In August Linda went with a church group to North Dakota to live on the Spirit Lake reservation for a week with Native Americans of the Dakota tribe. While she was there, she had the opportunity to photograph a field of sunflowers, various buffalo, and a few other forms of nature we don't get to see very often in our neck of the woods.

When the group arrived by plane and drove to the reservation, they saw this field of sunflowers, but the flowers weren't open yet. Later, they returned for a closer look after the flowers had opened.

Here's a very close look.

The sunflowers were neatly planted in rows. They are the chief cash crop of the Dakota people.

The seeds come from the middle of the flower. These aren't ready yet. We didn't eat any.

The field was composed of black muck that stuck to our shoes. It looked like extremely rich soil. It was hard to get off our shoes. We had to let it dry and later crack it off.

These flowers gathered together for this group picture. Before Linda held the camera up, it was an empty field.

Here the worshippers of the Sun God line up for their daily morning devotional, facing east.

And here we have another picture of sunflowers.

Sunflowers peek through the fingers of another sunflower. Sometimes the shot you get is better than the one you were trying to get.

Linda noticed a lot of bug activity in the field. There were bees pollinating sunflowers everywhere, and ladybugs here and there.

One sunflower can produce hundreds of seeds.

Is that Van Gogh?