Sunflowers and Wildflowers: There's No Place Like Home

 

Firekeeper Golf Course, September 23, 2026

 

"She's a sunflower from the Sunflower State." 

I am indeed.

 

If you were an elementary schoolchild in Kansas back in the 1960s, you likely learned that song by Mack David. It's one of those songs that's imprinted in my brain. Of course, I sometimes can't remember why I walked in a room, but I remember song lyrics from 50+ years ago. (Go figure):

I was born in Kansas, I was bred in Kansas
And when I get married, I'll be wed in Kansas.
There's a true blue gal who promised she would wait,
She's a sunflower from the sunflower state.

Chorus:
She's a sunflower, she's my sunflower, and I know we'll never part.
She's a sunflower, she's my one flower, she's the flower of my heart.

There are more verses, but they weren't absorbed in my memory bank like the first verse and chorus. My mom had a copy of the "Sunflower" sheet music. Her maiden name is carefully penned on the upper righthand corner. The music has a MCMXLVIII copyright. (To save you the trouble of Googling the Roman numeral translation, it's 1948. You're welcome!)

I framed the music and use it - along with several other sunflower keepsakes - to decorate my mantel during August and September ... and this year, into October because I haven't had time to change it. (True confessions.)

I'm not the only sunflower aficionado in the state. As I wrote about in another post, Poet Laureate of Kansas Traci Brimhall has been sharing her love for poetry and the state through collecting poems from Kansas students. The 2026 Kansas State Fair was the third fair that featured poetry on placards across the fairgrounds. 

Firekeeper Golf Course, September 23, 2026

More than one extolled sunflowers:

Kansas Sunflower

by Giovanni Santana

A sunflower stands proud and tall,

Watching summer greet us all.

Facing sunshine every day,

Growing stronger all the way.

Bright as hope and gold as wheat,

Standing where the sky and prairie meet.

When I think of home, it’s easy to see

Kansas blooms inside of me.

As we have traveled to tennis matches across the Flint Hills during September and into the month of October, we've been treated to "bouquets" of Maximilian sunflowers bordering the interstate. It's been like a colorful border on nature's quilt of browning grasslands as summer transitions to fall and then toward winter.  

In our immediate area, they seem a little less plentiful as ditches have narrowed or been mowed. 

Kim's County Line - 2023

 They used to spill over on our country roads. 

File photo from 2016

Sunflower (Another State Fair Poem)

By Pa’a Meyer-Yu

Sunflowers are everywhere

Sunflower seeds, sunflower patches,

Sunflower oil, sunflower butter

Sunflowers are Kansas

Yellow petals, slender stem, brown center

Always follows the sun

Always with Kansas

Sunflowers are Kansas

 

 Sunflower (State Fair Poem)

By Isla Parker

The sunflower finds the light

Captures every ray

Its golden yellow petals gleam

Wakes in the East to grow strong and tall

Turning through the day

Majestic rapid growth

Silent sentry observing the sun rise and fall

Absorbing the nutrients of the shimmering sun

Giant brown face makes the yellow shine

Bees hum amongst

Sea of golden soldiers marches

Across the open field

Harvest of seeds to nourish the birds

Creeping out dry, raw dirt

Roots spread deep and strong

 

A late September visit to the Firekeeper Golf Course near Mayetta offered another glimpse of Maximillian sunflowers.

   The golf course features 10 acres of dedicated wildflower and pollinator gardens. 

  

Our fall visit was the perfect time to witness how this program aims to preserve the natural character of the native Kansas prairie landscape, promote local biodiversity and provide crucial habitats for wildlife and native insects. 

Goldenrod - Fire Keeper Golf Course

It included sunflowers, but also some other native Kansas plants.   

We had an animal visitor, too. It didn't seem a bit fazed by the human interlopers. 

We'll be back on those Kansas highways later this week for the KSHSAA 6A state tennis finals in Wichita. 

  

Kinley and her partner, Annie, got second place in doubles in the regional tournament last week, losing only to their senior teammates from Washburn Rural. 

Photo from the KSHSAA Facebook page

The whole team qualified to compete in the state tournament. Good luck to Kinley and her fellow Washburn Rural Lady Blues tennis team! It's been a fun freshman season for Kinley ... and her grandparents!

 

Take a Photo Holiday

Take time to smell the roses ... er, the yellow wildflowers?

 

Take pictures as if you were taking a holiday in your own life.

That was one of the photo prompts from the book, "One Photo a Day Keeps the Doctor Away" by Joost Joosen, which Brent and Susan gave me for Christmas last year. On the same page was this Alexandra Horowitz quote:

Together we became investigators of the everyday. ... In this way, the familiar becomes unfamiliar and the old becomes new. We do have the ability to pay attention. We just forget how to use it. 

We're all quick to share the moments from the highlight reel of our lives. Maybe it's the visit from our grandchildren. The beauty of a National Park is sure to generate dozens - if not hundreds - of photos. But there is no shortage of beauty hiding in plain sight along our normal routes.

Several times, I drove past those yellow "flowers" at the corner where I make the turn onto the Zenith Road. But on a day when the clouds were like a 3D painting on a bright blue canvas, I made the time to stop.

The same clouds and sky provided a counterpoint to the green alfalfa field and hay bales.

