the half - melted snow on the middle of Walden . 

I do not hear Therien's axe far of late . The moment I came on his chopping - ground , the chickadees flew to me , as if glad to see me . They are a peculiarly honest and sociable little bird . I saw them go to his , pail repeatedly and peck his bread and butter . They came and went a dozen times while I stood there . He said that a great flock of them came round him the other day while he was eating his dinner and lit on his clothes “ just like flies . ” One roosted on his finger , and another pecked a piece of bread in his hand . They are considerable company for the woodchopper . I heard one wiry phe - be . They love to hop about wood freshly split . Apparently they do not leave his clearing all day . They were not scared when he threw down wood within a few feet of them . When I looked to see how much of his bread and butter they had eaten , I did not perceive that any was gone . He could afford to dine a hundred. 

I see some chestnut sprouts with leaves on them still. 

The hollows about Walden, still bottomed with snow, are filled with greenish water like its own  

I do not find any willow catkins started, though many have lost their scales. 

I have brought home some alder and sweet-gale and put them in water. 

The black birch has a slender sharp bud, much like the shad bush. 

In Stow's meadow by railroad causeway, saw many dusky flesh-colored, transparent worms, about five eighths of an inch long, in and upon the snow, crawling about.  These, too, must be food for birds. 

I have seen two red squirrels and heard a third since the snow covered the ground. I have seen one gray one, but traces of many. ...

Is not January alone pure winter? December belongs to the fall; is a wintry November: February, to the spring; it is a snowy March. 

The water was several inches deep in the road last evening , but it has run nearly dry by morning . 

February thaw

February 8.

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

The wind southeasterly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 8, 1854

Rain, rain, rain, carrying off the snow .See February 8, 1852 ("Night before last, our first rain for a long time; this afternoon, the first crust to walk on."); February 8, 1856 ("The snow is soft, and the eaves begin to run as not for many weeks."); February 8, 1857 ("The snow is gone off very rapidly in the night, and much of the earth is bare, and the ground partially thawed. ")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 8

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

Down river on snow-covered ice.

February 7.

February 7, 2016

The river has not been so concealed by snow before. 

We crossed the Great Meadows lengthwise, a broad level plain, roughened only by snowy waves, about two miles long and nearly half as wide. Looking back over it made me think of what I have read of Arctic explorers travelling over snow-covered ice. 

Saw a few crows. Some green-briar berries quite fresh. 

Made a fire on the snow-covered ice half a mile below Ball's Hill -- a large warm fire, whose flame went up straight, there being no wind, and without smoke. Stayed half an hour, and when we took our departure, felt as if we had been in a house all the while, for we had been warm and had looked steadily at the fire instead of looking off. The fire made a large circular cavity in the snow and ice, three feet in diameter and four or five inches deep, with water at the bottom. 

We had often sailed over this very spot.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 7, 1854

It made me think of what I have read of Arctic explorers travelling over snow-covered ice. See February 2, 1860 ("No part of our scenery is ever more arctic than the river and its meadows now."); February 3, 1852 ("The landscape covered with snow two feet thick . . .The scenery is wholly arctic.")

Made a fire on the snow-covered ice.  See February 2, 1860("And as we were kindling a fire on the pond by the side of the island, we saw the fox "); February 20, 1854 ("It is best to lay down first some large damp wood on the ice for a foundation, since the success of a fire depends very much on the bed of coals it makes, and, if these are nearly quenched in the basin of melted ice, there is danger that it will go out.")

We had often sailed over this very spot. See February 3, 1856 ("How different this from sailing or paddling up the stream here in July, or poling amid the rocks!"); January 24, 1856("They have been sledding wood along the river . . . one of the rockiest and swiftest parts of the stream. Where I have so often stemmed the swift current, dodging the rocks, with my paddle, there the heavy, slow paced oxen, with their ponderous squeaking load, have plodded, while the teamster walked musing beside it.")

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

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

tinyurl.com/hdt540207

After the snow.

February 6

February 6, 2014

The weather has been very changeable for some weeks. First it is warm and thawing, sloshy weather; then the thermometer goes down to 19 ° below zero, and our shoes squeak on the snow; then, perhaps , it moderates and snows; then is mild and pleasant again and good sleighing; then we wake to find a drifted snow upon the last and a bleak, wintry prospect. 

From the Cliff Hill the landscape looks very bleak. A cold, drifting wind sweeps from the north; the surface of the snow is imbricated on a great scale, being very regularly blown into waves, alike over the high road and the railroad, concealing the tracks and the meadow and the river and the pond. It is all one great wintry-looking snow-field, whose surface consists of great wave-like drifts, maybe twenty feet wide with an abrupt edge on the south.

I see great shadows on the northeast sides of the mountains, forty miles off, the sun being in the southwest.


February 6, 2014

I see the track of a rabbit about the Cliff; there are hollows in the snow on the tops of the rocks, shaped like a milk-pan and as large, where he has squatted or whirled round. I also see the tracks of a few mice or moles. The squirrel, too, has been out. 

Hear the old owl at 4:30 P. M.

Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue rather than black.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, 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. See 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. It suggests that there may be some thing divine, something celestial, in me."); 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."); January 15, 1856 ("A bright day, not cold. I can comfortably walk without gloves, yet my shadow is a most celestial blue."); 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."); 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.")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

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 © 2009-2022