Saturday, September 24, 2011

Hurry Up And Wait

Crazy gourds
Some projects are hurry up and wait.  The last couple of days as we have ushered in fall, I have been  preparing gourds for winter crafting.  We planted these gourds last year and they were very successful plants.  We had traditional crafter's gourds, and then a volunteer plant that produced amazing warty gourds.  A year ago we harvested them and then put them in the barn for the winter.  During that time, they began to dry out and get covered in mold (naturally part of the process).  Then early summer we put them out on a patch of the drive, out of the way and let the sun finish drying them and bleach them a little. 
The next step was to bring them in (in batches) and scrub away all of the dirt and mottled bits of mold.  This took a little more elbow grease than you might think!
Once finished with their scrubbing, they headed out to the porch to dry.
The next order of business will be to cut a small hole in them and pull out the fibrous web that was once the innards. Then they will be ready for whatever design we decide on for future bird houses, lanterns and decorated gourds.  Some projects are worth hurrying up to wait for!

1 comment:

  1. i never knew you could make bird houses with those! what fun.

    ReplyDelete