They also gave me a different backdrop for my sunrise tree ... even though it was the middle of the day and not sunrise.

When I took my "photo holiday," we were coming back home from a Labor Day trip to the Stafford golf course. 

I spent a lot of the time reading my book. But I also took a few photos with my favorite model, framed with some natural "decor."

It's not often that it's wet enough in August to find mushrooms on the golf course!

All the rain this summer has offered other unusual August photos. Last week, we had a total of 3 inches of rain, and Peace Creek was uncharacteristically flowing.

This was the scene at our new bridge - which is done, by the way! 

On the Zenith Road looking east

I always like looking at Peace Creek from a view on the Zenith Road, too. 

On the Zenith Road looking west

 It's certainly prettier with water than without!

August 10, 2022 - from the Zenith Road

To prove that point, here's a photo from August 2022. (For the record, the water is back down this week.)

Last sunset of August 2025

 Sunsets are always an opportunity to take a holiday in my everyday life. 

First sunset of September 2025

Storms that went north and east of us provided the drama in the sky last evening.

We only see what we look at. 

To look is an act of choice.

--John Berger 

 

 

 

***

I love the nature all around me. But the "highlight reels" of life can be fun, too. K-State football games have been part of my life since I was a little girl. 

The drone show following the home opener win was certainly worth commemorating with photos.

It may have been man (or woman) made, but the formations were certainly worthy of a "photo holiday." 
 

 

Do-It-Yourself Scenic Overlook - Kansas-Style

 

I suppose I've always taken sunflowers for granted. As a Kansas native, these sunshiny flowers have become part of my peripheral vision as I motor down the road in the summer, usually in a hurry to get to where I'm going.

In our immediate area, they seem a little less plentiful as ditches have narrowed or been mowed. So as we were traveling down a more secluded dirt road in our Gator and I saw the blanket of sunflowers stretching toward the horizon, I wanted my chauffeur to stop. The national parks have scenic overlooks. I could do a make-your-own version, Kansas-style.

Summertime is sunflower time in Kansas. And even though our Iowa friends may believe it's a noxious weed, it's our noxious weed, thank you very much (with apologies to my son-in-law's Iowa family). The genus Helianthus comes from the Greek "helios" meaning "sun" and "anthos" meaning "flower." The species "annuus" means "annual."

The sunflower grows in every Kansas county due to its adaptability to soils from sand to clay and its toleration of dry to medium moist soils. In the summer and early fall, the yellow flowers give the prairies and roadsides a golden glow.

From the Kim's County Line archives

Sunflowers were cultivated in North America as far back as 3000 BC and were introduced to the rest of the world by Spanish Conquistadors in 1500. 

According to an article in The Hutchinson News by Steve Gilliland, in 1901, George Morehouse, a state senator from Council Grove, attended a rodeo in Colorado Springs where all the Kansas folks in attendance wore sunflowers identifying them as Kansans. Morehouse was so moved and inspired by the Kansas spirit, that upon returning home, he drafted the bill naming the sunflower as our state flower. It was adopted in 1903.

So, this year, it's especially appropriate to celebrate the sunflower, since it's the 120th anniversary of its status as official state flower. The 1903 proclamation said it was chosen for "its strong, distinct disk and its golden circle of clear, glowing rays."

In this original bill, Morehouse also stated:

 “This flower has to all Kansans an historical symbolism which speaks of frontier days, winding trails, pathless prairie and is full of the life and glory of the past, the pride of the present and richly emblematic of the majesty of the golden future, and is a flower which has given Kansas the world-wide name “The Sunflower State.”

I've transitioned to my sunflower decor in my living room. So I have sunflowers "blooming" all around me. 

The last several blog posts, I've reported on tourist spots in Iowa, Chicago and Missouri. We enjoyed those travels. But we are pretty fond of Kansas, too. 

 

Follow the Yellow Brick Road?

  

I saw a sweatshirt on Facebook recently that seemed made for me: Farm Uber. It was just another case of Facebook seemingly spying on my life. 

During my repeated trips to, from and yon in my Farm Uber role, I've been singing "Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road" in my head. 

Granted, there's not a brick to be seen. But some of the road shoulders are "paved" with yellow. The gold in "them thar hills" may not have much street value or what most people might call a hill. But it sure has eye appeal (unless you're about to get your car stuck on poorly maintained roads ... but that's another story). 

Roadside sunflowers are producing a bumper crop.

 

It's just one of the glimpses of beauty that's all around us - free for the taking if only we pause and really see it.

On one evening trip to the field, I also loved the yellows (and all the other colors) during Golden Hour, that time right before the sun goes down. I had just talked that morning to the yearbook class at Stafford High School about advantages of light during the Golden Hour. There were examples all around me just a few hours later.

One milo field was illuminated by sunset.

 Another was catching a whole different light perspective looking to the east.

Peace Creek, looking east

One of my favorite local photo spots - Peace Creek along the Zenith Road - was looking especially peaceful as the sun was setting and the wind was settling down for the night.

Peace Creek, looking west

I couldn't resist one more stop before I headed for home. A windmill about a mile from our farmstead as the crow flies is a favorite western vista when there's a dramatic sky brewing.

Some curious bystanders came to check me out.

They definitely have a "room" with a view.