Making suet and other things

Hello friends, we had a pretty nice weekend here, the weather permitted a little travel so we went about 80 miles west to visit my mother and sister. My son got to play with his cousins and I got to share my latest endeavors, including the new blog! All went well and we got back home safe and sound yesterday afternoon. We went in town today to pick up supplies and groceries and now we are ready for whatever old man winter brings today. The weatherman seems a little confused, they are calling for snow, sleet, rain and freezing rain so it could potentially become a mess.

While my son took a nap I made some suet for our feathered friends and boy were they glad, they had eaten the last of the one put out Friday while we were gone. At the end of this entry you can find the recipe I use if you are interested. (one of the suggestions I got from friends and family over the weekend was to share my recipes)

For us I am making homemade chicken noodle soup, one of our favorite “comfort” foods. I made the noodles after making the bird food and it is drying while the chicken is boiling on the stove. Later I will de-bone the chicken and add all the goodies to the stock and let it simmer for a bit before adding the noodles.

Tomorrow is another bread baking day and I will post a recipe for my easy (no kneading) fresh bread. I will be increasing the amount of wheat flour so I am keeping my hopes high that my son won’t notice the difference and will keep on eating it!

I am still working on a easy fix for the olive oil lamp and will update when I find something that works well.

After my son wakes up we will be starting a simple salt crystal growing project and beginning our work on learning all about minerals. Tomorrow is pretty basic for him, Math and English so I try to break up the week and insert fun learning between days of basic academics. I have tried to convince him that Math and English can be fun too but so far he won’t buy it. He does love Science however so I try to sneak some Math in that way to reinforce his skills.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful day….enjoy and make the best of it until next time.

Recipe for making a yummy bird suet you can use while the weather is cold, it will melt in heat so don’t use for warm weather!

In a good sized bowl put 1 cup of shortening and 1 cup of peanut butter, melt in microwave. Everyone has a different size microwave, it only takes about a minute in mine. Then mix it well and add 3 cups of cornmeal, a handful or two of dried berries and enough bird seed to make it thick. Then turn out handfuls of the mix onto wax paper and form with your hand to the size of your suet feeder, I make mine about 4-5 inches square and get 4 cakes out of each batch. I wrap them in the wax paper and put into the freezer until needed. They can also be kept in the refrigerator.

You can also add things like oats or other grain or corn instead of the berries, I use whatever we happen to have on hand at the time. Our feathered friends will eat about one cake in two days or less if the ground is snow-covered, a little longer if not.

We get a lot of woodpeckers (downy and red-bellied) along with tufted tit mice and chickadees. We also had a few European starlings last week. We also have a couple of tube type feeders and get a few cardinals, finches and a couple of as yet unidentified birds eating from them.