Monday January 17, 2022

The tail-end of a storm that brought snow, sleet, freezing rain, and snow again. The trees look like they’ve been dipped in confectioner’s sugar.

On this date

May 16, 2021

The catbirds are much more furtive now going into the barberry that hides their nest. Two cuckoos call up a bit of rain. …

May 16, 2020

A brown thrasher's jazz echoes off the barn. In the clear plastic hummingbird feeder, a lampyrid beetle takes a very long time to drown. …

May 16, 2019

A scraggly-looking doe, still in her gray winter pelt, crosses the stream below the house, pausing to graze on a multiflora rose. …

May 16, 2016

In the tall locusts still bare of leaves, the flaming orange of a Baltimore oriole—no, two orioles in a mad chase. The victor's brassy song. …

May 16, 2015

Both bluebirds land on top of the stump, look at me, and warble aggressively. In the lily-of-the-valley bed, the bells are fading to brown. …

May 16, 2014

The porch floor is blotched with pollen. Through the bright-green new leaves, the last few dots of sky are still visible above the ridge. * I'm off to the U.K., so this w …

May 16, 2013

Sunny and hot. A small ichneumon wasp on the shady side of a column actually stops vibrating for a few seconds and is completely still. …

May 16, 2012

The air is so clear, I can see individual specks of pollen. In the field, the long grass sways under the restless wings of a female harrier. …

May 16, 2010

At daybreak, a small deer leaps and twists like a bronco with an invisible rider, then careens through the purple haze of dame's-rocket. …

May 16, 2009

A phoebe hovers beside its nest under the springhouse eaves, then lands above it, bug still in beak, tail like a tapping foot: ah, marriage. …

May 16, 2008

At 6:00, the sky grows dark again as a storm approaches. Wood thrushes start back up. The lilac's white torches all point at the ground. …

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow