Sunflower Saga

The rudbeckia around Houston right now are spectacular. Every corner seems to have at least one bright yellow sunflower-looking spot.

I joined the fun a few weeks ago and added them along the dry river bed in my front yard. They haven't disappointed.



Yes that is actually a dry river bed heading straight for my front door and when it rains it's a wet river bed that flows under my house and drains into the much lower back yard. A River Runs Through It? Yep, that's my house.

 But, I digress.

Remember these lovelies from Easter time?



Captain America was starting to give me funny looks because they were still on my front door and it's now August.

So I replaced them with rudbeckia!

 I've written about my reluctance to paint book page before, but if it's going to be rudbeckia, it has to be yellow, right? So I went to Michael's and bought some spray paint. After I promised the clerk that I would not spray her name or mine on any nearby overpasses, she opened the locked cabinet and handed me a couple of cans of bright yellow.

Back home, I grabbed about 150 pages and headed for the back yard

I laid out a big piece of orange plastic to protect the grass and then I got pretty good at playing ring-around-the-rosy as I'd lay out a few pages, spray them, swing to the other side of the plastic, lay out a few pages, spray them, come back to the first side which was somewhat dry, stack those pages, lay out a few more, spray them, swing to the other side... and so on.

I was getting pretty dizzy. I'm not sure if it was from doing that aforementioned dance while breathing in the paint fumes or if it was from the mosquitoes who insisted on making me their evening meal. 

What I do for art! And to keep you people entertained! And to replace the outdated-by-five-months wreaths on my door!

After they were dry, I spent an evening in front of the TV watching The Escape Artist on PBS (good flick!) and making cones.

The next night it was Mod-Podging the center circles...

...gluing on the cones...

...and making the centers...

Ta da! My new favorites!

And it looks like Rudy likes them, too!