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. 

 

In Focus

 

Always remember: Your focus determines your reality.

George Lucas

 

This past weekend, we drove to two of our summer pastures to check cattle. On Saturday, at the Ninnescah, the cattle were hidden in the pasture's abundant nooks and crannies. But we didn't see any cattle tracks in the road. Unlike last year, our summer hasn't been filled with every-other-day phone calls from people in that area, telling us that our perennial group of escapees had absconded once again. (You may recall those rascals went to the sale barn last fall when we eventually caught them.)

 

Looking east

 

As usual, I had my camera along for the ride. While we didn't get to see the cattle, but we did stop at one of my favorite photo spots, a small wooden bridge over the Ninnescah River.

Looking west

 

Just south of the pasture, I spied a large windmill near the intersection. With the cloudy sky forming an interesting backdrop to the north and west, I asked Randy to stop instead of making the lefthand turn he had planned. He's used to such requests.

 

We stopped in the middle of the intersection. It isn't a well-traveled road. And, even if some other farmer came along to check his own crops or cattle, we would have plenty of warning with the flat landscape stretching in every direction.

I noticed a couple of fence posts left behind - probably from an abandoned loading chute - and decided to frame the windmill in a different way. 

After clicking a few frames of the windmill with both my Nikon and my camera phone, I noticed the a few sunflowers creating a splash of color in the ditch nearby. Looking closer, I noticed how the shape of the sunflower mimicked the shape of the windmill blades and added even more images to my memory card.  

 

When we got home, I downloaded the photos and clicked through the images, now much larger on my computer screen. 

And I discovered a couple of different things. In some of them, the camera had focused on the sunflower, so the flower was in crisp focus and the windmill was just a shape in the background.

In others, the windmill was in sharp focus, blurring the flower itself. Sometimes, the camera chose the close-up view. Other times, it chose the view at the horizon. And, no, the operator did not notice at the time.

My later inspection also revealed I should have paid closer attention to the sunflower I chose for the close-up. Its petals were buffeted by the wind and seemed to have provided a plentiful buffet for insects who had munched the yellow bloom. I wished I'd chosen a more model-worthy specimen. 

At the time, I was more concerned about the shape of the flower and the windmill blades. It was only later that I focused on the details. Unfortunately, I've had that happen before when taking photos. I always think I'll learn from my miscues. And I usually do ... for awhile.

The next day, when we visited our Rattlesnake Pasture, I made sure I was focused on a large, intact bloom.

I did notice that the flowers were giving me their backsides in the shot below, but sunflowers turn toward the sun ... or the direction the light would be on a sunny day, at least. But since the bulls were giving me a pretty shot anyway, I was happy with the splash of color on an overcast day.

But let's face it: Give me a few weeks, and I will inevitably go back to my old ways and forget to pay close attention to the details.

 

Isn't that a metaphor for life itself? We can get stuck viewing life through a particular lens. We see life, people and God through that internal lens called attitude and perspective. 

 

There are many things that can and will blur the focus of our lives.  Distorting our focus are judgment, prejudice, anger, resentment, jealousy, fear, hurt, offense, ingratitude and a lot of other "stuff."  These give us the wrong images of life, people and God.

Unfortunately, when our focus has become blurred by such things, we accept this warped view as reality, when it’s actually the projection of our own experience, pain and problems.  This sets us up for wrong reactions, bad decisions and even some mental and emotional misery.

A favorite Bible verse has this to say about where my focus should be:

 

Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4: 8-9

Back in my voice lesson days, my teacher assigned the song, "Think On These Things." Even though I cleaned out a lot of music when I downsized my office shelves, I kept that particular piece of music because I love the message so much.

It's old enough that I couldn't find the Merle Miller Sacred Songs arrangement (1947) on YouTube, but I did find a high school choir singing a different - yet equally beautiful - song based on the same Bible verses.

Here we are in a pandemic. News stories this week have talked about a "twin-demic" which could happen as winter approaches and brings our usual influx of garden-variety flu on top of Covid-19.

Coupled with rioting and the political rhetoric that bombards us from all sides as the election approaches, it's sometimes hard to focus on anything other than gloom and doom and "noise."

So a quiet trip to a beautiful places to "think on these things" is a good start.

It's not that we get rid of the noise or the things that mar our vision. If you look carefully in the photo above, there's an old drainage pipe that makes the scene just a little less lovely. 

Maybe it's a matter of stepping back just a little bit and taking in the whole picture (and hiding that old pipe with a few more pretty purple flowers by using a different angle). Or maybe it's focusing on the even the smallest things  ...

 ... the intricate petals of individual flowers ...

 ... like tiny blue flowers, hiding in pasture grasses ...

... like cattle (where they are supposed to be), enjoying plentiful grass - even in the late summer ...

... imagining the fisherman who left this fishing pole behind so he/she would be ready for next time ...

