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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Month: June 2022

June 30, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Another perfect morning. A wood thrush is singing next to the springhouse. The surrealism of it all when distilled into memory come December.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags springhouse, wood thrush 2 Comments
September 8, 2026June 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cold and clear. Three waxwings join the sun high in the dead crown of a black locust, yellow bellies aglow.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black locust, cedar waxwing, sunrise
June 27, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Everything drips. A wood thrush chases a rival out of the woods and pauses in a spicebush for a look around.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, spicebush, wood thrush
June 26, 2022 by Dave Bonta

The sun behind a nearly motionless cloud casts a pair of crepuscular rays like vast, dark wings. A hen turkey stalks into the woods.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, wild turkey
June 24, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and cool. Two deer run into the woods as another snorts alarm up in the field. Another hummingbird buzzes me, ruby gorget ablaze.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird, white-tailed deer
June 23, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Fog and mizzle. The usual doe and fawn graze in the springhouse meadow, their ears swivelling above the sodden vegetation.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, rain, white-tailed deer
June 22, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Warm and humid. A hummingbird interrupts my writing, hovering in front of my face, then zipping up to where a feeder once hung.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird
June 21, 2022 by Dave Bonta

One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, rain, thunderstorms
June 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A deer grazes a few feet away; I can hear blades of grass tearing. The sun almost breaks through a thin spot in the clouds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, white-tailed deer
June 19, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, catbird
June 18, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Windy and cool. The pale undersides of leaves turning in unison like shoals of fish. A robin and a tanager trading off.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, clouds, scarlet tanager, wind
June 17, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Wind has blown all the humidity out to sea. The forest is astir with its comings and goings, until I can barely remain seated.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wind
June 16, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Hazy and humid. The sun in the crown of the big dead maple. A hen turkey putting like a slow motor, summoning her chicks.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags red maple, sunrise, wild turkey
June 15, 2022 by Dave Bonta

The sun clears the trees sooner than seems possible, and the gnatcatcher’s extreme excitement is not a good sign. A sapsucker calls.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, yellow-bellied sapsucker
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On This Day

  • October 5, 2025
    Clear and very quiet at dawn. Some scattered towhee tweets. The thump of a walnut dropped by a half-awake squirrel.
  • October 5, 2024
    Before dawn, before the nearby quarry starts up, you can almost hear the stars glittering. In a dark enough sky, it turns out that Orion has a whole nest of stars for a head.
  • October 5, 2023
    Half an hour past sunrise and the birds are quiet. All along the woods’ edge, yellow leaves are falling by ones and twos. The smell of burning plastic.
  • October 5, 2021
    Sunrise hidden by fog, which only turns a lighter shade of gray. Rain falling from the leaves. Leaves falling from the rain.
  • October 5, 2020
    Low cloud ceiling. Three flocks of resident Canada geese go over the house, one after another, in formations as disorderly as their cries.

See all...

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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