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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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garter snake

July 14, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Partly cloudy and cool. A large garter snake emerges from the stone wall and curls up on a sunny corner of the porch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, garter snake, snakes
March 10, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Overcast. A field sparrow’s ascending note. In the dead grass below the stone wall, an otherwise motionless garter snake tastes the air.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags field sparrow, garter snake
March 14, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A warm morning. Over by the well, garter snakes thread themselves into a throbbing knot. Some animal starts bumping under the house.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags garter snake 6 Comments

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On This Day

  • November 11, 2025
    A bitter wind has brought the first, thin snowfall. I open my folding seat cushion and find a yellow leaf nestled like a letter in an envelope.
  • November 11, 2024
    A clearing wind at dawn, after some much-needed rain. A mourning dove sits placidly on a swaying branch, facing east.
  • November 11, 2023
    A few patches of frost in the yard as the sun clears the ridgetop. Juncos move through the rambling old lilac, its last few leaves faded nearly to yellow.
  • November 11, 2022
    Steady drumming of rain on the porch roof. Dark trunks disappearing into fog. A classic November day.
  • November 11, 2021
    Two degrees above freezing, with the sun reduced to a bright smudge by a thin wash of cloud. Juncos and a nuthatch forage at the woods’ edge.

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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