Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young, when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
~ Thomas de Quincey
(Confessions of an English Opium-Eater)
At Buttonwood Farm, 14 acres of sunflowers are grown to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut, a non-profit organization devoted to making wishes possible for children with life-threatening medical conditions. 100% of the $5 donation made when one buys a bouquet of these sunflowers goes directly to the foundation, a worthy cause.
Tim & I spent a pleasant afternoon there, even if it was hot and humid, meeting cows and taking a tractor ride through the sunflower field! We enjoyed our cheerful bouquet on our dining room table for the week following.
I have the sunflower, in a way.
~ Vincent van Gogh
(Letter to Theo van Gogh, January 22, 1889)
Oh my gosh, what a stunningly wonderful place — Buttonwood Farm. I love it’s mission! Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m going to use your share buttons and share it again.
Thanks for sharing this on Facebook, Laurie. We think Buttonwood Farm is a wonderful and amazing place, too, and wonder why it took us so long to discover it!
I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures either Barbara. I’ve always been drawn to cows, perhaps my star sign, Taurus, has something to do with it, or perhaps it’s their gentleness or those big brown eyes…..
Oh, and those sunflowers, magnificent! A lovely series of photos and words today, thank you. 🙂
Cows do seem to be gentle creatures – they always look so peaceful resting on the hillside pastures, chewing their cud. I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures, Joanne. 🙂 I forgot to mention that these are dairy cows and that Buttonwood Farm makes its own ice cream – we stood in a very long line to have some and it was worth the wait!
Barbara, you know I love cows and loved this post! Thanks for sharing!
Sandi, I’m so pleased you loved this cow post! They are so sweet-tempered…
Such a friendly combination, Barbara. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome, Hanneke. 🙂 I’m happy you liked the photos…
OK, this is doubly serendipitous! Last night I was sitting at a friend’s house drinking Merlot and eating vegetarian lasagna, garden salad, sourdough garlic bread and fresh blueberry cobbler when I noticed a most beautiful photo of sunflowers and wanted to find a sunflower picture and make a card from it. Your second and third from the last pictures are amazing. Beautiful.
Thank you, Kathy! I’ve never had luck growing sunflowers so it was a treat riding through a 14 acre field of them. It must be sunflower season – they even had sunflower seed for an ice cream flavor, made right there on the farm with milk from their own healthy-looking pasture-raised dairy cows. A sunflower greeting card sounds like a very nice way to send a cheerful note to someone…
I love cows, and they give us healthy food, at least when they are grazing fresh grass..
Hi Bente, I just saw your comment here this morning when I came to see Linda’s. Sorry I missed this one! We do make a point of getting our meat from grass-fed beef if we cannot find bison, and Tim drinks milk from grass-fed cows. I hope you are well. I miss your photos of Norway!
I really like these quotes and the photos Barbara and no trouble at all accessing this link. These cows and calves look so trusting, those big eyes looking soft and gentle. What a great day trip to take – when you look back at these photos, don’t you feel a little wistful for those places that were enjoyed without worrying about virus germs? Thank you again for the link.
Thank you, Linda. The link probably didn’t carry over well during one of the updates over the years. I do feel wistful, but grateful that we were able to enjoy them when we had the chance. We went back to Buttonwood Farm this summer but they didn’t have the hayride because of the pandemic. We climbed the viewing hill and skirted the outside of the sunflower field. I don’t think you and I were following each other yet. 🙂
https://www.ingebrita.net/2020/08/sunflower-harvest-time/
Thank you for this link Barbara – it worked perfect, but it’s more recent – maybe that’s why. I will try again for a sunflower farm next year … I was disappointed in myself that I got lost and also because they were going to have the pumpkin festival there a month later, plus they had planted lavender for a lavender festival in 2020. They had all three items open in 2020 – a lavender farm is on my bucket list, but that can be down the road a piece. I am glad for whatever experiences I had pre-pandemic. I wish I had finished all my international travel destinations and I just had a few left that I wanted to see, but these may not happen given the recent events which are more commonplace all the time now.
I’ll be rooting for you to make it to the sunflower farm next summer! I’ve never heard of a lavender festival before, I will have to see if they have something like that around here. It is sad that international travel will have to be on hold for the forseeable future. Even interstate travel is getting very difficult. The travel buffs in our family are definitely climbing the walls these days. And who knows what new pandemics are coming in the future. Sigh. I’m going to search on your blog to see what you might of written about your earlier travels. I see you’ve been to Norway — that was the trip of a lifetime for me!
I wrote the Norway post as I had followers who lived in Sweden and Norway respectively. Did you find the post? I have a new follower who lives in Finland. He sent me a photo of his trip where he saw reindeer. This blogger is unusual in that he posts in several different languages and translates all of them himself … very painstaking he sees but keeps him sharp … I think he is 76. I loved that trip … lots to see, a trip of a lifetime for me too.
I found a lavender farm about 25 miles from here. Maybe in the spring we’ll go. I found your Norway (and other countries) post! We had reindeer for dinner one night while we were there, and water from a glacier. I wanted to go on a safari to see the wild musk-oxen, but we were there in the wrong season.