Out of my gourd!

Out of my shed! The gourds are gone. Long live the gourds. I know one gourd was broken and tossed into the corner of my tiny patio garden. Maybe some of the seeds will grow next summer.

Maybe seeds of interest will grow, too. I teach over two hundred students every week, and they all spent some quality gourd time this week. I read nearly all of them a new picture book called Calabash Cat and His Amazing Journey ,with illustrations based on traditional gourd carvings in Chad.
As the cat tries to find the place where the world ends, the reader is struck by the chance to see the world from the eagle's back, unrestricted by national and geographical divisions.

Most kids in preschool have experience scooping the slimy innards out of a pumpkin to roast the seeds. They understand when I tell them that the "slimy stuff" in the gourd dried up and then the seeds could shake around.

When I got the gourds from Janie's farm, they were heavy. Their best aspects were only revealed when they aged, lightened, and rattled around! I know some people like that.

Preparing the gourds was a major Wet & Wild experience. Very late Saturday night I decided to move the three dozen gourds from my shed into the bathtub to do the bleach/soap solution scrubbing to get rid of mold. How different could it be from bathing an excited toddler? Knick-knack paddywhack, give a gourd a bath! It's a real exercise. The gourds float away and jiggle. I've got bruises on my arms from leaning over the edge of the bathtub trying to corral the gourds. Forgot to locate rubber gloves, so my hands are chafed, and my rings are tarnished. Oops.

My many, many preschoolers have looked for similarities and differences of the gourds. They laugh when we talk about the "neck" of the gourd, its fat tummy, and cheetah spots. The elementary kids got to decorate their own gourd with Sharpie markers, animal print tissue papers, and diluted Elmer's glue. The Elmer's and tissue paper turned out quite beautiful, translucent, and polished.



Grew some birdhouse gourds the summer my husband and I separated. My three boys needed enriching distractions from the heavy-duty stress. We made gourd birdhouses, and painted gourd rattles. I found a job at a library. It was a tough time.

One of my coworkers was a newlywed library assistant with a very old car named Lola. When Marie got ready to drive off with her young groom to grad school in Portland, my youngest and I performed a silly pseudo gourd shaman dance around Lola so she would deliver Marie safely to the Pacific Northwest. I still have the gourd rattle, but I've lost track of Marie. And what about Lola by the Kinks?

I met her in a club down in old Soho where you
drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-Cola C-O-L-A cola
she walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said
Lola L-O-L-A Lola Lo lo lo lo Lo - la

Well I'm not the world's most physical guy
But when she sqeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walked like a woman but talked like a man
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola

Well, we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candle light
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
and said "Dear boy won't you come home with me?"
Well, I'm not the world's most passionate guy,
but when I looked in her eyes, well I almost fell for my
Lola Lo lo lo lo Lo - la Lo lo lo lo Lo - la
Lola Lo lo lo lo Lo - la Lo lo lo lo Lo - la

I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me

Well that's the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Lola
La-la-la-la Lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola

CHORUS #2:
Well I left home just a week before
And I'd never ever kissed a woman before
But Lola smiled and took me by the hand
And said "Dear boy, I'm gonna make you a man"

Well I'm not the world's most masculine man
But I know what I am in the bed, i'm a man
And so is Lola
La-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola

Many kids will read Follow the Drinking Gourd during Black History Month. My students over age six were able to follow the cuts that would have to be made to make a gourd into a bowl or dipper. The human race needs this awareness. How can we carve one gourd to make a bowl, a ladle, and a drinking cup? How can we recut, reconfigure, and reuse things with far less waste?

What is a gourd?A gourd is a hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants. Gourds can be used as a number of things, including bowls or bottles. Gourds are also used as resonating chambers on certain musical instruments including some stringed instruments and drums. Instruments of this type are common in Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Gourds are also used as a tool for sipping yerba mate by means of a bombilla, in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where it is called "cuia" (kOOya). Birdhouse gourds, (Lagenaria siceraria), are commonly used in southern USA for group housing for purple martins, which reputedly help control mosquitoes.

Day-blooming gourds are pollinated the same as Squash, and commercial plantings should have bee hives supplied. Night blooming gourds are pollinated by moths, which are normally present in adequate supply unless they are drawn off by night lights in the area.

Also from the Idiom: Out of one's gourd. Meaning: very foolish, crazy.

calabash
1596, "dried, hollowed gourd used as a drinking cup," from Sp. calabaza, possibly from Ar. qar'a yabisa "dry gourd," from Pers. kharabuz, used of various large melons; or from a pre-Roman Iberian *calapaccia.