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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Monday November 19, 2007

Dave Bonta November 19, 2007

Under a low cloud cover, the mountain still white with snow, dawn grows from the ground up. My growling stomach is the loudest thing.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow

Sunday November 18, 2007

Dave Bonta November 18, 2007

Puffs of white smoke where squirrels forage in snow-covered birches. One squirrel falls twenty feet to the ground and lands with a soft FLUMP.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gray squirrel

Saturday November 17, 2007

Dave Bonta November 17, 2007

An hour before dawn, I sit motionless, watching Venus climb slowly through the leaves of an oak, dazzling first my right eye, then my left.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged Venus

Friday November 16, 2007

Dave Bonta November 16, 2007

A strong gust of wind brings a red oak leaf into my lap. I watch high-flying leaves cross paths with a flock of waxwings.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cedar waxwing, oaks

Thursday November 15, 2007

Dave Bonta November 15, 2007

Wind and rain. On the ornamental cherry tree beside the porch, fat drops dangle from the bare spots between yellow-orange leaves.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged cherry tree

Wednesday November 14, 2007

Dave Bonta November 14, 2007

White sky, white noise from the highway over the ridge. The goldfinches wake all at once, a querulous babble of squeaky wheels.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American goldfinch, I-99

Tuesday November 13, 2007

Dave Bonta November 13, 2007

Rain drumming on the roof. A single bar of white-throated sparrow song, and then the factory whistle dividing the dawn from the day.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged factory whistle, rain, white-throated sparrow

Monday November 12, 2007

Dave Bonta November 12, 2007

A pair of ravens fly low over the house, invisible in the fog. I’m lost in thought about trickster gods, and right on cue: Arrk! Arrk! Arrk!

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged fog, raven

Sunday November 11, 2007

Dave Bonta November 11, 2007

My left thumb itches, but nothing wickeder than a nuthatch materializes. The sun comes up.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged white-breasted nuthatch

Saturday November 10, 2007

Dave Bonta November 10, 2007

White on green: the lilac bush heavy with yesterday’s snow. Chickadees bicker, working out a pecking order that will last until spring.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chickadee, lilac

Friday November 09, 2007

Dave Bonta November 9, 2007

A doe trailed by a scrawny 5-point buck. The soundtrack includes a train, a raven, geese, a wren, and a low-flying plane with a wide eraser.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged Canada geese, Carolina wren, deer, plane, raven, train

Thursday November 08, 2007

Dave Bonta November 8, 2007

Dawn finds the first snow — a faint dusting. It’s very still. Down in the pines, a screech owl quavers. The slow footfalls of a deer.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged deer, screech owl

From 6:00 to 6:30, it’s…

Dave Bonta November 7, 2007

From 6:00 to 6:30, it’s quiet except for the distant whine of truck tires and the wind in the treetops, more rattle than rustle now.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged I-99, trucks

Tuesday November 06, 2007

Dave Bonta November 6, 2007

Wind and rain have stripped the birches and maples at the edge of the woods. A gray squirrel leaps through the bare branches.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gray squirrel

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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. …

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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.

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