Headed to Pena Blanca's 1st Annual Sunflower Festival

Well it's been over a month since my last road trip so I'm headed to Santa Fe, NM for a week to visit Family and to help a little bit with Pena Blanca's 1st Annual Sunflower Festival.  I was originally going to show my art at this Festival, but timing isn't going to work out for that.  Next Year!   This is actually a really big deal for "little" Pena Blanca, which is located between Santa Fe and Albuquerque in a small Valley where my mom lives - she's on the committee to help pull this off!

Patrice Harrison-Inglis who started this whole crazy, wonderful idea of planting Sunflowers in all the empty fields in this small town has an unbelievable entrepreneurial spirit.  She used to raise beautiful goats and processed the milk for wonderful cheese and yogurt. She did that for many years and did a wonderful job.

I love Patrices' spirit of never giving up and just "Going for It".  A little over a year ago she started with this crazy idea and in no time she had grants given to her to buy seed, people planting their fields with the seeds, a 1974 John Deere 3300 Grain Harvester Combine  purchased to process the sunflowers and lots of dirt to plant the seeds. These things take a few years to catch on, so hopefully next year all we be wiser and more committed to Rock It!  I'm looking forward to helping at the festival and seeing how it's all doing and hopefully I can get some great shots of the Sunflowers if they haven't faded by the time I get there!

Patrtice.... I don't know how you've pulled this off with only giving yourself 30 days before you decided you wanted to have an Festival.  Just shows you if you're determined.... anything can happen!  WAY TO GO!!!

Here's a little video they did regarding the project.

photo by Jim Baca

What a beautiful site!  I hope their faces are still shining up towards the sun by the time I get there!

I'll be checking back on all of you soon!