Sunflowers in bloom

The sunflower fields are blooming just on the fringes of town. It’s always a bit of a surprise which fields will fill with gold from year to year—no field is planted two years in a row. Our local paper described the allocation of the fields like a “horse-trading marathon.” “In roughly January, the seed companies get together with a big map, and ‘pin the fields.’”

There are a few that I drive by routinely, so of course I couldn’t help but pull over and take a few pictures. But I learned that there’s an official #SunflowerWatch2017 page, complete with map!

Some of the fields are still budding—it’s the buds that move with the sun, a behavior called heliotropism—and look more wild; the flowers fully in bloom face east throughout the day.

Fun fact: In the summer of 2014, the world’s tallest was measured to be just over 30 feet tall. A fire station brought in a scaffold to get the number!

P.S. Last year’s photos with the kids, and my favorite from the year before that.

 

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