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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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mayapples

April 23, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Warm and a bit humid. As the sun climbs, the brightest shine shifts from mayapple leaves along the creek to the mountain laurel in the woods, shimmering as if unafflicted by any blight.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags mayapples, mountain laurel
May 8, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Clear and windy after a week of damp weather. Down by the stream, one or two mayapple flowers peek out from under their crowd of umbrellas.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags mayapples
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 16, 2010 by Dave Bonta

The mayapples next to the creek have opened their umbrellas. We do need rain. Already, the top branches of the crabapple have caught fire.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crabapple, mayapples, stream

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On This Day

  • October 7, 2025
    Overcast with an orange sunrise glow. Jays, the cardinal, a towhee. A winter wren burbles quietly beside the springhouse.
  • October 7, 2024
    Breezy and cool at dawn. Migrants trade notes as they explore the forest edge: towhee, phoebe, thrush. A lost passenger jet comes roaring overhead.
  • October 7, 2023
    Rain clouds moving out by mid-morning, when blue sky appears, revealing a higher layer of cirrus moving west while shreds of cumulus keep flying east.
  • October 7, 2022
    Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.
  • October 7, 2021
    Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.

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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