In a few weeks, this field behind the San Juan Bautista mission is going to be spectacular. There have been other flower grows in this field. My first year here it was Amaranth (a sea of deep red). Last spring it was sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus); rows of single color red, pink, purple, and one row of multicolored. The smell in the air near the field was was other worldly.

And now, Helianthus. Without seeing the flower, I cannot tell which variety, but it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be glorious.  I try to respect the property of the growers and the workers by staying on the field’s driving paths that encircle the crops. It’s a worksite. People are constantly applying pre-emergents and fertilizers, tending to the irrigation, running tractors, spraying and tilling the soil. I am grateful for the space to run (running on country roads is the alternative and not ideal since it is a major trucking area) and hope this access never ends. It is the most solitude I get during the week where I am free to sing in the hedgerows of flower grows and enjoy the strange perfection of modern agriculture. Thoroughly uniform, green, and compact. This field will be next month’s Instagram tourist trap. Come one and all! Take a selfie! Who would miss the opportunity to see something so grand?