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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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November 21, 2019 by Dave Bonta

A hollow, rasping grunt: either a raven or a buck in rut. The pileated woodpecker cackling in flight falls silent as soon as she lands.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags pileated woodpecker
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On This Day

  • December 15, 2024
    Gray and still, except for the creek’s trickle. A squirrel dangles from a low branch of the springhouse tulip tree, trying in vain to tear…
  • December 15, 2023
    One degree above freezing as the tall pines fill with sun. Two crows emerge from the woods, yelling about some old deer guts that must…
  • December 15, 2021
    Patchy frost: the myrtle leaves that are dusted with it versus those that just have white edging. A chickadee is getting the gang together.
  • December 15, 2020
    Cold and quiet at sunrise. I walk to the ridgetop, clutching my thermos mug. Snow lingers in dips and hollows where the sun can’t reach.
  • December 15, 2019
    The alarm call of a Carolina wren spreads to other wrens, other birds, a growing agitation that for a second flutters even in my chest.

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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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