Monday September 01, 2008

Dave Bonta September 1, 2008

A cool, clear autumn morning. Every few minutes, another alarm call breaks the silence: pileated woodpecker. Bluejays. A frantic squirrel.

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On this date

December 16, 2017
The yard is crisscrossed by fresh tracks of animals. A chickadee lands in a fretwork spandrel and peers intently at the old hornets' nest. …
December 16, 2014
A bedraggled squirrel climbs the rain-slick elm snag and takes shelter in the old flicker hole, turning to peer out at the downpour. …
December 16, 2013
With deep snow, the ground is so much smoother, and the sun can stretch across it now without getting lost in a thousand holes and hollows. …
December 16, 2012
It keeps raining and stopping, as if on a movie set. Eight rapid pops: someone firing a semi-automatic. The stream gurgles under the yard. …
December 16, 2011
A small mound of dirt has appeared in front of the porch. The sky's a mottled gray, and I try to guess which bright spot hides the sun. …
December 16, 2010
I pause at the door, coffee in hand: six juncos decorate the dead cherry, fat, motionless. A pileated woodpecker cackles at the wood's edge. …
December 16, 2009
The temperature has dropped again. A clearing sky, and the woods are flooded with light from the newly reflective surface of the snowpack. …
December 16, 2008
When I first come out, the yard is a giant gyre of birds. They soon segregate themselves: sparrows to the meadow, finches into the birches. …
December 16, 2007
A lull in the storm, and it's quiet—no sound of trucks or trains, no Sunday drivers. Squirrel scold-calls echo off the ice. …

The Morning Porch/Patio