Connie Worrell grows gourds in the back yard of her Town 'N Country home and fashions them into works of art in her back bedroom.
"Whatever you can do to wood, you can do to a gourd," said Worrell, who must have a hundred gourd projects in various stages of completion. "You can paint them, stain them, burn them. It's like a piece of wood."
Worrell's gourds are the talk of the neighborhood. Her husband, Brent, has been known to create fabric slings to keep them out of harm's way so he can get the family van in and out. And she's been known to slip into the back yard at nightfall, paintbrush in hand, basting pollen on blooms to make sure they germinate.
"My husband knows I'm out of my gourd," jokes Worrell, who is one of the judges for February's annual Florida Gourd Show. "Sometimes they cross-pollinate and you get a goose neck, kettle gourd."
She's turned them into bowls, birdhouses and musical instruments. But it takes patience, she says. Just washing a large gourd can take three hours.
