Just watched Daredevil.

Yes, it's irredeemably dark, but I needed an antidote for the sunny day. All that sun = allergies and my eyes watering like a sprinkler.

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It turns out that the show is not adapted for blind fans at all. Nothing on Netflix is. As is often the case, it sounds like an accommodation for disabled people - in this case, audio description - could have benefits for people who don't share that disability as well. For example, if, like me, you get bored by fight scenes or just don't want to see the blood you can look away, maybe read a book or browse the internet, and listen to the description in case it's time to tune back in. I often have that problem watching Switched at Birth. I watch shows while reading, looking up at the more interesting parts, but when they start signing I don't have an audio cue that I need to look up to read the subtitles, so I miss part of the dialog! Irritating, but I just can't break the habit of always having a book in my hands, or - if online - reading the news while watching.

Of course, Netflix had to be brought to court before they captioned everything, so... yeah. (And whose bright idea was it to caption non-English as "speaking $LANGUAGE" right over the freaking subtitles? Real helpful, guys.)

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Noticed the squirrels raiding our maple tree for buds a week ago

Which reminded me it's time to make the squirrel food. Spring can be a hard time for squirrels. The nuts and seeds are mostly gone, as are the berries and fruits and insects (yes, squirrels eat insects, and they'll also eat eggs, and even meat if they have to), so they're forced to subsist on buds and bulbs, two foods which are high in cellulose they can't digest. That and garbage, of course, which is generally not good for them either.

So I saved up my bacon fat and bought some more peanut butter and cornmeal and raisins.

The basic principle of suet is simple - mix together peanut butter (you can also use almond butter, which is healthier, but mad pricy), fat of some sort (lard, suet, or coconut oil is preferred, but i used the bacon fat as I already had it and couldn't find the coconut oil anyway), and some sort of binder (the cornmeal) until it's a nice even consistency. To this simple, high-fat mixture you're probably going to want to add some treats. I always put in a good deal of raw sugar, as squirrels (and birds, for that matter - if you're making this for birds, add a shitton of cayenne, the squirrels and raccoons can't eat that) have high energy requirements. (It doesn't have to be raw, I just rarely ever buy white sugar.)

Then I looked around and decided to do what people always do when asked to donate to food pantries - clear out my shelves! Small sample box of raisin bran? Half a bag of coconut flakes which are like a year old? Dollar bag of almonds? Really old jars of pumpkin and sunflower seeds? Bag with seven squashed dates? Remaining half scoop of rolled oats that have been stepped on? Ground up flaxseeds? Yup, all that stuff went in the bowl. I even added a small amount of almond flour - not too much, as that stuff is really pricey, but a little to make the mix more nutritious. (Neither peanuts nor sunflower seeds make a nutritious meal for squirrels. This isn't such a huge problem, except that when people DO feed squirrels they universally seem to give just those things, probably because they're cheap. I get it, I'll do the same thing with my leftovers.)

I'll spread the suet out over the next week or so, that'll be a nice treat for them. And I will *definitely* be putting out the remainder of the sunflower and pumpkin seeds!

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