black walnut

Wednesday February 21, 2018

Dave Bonta February 21, 2018

Shirt-sleeve weather. A squirrel unearths a walnut from the yard in that casual way squirrels have of pretending it’s doing something else.

Wednesday February 07, 2018

Dave Bonta February 7, 2018

Steady sleet. A squirrel bores into the frozen earth to retrieve a black walnut, then schleps the battered, lumpy thing into the treetops.

Wednesday January 31, 2018

Dave Bonta January 31, 2018

In the stillness, the rasp of squirrel teeth. Then the hollow thonk, thonk of a dropped walnut hitting the limbs of an oak on its way down.

Saturday December 09, 2017

Dave Bonta December 9, 2017

A great silence punctuated only by an occasional gun shot. A squirrel digs up a black walnut from beside the porch and bounds off with it.

Monday October 30, 2017

Dave Bonta October 30, 2017

High winds after a soaking rain. The fallen walnuts in the driveway have all turned black, soggy hulls sagging like bodies in a bog.

Friday October 20, 2017

Dave Bonta October 20, 2017 1

Now that the walnut trees are bare I can see the aspens down along the boggy end of the meadow—leaves so quick to quake, so slow to let go.

Monday October 09, 2017

Dave Bonta October 9, 2017

In a lull between showers, a squirrel inches out along a slick black walnut twig. I decide the sound a falling walnut makes is SPLUD.

August 22, 2016
A wren calls from the cattails like a deranged cheerleader, while in the woods, a vireo sounds as if it's barely able to give a damn.
August 22, 2015
Even at late morning, it's chilly when the sun goes in. The yard is now white with snakeroot flowers. The distant sound of a power saw.
August 22, 2014
A trembling in the cattails: female yellowthroat. Birds flit through the treetops, smaller than the motes of grit in my ancient binoculars.
August 22, 2013
Weeding the garden is never dull. Yesterday morning a milk snake writhed around my wrist; today, hornets boil up and sting my hand.
August 22, 2012
Sunbeams through the fog. The thin bull thistle beside the road with its one purple head sways ever so slightly into and out of the light.
August 22, 2011
A plane drags its cross-shaped shadow over the ridge, loud as an evangelist. A few clouds. Half a moon abandoned in the center of the sky.
August 22, 2010
A blue-gray gnatcatcher drops into the dead cherry and begins to forage, singing its small hoarse note. Beads of rain wobble but don't fall.
August 22, 2009
Below the porch, a generic chirp from a warbler of indeterminate species. I remember the Central American term for such skulkers: chipes.
August 22, 2008
The air is still and quiet. In the springhouse meadow, the ears of a doe appear above the goldenrod, pivoting like leaves in a private wind.