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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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wind

May 19, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Breezy and cool. A pileated woodpecker hops along a log fallen into the meadow, her scarlet crest bobbing among the dames’-rocket.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dame's-rocket, pileated woodpecker, wind
May 18, 2025 by Dave Bonta

In warbler season, even the wheezing of the wind seems open for interpretation: green-winged or oak-throated? The sky is achingly clear between the clouds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, wind
May 17, 2025 by Dave Bonta

A clearing wind. The wood thrush comes into the yard to sing as blue sky appears. The aspen I planted last year is already big enough to mime applause.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bigtooth aspen, clouds, wind, wood thrush
May 10, 2025 by Dave Bonta

A cold wind on a gorgeous morning, the newly leafed-out forest shimmering, shot through with shafts of golden light and all the birds singing.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wind
April 27, 2025 by Dave Bonta

The sun climbs through blossoming oaks whispery with wind. Pileated woodpeckers exchange volleys of thunder. A downy woodpecker rattles like a beggar with a cup.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags downy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, sunrise, wind
April 25, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Under a monochrome cloud cover, all the earth tones of blossoming oaks and birches, catkins alive to the lightest brush of a breeze.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black birch, black oak, chestnut oak, clouds, red oak, scarlet oak, scrub oak, wind
April 20, 2025 by Dave Bonta

A cooler sunrise this morning with wind from the north. A ruby-crowned kinglet warbles up and down the scale. A hen turkey picks her way through spring onions.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-crowned kinglet, sunrise, wild turkey, wind
April 16, 2025 by Dave Bonta

A cold wind rummaging through the forest, mixing up the sounds of crows and trains and sirens. The sun appears for a second or two at a time.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, clouds, train, wind
April 1, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Cold, windy, and overcast. The ring of daffodils in my yard offers a bright yellow rebuke to the grayness. Drink your tea! says the towhee. I’m trying.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, daffodils, towhee, wind
March 29, 2025 by Dave Bonta

A freakishly warm wind seasoned with rain. A red squirrel’s scold-call launches the dawn chorus: phoebe, wren, cardinal, white-throated sparrow. A turkey gobbles.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, Carolina wren, phoebe, rain, red squirrel, white-throated sparrow, wild turkey, wind
March 21, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Windy and cold. I sit in the sun all bundled up, listening to birdsong through two hats and a hood. My mother calls to tell me about a flock of turkeys.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wild turkey, wind
March 17, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Gray aftermath of a strormy night. Still no phoebe or field sparrow. An icy breeze.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wind
March 8, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Half an inch of wet snow has turned things white again, if not for long: the wind blows clumps of snow from the trees. The sun comes up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags snow, sunrise, wind
March 7, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Windy, cold and clear at dawn. A song sparrow pipes up from the depths of the lilac. The ridge turns red.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, song sparrow, sunrise, wind
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On This Day

  • November 6, 2025
    Clear and cold, with wind supplying all the voices in the dawn chorus. A crow rockets past, wings at an oblique angle to its direction of travel, cheering itself on.
  • November 6, 2024
    Cloudy and unseasonably warm at sunrise. My head throbs from watching election returns. A small buck walks by below the house sporting a single spike of antler—a unicorn.
  • November 6, 2023
    Sunrise glowing orange between the half-naked ridgetop oaks. The yard fills with small birds: sparrows, kinglets, the inevitable wren.
  • November 6, 2022
    Daybreak. A buck sniffing the ground for signs of estrus scratches his head with a back hoof. A mosquito sings into my ear.
  • November 6, 2021
    Cold and very still. Every leaf in the myrtle patch—Grandma’s legacy—is edged in white. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.

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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