7.17.2012

makin' a dipper gourd

Lawton Brooks,
pictured here, is gonna show us 
how to make a dipper gourd.

These are the gourds we are gonna use
ripening on a fence in Happy Dowdle's back yard.

Lawton first chooses where the hole is to be cut,
and then rings the spot with a pencil line.

Starting at the center of the circle,
he starts to cut through the gourd's shell
with his pocket knife.

Slowly he trims down to the line itself.

Next he scrapes out the spongy inside and the seeds,
and saves the seeds to plant at Happy's next spring.

Then he trims up the edge...

...files it smooth...

...and goes to his sink to try it out.
Nice job Lawton!

All images and some of the text from
"Foxfire 3"
Edited by Eliot Wigginton.
1975
Mr. Lawton's piece by
Roy Dickerson

More Mondoblogo hillbilly musings from the original #1
"The Foxfire Book"

3 comments:

  1. I used to have all the Foxfire books. They were lost, alas, gone by the wayside like so many things from my past.

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  2. P.another saint showing his craft..thank you.
    Karim instead of a dipper would have carved a roomy plug out of that gaudy gourd, in a whiter shade of pale.

    ReplyDelete
  3. C-Your workshop has put gourds to great use too, as lamps! Post some pics of those! -P

    ReplyDelete