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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Month: April 2015

April 16, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Two wild turkeys cross the road into the woods, their dark feathers shining in the sun as they disappear into the equally lustrous laurel.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags mountain laurel, wild turkey
April 15, 2015 by Dave Bonta

In the mid-morning quiet, weak sunlight sets the blossoming maple trees aglow: clouds of red and orange all along the woods’ edge.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags red maple
April 14, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Rainy and warm. Seven deer file into the yard and spread out to graze. One kicks up her heels and dances sideways, as if she’s still a fawn.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer 1 Comment
April 13, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The miniature daffodils are in full bloom, looking more than a little unreal against the brown yard and woods with the sun shining through.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags daffodils
April 12, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A galaxy of sparkles in the yard where the sunlight hits a patch of frost. The fourth-quarter moon hangs low over the trees. A grouse drums.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags frost, moon, ruffed grouse
April 11, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Windy and cold. A ladybird beetle creeps slowly across the porch floor, warmed by intermittent sun. Buds swell yellow on the lilac bush.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ladybugs, lilac, wind
April 10, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Red-winged blackbirds calling in the fog. The springhouse phoebe appears to have found a mate. They take turns fluttering under the eaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, phoebe, red-winged blackbird, springhouse
April 9, 2015 by Dave Bonta

In the thick fog, a wild turkey on the road looks like the small dinosaur that she is, stretching her neck to peck stones for her gizzard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, wild turkey
April 8, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The last of the snow has vanished, and the air shimmers with fine rain. A foraging rabbit keeps pausing to scratch its ear.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cottontail, rain, snow
April 7, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A bright period between showers. Coming around the bend in the road, the flashing yellow light on the roof of the meter-reader’s truck.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, trucks 1 Comment
April 6, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Clouds gather and, over the course of an hour, disappear again. A small red spider rappels down from my glasses onto the red porch floor.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, spiders
April 5, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Warm and windy. Great mobs of dried leaves cartwheel out of the woods. A piece of milkweed down drifts past, liberated from its seed.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags milkweed, wind
April 4, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Fast moving cumulus clouds. When the sun comes out, it glistens on the mountain laurel leaves in the woods and in the yard, the periwinkle.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, mountain laurel, myrtle
April 3, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Two deer wander through the yard, coats wet with rain. The scrawnier one samples the daffodil sprouts, then startles at the old dog statue.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags daffodils, deer, dog statue
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On This Day

  • December 7, 2024
    For twenty minutes after sunrise, my front yard seethes with juncos, all flutter and twitter as they glean seeds from old weeds. I go down…
  • December 7, 2023
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  • December 7, 2022
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  • December 7, 2021
    Cold, overcast, and nearly still: my clouds of breath drift sideways, leading my eye to a half-shell of black walnut, its empty brain case.
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    Cold with no wind; the few, small snowflakes float almost straight down. In the almost sunshine, a lone crow is trying to stir things up.

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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.

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

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