The Mt Gilead Gourd festival

Everything there was about gourds they even had a gourd orchhesta, these guys were just great. Notice the one with the little thingy on his hat, every time he moved his head it would spin.

I got the chance to meet and pick on them a bit lol. They even let me wear the famous gourd hat, Lupy and I had a wonderful time as usual

This is Barry Bless one of the Orchestra members he also wore a funny hat in the photo above. Such a nice person with a personality much like Shoe's.


This message was edited Oct 18, 2003 11:06 PM

I fell in love with this gourd as I know all gourd lovers will.

Now is this a gourd costume or what! I know this young man was getting tired of people asking him to put the head back on to take pictures, he had expressed to Lupy that it was hot.
His mom made this and my hats off to her for her creativity.

This lady puppeteer was great even the little baby enjoyed it.

A little humor here.

I fell head over heels in love with this gourd and please believe me this photo doesn't do it justice, it doesn't even come close.

Then there was the parade with old cars to make a car lover drool .

Yet another one to drool over

Even the kiddies got in on the fun

Mt. Gilead is a fun little town! We drove through it a lot when going to our friends' in Marion. I never knew about the gourd festival, though. Great pictures, Kit!

Is the house with all the odd decorations still there as you first come through town (is it on 95?). He had the right side of his house done over in a metallic silver something, with a giant Killroy peeking over it.

While trying to find a picture of THAT, I found THIS: http://webpages.charter.net/yankee11/grdpg2.htm Pretty neat!

Great pictures, Kit! Dang nab it, I wish I would have taken my camera, too.

I love the "In case of gourdergency, break here" ~ I didn't see that one, but I'm glad to see it won recognition :)

There was another lady with a puppet at the show. She was great, too. She and I got to talking and she's applied to Survivor at least four or five times! She and I figured we were canceling each other out since we're in the same demographic pick for the token forty & older lady they usually have.

Anyway, I'm glad you took these pictures & shared them here! Thx :)

I didn't see the house you were referring to but I wish I had. I didn't know about the gourd fest until Lupy ask me if I wanted to go.

Morph the gourdergency was in the building behind the band. There were a lot of the projects created by children which won ribbons.

Take a look at this gourd it weighted 174 lbs

This will give you the details on the above gourd.

Oh the most exciting part of the festival for me was that I got to meet Aurelia Conway, she is the lady that written the book called "How To Paint A Gourd" among others.
I used her book to create my birdhouse gourd, this is just a few of her creations.

Kit...I love seeing all the pictures. I just got home this evening (FINALLY)....and DD met me at the airport in Tucson....and she had been shopping....3 new gourd decorating books!! She has a CD of the Gourd Band....and I was just in Richmond, VA...wish I had been able to hear them while I was there.

I bought an Apple Gourd at the flea market in Crossville....and left it at TnMom's for her to dry it for me. I still don't have any seeds from one but hope to get some from this gourd.

Jo

Oh we did have fun there and the orchestra band is a great bunch of guys that just love having fun and of course I had to join in.

You will get more seeds from the apple gourd than you need, I can't wait to see how you decorate it. I am looking for new ideas to decorate mine when they dry.