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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

  • July 3, 2025
    Out at dawn for the cardinal’s opening salvo and a mosquito nuzzling my neck. The twittering of goldfinches. An east-bound freight blows its horn.
  • July 3, 2024
    A deer moves through the sunrise meadow, head and ears visible above the weeds. The furious chittering of a small flock of goldfinches swirling past.
  • July 3, 2023
    Back from the city, wondering how everything could have gotten so much greener and more lush in just four days. The sun comes out. Leaves glisten like wet tongues.
  • July 3, 2022
    Overcast at sunrise. The woodpeckers’ percussive breakfasts. A mosquito wanders over my propped-up feet.
  • July 3, 2021
    On a dark and cloudy morning, the green of the woods’ edge seems even more intense. The scarlet tanager sounds hoarse with longing.

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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