A UVM blog World of Wonder: NR 1090 Wonder Blogs by Devon McKinlay

Hello World of Wonder readers and hello to the NR 1090 class. Happy Summer. I feel grateful that the thunderstorms yesterday cut a little bit of the heat and humidity out. It gave me just enough time to explore the wonder of our world right in my own my back yard.

I live in a small pink house in the old North End with lime green trim. Surrounding my little house are other brightly colored houses: a wide purple house with emerald green trim, and a tall red house with purple trim. It is a cloudy day as I am writing this post. On the tip of the roof of the purple house next door, I observe a blue jay holding a twig much larger than its own body. Distantly I can hear squirrels scuttling in the branches of the tallest trees in my area. I can also hear other birds chirping. I wonder to myself how many different animal species have entered my back yard at one point. I recall seeing a large fat raccoon a block away from my house the other day. Perhaps he or she has entered my back yard too.

Now onto the plants. There are many native plant species in my back yard. Adjacent to my house in garden beds, it appears that native Vermont ferns have been growing astronomically in size since the rainstorms. On the ground itself, I can observe several tree stumps rocks, and tall grass that hasn’t been mowed for some time. The most impressive thing growing in my back yard is a tall leafy tree that easily exceeds the height of my two-story house. On each leaf there appears yellow bubbles which appear to be more of a characteristic of the tree rather than some disease.

Although this area wasn’t completed embedded in nature I was grateful for the opportunity to be more present in my own living space. Until next time!