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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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box turtle

July 30, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The rain eases off at mid-morning, and once again a box turtle comes out of the woods and marches up the driveway with surprising haste.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags box turtle, rain
July 26, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The box turtle whose territory my house happens to encroach upon sits in the driveway, yellow markings like a road sign in a foreign script.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags box turtle
May 12, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A box turtle plods across the yard, the markings on its shell as bright as fresh graffiti. A bluebird scratches behind his ear like a dog.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bluebird, box turtle

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On This Day

  • September 12, 2025
    Sun in the treetops, joined by jays in noisy, acorn-gathering joy. A pewee bends a note. The distant grind of the quarry.
  • September 12, 2024
    Cool and still with murky sunlight and yellow leaves dropping one by one. From the north and east, the guttural hum of industry—that drone note.
  • September 12, 2023
    The old moon is now mostly ember, clasped by a thin crescent no brighter than nearby Venus. The loud highway noise from the west that portends nice weather.
  • September 12, 2022
    Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
  • September 12, 2021
    Having finally learned the name of a plant in my yard that wasn’t in the field guide, I am seeing it anew, the tall, the flamboyantly branching white vervain!

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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