11 February 1856 – 17 February 1856

P. M. — To Fair Haven Pond by river. 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. Eb. Conant says as much, except- ing the year when he was twenty-five, about 1803. It is now fairly thawing, the eaves running; and puddles stand in some places. The boys can make snowballs, and the horses begin to slump occasionally. Saw a partridge by the riverside, opposite Fair Haven Hill, which at first I mistook for the top of a fence-post above the snow, amid some alders. I shouted and waved my hand four rods off, to see if it was one, but there was no motion, and I thought surely it must be a post. Nevertheless I resolved to investigate. Within three rods, I saw it to be indeed a partridge, to my sur- prise, standing perfectly still, with its head erect and neck stretched upward. It was as complete a deception as if it had designedly placed itself on the line of the fence and in the proper place for a post. It finally stepped off daintily with a teetering gait and head up, and took to wing. I thought it would be a thawing day by the sound, the peculiar sound, of cock-crowing in the morn- ing. It will indicate what steady cold weather we have had to say that the lodging snow of January 13th, though it did not lodge remarkably, has not yet completely melted off the sturdy trunks of large trees.

Thawed all day yesterday and rained some- what last night; clearing off this morning. Heard the eaves drop all night. The thermometer at 8.30 a. M., 42°. The snow or crust and cold weather began Decem- ber 26th, and not till February 7th was there any con- siderable relenting, when it rained a little; 7. e. forty- three days of uninterrupted cold weather, and no serious thaw till the llth, or yesterday. 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. Water now stands above the ice and snow on the river. TI find, on shovelling away the snow, that there is about two inches of solid ice at the bottom, — that thin crusted snow of December 26th. These two inches must be added, then, to my measures of January 12th, 16th, 23d, 29th, and 30th. To-day I find it‘has settled since the 29th — owing, of course, mainly to the rain of the 7th and especially of last night — about two inches in open land and an inch and a half in Trillium Woods. Thus, west of railroad, 11$+2=12} [sic]; east of railroad, 133 +2=154; Trillium Woods, 13 +2 =15; average, 12+2=14. There has been scarcely any loss on the west side of the railroad, but 3} on the east side. It may be owing to the drifting since the 29th. From January 6th to January 13th, not less than a foot of snow on a level in open land, and from January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level.'' That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!

Grew cold again last night, with high wind. The wind began about midday. I think a high wind commonly follows rain or a thaw in winter. The ther- mometer at 8.30 A. M. is at zero. (At 1p. m., 8°+.) This fall of 42° from 8.30 a. M. yesterday to the same time to-day has produced not a thin and smooth, but a very firm and thick, uneven crust, on which I go in any direction across the fields, stepping over the fences; yet there is some slosh at the bottom of the snow, above the icy foundation. Now, no doubt, many sportsmen are out with their dogs, who have been imprisoned by the depth of the snow. In the woods where there are bushes beneath, you still skimp more or less. The crust is quite green with the needles of pitch pines, sometimes whole plumes which have recently fallen. Are these chiefly last year’s needles brought down by the glaze, or those of the previous year which had not fallen before? I.suspect they are chiefly the former, but maybe some of the latter.’

Still colder this morning, — 7° at 8.30 a. M. P. M.— To Walden. ~ I find that a great many pine-needles, both white and pitch, of *54 still hold on, bristling around the twigs, especially if the tree has not grown much the last year. So those that strew the snow now are of both kinds. I can now walk on the crust in every direction at the Andromeda Swamp; can run and stamp without danger of breaking through, raised quite above the andromeda (which is entirely concealed), more than two feet above the ground. But in the woods, and even in wood-paths, I slump at every other step. In all the little valleys in the woods and sprout-lands, and on the southeast sides of hills, the oak leaves which have blown over the crust are gathered in dry and warm-looking beds, often five or six feet in diameter, about the base of the shrub oaks. So clean and crisply dry and warm above the cold, white crust, they are singularly inviting to my eye. No doubt they are of service to conceal and warm the rabbit and partridge and other beasts and birds. They fill every little hollow, and betray thus at a distance a man’s tracks made a week ago, or a dog’s many rods off on a hillside. If the snow were not crusted, they would not be gathered thus in troops. I walk in the bare maple swamps and detect the minute pensile nests of some vireo high over my head, in the fork of some unattainable twig, where I never suspected them in summer, —a little basket cradle that rocked so high in the wind. And where is that young family now, while their cradle is filled with ice? I was struck to-day by the size and continuousness of the natural willow hedge on the east side of the rail- road causeway, at the foot of the embankment, next to the fence. Some twelve years ago, when that cause- way was built through the meadows, there were no willows there or near there, but now, just at the foot of the sand-bank, where it. meets the meadow, and on the line of the fence, quite a dense willow hedge has planted itself. I used to think that the seeds were brought with the sand from the Deep Cut in the woods, but there is no golden willow there; but now I think that the seeds have been blown hither from a distance, and lodged against the foot of the bank, just as the snow-drift accumulates there, for I see several ash trees among them, which have come from an ash ten rods east in the meadow, though none has sprung up elsewhere. There are also a few alders, elms, birch, poplars, and some elder. For years a willow might not have been persuaded to take root in that meadow; but run a barrier like this through it, and in a few years it is lined with them. They plant themselves here solely, and not in the open meadow, as exclusively as along the shores of a river. The sand-bank is a shore to them, and the meadow a lake. How impatient, how rampant, how precocious these osiers! They have hardly made two shoots from the sand in as many springs, when silvery catkins burst out along them, and anon golden blossoms and downy seeds, spreading their race with incredible rapidity. Thus they multiply and clan to- gether. Thus they take advantage even of the railroad, which elsewhere disturbs and invades their domains. May I ever be in as good spirits as a willow! How tenacious of life! How withy! How soon it gets over its hurts! They never despair. Is there no moisture longer in nature which they can transmute into sap? They are emblems of youth, joy, and everlasting life. Scarcely is their growth restrained by winter, but their silvery down peeps forth in the warmest days in Jan- uary (?). The very trees and shrubs and weeds, if we consider their origin, have drifted thus like snow against the fences and hillsides. Their growth is pro- tected and favored there. Soon the alders will take their places with them. This hedge is, of course, as straight as the railroad or its bounding fence. Over this crust, alder and birch and ‘pine seeds, etc., which in summer would have soon found a resting- place, are blown far and wide.

P. M. — To Walden. 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. Wild says it is the warmest day at 12 m. since the 22d of: December, when the thermometer stood at 50°. To-day it is at 44. I hear the eaves running before I come out, and our thermometer at 2 p. M. is 38°. The sun is most pleasantly warm on my cheek; the melting snow shines in the ruts; the cocks crow more than usual in barns; my greatcoat is an incumbrance. There is no down visible on the sallows when I de- scend the east side of the railroad, unless a scale has come off. Where I measured the ice in the middle of Walden on the 6th I now measure again, or close by it, though without cutting out the cake. I find about 11} (prob- ably about same as the 6th, when called 113—) of snow ice and 214 in all, leaving 10} clear ice, which would make the ice to have increased beneath through all this thickness and in spite of the thaws 2? — inches. Near the shore in one place it was twenty-two inches.

Some three or four inches of snow fallen in the night and now blowing. At noon begins to snow again, as well as blow. Several more inches fall. Feb. 18. Yesterday’s snow drifting. No cars from above or below till 1 Pp. m.