The Effects of Homemade Suet

The animals seem to appreciate homemade suet.  I've had our homemade stuff out for a little over a month now - and we've gone through 8 of our 12 bricks. In the last year, we've only gone through 4.

Even the neighborhood squirrels have gotten picky. I tossed the store bought suet into our glass jar squirrel feeder. They haven't touched it. Instead they choose to do some daring acrobatics to attempt to reach the good stuff. We have some very fat squirrels.  I think our resident female squirrel has found a mate.  He's not the brightest squirrel in the tree, although he has made for some great laughs because he cannot figure out how to make it over the squirrel baffel.

This past week, I noticed that a pair of Robins have claimed territory over the feeder station and bird bath.  Then I noticed some strange behavior.  The female would attempt to hover and eat from the suet!!  I've never seen a robin feed at a suet feeder!  Drew and I felt sympathy, so he shoved a dowel into the cage so she could perch.  It took her a few days, but she has finally figured it out!

The male was perched in our Maple; keeping watch over the awesome territory which is our yard

Also since we put up homemade suet, a downy woodpecker is visting daily. With store bought suet, we maybe saw it once a month.

I am completely sold on homemade suet.  It was quick, fun, and it made the house smell like bacon.
For my recipe click here



I prefer organized...

This next project got a "You're a nerd" approval from my dear, sweet husband.  Maybe so, but I think I prefer organized.

I have limited space in the garage for my gardening supplies.  I *had* 2 shelves, but one has gotten over run with rags, bags, and many other things not garden related. So my one shelf needs to store my bird seed supplies and my gardening tools.

As you can see, it is a disaster. 

*Side note* that "Poverty Inn" sign was made by my father when he was in college and it hung outside of the house he lived in. He gave it to me when I moved into my first apartment after the dorms. I don't know why, but it means a ton to me.

My seed packets were tossed all over and gave my shelf a real sense of chaos. The other day I got a brilliant idea to try and find a photo box or address box to store all of my seeds in. I was in Jo-Ann's yesterday and there on an end display was exactly what I was thinking of! And SCORE, it was on sale for $5.99

It even has a magnetic flap to help keep it closed!

Now is where, according to my hubby, the nerdiness comes in.  I made little dividers for the seeds. It's all so nice and neat and I don't have to shuffle through them like a deck of cards.

Of course they had to be alphabetized :)

All the packets in their new homes.





The box was perfect and since the sale was so good... I had to get 2!



The blue one now stores all of my bulbs. All of those bags are now nicely stuffed inside!

Now that I'm all organized.  I need to buckle down and get some plants started.  The weather this spring is incredible! Maybe after I get that done, I can attack my shelves and make them more user friendly.

Tulip Experiment and Finger painting

Tulip Experiment Day 9
I love this!

Today was the first time I had to water them since I "planted." This is too fun!

We watched my nephew on Sunday. We let him finger paint for the first time! I got a recipe for homemade finger paints from Easie Peasie (via Pinterest) - it was so easy and way less expensive than store bought paints. It took him a little while to get the hang of things but then he had a great time scooping up a lot of paint and getting me to rub it all over his hands.

We used one of Drew's old shirts for a paint shirt... how cute is this?

The Masterpiece

Like a good 2.5-year old, he was entertained for about 15 minutes and then was done. Ideally he would have painted all around his name. Then take the tape off and have his name stand out in white.

What a week!

Today is Day 4 of my Tulip in a Jar experiment. I'll let you judge the results for yourself!

After just 4 days every single bulb I planted has started growing.

Half of the plants are almost sticking out of the jar

The roots look so cool!

If you try this, make sure that the water is not touching the bulb. I had my jars a little too full and there were some small spots of mold.

After the windstorm that bent my metal feeder stand, Drew put together the Taj Mahal of bird feeder stations. We're going to put a tray feeder on the top at a later date. I'm trying something new this year: We put wool and cotton fibers into a suet feeder for the birdies to use for nesting material. I'm interested in seeing if they actually do it.

The electricians came and I finally have lighting under my cabinets. I can actually see what I'm doing now.

Finally the best part of the week: After three days of rain and a little warm weather my plants think Spring is here!

My first garlic plant has popped up.

Prairie plants never let me down. The Golden Alexander is growing like mad!

The Catmint is also doing really well!

I have garden fever really bad. I think I may have to plant something tomorrow with the attitude of: If it grows Awesome, if not I can just wait until May like normal. :) Have a great weekend!

Blooms and birds

Ah Pinterest. You have me addicted and inspired!

For my latest experiment: Tulips in a jar.

I'm really excited to see if they work. We got a great garden themed wedding present and there were two packages of tulips: Apeldoorn (red) and Yokohama (yellow). I tried to do a mixture in each. We'll see how it goes.

I love spring because of all the birds and blooms.
We had an unusual visitor to our bird feeder yesterday: a Red Winged Blackbird!! RWBL are one of my favorite birds. Nothing describes a walk in a wetland than the song of a RWBL!

I think Spring is here

On Tuesday, March 13, 2012 I saw my first Robin of the year! In fact, I won first Robin! My hubby and I were taking the puppy for a walk in the neighborhood and I saw the Robin out of the corner of my eye. I WON! I love winning first Robin!

