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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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dogs

January 18, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Last night, I gave the dog back to her family. In the morning, two inches of wind-blown snow, and the yard unmarred by a single track.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dogs, snow 2 Comments
January 4, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A high-pitched barking at sunrise. Three lost dogs come running through the mountain laurel, metal tags jangling around their necks.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dogs, mountain laurel 1 Comment
January 2, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Dozens of juncos flit through the bushes. The old brown retriever that I’m dog-sitting watches from the porch, her nose quivering.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dogs, juncos 1 Comment
January 2, 2012 by Dave Bonta

First snow of the new year: thin as the flaking whitewash on the old springhouse. Two hikers and a dog each wear vests of safety orange.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dogs, snow, springhouse
January 15, 2011 by Dave Bonta

The snowpack glows in the soft, mid-morning light. A dog barks in the valley. The resonant knocks of a woodpecker opening a new door.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dogs, pileated woodpecker, snow 6 Comments
January 24, 2008 by Dave Bonta

A crow caws, and I’m struck by how much it resembles a barking dog. More crows, and the impression persists: Arf arf arf! A murder of dogs.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, dogs
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On This Day

  • December 13, 2024
    The wind has dropped, leaving a dusting of snow, and the sky is a patchwork of white and gray. A rifle booms from down-hollow. The…
  • December 13, 2023
    Just enough clear sky in the run-up to dawn to catch a few meteors, two of them nearly simultaneous. The absolute silence in which they…
  • December 13, 2021
    In the half hour it takes the first red cloud to become a sunrise, every crow in the area has a suggestion. Even a distant…
  • December 13, 2020
    After a red sunrise, the sky turns dark for St. Lucy’s Day. But who needs candles? My outrage at our broken politics is incandescent.
  • December 13, 2019
    Two degrees below freezing, but the rain remains rain. Somewhere above the fog, an airplane’s single propeller.

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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