Bird Feed

Happy New Year! My special project for the day is rendering suet and creating bird feeder blocks. 

Dale picked up 6 bags of suet and the beef lungs on Christmas eve.  Good thing it is cold out.  The garage was like a refrigerator for the suet. I started with a large pan with a small amount of coconut oil to prime the rendering process.

I broke apart the suet so that it was in smaller chunks for melting. 

Then I put some bird seed into a metal bowl and started to dip out the melted fat.  I chose not to be a perfectionist and leave lumps of fat inside. 

I chose to use my new Young Living bowl to mix the seed and suet together. 

I prepared 4 suet cages ahead of time.  I put aluminum foil around them to work as temporary sides. I am shooting from the hip with this project. 

I also put foil in a  small box.

Dale had purchased a hanger this fall and a replacement suet/seed mixture.  I wasn't sure if my mixture would stick so I lined the container that his suet came infilled in around the hanger.

I only processed 3 bags of suet.  I was out of containers and had nearly a full bowl left. I put foil on a cookie sheet.

Then I flipped the cookie sheet onto the top of the bowl.

I tapped it down a few times hoping that the seeds would fall away from the bowl. Time will tell.

The 4 cages were set or frozen (they were on the cookie sheet.) I guess that I chose a good day to do this.  It is 3 degrees Fahrenheit outside. 

It didn't take the birds very long to start checking out the feed.  Now onto the next project!