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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Month: July 2022

July 31, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Lightly overcast and cool. A molting warbler skulks in the old lilac, foraging for breakfast on the undersides of leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, fall warblers
July 30, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cool and crystal-clear. A wood thrush sings as if it’s still nesting season. The western ridge turns red.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, wood thrush
July 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Bleary sun. Tree leaves are all astir, but not by much. Those birds who still sing make it sound perfunctory.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wind
July 28, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cool, overcast, and humid. A breeze brings the smell of ozone and a hush of rain finishing its journey down from the trees.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, rain
July 27, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Sun rising into clouds. The mob of wild garlic heads in the meadow are beginning to shed their white hoods.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, sunrise, wild garlic
July 26, 2022 by Dave Bonta

It’s actually cold—54F/12C! A crow at the top of the tallest locust where the sun strikes has one thing to say and she is saying it.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, black locust, cold, sunrise
July 25, 2022 by Dave Bonta

The sky never gets fully light before thunder starts to rumble. Now it’s getting dark again. The birds fall silent.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags thunder, thunderstorms
July 24, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Hazy but not yet hot. Hummingbirds circle the soapwort patch, as if following the red threads of bindweed.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, bouncing bet, ruby-throated hummingbird
July 24, 2022July 23, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Every time I look up from my book, more sunlight has infiltrated the forest like bright rungs of a ladder. A raven clears its throat.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags raven, sunrise
July 22, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Chimney swifts circle high overhead as the last bats head home. The sun rising through small clouds is crowned by dark spokes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bats, chimney swifts, sunrise
July 21, 2022 by Dave Bonta

A few minutes before sunrise. Goldfinch chatter. A half-slice of moon hangs in the east like an icon of wintry cool.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, moon, sunrise
July 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Cool at sunrise with a restless breeze. The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge drops a few more drought-yellowed leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sunrise, tulip tree, wind
July 18, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Fifteen hours of off-and-on rain and everything looks greener. The big red maple that just finished dying sheds a chunk of rotten wood.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, red maple
July 17, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Another phantom shower, existing only on the weather app. A firefly wanders past, looking for a walnut leaf to spend the day under.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, firefly, rain 1 Comment
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On This Day

  • April 12, 2025
    Cold and heavily overcast. A gray squirrel emerges from the woods like a ghost, seeming to float over the rain-darkened leaf duff, fur the color…
  • April 12, 2024
    Wind throbs in the treetops; the birdcall app thinks it’s a drumming grouse. Juncos twitter from the lilac, which has just burst its buds—a green…
  • April 12, 2023
    Two phoebes in a singing contest at dawn. A warm breeze. The half-moon settles in a tall pine.
  • April 12, 2022
    Warm rain. Phoebe and robin drown out the night chant of peepers. All the daffodils’ cups have turned bottoms-up.
  • April 12, 2021
    Overcast and cool. Up on the ridge, two or three crows scold a Cooper’s hawk: high-pitched whines, a gargling rattle. The hawk zips off.

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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