"The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land."
-Abraham Lincoln

Corn cob Birdfeeders

A couple of days ago the kids and I took the popcorn we had been drying in the garage and brought it into the house to be shelled.  Even though we had sold quite a few ears at the pumpkin stand this last fall, we still had more than enough left over to last us through until next fall which means I will be finding plenty of popcorn recipes on Pinterest.  That's ok though because, really, who doesn't love popcorn?

Anyways, after all the popcorn shelling fun was finished we ended up with ten to fourteen little bitty corn cobs.  Normally I would have simply tossed them out into the garden or the thicket and let nature take it's course but this year we decided to do something a little different.   This winter has been hard to say the least.  We've have bitterly cold temperatures, by bitterly cold I mean Antarctica temperatures, and several snowstorms bringing many inches of ice and several feet of snow.  As unpleasant as it has been for us humans living in a cozy home with plenty to eat, I imagine things have been even worse for the little woodland creatures in our area. 

So, in the spirit of looking out for our neighbors during difficult times, we decided to make bird feeders out of the left over corn cobs! 

The process was a simple one and consisted of tying some yarn tightly around one end of the cob, smearing peanut butter (we used peanut butter from an almost empty jar) over them and then rolling them in some store bought bird seed.  

Then we hunted around the property for the best trees to hang them from, ones with several branches below the hanging cobs so the birdies could sit and dine in comfort and not too far from the view of the kitchen windows.   After trekking through several feet of iced over snow across several acres of land we finally had them all hung and ready for our fine feathered friends to feast. 

0 comments: