Five-year old Justus White was making the most of what Coppal House Farm had to offer on a warm Saturday afternoon.
“First thing when we came here was eating snow cones, and then second thing, see the animals,” he said. “Third thing, sunflowers.”
Justus was one of hundreds of visitors enjoying the opening weekend of Coppal House Farm’s annual sunflower festival. Now in its 10th year, this year’s festival included a harp ensemble and a bluegrass band, and stands with local crafts and food lined the farm’s dirt paths. Crowds gathered to frolic and pose with the flowers, a variety grown for their seeds, which will be pressed into oil.
“When we started doing sunflowers for oil production, we didn't think anything about the viewing potential of it,” said John Hutton, who owns the farm with his wife Carol. “And then all of a sudden we had people stopping by wanting to know when the sunflowers were going to bloom. And we’re like ‘hey, wait a minute. . . .’”
The first year of the festival, about 150 people showed up, he said. Now, that’s the crowd they see in the first 20 minutes of the day.
“Everybody thanks us for doing it. And I'm like, well, thanks for coming,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”
The hardest part of dealing with the crowds, he said, is making sure people drink enough water in the heat.
Over time, they’ve added live music, the craft fair, and props in the field for visitors who are looking to add to their Instagram grids. For parts of the afternoon, lines formed for an opportunity to pet three draft horses: Wyatt, Charlie and Ice.
In one corner of the farm, a smaller garden shows off of dozens of different varieties of sunflowers. Di Withers took a two-hour motorcycle ride from Augusta, Maine to visit the festival, and spent time admiring the colors and patterns of different plants.
“For me, the sunflower is important because it represents hope and it represents life and optimism,” she said.
Katelind Grenevich and Manuela Romano also traveled far for the flowers, from central Massachusetts.
“Anything for sunflowers!” Romano said. “When my father was sick, my brother went to a sunflower field, and he took a picture there, and it just made me feel happy in that moment. So ever since then, I've been obsessed with sunflowers.”
Neeharika Munjal said the festival provided a respite from the Boston suburbs, where she lives.
“In times like today, nature is something that we don't stay in touch with,” she said. “We always are too busy with our everyday lives. So I think coming out here is very nice and peaceful.”
Eric and Lisa Berglund had a shorter drive, from Kingston. They spent their afternoon taking photos in the field of flowers.
“We call this a new old memory,” Eric explained. He said Lisa was in a car accident four years ago and lost her memories of what happened before.
“Prior to her accident, she had been here with a friend and I have a picture in front of that very gate that she took with the sunflowers on my phone,” he said. The couple took another picture to recreate that memory.
Lisa said she loves sunflowers, and does watercolors of them.
“They're a great pollinator, you know, for the bees and birds, and it gives back in so many different ways,” she said.
The field was in peak bloom on Saturday, but the flowers may droop earlier this year than in festivals past. Farm manager Meghan Kelley says her team tries to time the festival perfectly, but this year’s early summer heat waves caused the flowers to bloom early.
“We just had basically sun beating on these sunflowers and that's what they love. So the more sun they get, the faster they grow,” she said.
Kelley says there will still be good spots throughout the week. Plus, she says, it’s hard to be unhappy in a sunflower field.
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: In bloom: At sunflower festival in Lee, visitors frolic in the fields
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