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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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fog

May 11, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Overnight fog has revealed the funnel spider webs in the meadow, a fleet of flying saucers hovering three feet above the ground.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, funnel spider
May 2, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Mid-morning and the bright white room of fog is losing its walls—drifting wisps. Rain-beaded branches glisten in the sudden sun.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, rain
May 1, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Lichens are aglow after a night of rain, the tulip tree’s trunk painted the same pale green as its leaves. New warbler songs off in the fog.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, lichen, rain, tulip tree, worm-eating warbler
April 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Thin fog. Two wood thrushes skulk around the edge of the yard. A crow finds something hiding in the pines and tries to raise an alarm.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, fog, white pines, wood thrush
April 29, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Cold rain. Tiny leaves make pointillist patterns against the fog. Only the lilac is fully leafed out—big green alien still on its own clock.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, lilac, rain 1 Comment
March 16, 2016March 15, 2016 by Dave Bonta

At first light, off in the fog, the weird, nasal calls of timberdoodles. One launches into the air with a whistling of wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, killdeer, woodcock
September 23, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Thick fog at mid-morning. The sudden cry of a Canada goose right above the trees, the sound of its wingbeats. The squirrels crying back.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Canada geese, fog, gray squirrel 1 Comment
September 6, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Fog rising from from the valley breaks over the treetops like silent surf. The weak sun finds hints of scarlet under the crabapple leaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crabapple, fog
August 16, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Ground fog in the corner of the meadow glowing faintly pink in the sunrise. A flicker flies out of the old den in the dead elm tree.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags elm, flicker, fog
July 28, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A bindweed flower is open in the garden—a white blunderbuss pointed, like the dog’s inquisitive snout, at the foggy woods.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, dogs, fog 3 Comments
July 14, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Fog gives way to mid-morning haze. The neighbors’ rooster doesn’t so much crow as moan. I listen to cardinal song and imagine it’s February.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, chickens, fog
May 1, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Buds have burst on the witch hazel, leaf-pairs clasped together as if in prayer. Dimly visible in the fog: a crowd of mayapple umbrellas.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, mayapples, witch hazel
April 10, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Red-winged blackbirds calling in the fog. The springhouse phoebe appears to have found a mate. They take turns fluttering under the eaves.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, phoebe, red-winged blackbird, springhouse
April 9, 2015 by Dave Bonta

In the thick fog, a wild turkey on the road looks like the small dinosaur that she is, stretching her neck to peck stones for her gizzard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, wild turkey
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On This Day

  • September 9, 2025
    Another cold sunrise. A distant Carolina wren song prompts the wren roosting atop my heating oil tank to come flying out singing and land in the bracken.
  • September 9, 2024
    A cold and cloudy dawn. The thump and clatter of hooves, deer crashing through the underbrush—hounded not by a predator but the first stirrings of rut. A migrant thrush’s soft call.
  • September 9, 2023
    A whippoorwill interrupted by a screech owl falls silent after three attempts to steal back the stage. When the owl falls silent, a peeper calls.
  • September 9, 2022
    Thick fog slowly infused with sunlight. A squirrel drops pieces of black walnut shell into the dew-soaked weeds.
  • September 9, 2021
    Autumn comes from the ground up: stiltgrass stems reddening as bracken fronds bronze, while funnel spiderwebs snag the fog.

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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