Sunflowers: a Sure Sign that Fall is Coming

Here in the east Sandia Mountains, sunflowers start popping up along the roads in the middle of August. Some years, like this one, are dry. We didn't have much of a monsoon season this summer, and it shows. This little field is usually green and covered with nearly a lawn of grass. This year, it is filled with dry and yellowed clusters of grasses. 

Some years, the sunflowers line the road. This year, there's a sparse sprinkling of flowers.

To me, sunflowers mark the end of summer, because they begin to bloom at about the same time school starts. Back when I was teaching, I drove to school through a sea of sunny yellow blooms that I thought were encouraging me to have a sunny, upbeat attitude. I hoped that my students would bloom under my guidance, growing strong and upright in their understanding and practice. This year, publics schools held their first classes during the week that began with August 9th. That was also the week that sunflowers began popping up along the road. I drove past them feeling a bit of nostalgia and wishing that I could be back in the classroom and facing the fresh, shining new faces of another year of students. (I will admit the feeling passed pretty quickly. Teaching is fun, but it's also difficult and wears a person down.)

As soon as I see my first sunflower of the year, I celebrate by changing up the decorations on the little table where my husband and I eat our meals. I bring the happiness and hope of sunflowers to my table using a green tablecloth, a centerpiece that's ringed with silk sunflowers and holds a yellow candle, and a little quilted piece created by my very talented friend, Jessica Bonzen. (Joyce Sagon, the mother of my brother in law Ed, gave me a lovely breadbasket liner that has sunflowers on it, and that goes on the table, too!)  

This is my late summer table, reminding me that, while the days are still warm, (blazing hot, actually. What a hot and dry summer it's been) school is already in session and fall is right around the corner. 

I may not have many wild sunflowers this year, but I've got three big Maximillian sunflower bushes.  Right now, there are only a few blooms on each plant, but I know what's coming.These bushes will get to be 6 feet high, and will eventually be covered with flowers, so they'll look like golden columns.

September is a month of transitions here in New Mexico. It starts out hot, but soon after the State Fair, trees begin to show a little color and the days begin to cool. I am looking forward to that change. After a long, hot summer, it'll be nice to have to pull out a sweater for an early morning walk. And though I'll have to say goodbye to sunflowers, the gold will stay because the aspens and cottonwoods will begin their autumnal show, and New Mexico's skies will fill with hot air balloons. 

Jennifer Bohnhoff is an author and speaker who lives in the mountains east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. If you'd like to learn more about her and her books, check out her website here.