Soak Up the Sunflowers and Bee Amazed, a festival celebrating sunflowers and pollinators, is running again this year near Morewood.

The festival ran for the first time last year. Smirlhome Farms, which was formerly a long-time dairy farm, transitioned into honey production. Glenn Smirle, who when young studied agriculture at Guelph University, took a special interest in apiary, and after turning 50 years old, decided to sell his cows and go into honey production. It took some time to get fields of sunflowers and wild flowers established and now the honey from Smirlhome is in full production.

Smirle also put a lot of thought into bringing agriculture to urban dwellers and showing people where their food comes from, he adds.

At the festival, there will be live music, flower fields to roam in, horse drawn wagon rides, food and beverages and more. The festival runs over two weekends, July 28-30 and Aug. 4-7, with a portion of the proceeds going to Winchester and District Memorial Hospital Cancer Care.

Here is the conversation with CJRO and Glenn Smirle: