How pretty it all looks V ! I can only imagine how many photos you must have taken on this trip.Lol the extended hike time ! It is interesting to me to see the type of bird netting used in the NZ vineyards; here we use a black material and it covers the whole vine. Look forward to another installment of your travelogue.. Kathy in Napa

June.....I knew nothing about gourd art until about 2 years ago.Someone had given my mother a couple of gourds years ago.She was always going to "do something" with them but never did.When we cleaned out her home 5 years ago I ran across them and stuck them back with intentions of "doing something" with them.LOL I have done lots of painting with oils and watercolors in the past and do all kinds of crafts.Anyway,I finally got them out and made bird houses out of them.I paint country scenes, flowers, butterflies and just about anything that anyone wants on them with acrylics.I immediately sold those two and began looking for more,which I found on E-bay.I started researching and found all kinds of things to do with them and was hooked!As everyone else has said,don't sell yourself short.You never know what you can do until you try and if you mess up you have lots more gourds to work with!Right now I am working on a fountain made from a very large kettle gourd.Just experiment and have fun with them.I guarantee your life will never be the same! I'm posting the link to my gourds.I hope it works.All of the ones in the pictures have been sold,plus I have probably done over a hundred more since.....Lillie Here is a link that might be useful: My Gourds

gourds-friends Thanks for your answer I will look for gourd art.I grow gourds for purplemartins and I guess I must have got a few basket gourds mixed in.I look them up on the net and if they are under 20in. across they are called basket gourds over 20 and they are called bushel basket gourds and mine are all about 15in.across and weigh about 20 lbs. Don

Thanks, guys. No, CHRIS, I didn't epoxy the inside. I did consider it, but just figure I won't put water in it, use it for dried flowers if anything. It could be done though. I'd want to mix up enough that it could be rolled around inside it good to thoroughly coat it, paint it inside the neck, then dump it out. I'd then stand it upside down in a disposable jar or something to let the extra run out...you know, no I wouldn't. I'd let it cure right side up, cause then the extra would settle in the bottom, you could be Sure the bottom was completely covered, and it would add a little weight. Even covered with glass and grout, the vase is not very heavy. OK, WAY more than you asked for. Just thinking out loud. Roni