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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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sewage treatment plant

November 19, 2025 by Dave Bonta

An inch of wet snow, glowing like a second sky on every branch and twig. I catch a rare whiff of sewage from the treatment plant three miles away.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags sewage treatment plant, snow
January 10, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Overcast. A strong smell of sewage from the treatment plant two miles away. Juncos forage in the dead stiltgrass, chirping back and forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Japanese stiltgrass, juncos, sewage treatment plant
September 21, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The wind is out of the east, and, slight as it is, carries an acrid, chemical smell from the sewage plant and the quarry’s dull roar.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags quarry, sewage treatment plant
September 19, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A faint smell of sewage on the wind. A wren singing from atop the springhouse in the absence of a female supplies his own call-and-response.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, sewage treatment plant, springhouse 1 Comment
November 21, 2011 by Dave Bonta

No wind, but some slight motion of the air brings the sound of trucks and the sour smell of sewage up the hollow. The first drops of rain.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, sewage treatment plant, trucks 1 Comment

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On This Day

  • October 2, 2025
    Cold and still, with a wash of cirrus clearing off after sunrise. Sound is out of the east, so instead of the usual roar of interstate traffic, I hear the shrill beeping of quarry trucks reversing to be filled and the grumbling of stones.
  • October 2, 2024
    Another dark, rainy dawn. I can’t stop thinking of my last dream before waking, in which I had died and reincarnated as a deer. I had so many legs, and everything was delicious!
  • October 2, 2023
    Sitting by the front door to enjoy the moon, I’m startled by a rabbit running between my feet in her eagerness to graze. Five minutes later she runs back to evade a weasel loping down the road. Orion emerges from the trees.
  • October 2, 2022
    Light rain seasoning the breeze. A squirrel perched on a swaying limb chisels open a walnut—that haunted-house sound.
  • October 2, 2021
    Mares’ tails reddening in the east. The reedy songs of white-throated sparrows. A raven’s nasal croak.

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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