A whole bowl from just one flower!
The real reason I am elated about these seeds, besides the fact that they're delicious lies at the beginning of the seeds journey. In early Spring my 3 year old brought home a little sprout housed in a plastic dixie cup that he had planted at school. We put it out back and got busy so busy that the next time little Z went outside to check on the plant he stormed inside crying because it had died. Well I happen to know plants sometimes have a magical regenerative quality if you give them extra love and attention and really at that point I was willing to try anything to mend my little guys heart. I gently told him to pick out a special spot in the garden, we talked to the plant propped the poor thing up with a twig and couple rocks and hoped for the best. Honestly, I just thought that for the moment the crisis was averted, went to the store and bought a bag of sunflower seeds for us to plant. To our surprise about a week later the sprout was standing on it's own again. After another week it tripled in size, that's when we began to document it's process.We took a photo every two weeks, every time Z squealed with joy and was amazed when the plant was "taller than daddy!"
The flower bloomed, inviting a myriad of lovely summer guests to delight in the joys of it's nectar and beauty- and in the case of the birds and squirrels, it's seeds! Then it drooped it's giant head and took a well deserved rest! Last night while we were playing around it the yard I noticed a few seeds had dropped from the droopy mammoth and decided it was time to shuck them. Only I have never shucked a sunflower before so it quickly became a family activity. I held out my dress and caught the flying seeds as my husband wiggled the top around and Z picked the ones off the ground that I missed. I'm sure Martha Stewart has mastered the art of "shucking" or "de-seeding" a sunflower and I'm sure it's efficient and crafty, but I wouldn't want to do it any other way. As we were all sitting around our dinner table huddled over this bowl full of seeds a sense of joy washed over me. The kind of joy you feel when everything seems perfect, the kind I imagine zen masters are talking about when they say "be here now" I felt that many times through this process, just udder joy and perfection from one itty bitty seed.
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