Introduction:

The purpose of this book is to help people understand many different techniques to clean gourds, but not just to clean them, but also to be aware of possible hazards in handling gourds.

There are two primary hazards in handling gourds, one is the mold that grows on them, the other is the dust created by scraping, brushing, or sanding the inside and or outside of the gourd.

MOLD:

All mold spores can be hazardous. If you are drying gourds, and allow them to acquire mold on the surface, you should not have them in your house or garage. Mold can be kept off your gourds by wiping or spraying them with a bleach solution, (about a half cup per gallon), every day or two. Once mold is allowed to grow on the gourd, it should be handled with care, you don’t want to stick your head down in a barrel or pile of gourds that have been alllowed to mold, and start digging through them to find a specific gourd. when the omld is bumped or jarred, it can release millions of spores, which can be breathed into your lungs, and cause severe problems. The most common problems from mold spores are flu like symptoms, headaches, congestion with a cough, that can last for weeks, but worse than this, some molds can have negative health effects later in life. Our next booklet will cover Histoplasma Capsulatum spores, and Histoplasmosis, a disease caused by these little mold spores, and will show some of the long term effects that this particular mold can cause.

Mold Spores are light, they float in the air. If you have a pile of gourds to pick through, use your hose to hose