Cutting sunflowers in the thunderstorm

The temperature dropped around twenty degrees from when I went outside with the kids to when we came in a few hours later. It was nice and cool working in the garden under the cover of the thick black clouds that were rolling in. The girls played on the porch when the thunder started and I began cutting down the sunflowers. A few have turned all the way brown around the edges and probably should have been picked earlier since birds are eating out the seeds.

Sunflower seeds are probably not worth the effort to gather, sort and roast, but the girls will get a big kick out of eating them. It was hard to keep them from eating them now, but I need to let the seed heads dry more before I harvest them. I tied a couple of groups of flower stems together and covered the heads with bags that have holes in them. After a couple of weeks the sunflower seeds should be ready to remove and roast.