Making a bird feeder

“Long story short, we drilled for hours and broke three wine bottles. I’m well aware that we must have been doing something wrong, but by suppertime, we simply threw in the towel. [...] The next morning, I made a funnel out of newspaper and filled both glass bottles with birdseed. Plugging the top of the bottles with my fingers, I turned them upside down, placed them in the wire loops and let go. Bird seed spilled into the glass bowls below, stopping when the seed reached the mouth of the bottle. Voila, a simple, refilling bird feeder.”

“Then, in a flashback to a project from my childhood, I excitedly told them to pick up as many as they could carry. 20-minutes later with a few household items thrown across the kitchen table…we were making bird feeders I remembered from elementary school. It was a mess, but I was giddy. Peanut butter covered fingers and spoons, birdseed that spilled on the floor, and cut pieces of twine covered our pinecones. It was a simple project, nothing fancy or complicated, and one of the kids may or may not have eaten a handful of birdseed (#motherhood) but the kids had fun and we got our bird feeders hung on the tree before the next round of rain came.”

“The small challenge for this project if you don’t have much experience is drilling the large holes. I made them one inch in diameter, though again the exact size isn’t important. Depending on the type of wood that you have, the drilling can be tough, so I recommend drilling small holes first, say a quarter inch. [...] Once the holes are finished, you can sand them lightly if they have rough spots (though honestly I’m not sure the birds care). Then pack them full of suet. [...] It’s greasy and messy, which is sort of the point because, well, it’s fat.”