Sunflower year

There are always sunflowers at this time of year (and how was this three years ago?!). But this year I think there are more than I've ever seen! WAY more! Could that be? Maybe something to do with the wet spring/long winter we had? I don't know, but for whatever reason, every empty field, every stretch of shoulder along the roadside, every half-cleared construction site, is covered with golden yellow sunflowers right now. When you drive along Mountain View Corridor it's like gliding through a yellow ocean! I love it!

I went out with the kids one evening to take some pictures. This looks like such a nice field of waving grasses, doesn't it? It was knee deep with puncture weeds and tumbleweeds and spiky thorn-weeds! I don't even know their names! They don't deserve names! They were malevolent! We hiked through them anyway, though, so we could get in among the flowers. Poor Junie was in shorts and got scraped all over. We carried Gus and Clementine. 

It was worth a few scraped ankles, though, because the flowers were so thick and pretty! And because we'd had to endanger life and limb to get there, it felt kind of wild even though we were quite near the road.

Gus's attempt at a smile. ??

Better.

I wish we'd been able to get out there 30 minutes earlier so the sun would still have been up. But the sunflowers were still so bright and pretty in the fading light!

It's hard to keep from being silly when one is having one's picture taken with one's sisters lurking behind the camera.

Sweetie Clementine. She's a little brown-eyed sunflower herself!

I would crouch down to take a picture and then Clementine would crouch down too. She thought it was SO funny!

Daisy was nothing if not dressed appropriately for the occasion.

Zig reminds me so much of Seb at that age. His serious and somewhat wistful look! He gathered these (nearly stemless) flowers to hold for his picture. What a nice touch.

Aha, there's his cute and real smile!

He's turning into such a big kid now. Lengthening out and getting a thinner face, more wiry little arms. Climbing everything, jumping off ledges, bushwhacking through weeds with no fear. A school boy!

Junie's face is the background is the best.

Working on that smile again. Not doing super well with it.

Gus the Good!

Goldie the Good!

Whoa, what is she doing here?

Junie is more than just a little taller than Daisy now. She…I'm sorry to say it…towers above Daisy! Very disrespectful of a younger sister, I must say.

Clementine would never do such a thing. 

Can we get enough Gus? No, we cannot.

Wearing his fireman costume, not surprisingly (the surprising thing was that he consented to take the coat off for the earlier pictures). Actually this was perfect gear for walking around in this Field of Spikiness.

Now that is a funny face.

Such a happy man.

So pretty. I hope we have just as many sunflowers next year!