With all it faults America is still beautiful!!

"My Savior was, My Savior is, My Savior is always gonna be"
One of the songs we sang in church this morning. He was before I knew him, He is even when I am rebellious and sinful and he always will be no matter what people or mankind does. He just is!! Really quite powerful!!!
Forgiveness: giving up my right to hurt you,even though you hurt me first!!
My freedom to worship whom I want......

Update on Hawk: he is slowly improving, Please keep the prayers coming!! I have peace that he will be OK. His adoption is and has been led by God!!
My freedom to pray to whom I want..........

I love to grow gourds. All kinds of gourds. The problem is that I live in zone 4 for growing and they need, at least the biggies, need zone 5 and up for maximum growth. The biggies I have attempted are the small bushel and African kettle. Last year the small bushel germinated, and grew many gourds, but too late in the season and I had about 30+ softball size gourds freeze. So far I have not been able to germinate any African kettle gourds..but I will keep trying. This year I germinated my seeds on January 25th. Many sprouted, even 1 bushel. For awhile I had up to eleven plants. Now I only have five, 2 dipper gourds, 1 birdhouse and 2 apple gourd plants. I re-potted them Friday night, and almost wiped out the dippers, but they are still going strong. Everyone else looks good. Tuki helps me make sure they are doing well. sMurph helps to make sure they are doing well, but the dogs could care less.

Why do I grow gourds?? Because they can be crafted in many ways. I have attached a few examples from the Gourd Art Galleries web page, not done by me. I have also attached my gourds grown from last year. I want some day to not only be able to grow my canvas, but also create a work of art on my canvases. I'm not in a hurry, I plan to be working at this for years. There are tricks to growing them big enough, thick enough and wide enough for a decent canvas. I learn one new trick to get me a little closer each year. You could say I am obsessed about them. I don't know how it started, it just did, and now I am hooked. There are even Gourd Festivals across the USA. We are Gourdheads.

I am glad that I live in America so that I have the luxury of a hobby. I am fed, housed and warm, all my basic needs met, now I work on entertaining my mind with gourds, among many other activities.

I hope that my kids develop obsessions, maybe even like gourd growing. It makes life so much more interesting. It means their basic needs have been met.

I hope you had as great a weekend as we did!!! Heard and saw sandhill cranes, killdeer, and robins. Still no chipmunks or Phoebes, but I have a hunch that this is the week!!!

My freedom to enjoy the great outdoors and thankful that we have outdoors left to enjoy.

What is your obsession??