Paul & I have a little house in our backyard, build on an 8x8 foot platform that began its life as a small stage built for kids' neighborhood productions. Little playlets our daughter would direct, or dance shows where everyone was in a tutu, including the little brothers. When productions outgrew that setting, Paul & the kids embarked on creating a tiny house on top of the platform, replete with a ladder to a platform sleeping loft. This year I decided to replant the little flower box (my first, and as it turned out, last, woodworking project,) nestled under the front window.

When I opened the bag of potting soil to put dirt in the box, I was delighted by six, four-inch high birdhouse gourd plants, the distal leaves rounded and robust, leaning lazily against each other in the moist black soil. I bought the seeds last fall on a whim, enchanted by the seed packet art, the spring green of the tender tendrils of the vine, the Rubenesquely shaped fruit. I love the idea of sturdy homes made out of gourds for birds that need little holes for nesting; surely I could grow these!

Toward the end of winter, I gingerly planted the seeds, after soaking them to soften the seed cases, into the depressions of a soil-filled egg carton on a long narrow table in front of a sunny kitchen window. Nearby, tomatoes, marigolds, cukes, sunflowers, lavender, all of which, as expected, took on nutrients, water & light, grew miraculously into plants they were meant to be.

I gave the gourds a long 10 weeks and nothing came of them, no green shoots reaching for the light, no nudging of the fluffy soil above. Disappointed, I figured the seeds were duds & tossed the nice dark dirt clods back into the sack of organic potting soil. I rolled the bag up, tied it with a string & tucked in on a low shelf of the potting shed and promptly forgot about the birdhouse gourds. Those hard-shelled gourd

plants are now transplanted into their own row in the garden and seem ecstatic to seeing the light of day.