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The Morning Porch

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 9, 2025
    Cold, clear, and quiet except for the crow in the road when I came out, who took several, labored wingbeats to reach his high-pitched cry.
  • October 9, 2024
    Clear and still cold at mid-morning. Sunlight flashes through thinning leaves shuffled by the wind, the sun’s own color more a yell than a yellow.
  • October 9, 2023
    An hour before dawn, the crescent moon hangs just above the ridge, with Venus blazing like a campfire through the trees. It’s cold. An inversion layer brings the sound of every engine waking in the valley.
  • October 9, 2022
    One degree above freezing at sunrise. A breeze reshuffles the walnut leaves on the porch. I find small patches of frost up by the barn.
  • October 9, 2021
    Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the sky darkens again. The fierce yet querulous cries of a Cooper’s hawk skimming the treetops.

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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