black gum

10/4/2010

Dave Bonta October 4, 2010

Steady rain drumming, dripping, stripping leaves from the understory gums, orange and red careening down in the otherwise still-green woods.

10/4/2010

April 25, 2023
Frost in the yard. How many tender young leaves will collapse and blacken at the sun’s touch? A goldfinch warbles in the treetops. A raven…
10/4/2010

April 25, 2022
Sunlight softened by high-altitude haze. The hermit thrush is still around, dreamily singing up on the ridge, ignoring the boorish wren.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2021
After last night’s rain, the sun keeps not coming out. Up in the woods, a breeze in the top of one red oak makes a…
10/4/2010

April 25, 2020
Insects are flying and so are the gnatcatchers. I notice a strand of silk waving from the eaves with a tiny, pale spider at the…
10/4/2010

April 25, 2019
Heavy clouds, but only a few drops fall. A mourning dove and a red-bellied woodpecker go over and over their opposing points of view.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2018
The birds seem unusually active; there must be a fresh bloom of aerial plankton. Even the brown thrasher brings his jazz to the yard.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2017
The old cherry stump beside the porch has once again attracted a pair of nest-minded chickadees. They pop in and out of its many holes.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2016
High clouds spread and thicken—slow yeast in a blue bowl. A hornet hovers behind my head, buzzing like an alarm clock I can’t turn off.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2015
A ruffed grouse drums and a field sparrow sings with almost the same accelerating rhythm. The hollow gurgle of the stream under the yard.
10/4/2010

April 25, 2014
Two male flickers fighting over the dead elm and its den-hole joust in the garden, jabbing and feinting with their long bills.

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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

black gum

10/4/2010