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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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roofers

May 11, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Cool and nearly clear, with cirrus coming in after sunrise, and the sun like an old soldier fading away as a truck rounds the bend of the road, hauling a new roof for the barn.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, roofers
November 24, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Cloudless and still, except for the Amish men with nail guns firing into the roof of my mother’s house. The sun clears the ridge. A saw sinks its teeth into a two-by-four.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags roofers, sunrise

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On This Day

  • August 9, 2025
    Clear and cold at dawn. The nearly full moon gutters among the trees. A screech owl trills with a rising intonation, which feels like some kind of omen.
  • August 9, 2024
    Steady rain with a bit of a breeze—the remains of a hurricane that got the wind knocked out of her and lost her eye. At 7:39 the Carolina wren finally pipes up.
  • August 9, 2023
    Clear and cool at sunrise. A phoebe’s bill snaps on a slow cranefly. From high overhead, the tolling of a bell soon turns into raven croaks.
  • August 9, 2021
    Sunny and humid. The electric whine of annual cicadas ebbs and flows. A hummingbird flies into the forest’s wall of leaves at top speed.
  • August 9, 2015
    Workmen up at the other house: the whine of an annual cicada in the trees alternates with an actual electric saw.

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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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