Seeds of Sunshine

Unless a grain of seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed ...

But if you plant a single sunflower seed you get a Ga-Zillion seeds back! My girl Nib planted these for me. Proud papa!

Look at this awesome haul from a single flower. Sunflowers are long, tall, strong (I actually broke a pair of kitchen scissors trying to cut the head off of a 6 foot stalk!), and beautiful.

They are pure sunshine trapped in a giant body. They always face the morning sunrise as if to say "We were waiting for you!" And once their glory fades, the massive heads droop down heavily as if in exhaustion saying "We lived to the full, there is nothing left." The mirror of the sun's face is dried up, browns, and crumbles away like ashes of a forgotten fire.

But underneath all this is row upon row of beautiful, black-and-white seeds. Their shells are hard and smooth. Take them out, wash them, soak them overnight in salt water, roast them gently -- enjoy the nutty, warm, roasty goodness that are sunflower seeds by the handful.