Keeping a Sunny Disposition

Every year with optimism and forgetfulness I plant sunflowers.  Sunflowers are not to be grown on a whim.  They take up lots of room, shade plants, and suck up water like a sponge.  Have you ever seen a sunflower root?  Some root balls are the size of huge platters.  Yet, these sunny plants are easy to germinate from seed, come in many varieties, and this year, I even got a few volunteers that fell into pots on my deck from seeds that I had the fed birds over the winter.

Now a caution.  My sunflowers rarely get even a foot high before they are eaten by groundhogs and bunnies.  Groundhogs eat them back to the stem on a summer's eve.  Bunnies sample leaves over several days until just the stalk is left.  So, I have learned to plant them in pots on my deck, and this year, my husband generously gave me some space in the vegetable garden which is behind a wire fence.  The sunflower behind his head is actually a foot taller now and not yet in bloom like the one next to it!

Below are sunflowers on my deck.  This summer there has been LOTS of rain and I have had a reprieve from having to water these beauties almost every day on normal summer days.

I have also learned that seeds from these flowers ripen at an uneven pace and the goldfinch show up and eat about a half dozen each day...even from flowers still in bloom.

He comes each day and visits and waits patiently for the crop to come in picking here and there on an outside row while watching my shadow against the window.

Now, for a tidbit of folk wisdom.  "Sleeping with a sunflower under your pillow will permit you to know the truth of any matter."

Putting this under your pillow might interfere with a good night's sleep!

Two for the price of one

Passerina cyanea

This indigo bunting has been a regular visitor to the feeder and yet too shy to allow me get outside to take a picture. I actually stood in the misty rain for 30 minutes protecting my camera hoping he would return. These photos were taken through the slates of the deck which adds a mysterious frame of sorts. When the goldfinch joined him, my color spectrum was complete! The photos are poor even though I post processed. He is not rare.



The bird that joined him is a lovely male goldfinch. We have had bunches of brilliant gold highlights at the feeder all month.