We made bird feeders today.
Mar. 20th, 2007 08:56 pmTo do this, we mixed peanut butter and vegetable shortening together in even measures. (Well, we used sunflower butter, because of the baby working with us.) I also mixed in some stickily ground raisins, because I hadn't realized how sticky they'd be when ground, and I didn't want to add them whole.
We smeared the mixture onto toilet paper rolls (one website I'm reading suggests bagels for the same purpose, which would eliminate the bother of removing the rolls later), and then rolled them in our commercial birdseed. Afterwards, we dribbled very crushed and clean eggshells on them, for a good source of calcium.
Let it be known - in the future, if I ever say that Evangeline "eats like a bird", I do *not* mean that she doesn't eat very much. Instead, I mean that, when left to her own devices, she will attempt to eat twice her weight in bird seed in a single sitting. I didn't let her do it - I figured it was (probably) nontoxic, but still, ew. And it's got this weird "cherry-flavor" thing going on, too. She also glommed right onto the sunbutter, shortening, and raisin mixture. That can't harm her. I guess. (Ew some more, right?)
Right after we hung one of our feeders outside Ana's window, we attracted a visitor! Not a bird, but something *almost* as good, at least to Ana - a squirrel! Unfortunately, Ana banged on the window to say hi, and frightened our friend away.
We smeared the mixture onto toilet paper rolls (one website I'm reading suggests bagels for the same purpose, which would eliminate the bother of removing the rolls later), and then rolled them in our commercial birdseed. Afterwards, we dribbled very crushed and clean eggshells on them, for a good source of calcium.
Let it be known - in the future, if I ever say that Evangeline "eats like a bird", I do *not* mean that she doesn't eat very much. Instead, I mean that, when left to her own devices, she will attempt to eat twice her weight in bird seed in a single sitting. I didn't let her do it - I figured it was (probably) nontoxic, but still, ew. And it's got this weird "cherry-flavor" thing going on, too. She also glommed right onto the sunbutter, shortening, and raisin mixture. That can't harm her. I guess. (Ew some more, right?)
Right after we hung one of our feeders outside Ana's window, we attracted a visitor! Not a bird, but something *almost* as good, at least to Ana - a squirrel! Unfortunately, Ana banged on the window to say hi, and frightened our friend away.