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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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fox squirrel

September 1, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Mid-morning storm. A fox squirrel lopes through the patch of invasive myrtle, a slow flame the rain can’t quench.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fox squirrel, myrtle, thunderstorm 1 Comment
December 22, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A dark morning, with grim news awaiting me in my email. A fox squirrel crosses the snowy yard, the mellow flame of its tail floating behind.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fox squirrel 6 Comments
May 11, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Gray squirrel in a walnut tree gnawing on a walnut, fox squirrel in a maple feasting on maple keys: one spits out shells, the other, wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fox squirrel, gray squirrel
March 28, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and cold. Ten feet up the trunk of the big maple, a fox squirrel drinks sap from a slit the woodpeckers have widened.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fox squirrel, gray squirrel, red maple
March 28, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Dark morning. The fox squirrel’s tail flickers orange from the back of the big red maple whose buds have swollen into dime-sized stoplights.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fox squirrel, gray squirrel, red maple

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On This Day

  • October 16, 2025
    Clear and cold, with a breeze out of the north. I get my winter coat out of storage, make clouds with my breath. Church bells from town toll the hour.
  • October 16, 2024
    Overcast and gloomy. A single scarlet bough glows like a stoplight in the dark woods. The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker.
  • October 16, 2023
    Still no frost. A Carolina wren putt-putts at the woods’ edge. From the powerline, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive “Oh sweet Canada…”
  • October 16, 2022
    Colors so much warmer than the air. Halfway through the morning, the sky clears. Sun in the treetops. A phoebe calls.
  • October 16, 2021
    The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.

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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