21 December 1857 – 27 December 1857

Walking over the Andromeda Ponds be- tween Walden and Fair Haven, which have only frozen just enough to bear me, I see in springy parts, where the ice is thin, good-sized pollywogs wiggling away, scared by the sound of my steps and cracking of the ice. ‘They appear to keep in motion in such muddy pond-holes, where a spring wells up from the bottom till midwinter, if not all winter.

Surveying for heirs of J. Richardson, G. Heywood and A. Brooks accompanying. Skate on Goose Pond. Heywood says that some who have gone into Ebby Hubbard’s barn to find him have seen the rats run over his shoulders, they are so famil- iar with him. ‘This because I stopped to speak with Hubbard in his barn about bounds. I find the true line between Richardson and Mrs. Bigelow, which Captain Hubbard overlooked in 1840, and yet I find it by his own plan of 1827. Bigelow had set a split stone far into Richardson. After making the proper allowance for variation since 1827, I set my stake exactly on an old spotted line, which was overlooked in 1840 and is probably as old as the survey of ’27, or thirty years. It is on good-sized white pines, and is quite distinct now, though not blazed into the wood at first. It would not be detected unless you were looking for it.

Snows all day, — first snow of any conse- quence, three or four inches in all.

Sunday. A clear, pleasant day. P. M. — To Goose Pond.