Sunflower Festival-Rutledge, Georgia-2012

  The Sunflower Festival!  It was a fantastic day!  Yes, is was hot, so very, very hot.  It broke the record in Atlanta at 106 degrees but we were east of Atlanta in Rutledge, Georgia which is about 50 miles away, and believe it or not, I think it was hotter there!  My Dad said he would go to the Sunflower Festival with me and when I mentioned how hot it would be, he said, "We'll be alright, we'll stay in the shade".  Ready?  Let's go!

See my Daddy posing for me under this fig tree? This is the largest fig tree I have ever seen in my life and it reminded me of a verse from the Bible,

 John 1:48.     Nathanael said to Him, "How do you know me?'  Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Phillip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

 This property has an old sharecropper's house on it and so many of these houses have been torn down now so it is nice to still see one.  I believe it was built in 1891.  The flowers around this house are just incredible.  Believe me when I tell you, this had to be watered constantly for the flowers to look this good, we have had very little rain.

This garden was closed for a bit while members of the Hummingbird Society were capturing and banding hummingbirds!  It was scary to see this woman do this, it looked so much as if she was about to cut the beak off!  Don't worry, she just measured it and then weighed it, in grams!  I couldn't hear how much it weighed, but it wasn't much...what a tiny, precious bird.  Look at that little eye.

Dare to be different! 

You could go into the sunflower field and cut the sunflowers and take as many as you could carry for $15.00.  A lot of people were taking them up on it...some looked as if they were walking sunflowers!

My Daddy had such a good time!  He talked with everyone there, not only with his good friends who he sees all the time, but even with people he had never met before.  In this photo, he is posing with Rena Holt.  She is the one who organizes the Festival each year and it has grown to be one of the most well-attended festivals in the entire Southeast!

Do you remember that they planned to sell sunflowers and make a sunflower chain and all proceeds were going to go to Aimee Copeland?  They did sell the sunflowers but I think the work of putting the sunflowers together to make the chain was just too much in the extreme heat...but I hope that they collected a lot for her.  I don't know what the total collection came to, but if I find out, I will come back and edit my post and let you know.

Corey Durkin is the singer who wrote a song about Aimee Copeland and he sang his song here and he told us how he had visited her in the hospital and was allowed to sing for her there.  We were happy to speak with him.  He is a most personable, young man and my Dad really liked him too!

  Here is the song from Youtube  and he also talks a bit about Aimee Copeland and how he came to write the song.  If you ever read this post, Corey, I was very moved by hearing you sing this live!

We had such a good time at the Sunflower Festival...if I am asked what did I do on the hottest day EVER in Atlanta...I will be able to say I spent most of the day outside with my Daddy at a Sunflower Festival!   (This sunflower is at my Dad's house, and I can see my reflection in the bumblebee!)