Sunflowers
At
first I went to Bolinas and it was virtually flat. When I jumped out of the car
I spotted Frank the stand-up guy toweling off after his session. He gave me
that "it's flat" hand gesture. He had gone out merely for the
exercise. We had a good chat about grandchildren. Two weeks ago my daughter
Allison gave birth to our first grandchild, Sebastian. Frank's daughter had
just given birth to Frank's second grandchild. Frank and his wife were about to
head to Southern California to visit them. He assured me that grandchildren
become more fun and interesting as they grow. His older one is now 19 months,
runs around the house and is beginning to form complete sentences. My little
Sebastian can only eat, sleep and poop. I wished him a good trip and hopped
back in the car to check out Stinson.
I
stopped at the farm stand at the edge of town. I was thinking of buying some
sunflowers for Kate.
"Are
the sunflowers fresh?" I asked the guy who was unloading squash in the
back of the stand.
"Picked
yesterday and some this morning." Thus I met Ryan, one of the one proud
founders of Gospel Flat Farms.
He
proceeded to teach me what to look for in sunflowers. In the center of the
bloom, there's a brown center that looks like a pincushion. This is where the
seeds form. The bees pull out the pollen and leave a small "speck"
(don't ask what the "specks" consist of) at the base of the stem of
the petals near the center. With active bee pollination, these specks form a
ring around the center of the flower. Thus the bigger the ring the longer the
bloom has been open. Ryan told me to look for flowers with no ring or with just
a thin ring. With that advice I picked out the freshest bunch there, as you can
see in the photo above.
John,
the excellent surfer and owner of the Parkside Cafe in Stinson Beach, arrived
with an empty produce box in his hand. He was there to buy vegetables for the
restaurant. I introduced him to Ryan and informed Ryan that John bakes the best
bread in Marin County. John loaded up his basket and had a good
"farmer's" discussion with Ryan about the produce.
I
hopped back into the car and headed for Stinson Beach to go surfing for the
first time since my ear operation. As usual, it was a great day in Marin.
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