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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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mink

December 2, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Heavy frost. When the sun strikes it, a faint mist rises from the yard. My father stops the car in the road to say he’s just seen a mink.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags frost, mink, mist
November 19, 2013 by Dave Bonta

A mink hunts in the creek-side meadow, weaving through currant bushes where juncos bathe and groom, neither paying attention to the other.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black currants, juncos, mink 1 Comment
November 12, 2013 by Dave Bonta

The first half-inch of snow. A mink appears along the creek, looping over and under the snow-laden grass like a dark needle and thread.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags mink, snow, stream 1 Comment
October 11, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A large, dark weasel flushes a rabbit from cover and stops, rearing up on its hind legs: mink! We stare at each other with mutual disbelief.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cottontail, mink 1 Comment

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On This Day

  • April 3, 2025
    Hard rain slackening after sunrise. As the drumming on the roofs subsides, I can hear a torrent of Carolina wren song and towhee calls.
  • April 3, 2024
    In the pre-dawn darkness, nothing but the sounds of rain and water. A low rumbling comes from the hole in my yard that leads down…
  • April 3, 2022
    An unexpected glimpse of sun sets the swelling lilac buds aglow. I see the first few daffodils are trying on the new spring fashions.
  • April 3, 2021
    Cooper’s hawks calling up on the ridge. One of them takes flight: such a small bird to be so strident! And the sky begins to…
  • April 3, 2020
    Sun silvering black birch twigs. From the woods beyond, the call of a Cooper’s hawk. It can’t be long till the first shadbush blooms.

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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