I don’t know what I expected at the Texas Gourd Festival when we drove up to Fredricksburg yesterday, but when I paid the $5 entry fee, the volunteer said,”You won’t see any birdhouses!” No kidding – there was an astonishing array of Things to Do with a Gourd. Some were quite beautiful, some were . . .not, but weirdly intriguing. There was also a huge display of tools with which to do these things – you can make quite an investment in gourd tools. Some of my favorite gourds involved the use of a simple tool – a sharpie pen (see the video) I purchased this gourd, above, from Jimmy Sublett from Wimberley and I think it’s one of the beautiful ones.