Ok I thought things were ridiculous before, but now they're really getting ridiculous.
Check out my "Illinois Tech" t-shirt. I was down on the IIT campus in Chicago today and realized here I am working on my PhD dissertation and I don't even have a t-shirt!
(I was down there having lunch with an IIT student from Sudan, trying to understand more about how things work in Khartoum, the seat of government, towards the end of seeing if there's a way to provide free learning material to Sudan in both the North and South. This sort of idea is along the lines of my dissertation.)
Ok back to sunflowers. Yes you heard it right; 147" -- that's 12 feet, 3 inches -- taller than the tallest man in the world. A Ukrainian guy just broke the record, taking it away from a Chinese guy, and the tallest man on record was from Illinois, but he was somewhere down in the ten feet range. And we're talking TWELVE feet, 3 inches.
I think I'm calling the tallest Gigantor.
Take a close look at the picture again -- it's like 2 x me = scary.
And in the backyard we have the junior varsity league, with a bloomer on the far left.
These sunflowers are more "normal" sunflowers.
This is an interesting creature that I found in one of the experimental gardens. I have no idea what it is, but he was hoping for more rain, or more tasty edible bugs to happen by. I can't tell by the looks of him whether he's a vegetarian or carnivore or insectivore or whatever it would be.
And I figured I'd better take a picture of these dandies in the very back, while they're still in bloom. What a gardener I am, I didn't even plant them (previous owner) -- and what's more, I'm only half certain of what they're called; daisies I believe?
If you take a real close look at the first picture, you might notice this little friendly flower, one of the less monsterly types, in with Gigantor and the senior varsity sunflower squad.
Special news flash, courtesy of friend Mash from UK:
"pulled off http://www.sunflowernsa.com/
What is the height of the tallest sunflower?
A sunflower grown in the Netherlands holds the record for being the tallest sunflower in the world. It measured 25 feet, 5.4 inches. (Source: 2004 Guinness World Records"
