Once again we have Sunflowers a short distance from our front door. I suppose that if there's going to be any crop there (other than grass) then the most attractive must be Sunflowers.
The photo below was taken a few years ago. The present crop, which is in the same position, is still very small, so no flowers as yet.
Agriculture has pretty much come to a standstill here. Farmers live on payments from Brussels that represent their surface of cultivatable land ownership. One no longer has to do anything with it to make a living.
In the case of the Sunflowers, they are grown in partnership with share-croppers who organise all the work, and split the profits.
I have one neighbour who has about 6 Cows, otherwise they cut grass and make hay, and in Autumn they gather Chestnuts. Very different to when I arrived in the area over 50 years ago. Farming down here has rather lost its way!
Still, who am I to complain. In a few weeks time I shall be looking out onto a field of Sunflowers, and what could be more Southern French than that!!!
It looks idyllic.
ReplyDeleteI expect you remember it as a tiny ruin. It's changed a lot since then.
DeleteThe first seed I ever pushed into soil was with my grandfather. And what do you know: It grew into a sunflower. The wonderment of it. To this day, sunflowers and my grandfather so very dear to me.
ReplyDeleteU
The first seeds I grew were Radishes. I forgot all about them, then finally discovered them when they were huge and hollow.
DeleteThere are also large fields of sunflowers here. I don't know if they are blooming yet. I haven't driven on the roads in a while.
ReplyDeleteI saw some here that were almost in flower, so I would think that yours are already in flower.
DeleteIt's just like a van Gogh painting.
ReplyDeleteHe would have sat on our terrace and painted all week.
DeleteI am sure we used to see fields of sunflowers in Brittany when we took the boys to Eurocamp.
ReplyDeleteThey even grow them in the UK these days; they are everywhere.
DeleteI used to visit friends in Castillones in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lovely fields of tobacco that smelt divine plus all the normal agriculture you would expect as well as wine. Monbazilliac, spelling from memory , was always a good bet for desert but lots of country red at coops across the countryside.
ReplyDeleteThe Tobacco growing has now stopped completely. Our barn that we converted was originally a Tobacco drying barn. They are now mostly houses. There was also a VERY LARGE Moth that fed from the Tobacco flowers; they have now gone too.
DeleteI remember the beauty of the fields of sunflowers in northern Greece. Mother nature at her summer best. Classic Mediterranean. You're so lucky to have it right on front of you
ReplyDeleteWe are indeed. They are a beautiful sight.
DeleteThere's something a little eerie about sunflowers - the way their heads follow the sun in unison - a bit like North Koreans when Kim Jong Un is playing "Three Blind Mice" on his recorder.
ReplyDeleteThey only follow the sun until they are properly open. Once fully open they face due East.
DeleteYou and the sunflowers, enjoying the sunshine.
ReplyDeleteA field of sunflowers makes an iconic sight. You have a great view.
ReplyDelete