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!

 

Like a Rocket - A Dame's Rocket, That Is!

The farmstead was abandoned long ago. Time has erased the evidence that this little grove of trees ever sheltered a family from the worst of the Kansas winds. 

Only the Dame's rocket was left behind. The spindly purple-headed plants are still nestled in a grove of trees along the Raymond Road. Randy noticed them several years ago, and since then, we watch every spring for their blooming. 

Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses says that Dame's rocket was "an ornamental often planted by early settlers."

Granted, I have a vivid imagination, but I think about a farm wife new to the open plains of Kansas. Many settlers at the time had come from the east - from areas with more trees and vegetation. And I think about her trying to beautify this little spot of a new home with some pretty purple blooms.

Dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis) produces either white, pink or purple flowers in April and May. It was introduced to North America in the 1600s from Eurasia.  It is often seen in roadside ditches, hedgerows and older farmsteads. Scott Vogt from Dyck Arboretum in Hesston sees Dame's rocket as an invasive weed. In a publication from Dyck's Arboretum, Vogt writes: 

Dame’s Rocket is closely related to other problematic weeds of the mustard, family such as garlic mustard, hedge mustard, wild radish and yellow rocket. All of these weeds are prolific and opportunistic, infesting field margins, woodlands, open grassland and wetlands.  It ... has the ability to produce chemicals that prevent or reduce the growth of other plants similar to garlic mustard. With these tendencies, Dame’s rocket and garlic mustard will quickly form dense monocultures within a few years, pushing out other desirable native plants. 

That may be, but I still love the purple nestled under the trees. Randy knows I love them, so he tried to transplant some of the Dame's rocket at our homestead last year. It didn't take. So he tried again this year. We'll see how it fares.

 I am firmly in Winnie the Pooh's camp on this one:

Weeds are flowers, too,

once you get to know them.

Winnie the Pooh

 

The Unloved Things

 

My friend, Pam, posted a poem by Nicolette Sowder last week. It really spoke to me and my philosophy about finding beauty in everyday life:

May we raise children who love the unloved things

By Nicolette Sowder

 

May we raise children

who love the unloved things - 

the dandelion, the worms

and spiderlings.

Children who sense

the rose needs the thorn

and run into rain-swept days

the same way

they turn towards sun.

 

And when they're grown 

and someone has to speak

for those who have no voice,

may they draw upon that wilder bond,

those days of

tending tender things.  

 

She mentioned her husband giving a combine ride to their four grandchildren. That's a familiar scene for us, too - at least, until this year. Here's what she had to say:

 

They worried over every butterfly, bug and sunflower that the combine might have to devour to get the precious kernels of drought-stricken wheat this year. I missed out on this as there clearly was no room for one more body in that crowded cab. But, I can imagine their commands to “wait, steer clear, turn around” in order to save what they see as tiny, beautiful and valued.

 

We were at the Stafford golf course during the holiday weekend. It was the perfect day. I had my favorite golfer with me. It was not too hot and no one else on the course. It was verdant green against a cloud-splattered bright blue sky after some rains. I had a great book to read.

 

I recommend this book: "Drowning" by T.J. Newman. I also liked her first book, "Falling." They are excellent if you like thrillers!

I remembered that poem as we drove from tee to tee on the golf course. The groundskeeper at the course chooses to go around the purple poppy mallows that bloom wild and so abundantly this time of year in the course's rough.

 

Some might see them as weeds. He sees the little purplish-pink blooms and doesn't want to chomp them through the mower. I don't know what the golf course board thinks about his mowing decisions. But I can't help but think that he has just a little bit of childlike wonder in seeing those "weeds" as flowers.

Just like the poem reminds us, perhaps the world could be a better place if we tended "the tender things" - including the people who inhabit it.

I should have looked at this while I was still on the course and tried again to get the sunflower in focus. But I definitely noticed the beauty of the sunflowers lining the ditches along the eastern border of the golf course.

A Trip to the Fishing Hole

 

"Your chariot awaits."

Cinderella may have had a pumpkin-shaped coach and a fancy new dress for her outing. I get a loud John Deere Gator and old blue jeans on the way to a fishing hole.

Rain in June finally had the water in the Ninnescah River pasture flowing. This old Cinderella and her Prince much prefer nature's paintings over a fancy crowded ballroom anyway.

We didn't catch a thing - other than a feast for the eyes.

The rain had refreshed the pasture landscape to a verdant green.

Many years ago, hunters created a dam at the Ninnescah, and the spillway always fascinates me. I duck-walked on the rounded pipe that forms a bridge, holding on to the railing. Rushing water gave a feeling of vertigo, but I snapped a few photos before carefully making my way back. No old ladies were harmed in the snapping of this photo.

However, I preferred being back on solid ground where I could enjoy the sights and sounds without fear of falling in!

I did put a line in for awhile.

Patience is not my virtue. I ended up wandering around taking photos instead, leaving Randy to keep trying his luck. 

He had some nibbles, but no catfish dinner for us that day!

I did have some success in the beauty department, though.

These may be pretty yellow flowers, but I don't like the "stickers" attached.

These itty-bitty blue flowers - erect day flowers - are some of my pasture favorites. 

Even Randy was ready to pack up the fishing gear after awhile. But we still enjoyed a Gator ride through the pasture.

It was the very definition of "pastoral."

Even though we aren't the "official" cattle checking crew, we still had to drive through them. 

 It appeared they were enjoying their summer vacation spot.

 Cattle are curious creatures.

We made our usual stop at the bridge, too. It was nice to see some water flowing.

That was a Saturday morning well spent! I came home and made something other than fish for lunch. And that was OK, too.