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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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oaks

October 29, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Pouring rain—that thunderous arrhythmic percussion on the roof. The muted red and gold of the oaks give the forest a faint glow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, rain
September 12, 2025September 19, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags acorns, blue jays, oaks
November 22, 2019 by Dave Bonta

After a windy night, the whole horizon is visible beyond the trees. I watch one of the last oak leaves float down, rocking, taking its time.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, oaks, wind 1 Comment
December 11, 2018 by Dave Bonta

The wind sounds even colder hissing through the leaves that still cling to an oak at the woods’ edge. I pull down my cap against the sun.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, scarlet oak, wind
December 7, 2018 by Dave Bonta

The ground is once again white, and there’s a wind. A dry, brown oak leaf dropping from the sky rocks from side to side like a small boat.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, snow, wind 2 Comments
November 29, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy but bright. I notice many of the pits in the old snow, melted down by oak leaves, have acquired new snow and a second, upstairs leaf.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, snow 2 Comments
November 21, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A singing contest between white-throated sparrows. Newly fallen oak leaves skitter back and forth on the snow under the trees.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, snow, white-throated sparrow
November 18, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A slow, rhythmless dripping from the top roof. The oak leaves scattered across the snow have only melted themselves the shallowest of pits.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks, snow
November 16, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Truly an autumn snow: eight inches with a topping of fallen oak leaves. In the green and brown lilac, a house finch’s purple breast.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags house finch, lilac, oaks, snow
November 13, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Two oak leaves are caught by a birch, one after the other. From somewhere in the clouds, the buzzing rattle of a plane with a loose part.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, oaks, plane
November 10, 2018 by Dave Bonta

First snowfall of the year—a quarter inch. Newly fallen oak leaves roll across it, or scuttle like crabs on their curled lobe-tips.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, oaks, snow, wind
November 7, 2018 by Dave Bonta

It’s morning in America, and I’m looking at a deep blue sky and a hillside of oaks—rust-red leaves still hanging on. They glow in the sun.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags oaks
November 3, 2018 by Dave Bonta

Oak leaves that turned brown just a few days ago already rattle instead of rustling. A hunter in gray camouflage emerges from the woods.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fall foliage, hunters, oaks, wind
October 29, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A few oaks are turning brown behind the birches’ washed-out yellow. High on a bare limb, a squirrel nest the exact shape of a porcupine.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black birch, gray squirrel, oaks
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On This Day

  • June 12, 2025
    Breezy and cool. A brown moth flutters into the last of the dame’s-rocket. Sunlight glints on the isinglass wings of a cicada heading for the treetops.
  • June 12, 2024
    Cold and partly clear. A distant motorcycle accelerates and shifts gears. A cranefly drifts past, improbable as a steam-punk contraption.
  • June 12, 2023
    Rain! That unfamiliar whisper rising to the level of a murmur. And a Carolina wren rushing about, making sure the world knows.
  • June 12, 2022
    When the clouds move off, an orbweaver’s web appears in the corner of a porch balustrade, shimmering as it pulses in the breeze.
  • June 12, 2021
    Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.

See all...

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Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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