Friday, January 26, 2007

Feeding the Birds

We're ripping through the bird feed this month. I buy a variety of different bird feeds for the bird table and bird feeders here at Whitelees.

I get sunflower seed hearts, peanuts, mixed seed, suet balls and suet cakes. In addition, there is some whole dried corn that I got last spring for the red squirrel. I make sure that there are a few handfuls of that mixed in on the top of the bird table in case he comes by.

Sunflower seedSuet balls

Suet blocks

When I was a student at the University of Iowa, I had a bird feeder and hung out suet for the birds even then. It was something that I have always done. I had an adorable little green house on Bloomington in Iowa City. My neighbours were students too. They were graduate students and were from Venezuela. I thought they were quite handsome and smiled my nicest smile and waved to them when they went zipping past my house. They only ever gave me a cursory wave and never looked me in the eye.

In the spring, they got a new roommate, an American roommate. All of a sudden, the handsome South Americans were speaking to me and invited me to barbecues. Their new American roommate confided to me that when the Venezuelan students first moved in, they thought I was a witch. The suet I had been hanging from the trees was mistaken for chicken parts and they were scared of me! Their new roommate put them straight about me just feeding the birds and I think they were a little embarrassed.

10 comments:

Steven said...

So...you're not a witch then?

Whew... ;)

Steve~

Anonymous said...

OMG That it so funny!

Too bad you didn't know, then you could have had a lot of fun messing with them before you let them know you weren't going to hex them!

Tink said...

LMAO! They thought you were a WITCH? I bet they never bugged you... So, I have to ask. What in the world is Suet?

Anonymous said...

That was quite a funny story! I enjoyed it. I like your photos, Peggy!

Peggy said...

Nope - I'm not a witch. Never have been. Sometimes I do wish I could hex the occasional person that pisses me off, but it never goes any farther than wishing.

Tink - Suet is fat - usually beef fat.

Anonymous said...

A woman after my own heart - we have two bird feeders, one a large ball of fat with nuts embedded in it and a posher RSPB one from the British supermarket with sunflower seeds. In spring there is nothing better than watching the acrobatics of the blue tits as they land and start pecking away voraciously, especially once the newly fledged chicks try to acquire the technique. At the moment though, in the gales, both feeders keep thudding against the veranda panes.
As for the witchcraft suspicions, I agree with the previous comments - absolutely priceless!

Jay said...

If you had known that earlier you could have at least gone into the back yard and put a big pot on tope of a fire and made chili and hoped they thought you were brewing up something to use for a curse on somebody.

J-Funk said...

That is so funny!!

I worked with a Venezualan and she and her husband (and now their baby too) are some of the most good-looking people I have ever seen. To make things worse whenever she goes on vacation she brings back pictures of herself wearing a thong bikini. It's like looking through the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.

Eryn said...

I third the affirmation that Venezuelans are beautiful. And the ones I know are such good-hearted people too.

gawilli said...

What a laugh! We feed the birds, but not the squirrels. There are so many of them they are more like a pest. We do not have red squirrels anymore; they dissappeared after the grey squirrels showed up.