A Field of Sunflowers

The next town over is a quaint little farming community. The rolling hills form a patchwork of golden wheat fields, corn fields, and purple blooming alfalfa. The downtown boasts a few scattered buildings, a feed store, an old post abandoned Post Office that looks like it's straight out of the old west and a mingling of white picket homes with red tractors parked in the front lawn.

Among this picturesque landscape is one of the most spectacular sights I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. It's the sunflower fields.

These photographs do not do this breathtaking scene justice. But it's the best I can do to share it with all of you.

Zach and I have been stalking the fields watching the green sunflower stalks get higher and higher. Every couple weeks we take a ride with our cameras to see how the flowers have been progressing, Oliver usually joins us. We watched as the crown shaped flowers formed their disk shaped heads and at different parts of the day, moved their large green faces across the sky, always following the sun.

This was our first ride out seeing the flowers in bloom. We rounded the usual corner and I was expecting to see the lime green of the fields, but instead the landscape had transformed and almost looked artificial. It's so very, very yellow. 

These photos were taken at sunset and the reflection from the suns rays off the yellow flower petals illuminates the surrounding area in a golden hue that is just beautiful. It's as if the sunset had spread across the land in tangible, tiny sun balls. The heads for some reason had not followed the trajectory of the sun's arch and were facing the road with the sun behind them. I'm not sure if the heads are too heavy to move now, or perhaps the sun wasn't bright enough that day. All I know is that I'm glad that if they are done turning, that they are facing the road.

I'm slightly obsessed with this field and almost fell off the hood of the Jeep trying to take some of these photos. I wanted to get up as high as I could so I could get as many of the blooms in the frame as possible. I'd like to go back in the morning with the eastern sun shining on the blooms, rather than silhouetted in the background.