Yeah, and YIKES!

Please refer back to the post on August 5th (ish) and you can imagine my surprise when I looked in the backyard and saw the kids... HARVESTING the sunflowers!!! I guess you have to wait for the plants to fully mature and die before you can pluck the seeds from the head of the sunflower.

I have to confess.... after finding four spiders, yes FOUR, in one bag, I didn't go digging in any more bags. In fact, I told all of the kids to leave the bags on the front porch until I figured out how to "roast" the seeds. To be honest, I really had no intention of roasting anything that was infested with spiders, especially when it involved me putting my hands near the little buggers! So, when the kids all lost interest and moved on to the next activity..... I trashed the seeds. The best thing about all of this, is that they never asked about them again.

They got a little joy out of this short-lived activity. I think next year, I will be a little more involved when they are harvesting the seeds. As you can see, Kevin and Zachary just tied the bag to the head of the sunflower and tried to knock the seeds into the bag. Unfortunately, EVERYTHING ON the sunflower fell into the bag. I think Kayla and Amanda's method of collection (plucking one seed at a time) is a little more tedious and selective -- which is what I prefer in the final outcome (i.e no spiders).