I have seen many different gourds referred to as snake gourds. The two I am familiar with are both hard shelled gourds (with the white flowers). One is solid pale green and over 4 feet long the other is dark green with white stripes and smaller than the other one. I normally plant my gourds around May 15th and I have at least one ready for the State Fair (around August 31st). So I guess 105 days is a good minimum, but I think 120 days is more appropriate because that is around when most of the gourds on the vine are ready to pick.

Ahhh, snakes...one of my favorites. I haven't seen any of the bigger rat snakes in some time here, but it's probably just that they are holed up during the 95 degree heat and drought and then venturing forth in the evening. I need to go find a nice large one and bring it to the house so it can convince the chipminks that my crawlspace is not a good place for them to burrow. We had a wonderfully docile giant living in the old pumphouse two years back. It was always right there in the same corner and never once tried to nip when you picked it up. It's long gone but it did leave me the very nicest shed I have ever seen...it was still dampish when I found it so I was able to pull the rest of the tail out straight and get it all in order before it dried. And I guess I am getting older and sloppy in my snake handling skills. I stopped my bike to get one of the road not far from here a week back...it had just come out of the brush on the shoulder and was soaking up the heat off the asphalt and there was a car coming from way down the road so I had to be quick about it. Normally I try to gently secure the head but with the car coming I just took my chances and scooped it up. It was laid back like a lot of rat snakes are(lucky this wasn't a water snake)but it still took a quick nip at my hand. I had on my biking gloves and one little razor sharp tooth caught the second knuckle on my index finger. Those bites are so weird...they feel no worse than a bad move in a blackberry bramble but they bleed and bleed!But the worst is snake poop. If one end doesn't get you then the other one certainly will. It smells like skunk lotion and I know it's coming every time I pull one off the road, but it's never so bad that I'd leave a snake to the cars. Anyway, moments after I gathered up this snake, the car came around the curve and this lady was peering out at me while I stood there off the shoulder, propping up my bike with one leg, large snake dangling from both hands. I couldn't believe it...she gave me a big smile and a nod. That's a change. Only about 1 in 10 people understand.

pjb, Sometimes you cannot avoid them though. I know someone who was turning on his faucet and got bit. Someone I used to work with was doing laundry inside her home and reached down to get some clothes and got bit, they figure it came through the dog door. I went to turn the lights off in my garage one evening and turned the corner in my hallway and there was one (I didn't get bit). Several species of rattlesnake will give you the chance to retreat but some like the Mojave green are just plain nasty. In the 20 years we've lived here I have dispatched more rattlers than I care to think about. My 4yr old g-son was less than 1/2 ft from one. Luckily it was injesting and couldn't strike. DH was weeding one winter and touched the back of one- thank God it was lethargic from the cold. I went to get a sweater one night (7/4) from DH's truck- stepped down and heard a rattle. I had to wait in the dark until it rattled again and then I jumped the other way. That was a 3' diamondback- it was less than a foot away. BTW, that 2 year old I posted about last month. The child is Dr. Sean Bush's little boy. Dr Bush who lives about 1/2 mile from us is the ponytail venom doctor from the TV channel Animal Planet's "Venom ER" show. Jude saw the snake in their backyard and tried to pick it up. Dr Bush keeps snakes, spiders, scorpians etc in his garage (well contained) and Jude thinking this was one of his daddy's snakes that got loose wanted to help. If you ever got bit Dr Bush is the man you want to take care of you. In fact he is on call if President Bush (no relation) ever gets bit at his ranch in Crawford.

A Clockwork Orange -- now there's a movie that is a favorite of many I have known. But the book brought tears to my eyes just reading the violent parts; don't think I could stomach watching it (or should I say viddying it?). Same with Passion of Christ: too graphic for this Catholic! Think I'll stick with the book ;) The Battleship Potemkin is a movie I frequently see homages to and feel I ought to see. The original Ben Hur is one I'd love to see. A documentary on movies I saw years ago showed side by side comparisons of the chariot race from the 1925 version and the 1959 version. William Wyler, who directed the 1959 version, felt the scene in the 1925 version was so perfectly done that he recreated it as an homage to the original -- same camera angles, same props, etc.