You Are My Sunshine ...

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

Please don’t take my sunshine away …”

       ~ “You Are My Sunshine”

           ~ 1940

 ~American standard of old-time & country music & one of the official state songs of Louisiana

     ~ Its original writer is disputed. According to the performance rights organization BMI, by the year 2000 the song had been recorded by over 350 artists & translated into 30 languages. Its best-known covers include a recording by Johnny Cash in 1989

 

The beauty of these sunflowers is as bright as the sun on a late May afternoon in Allentown, Pennsylvania.       

 

Young sunflowers move to face the sun, a movement called heliotropism. Mature sunflowers generally stop moving and remain facing East, which lets them be warmed by the rising sun.

 

The sunflower (or “soniashnyk”) is Ukraine’s national flower and has been grown on its central and eastern steppes since the middle of the 18^th century. And today, in light of Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, the sunflower is a symbol of “I Stand With Ukraine!”

 

In A Field Of Suns ...

“ Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It’s what the sunflowers do.”

             ~ Helen Keller

              ~ 1880 ~ 1968

Though the sun often dipped behind the clouds on this late August afternoon, the field of sunflowers shone their beauty like little suns in the Sunflower Garden of St. Luke’s Hospital, Anderson Campus, Easton, Pennsylvania.

 

A bee decided to buzz in and photobomb this shot, landing on the sunflower in the foreground.

 

Young sunflowers move to face the sun, a movement called heliotropism. Mature sunflowers generally stop moving and remain facing East, which lets them be warmed by the rising sun.

 

The sunflower (or “soniashnyk”) is Ukraine’s national flower and has been grown on its central and eastern steppes since the middle of the 18^th century. And today, in light of Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, the sunflower is a symbol of “I Stand With Ukraine!”

 

St. Luke’s also has a Cosmos Field filled with their colorful, daisy-like blooms, as cosmos are related to sunflowers and daisies.

 

Bloomers In The Big Apple ...

“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”

       ~ Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson

               ~ 1912 ~ 2007

    ~ First Lady of the United States of America

                 ~ 1963 ~ 1969

   ~ Second Lady of the United States of America

                  ~ 1961 ~ 1963

Lady Bird Johnson contributed to spreading hope & beautifying America by promoting the use of wildflowers along the highways of the nation. She was an advocate for beautifying the nation’s cities & highways, and the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was informally known as “Lady Bird’s Bill.” It was the pet project of the First Lady, who believed that beauty, & generally clean streets, would make the United States a better place to live.

Beautiful tulips are in full bloom in Lower Manhattan on a gorgeous mid-April afternoon in New York City ~ The Big Apple.