In the morning, before dawn breaks, the sunflowers face east, waiting for that bright yellow orb to rise so they can chase the sun across the Southern sky.
The ground is a wet brown from rain the night before. The sunflower field is green, a gentle sway in the stalks. The smell of growth pervades the field. Inside one of the petals, a bee is at work. One variety of the flowers, standing over 6 feet in height, blazes a red bloom. To the east, where there were once woods, the land is now scalped as new development encroaches.
In its own way, Denver Downs Farm is chasing light, seeking a path to honor its past but also ensure the farm endures and doesn’t succumb to the scrape of a developer’s grader. Others are doing the same, even as farmland shrinks in the Palmetto State year by year…