Then on Wednesday, March 14, we went for a walk down by the river and I heard my favorite song... Red-wing blackbirds!

THEN on Thursday, March 15, we were playing fetch with the puppy at around 7:30pm when Drew got buzzed by a mosquito! Not 5 minutes later, we saw a bat zigzaging around our evergreen trees. I KNOW that is the earliest I have ever seen a flying bat. I think this will be a crazy spring!

Enjoy the beautiful weather... take a walk!

A Special Dinner

So it just happens to be Valentine's Day. My hubby and I have never "celebrated" this Hallmark holiday. Wait, I guess that's not true. Our first V-day, I teased him about getting me some cute stuffed animal that would sit on my shelf and collect dust. I decided to be a smart-ass and I bought a $4 puppy holding a heart and left it on his bed. It sat on his shelf and collected dust until my real puppy dog decided it belonged to him. And that is the extent of our Valentine's Day celebration.

The real reason for this special dinner is that my grandparents recently moved into town and we inherited some of the contents of their freezer. I have never been a fan of eating duck. But here we had an almost 6lb duck taking up an entire shelf in our mini-freezer. My hubby pulled it out and decided he wanted to try it.

I was in class all day and right before I left the lab, I realized I still needed a recipe to cook this duck. From working in a restaurant, I knew that duck and cherry go really well together. Google to the rescue! A quick search for a duck and cherry recipe and I found this gem: Succulent Stuffed Roast Duck With Balsamic Cherry Sauce. A quick stop at the grocery store and by 6:30 we were eating. Feast your eyes on my cooking adventure.

Stuffed Roast Duck with Balsamic Cherry Sauce
Crescent Rolls
Asparagus with Almond slices
and a Mixed Green Salad

Brown Rice/Sage/Sauteed Onion/Pecan Stuffing

Reducing the Cherry/Red Wine/Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

Finished Sauce

I'm still not a fan of duck, but even I have to admit this dinner was pretty yummy.

Homemade Suet and Winter birds

Last week my hubby and I made homemade suet - his idea. He wanted to reuse the hamburger and bacon grease instead of throwing it out. I'm so proud!

Our recipe - which was really more like me throwing stuff into a pot.

First I melted the left-over fat (we keep it in a progresso soup can)
Then I added 1/2 pound of lard to try and spread out the amount of salt.
While the fat and lard were melting I added 2 giant scoops of peanut butter.
Melt completely but don't boil.

Then the fun came: I added
- dried mealworms
- niger thistle
- raisins
- 2 flavors of craisins
- and mixed seed containing: black oil and regular sunflowers, peanuts, and millet
add enough to make it almost a solid

Then we added a TON of whole wheat flour until it was the consistency of dough.

Put it in 9x9 recycled aluminum tins and put in freezer. We pulled one out that afternoon after it had frozen and put some out for our feathered friends to try - just in time for the cold weather to hit.

So far the chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches seem to love it.

I haven't been fast enough to take pictures of the chickadees enjoying the suet but I do have some pictures of them feasting on the dried mealworms I put out. I took an old wire hanger apart and made a holder for a tiny glad tupperware. Its not pretty but it makes a perfect mealworm feeder.

Also right before Christmas we had a flock of Cedar Waxwings take over our yard. They were here for just a few minutes and I haven't seen them since.

New Year's Resolutions

Here are my New Year's Resolutions - a month late -

I will start drinking more water.

and

I want to actually keep up with my blog this year

For those of you who know me well, most days I might drink a whole 4 oz of water. My goal is to drink more water and therefore quit drinking soda. Hi, My name is Emily and I am a Coke (classic) addict. In the last 2 weeks I have finally started falling into a trend. First I substituted cranberry juice for soda. Then I started doing half cranberry juice half water. Then when we ran out of cranberry juice, I went to just straight water. This last week, by my best estimates, I think I was averaging 2-3 pints a day. The conversion that means that I have been drinking 32-48 oz a day!! That's a record for me! Let's just hope that I can keep it up.

My other resolution is to get this blog back up and running. I have all kinds of fun ideas that I can't wait to do. I've already started the new year off running:

I love my 100% organic cotton tote bags and I wanted to dress them up a little:

Finished Project

I printed a vintage WW2 Victory Garden poster on to iron on paper. I think I let the paper get too hot because it the backing stuck to the canvas. I picked off the tiny pieces of paper with a tweezers and then used Mod Podge to protect it. There are some small pieces of the picture missing, but I kinda like it. I think it looks more vintage that way.

I also learned how to make my own vanilla extract! I also made a couple of trial jars for my friends. Vanilla beans, vodka, and 6-8 weeks to ferment - tada - homemade extract! Mine should be ready to try next week. I can't wait to bake with it - or make an adult vanilla coke!! I made the labels and used Mod Podge to glue them on.

This is the bottle I made for myself. It's a ACNW Maple Syrup jar and a wine cork I cut to fit.

Vanilla beans and vodka

These were gifts "From the Kitchen of the Gypsy Naturalist"!!

And last but not least I made Owl cupcakes for the Super Bowl party I bartended. My theory... "Whooo cares Whoo wins" plus who doesn't love big-eyed owls??

!

Is this one sad or sleepy??

I thought the ear tufts on this one turned out well.