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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

  • September 28, 2025
    Mist dissipating into blue. The walnut trees on the north side of the house are now nearly bare, even as the one on the south side is still more green than yellow. The sun briefly blazes through a new hole in the hillside canopy.
  • September 28, 2024
    Before daybreak, the crooning and snarling of raccoons up in the woods. In the silent aftermath, something large and dead crashes down.
  • September 28, 2023
    Clear and cold, with sound out of the east: the rumble and squeal of a slow freight train. Jays jeer. A wren puts the kettle on.
  • September 28, 2022
    Overcast, windy and cold at dawn. Soft thuds as the black walnut tree releases its ordnance onto the road.
  • September 28, 2021
    Thunderstorm at dawn; I rush through my shower so I can watch the rain. With each lightning flash, raindrops falling from the eaves become momentary suns.

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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