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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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wood frogs

March 25, 2016 by Dave Bonta

One wood frog still calls in the marshy corner of the field, late for the orgy. Under the porch railing, the first, tiny spiders of spring.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags spiders, wood frogs
March 16, 2016March 13, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Rain. In the marshy corner of the field, the duck-like calls of wood frogs, just up from their cryogenic sleep and already fully aroused.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags killdeer, rain, wood frogs
April 11, 2014 by Dave Bonta

The last few wood frogs still croaking down in the marsh give way to spring peepers, who soon fall silent in turn. Then the patter of rain.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, spring peeper, wood frogs
April 7, 2013 by Dave Bonta

A warm morning. When the sun goes in, the birds at last grow quiet, and I can hear wood frogs calling down in the boggy corner of the field.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags wood frogs 1 Comment
April 5, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Mid-morning: overcast, 36°F, but the wood frogs are making a ruckus in their eyedropper of a pond. Yellow buds swell on the French lilac.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags lilac, wood frogs

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On This Day

  • February 18, 2025
    Deep cold at dawn. Icicles hanging from the eaves bend this way and that. The trees creak and groan. The *chip, chip* of a cardinal waking up.
  • February 18, 2024
    Through two hats and a hood, the wind’s bitter whisper reaches my ear. Odd moans and creaking sounds issue from the trees, whose dark silhouettes…
  • February 18, 2023
    Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
  • February 18, 2022
    Windy and cold after last night’s freakish warmth. Up in the woods, a large coyote trots across the threadbare snowpack. The wail of a train.
  • February 18, 2021
    Fine snow is falling, an hour before sunrise. Dogs start barking in the distance, and after a while a coyote answers—one long, wavering cry.

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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