For the Birds

 A cardinal with its feathers all puffed out against the morning chill. We thought winter had passed by us, but this week we're having nightly freezes.  Bird watching for a few minutes as I have a cup of coffee in the morning really adds a bright spot to my day and carries me happily through some of the less pleasant chores of home-making. :)

 A red-bellied sapsucker dwarfing my suet ball. I guess he doesn't care that I hung it for chickadees and other smaller birds. The nerve...lol.

 For those who wanted to know what I use in the suet here's an approximation that I read in one of my Audubon books. They suggest a basic mixture of: one part fat ( can be suet from rendered fat or bacon grease or other fat) one part peanut butter,  and six parts cornmeal. To that you can add your choice of seeds, raisins, nuts, stale bread, oat groats, etc. The birds in my neck of the woods don't care for raisins so I use black oil sunflower seeds.

 Just give all the ingredients a good stir and shape as you like to fit the type of feeder you have on hand. I put the bowl of suet mixture in the freezer for about thirty minutes to harden then shaped it into a ball....

 then I placed it in an empty (recycle!) onion bag and tied a knot close to the ball.

  I tied another knot above the first one so I could make a slit between them to hang on a hook.
 Here's a block of suet mixture that I put a lot of sunflower seeds in, and of course, the birds light on it first. ;)

I've started another quilt using the fabrics in the pics below...

I'm getting kinda giddy about quilting, (who knew?) and hoping to make a quilt that will fit a bed this time...don't know what size yet, though.

 I hope these blend well in the order I plan to use them...we'll see.

                                                                   
Before the cold snap this week my daffodils in this pot had popped out.

Have a great weekend, Y'all!
The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Roses of Inspiration Linkup

Li'l Quilt

The bluebird family that checks on the bluebird house just outside my kitchen window. Can you imagine a life this carefree and full of color? Oh no, I wouldn't trade places for anything, but I do appreciate their beauty.

 I finished the little quilt I told you about in my last post. It's 36 in.x36 in. and my first quilting project.

 I quilted it on the sewing machine and backed it with plain ol' muslin. Quilting seems to be easier on my hands than knitting so I think I'm going to stick with sewing for awhile.

I'm sure you've heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted the theory of evolution against The Bible. (What a debacle.)  Goodman and I were recently near the town of Dayton, Tenn. where the trial took place so we stopped by the courthouse as I'd seen it before and wanted him to see the style of it. I think is a beautiful building.

In the basement (which seemed so fitting somehow) of the courthouse there's a tiny museum with a couple pf displays and info on the trial.

This is a homemade suet made from a mixture of cornmeal, peanut butter, raisins and a bit of suet I had in the freezer is drawing a crowd. I put the mixture in the freezer for about thirty minutes then shaped it into a ball and put it in an old plastic onion bag that I had saved. This Carolina Wren and Chickadee think it's every bit as good as the suets from the store. ;)

Till next time, hope you're warm and cozy. :)

New Hobby, Maybe...

 Hi there! Uh huh, my bloggin' is sporadic at best, but anyways we've been offline again and will be for awhile. Meantime....I've kinda taken up quilting - in the most rudimentary manner, of course. I'm using what scraps I have on hand for the most part and winging my way to a small, baby-sized quilt.

 Not perfect, but it's workin'.

 All the squares are 2in. which is way to small to start with, but I usually do things the hard way. Sigh. More on this later.

 This is the wildlife viewing point at the Hiwassee Refuge.

 After hearing about the Sandhill Cranes over at Chipmunknits Goodman and I decided to take a roadtrip and get a look at them ourselves. (My camera wouldn't take a great pic so I'm in the market for a new one.)

 The black bird in the pic is an Asian Crane. Nobody knows how it got to the refuge, but lots of folks are flocking to see it.

 After viewing the birds we followed signs to a memorial to the Cherokee Removal.

 Oh, what a sad, sad memorial. It's really hard to understand how that happened.

Hopefully it's a reminder, like the ones we see about the Holocaust, to never forget so we don't make the same mistakes again.
Hope your having a great New Year!