Our Gourd Plant

I'm here today to share with you a smidgen of knowledge I acquired this past week.  As is my way, I can't just blurt it out this information but have to tell you the story. This is about the gourd we bought last year.
There are a plethora of gourds.  They come in all sizes, shapes and colors.  Basically a gourd is a fruit with a hard rind and is oft described as the fruit of the vine.  Gourds are associated with pumpkin, squash and cucumber as they are all grown on a vine.  They have seeds inside thus insuring they are, in fact, of the fruit genre.  Gourds are fun things.  When dried their rind becomes hard and can be cut like thin wood, glued, sanded and painted.  They are great for making everything from bird houses to table center pieces.  With a little imagination you can create all kinds of gourd art (click here for some Google images). 

So much for the gourd introduction.  About this time last year I purchased a newly picked gourd.  It was green and full of whatever is inside gourds.  It needed to be dried.  To that end I set it outside on a rock where it would get a lot of sun.  It lived on that rock until December when the single digit temperatures were forecast.  I then moved it to the garage where it spent the winter and some of the spring.  I would turn it from time to time so it was never sure what side was the top and what side the bottom.  This was to prevent rot.

When I could shake the gourd and hear the seeds inside rattle around like maracas it was time to decide what I was going to create.  Would you be surprised if I said I decided on a bird house?  I'm so predictable.

I sanded the hard rind and then painted it a nice light green.  Then I drilled a hole in the front of the gourd to give the birds access.  I used a screwdriver to clean out what I could of the dried interior and dumped the seeds into a plastic cup.  Then I screwed the gourd to a stake, took it to it's new home which was at the top of a 10 foot copper pipe and waited for the birds to make it home.

I could see in my minds eye the little sparrows flitting in and out of the gourd.  The biggest bird house on the lot and it was up for grabs to the first birdy entrepreneur to take the leap of faith to enter the dark hole posing as a entrance but might just as easily appeared to the sparrows as a  "wide mouthed sparrow eater" sitting on top of that 10 foot copper pipe.

Stay tuned for the continuing story about the gourd on top of the 10 foot copper pipe.  It gets better.

Whoohoo.