Sunflowers

 Kind of funny, what makes us stop and look around.

I nearly tripped over a snapping turtle yesterday at our local nature park.  We had been looking for the pileated woodpeckers nesting there, but failing that, we walked around and saw all the other woodpeckers, songbirds, and even a raptor (a duck occasionally reminded anyone who would listen that he was there, in the pond).  We joked that I looked up, and he looked down, which is why I nearly tripped over the turtle. 

I stopped a minute. And looked. And she was so still I thought she was a statue. Likely we walked right by her as she was laying her eggs. But then she blinked, and I called hubby over to look. A runner speeding toward us needed to know he had a literal stumbling block if he weren't careful. So the three of us stood marveling at her until she tired of us and ambled away at a glacial pace (being a turtle).

These reminders that life persists and that out planet is worth fighting for are important. Later, I was driving around Philly on an errand when I nearly tripped (again) over a box of uprooted sunflowers, with a note urging someone (anyone) to take them and plant them.

I was out in the little red car, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from my quest.  I figured out a way to wedge the box in the passenger seat so that the stalks would rest on the seat back.  While I was figuring this out, an elderly woman watched me with amusement. She surprised me when I turned around and I said sheepishly, "I'm just trying to give them a home."

She grinned broadly and waved me on.

She reminded me of an elderly couple who lived up the street from me, Barbara and Sebastiano. I hadn't thought of them in years. Barbara was a little wren of a woman and her husband was tall, bald, always with a hat on, in a waistcoat and long dark slacks no matter how hot it was, smoking his pipe, processing around the block slowly, deep in thought.  He would meet you on the street, take the pipe out of his mouth and say "How do?" and replace the pipe, hands reinstalled behind his back, head down, and on he'd go, pondering all things. 

I'd like to ask him now what he was thinking.

Did they have sunflowers in their back yard?  I think they did. That's why they were with me in spirit as I found a place in my yard to plant them, and then put them in the ground as quickly as possible. 

I give them even odds.  It's a really hot day today.