This weekend, while out and about with my clients, I stopped at a swath of native prairie that is planted along a main road in Lawrence, Kansas. I had been meaning to get some pictures in late August of the sunflowers growing along the back roads, the slower route I drive from Eudora into Lawrence, but never remembered to have my camera when it would have been a good time. Now that we are into October, there are still some hardy sunflowers lingering, but the ones that were in the fields have been harvested up along with the corn or soybeans they were stoutly growing amongst. I don't know why, but I really like the wild sunflowers. They are not as showy as the larger cultivated varieties, but have their own quirky pride. Now of course being October many of the blooms have dried and turned into seed pods. I like how this plant goes from glory of blooming, through to drying out and turning into food for the birds, and finally in winter, just skeletal dark branches and pods, to be reborn again in late summer. Being a perennial, they are a marker of the seasons, and I like watching them alter knowing while there is always an end to the golden glory, that from it there is also the promise of new life.
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