Sunflower Seeds and Chicken Poop

I always had dreams of these big fields of sunflowers. I could picture friends calling me to see if they could come take photos in the fields with their children and I could see myself holding our new baby amongst the sunflowers and feeling like a beautiful farm goddess mom.....hahahah

  The reality is that there is no big field, more like small strip...well, ok. Not a small strip. More like a single line of flowers if you want to be honest.

And no one was calling for pics and I haven't felt remotely close to a goddess or a real farmer.

  I threw dang sunflower seeds out EVERYWHERE.

And then the critters showed up EVERYWHERE.

The birds attacked the seed and then the rabbits and the deer ate the plants that managed to somewhat grow. I'd finally get one sunflower grown and the freaking deer would come along and eat every leaf off the dang thing.

I guess the Sunflowers were the buffer crop that helped protect our watermelon. They were the poor ball player who got the RBI but no glory. (except the flowers couldn't stop the raccoons!!)

  But, the one single line of sunflowers that did grow were pretty amazing.

Some of them were as tall as 8'. The bees all went nuts and I was all smiles.

  So I read up on Pinterest on how to collect the seeds...
When they would start to droop over and began to shrivel up like old prunes, I would clip the tops off them and put them in the garage to finish drying out.

 The kids had a good time removing the seeds. (Although I did have to pay them!) I think the ongoing question in our home when something farm related is brought up is

"Mom, How much are you going to pay me!?!"

  They filled up 4 metal trays full of seeds and P filled up 76 little brown bags full of seeds for us to trade with, give away or even set.

 I had a nice time stamping the bags with some linoleum block stamps I carved this summer.

This is something I enjoy teaching my students every year.

They love it and so do I.

 I did our Compton Farms logo on one side and the word "Sunflowers " on the other.

 As for the rest of the farm, I have been scooping chicken shit religiously since we got them.

Hoping to make some of the best compost possible. Everyone else in the family has refused to help me with this....ugggg.
Every day I scoop and I put into the compost bin Brent made me. I'm hoping between its the crushed up egg shells, the coffee grinds and some ashes from the burn pile, we will have some great dirt this fall.

 We have slowly been planting our fall "crop" of carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, etc depending upon when the Farmers Almanac Said to plant.

  The pumpkins have been struggling between the deer, the coons and just life.

But, that is another blog for another day. I'm still hoping in the back of my mind that we will have some that make it.

 I'm thankful I'm not a real farmer that depends on this for my livelihood.

I'd be a wreck due to all the animals attacking and the weather.

  Thankfully, this is still fun....most of the time...

Thanks for reading-

Love

Lissy

P.S. We were able to use some of our sunflowers in some special photos of Baby Leighton when she was a week old. Thank you Desirae Gooding Trappey for the beautiful pics!!!