Thoreau writes in his journal:
A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up . . .
Slight as the snow is, you are now reminded occasionally in your walks that you have contemporaries, and perchance predecessors. I see the track of a fox which was returning from his visit to a farmyard last night, and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog . . .