Marcia Bonta

  • Black Raspberry Time

    Video link What a fruitful year this is.  Best of all is the resurrection of our black raspberry bushes around our homegrounds.  Their plenitude was what persuaded me to buy this place.  And then the deer moved in.  For decades they have eaten every raspberry cane that has dared to appear.  But now that our…

  • Sunday, Sweet Sunday

    Sunday is my favorite day of the week.  That’s because traffic is light on Interstate 99 at the base of our mountain on the Logan Valley side and the industrial-sized limestone quarry on the Sinking Valley side is closed for the day.  Other businesses are also quiet, and I revel in the peace of “Sunday,…

  • Making Connections

    Our plane dropped through the momentary hole in the clouds and made a perfect landing on the St. John’s runway. After a day’s delay, because of fog, we had finally arrived in Newfoundland. Place of my dreams, this island in the sea is halfway to Ireland. And yet here is where our beloved Appalachian Mountains…

  • Unexpected Encounters

    To encounter the unexpected is why I go out day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, walking the same mountain trails. But I rarely have a Discovery Channel moment. At most, I might find a new wildflower, an unusual butterfly, or a rare bird. Still, I’ve had my moments.…

  • Polecat

    This is the time of year when essence of skunk sometimes reaches my nostrils as I wander over our mountain. That’s because March is prime mating season, and male striped skunks are abroad looking for receptive females. The females are still holed up in their communal winter dens six feet underground, and sometimes one lucky…

  • Return of the Shrubs

    The good news is that our shrub layer is making a comeback in some places.  The bad news is that most of the shrubs are growing in places inaccessible or inconvenient to deer. Take common elder.  When we first moved here, 36 years ago, a line of common elder shrubs grew behind a barberry hedge…

  • April Journal Highlights (2)

    Close encounters of the avian kind April 18. The sun warmed the Far Field, and as I walked Pennyroyal Trail, a towhee sang, a flicker called, and a ruby-crowned kinglet sang. I stopped to “pish,” hoping to entice the kinglet into view, and I did. He flew on to a tree branch, erected his ruby-crown,…

  • Earth Day

    I was out this perfect day by 6:30 because Bruce was still sleeping, and it was Sunday–his day to make breakfast. I brewed my coffee, slipped on my walking shoes, left a note for Bruce and was off, coffee mug clutched in one hand. Bluebirds sang in the yard and field sparrow song reverberated in…

  • “White Face”

    Years ago, when we owned a dog, we fed him on the back porch. One early April evening we heard a commotion outside. I opened the kitchen door and saw Fritz sniffing at an opossum, which was laid out flat on its side, its eyes tightly shut, its mouth stretched in a gruesome grin that…

  • February Journal Highlights

    I’ve been updating my journal from the notes I take in my pocket notebook. Here are some excerpts from the first half of February. Bucks hanging out together, still wearing antlers February 3. Three degrees at dawn and absolutely clear. Winds cleaned the air and lowered the temperature throughout the moonlit night. At first, when…

  • What’s in a Name?

    After a brief walk on a cold and dreary January day, I curled up in my study and tried to update Bioplum, a natural inventory of our property. Last spring I had finally identified a nondescript-looking wildflower spreading along our roadbank as Pennsylvania bittercress (Cardamine pensylvanica), and I wanted to add it to our list…

  • The Black Cat Returns

    Most days I spend at least a couple hours walking in our woods. Unlike the nature shows on television, weeks can pass before I encounter, for instance, a mother bear and her cubs, a waddling porcupine, an unusual bird or plant, a bounding short-tailed weasel, a newborn fawn, or some other sighting that makes my…