Thursday May 15, 2008

Cloudy and cool. A tanager’s plucked string; no glimpse of scarlet. Where are they off to, the hummingbirds that keep zooming past my porch?

On this date

November 27, 2021

Overcast, so it's hard to tell exactly when moonlight gives way to dawn. A hunter's flashlight climbs the ridge and is lost among the trees. …

November 27, 2020

Gray skies for Black Friday. Shots ring out from the valley as deer hunters sight in their rifles in preparation for opening day tomorrow. …

November 27, 2019

Late morning, and it's still not fully light—the clouds are too heavy. The sound of rain on the dry leaves like fat sizzling in a fryer. …

November 27, 2018

Light snow powdering my black sleeves. I watch a nuthatch inspect each branch of a walnut, its sideways hop and dip when it finds a morsel. …

November 27, 2017

Bright sun, cold wind. The blaze-orange vests of two hunters walking up the road: a father and his daughter who's just shot her first deer. …

November 27, 2016

The sun half-emerges from the clouds, like a chick too weak to break the shell. A small woman walks up the road, led by a large brown dog. …

November 27, 2015

From the east, the pop-pop-pop of a rifle being sighted in for deer season. From the west, the roar of Black Friday traffic. Hunters, all. …

November 27, 2014

The deep quiet only heard on major holidays. With small puffs, snow is beginning to fall off branches, giving the trees a feathered look. …

November 27, 2013

Ice storm aftermath: bent trees and broken limbs that couldn't withstand the sky's smothering embrace. A tinny rattling when the wind blows. …

November 27, 2012

A voice woke me from a dream this morning, telling me there was snow on the ground—and there is! A Carolina wren trills from a snowy branch. …

November 27, 2011

Dawn gives a rust-red belly to the clouds. Over the stream, I'm astonished to hear the ethereal notes of a hermit thrush song. …

November 27, 2010

A scurf of snow in the north corner of the porch, and more flakes in the wind. A chickadee puffs out its feathers, fat as a baseball. …

November 27, 2009

A tulip poplar key helicopters past the porch, shook loose by a squirrel at the edge of the woods rummaging among the spikey cups of seeds. …

November 27, 2008

That drum so low it sounds as if it's in your head? A ruffed grouse, beating the air with its wings like one hand clapping. Or so they say. …

November 27, 2007

Shifting patterns of gray in a sky that has just stopped raining. A crow caws seven times. Suddenly everything acquires an orange tint. …

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow