Sunflowers and yellow finches: My tale of nature vs will

Here is the tale of Sunflowers and yellow finches - a funny story that really allowed me to not take gardening so seriously.

Sunflowers are my all time favorite flower. I love their sunny disposition, I love the height, and their gorgeous huge faces. I love that they come in different colors from yellow, to orange, and autumn. So cool. The first year I ever grew sunflowers, I planted way too many. Part of me disagrees that you can never have too many plants of any kind, but I had close to 40 different sunflowers, and 4 different types and colors. As I tend to do, I overdid it. I kept finding that the taller they grew the more they struggled to stand up right. Some started growing in a circular pattern, others at awkward angles or just leaning over. 

I would look out in my backyard and it was like a posed contemporary dance with just all harsh angles and a little off-putting. I bought string, different metal supports, I rotated them, and wow it felt like a full-time job trying to get these sunflowers to have any semblance of standing up tall. And what was weird is that some of them would break off or had really extreme bends that were bizarre.

Near the end of the season, I’m looking out my upstairs window and see two beautiful yellow finches. I see one of them land on the head of the sunflower, dipping the stem down as it eats the head of the sunflower, the plant is almost touching the earth.

I just had to laugh. All that fussing, and problem-solving for a bird trying to eat. So any time I start to get frustrated or annoyed when nature isn’t bending to my will, I have to think on this story and just laugh a little and let it go.