 ... wildlife at nearby Quivira National Wildlife Refuge ...

 

... and picture-postcard scenery in my own "neck of the woods ...

Do I need to readjust my focus? Sometimes, it's as simple as taking time to really look ... and to start to "think on these things" instead.

The Message puts Philippians 4 in even clearer terms:

^8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Philippians 4: 8-9, The Message

Sunflower from The Sunflower State

"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. When my mom was cleaning out music (and more) at her house, she unearthed her "Sunflower" sheet music. Her maiden name was carefully penned on the upper righthand corner. It was before my own clean-out began, and I ended up bringing it home, along with some other music. 

I framed it, using it to decorate my mantel this August, along with other sunflower "stuff."

The music has a MCMXLVIII copyright. (To save you the trouble of Googling the Roman numeral translation, it's 1948. You're welcome!)

I didn't realize Frank Sinatra had a version until I was looking on Youtube.

 Here's Frank Sinatra's version (ignore any ads before it. I don't have control over that.)

 

I've taken a whole bouquet of sunflower photos through the years. But this summer, one of them caught the attention of a writer in Texas who was looking for a photo to illustrate an article he was writing.

In the email, Col. Edward (Eddie) Boxx asked if he could use one of my photos featuring longhorns and sunflowers. I took it in 2011 as the Kansas Cattle Drive came through our area in honor of Kansas' 150th birthday. (Click here for the blog post. Also here.)

 

He wrote an article for the Heritage Village Museum in Tyler County, Texas, about the Old Beef Trail, and he recently sent me a screen shot to show how the photo was used.

Even though he was using it to illustrate the great cattle drives in the Plains, it made me think about all the sunflower photos I've taken in the years since I began my blog (and before that, too, I'm sure).  

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.

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, the sunflower became the state flower of Kansas in 1903. As history has it, in 1901, George Morehouse, a state senator from Council Grove, attended a rodeo in Colorado Springs where all the Kansas folk 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.

 In this original bill, Morehouse 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.”

Bees and butterflies enjoy sunflowers' nectar as they pollinate the bright yellow blooms. Mammals, birds, and insects consume the foliage and flowers. 

The sunflowers pictured above are a different kind of sunflowers, Maximilian. They bloom a little later in the summer.

Sunflowers are so ubiquitous that I decided to use them to illustrate No. 9 in the Kansas farm counting book I made for our granddaughters.

A much larger sunflower has a place of honor on the book's cover. We've never grown sunflowers as a cash crop on our farm, but they make for striking photos against a blue Kansas sky. I've borrowed a little time in another farmer's field to make a quintessential Kansas summer shot. Some Central Kansas farmers have found an alternative market by planting sunflower fields and selling the experience - giving professional photographers and families a beautiful backdrop.

The large-headed cultivated sunflowers grown today are one of a small number of agricultural plants to originate north of Mexico in North America. 

Native Americans were using native sunflowers for food more than 3,000 years ago. Over hundreds of years and careful husbandry (selecting only the largest seeds for cultivation), the Plains tribes began the development of today's large modern sunflower. Sunflower seeds are rich in protein and yield a high-quality vegetable oil.

 

Is it any wonder that Peter the Great fell in love with the sunflowers he discovered in the Netherlands and took them back with him to Russia? They became popular there when people discovered sunflower oil was not banned during Lent by the Russian Orthodox Church like most other oils. By the 19th century, Russia was growing 2 million acres of sunflowers annually. Around that time, Russian immigrants brought with them to the U.S. highly developed sunflower seeds capable of producing much bigger blooms. That sparked renewed interest in sunflowers as a commercial crop here in the states. I knew Russian immigrants brought Turkey Red Winter Wheat to Kansas, but I didn't realize they also brought sunflowers!

 

The large seed heads also can serve the winter food needs of goldfinches, sparrows and many small mammals. Cattle feeds are made from the leaves, stems, and flowers as well as the seed remains created when extracting oil. They also can be converted into biofuel. 

Yellow dye can be extracted from the flowers and purple-black dye from the seed. Paper and latex can be manufactured from the stems.  

 

In 2019, South Dakota farmers produced the most sunflower seeds in the U.S. to the tune of 831.6 million pounds. They were followed by North Dakota, Minnesota, California, Colorado and Kansas. 2019 commercial production in the United States was about 2 billion pounds grown on 1.4 million acres; 2019 production in Kansas was just under 54 million pounds from 45,000 acres.  This year, Kansas is expected to move up to 3rd in the nation in sunflower production after finishing 6th last year.

 

There are more than 60 species of sunflowers. The native sunflower grows to 15 feet tall with flower heads up to 2 feet in diameter, and can produce more than 1,000 seeds from one plant. 

 

The flower head turns and faces the sun throughout the day - tracking the sun's movement. We could learn a lot from a sunflower, I think ... especially during a pandemic and election season.