The Gourd In the Glass Jar

Last night it was to be freezing. I loaded our hanging ferns in the truck and carried them over to my mother-in-law’s and along with her hanging baskets transferred them to the basement for the winter. Along with her chairs from her screened in porch. I did it all in three loads.

That is a annual routine for us. She has a big table with a series of florescent lights overhead on a timer and a network of things hanging from the ceiling to hang some of the hanging plants and the ones in pots is put on the table.

While there, I noticed a gallon glass jar – or it may be a 2 gallon glass jar, almost completely full of a gourd. Anna’s father, when he was alive, did unique things in his garden. He would take jars and bottles and put a small gourds in them and as they grew to fill up the container. Then, he would cut the vine and let it dry, and you have something unique.

He did the same with cucumbers. He would grow them in empty whisky bottles he found on the side of the road, grow them, put the stuff to make them pickles in the container, and then you have a whole pickle much bigger than the bottle opening.

So, yesterday, in the basement I was admiring her late husband’s neat gourd work and she gave me the above.

She also gave me an old ledger book that Anna’s great great grandfather kept with his farm business dealing in the latter part of the 19th century. I think it will be something nice to look at and figure out the history around it. The penmanship is very early American – you might see it in the near future.