Sunflower

Looks like a painting, doesn't it?  I posted it "X-Large" because I am so in love with this picture!  I took it this morning, during the five minutes that the sun was out and the sky was blue.  See the bee in the upper right of the flower?  Nice touch, huh?

I have been waiting all summer for this sunflower to bloom.  But you need perspective here.  Early in the garden-planting time, I found a volunteer something in an older garden bed.  I wasn't sure if it was a squash, a cucumber, or whatever, but I knew it was more than a weed.  So I transplanted it to the center of a bed in which I'd placed an old patio table base that I was using as a trellis for my snow peas.  And it proceeded to grow.

It pretty much grew into a tree.  Here, let me show you:

When I started my garden beds  a couple of years ago, my friend Erin gave me some seed packets that she'd wanted to plant but never got around to.  (Gardening is a commitment, one that Erin was just too busy in her career to make at the time.)  So last summer, I planted a few of the sunflower seeds next to my green bean trellis.  Too late, I realized my mistake.  The sunflower "trees" were just too big for the space and overwhelmed the pole beans.  Nonetheless, I harvested the sunflower seeds and thought how clever I was that I could feed the birds on my own produce.

Yeah, that "produce" fed the birds for about three days.

So this year, there's just the one sunflower "tree."  It started out humbly enough, but then, it just kept growing and growing, although it took forever to finally blossom.  I mean, I was getting worried.  I'd figured out that it was a sunflower pretty early on, but just how tall could it possibly get before it produced a flower?

As tall as the sky: 

So today I am in love with this blossoming sunflower and all the color and happiness it has brought to my world.  And thank you, Erin, for that gift of seeds that evolved into this simple joy.