The Morning Porch

January 31, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Wind hissing in the pines. A titmouse’s monotonous call. The distant tone cluster of a train horn. A white-breasted nuthatch pipes up.

January 31, 2025
Fog thickens as the rain eases off. The sodden snowpack shrinks, fitting the ground more closely, clinging to each mound and divot.
January 31, 2024
Another gloomy dawn, a few degrees below freezing. The sound of an animal returning to its home under my house. Standing up to look, I…
January 31, 2023
A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for…
January 31, 2022
Bitter cold. A garlic mustard skeleton hanging over the small hole in the yard that goes down to an underground stream is shaggy with frost.
January 31, 2021
The advanced scouts for a promised snowstorm. A squirrel gallops across the porch roof and back, sounding like a very small, unshod horse.