Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Country Flowers

When we were in Prince Edward County a couple of weeks ago, we took the old country roads and saw some beautiful flowers that I thought I'd share for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging event created by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this week by Tony over at Anthony's Kitchen.

I love driving in the country and seeing beautiful fields of corn and wheat, berries, peppers and trying to identify other vegetables as we're whizzing by. But this field took my breath away. First because it's the first time I've actually seen entire fields of sunflowers growing around here. When my honey and I visited France a number of years ago and spent some time in the Loire Valley tasting wine and visiting chateaux, sunflowers were everywhere and I finally understood why the French name was tournesol, which roughly translated means turn to the sun. That's exactly what they do. When the sun is facing east, so are they and when the sun starts to set and is in the west, the sunflowers turn their pretty heads to catch as much of the sun as they can.

And look how pretty they are up close and personal. How could one NOT smile...


But sunflowers weren't the only beauties out that day. Look at these lacy wild carrots... or is it wild garlic. They're very similar in appearance and we didn't stop to let me taste them...pity!

Another common site in Quebec and Ontario is sumac. Brilliant red paint brushes with big green leaves that turn brilliant orange in the Fall. I love them!




Just don't confuse them with Turkish sumac berries that are most commonly used in cooking! Apparently there is a difference. And you might want to look at them from afar since some are poisonous like poison ivy and oak! Yikes!!!! Cool factoid: Chipawa Indians used to use it in food, as medicine for stomach ailments and fabric dye.

This time around, I really will have to see what everyone else submits so I get to eat something!


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3 comments:

Kalyn Denny said...

Lovely photos of the flowers. I usually grow sunflowers but for some reason I didn't ever plant them this year.

Gattina Cheung said...

I particularly like the photo of the flowers that you took from behind. There are many sumac in my area, I don't know what type but they don't have that big red flowers.

Term papers said...

I have enjoyed reading that When You were in Prince Edward County a couple of weeks ago, you took the old country roads and saw some beautiful flowers that You thought You had share for this week's with us. I really liked the sun flower. Greatly admire your work.