Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

  • About
  • Keyword index
  • Multimedia
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog

Friday February 03, 2023

Dave Bonta February 3, 2023 0

-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, cold, snowflakes, sunrise, wind

Thursday February 02, 2023

Dave Bonta February 2, 2023 0

Clear and cold at the crack of dawn. A propeller plane comes blinking out of the east, banks and follows the mountain south, engine fading into a quiet trickle from the spring.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged dawn, plane

Wednesday February 01, 2023

Dave Bonta February 1, 2023 0

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this: bitter cold with the ground mostly bare. Chickadees are having a fracas. Snow drifts down from a clearing sky.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chickadee, cold, snowflakes

Tuesday January 31, 2023

Dave Bonta January 31, 2023 0

A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged black walnut, gray squirrel, snow, tulip tree

Monday January 30, 2023

Dave Bonta January 30, 2023 0

The snowpack is holey again. A sunrise sky is visible through the trees on the ridgetop for just a few minutes until the fog descends.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged fog, snow, sunrise

Sunday January 29, 2023

Dave Bonta January 29, 2023 0

Dull mid-morning light—the threadbare snowpack is brighter than the clouds. A titmouse sounds the predator alarm and a squirrel cleaning off a walnut climbs a few feet higher into the lilac.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, gray squirrel, lilac, tufted titmouse

Saturday January 28, 2023

Dave Bonta January 28, 2023 0

Mid morning, and the strong sunlight reveals in every shadow-casting hummock how snugly the ground’s coat of snow has come to fit.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged snow

Friday January 27, 2023

Dave Bonta January 27, 2023 0

Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn yellow.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, gray squirrel, snow

Thursday January 26, 2023

Dave Bonta January 26, 2023 0

Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gray squirrel, snow, snowflakes, wind

Wednesday January 25, 2023

Dave Bonta January 25, 2023 0

My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged snow, stream

Tuesday January 24, 2023

Dave Bonta January 24, 2023 0

Sunrise layers of yellow and blue, cloud and clear. High in a black birch, two chickadees feed and squabble.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged black birch, chickadee, clouds, sunrise

Monday January 23, 2023

Dave Bonta January 23, 2023 0

An inch of wet snow clinging to everything. The juncos and chickadees sound the most excited I’ve heard them in a month—which might also be due to the sun’s cameo appearance.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chickadee, juncos, snow

Sunday January 22, 2023

Dave Bonta January 22, 2023 0

Sky the color of faded jeans. It’s cold. The crash of a dead limb falling from the treetops where two female squirrels are eluding suitors.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, cold, gray squirrel

Saturday January 21, 2023

Dave Bonta January 21, 2023 0

Gray sky, and the ground scrofulous with snow—an eighth of an inch. A sudden cacophony of mourning dove wings.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged mourning doves, snow

Posts navigation

1 2 … 334 Next →

Primary Sidebar

On this date

    February 3, 2022

    Cold but not freezing mizzle. Two pileated woodpeckers work the woods' edge, tilting their heads to the side between taps. A flock of juncos. …

    February 3, 2021

    This is winter as I remember it from my childhood: more than a foot of drifting snow at 20°F. The Carolina wren is singing under the house. …

    February 3, 2020

    Sunny and warm. The snow is reduced to patches in the woods. In front of the house, a Carolina wren shrieks abuse at my brother the birder. …

    February 3, 2019

    Patches of bare yard dug up by deer. Patches of blue sky which the sun now and then pops through. The drip drip of meltwater from the roof. …

    February 3, 2018

    Silence broken only by the wind for many minutes, until the fire alarm goes off in town: once, twice, three times rising from moan to wail. …

    February 3, 2017

    A long log has slid down so that it rests like a seesaw on the top of the road bank. Tree shadows on the snow darken and grow faint again. …

    February 3, 2015

    Birds flutter back and forth across the yard to drink the dark water of the spring. The frigid air glitters with scattered snowflakes. …

    February 3, 2014

    It's snowing; the bergamot heads wear new, conical caps. A mourning dove flies past the porch on nearly silent wings, headed for the pines. …

    February 3, 2013

    A squirrel leaps through the snow-laden lilac up by the other house, chasing the juncos. Their high, tinny alarm-calls sound like laughter. …

    February 3, 2012

    Is it overcast or sunny, warm or cold? I don't even notice. The line crew is back, and they've chainsawed the top off a dwarf pear tree. …

    February 3, 2011

    A thin snowdrift has taken refuge on the porch, covering all but the outermost foot. My old broom sheds pieces of straw with every pass. …

    February 3, 2010

    A new half-inch of snow. The wind brings traffic noise from over the ridge and the nasal calls of a chickadee. A tree cracks its knuckles. …

    February 3, 2009

    At half-light, small explosions of wings and twittering from around the side of the house as birds leave their roosts in the cedar tree. …

    February 3, 2008

    A clear sunrise, and every twig and blade of grass still wearing its coat of ice. Two titmice drone back and forth amid the glitter. …

Follow via email

Other ways to follow

  • @davebonta on Mastodon
  • RSS - entries
  • RSS - comments
  • Follow on Feedly

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Header image

Detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

Archives

Frequent topics

American goldfinch American robin black birch black locust black walnut blue jays cardinal Carolina wren catbird cherry tree chickadee chipmunks clouds cold crows dawn deer downy woodpecker fall foliage fog frost gray squirrel I-99 juncos lilac moon oaks phoebe pileated woodpecker rain raven ruby-throated hummingbird snow snowflakes springhouse stream sunrise train trucks tufted titmouse tulip tree white-breasted nuthatch white-throated sparrow wind wood thrush

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Vimeo
  • RSS

Copyright © 2023 The Morning Porch. Powered by WordPress and Stargazer.