Homemade Suet

So, sadly, I have been remiss in mine duties to update mine blog, sorry about that. With teaching, the crazy weather, and the side effects of the crazy weather, life has been a little hectic. Maybe I'll post a pic of the piles and piles of wood I'm piling under my deck for perspective on another project that has had be distracting me from blogging.

Anywho, one project I did finally get done with Keenan was making our own suet cakes. As you know, we loves the birds, LOOOOOVES the birds (or in Teague's words, "BUUHHHHDD!!!"). So, naturally, if one loves something, one thinks of ways to further enjoy it, that's just logic. I had been pondering how to make this happen for awhile, and finally struck on the idea after doing some cooking. So, follow the flow, and make your own, oh adventurous SAHP (Stay At Home Parents) friends of mine.

First, you need the fat. I got mine from roasting bones for bone broth. You can get chunks of suet from a butcher and render them if you desire (or just cheat and put the chunks in the feeder which works just as well, but only in colder weather), but we do the bone broth because we get multiple things as a result of our efforts. As a side note, you can also use the fat you get from roasting bones to cook with like bacon grease, makes for a very beefy flavor. Links for bone broth (this still works for beef bones, but yes, I have gotten it to work for venison bones as well), and rendering tallow.

Now, once I got the fat from the bones, I had it set aside in a covered glass container in the fridge. It keeps FOREVER like that, so I was down with it. After I got that out and let the whole thing go to room temperature, I pulled out my blender and proceeded to process down some field corn that was leftover from deer season, and then two varieties of pumpkin seeds that we haven't eaten as much of as we should, and don't want to waste. Once I had the ground corn and pumpkin seeds in their separate containers ready to be used, I popped the fat in the microwave and melted it. Then, alternating between pumpkin seeds and corn, I slowly layered fat and cracked/processed corn/seeds until it was pretty full. When layering, realize that the cracked/blended seeds will soak up some fat in the process, so make sure to have a fork or spoon around to spread it around. I put some of the smaller pumpkin seeds on top completely whole just for aesthetics, and that was it. It then went into the freezer where I let it set. I did make sure once it looked pretty solid to run a knife around the edge to make sure it would pop out when I was done. See the pictures for the final product and a bit of the process.

Interestingly enough, the birds did not immediately start eating it, they stayed pretty focused on the store bought cakes and chunks of actual beef suet we had out there. However, yesterday, I saw a Red-Bellied Woodpecker going to town on it, so that was cool. I do not have a picture of any birds as they won't stay still long enough because our suet feeder is uber close to the window and we freak them out regularly. However, if you need a 20 minute project and you have the right things around for it, it is really fun, especially if the little hands help you sift through the corn to make sure the hunks that are too big for the birds to eat get sifted out and put back to get ground up some more. Let me know if you try it.

I also realize that most of my posts have something more than just a how to in them, and if you haven't noticed yet that I'm learning how to do this on a daily basis, you aren't reading closely enough. So let me say this, if this isn't your idea of fun, cool. I always hate reading stuff that makes me feel like a bad parent because I don't think I can handle the particular amazing activity idea some child-rearing guru just posted. Honestly, if you don't want to do something with your kid, then don't. This particular activity I'm posting does take some preparation, and some rather specific ingredients. This isn't the only thing I've seen that has those types of components of specificity and preparation. Some people are set up to do stuff, and some people aren't. If you have to change your entire lifestyle to do some activity with your kids, well, I hope that was a change in lifestyle you planned to do in the first place. There's my "deeper meaning", don't change who you are with your kids because some pretty instagram nonsense told you to.

Note: I don't have pretty instagram pictures, so you should totally find me more sincere and do my activity :)

Inheritance

So, it hit me today, what do I want my kids to inherit from me? What is it they'll take off into the future after they leave me?

Well, for starters, today we enjoyed every selection from the Time-Life "Baroque" collection on vinyl. It was a gift from my uncle, who recently gave us quite a few records out of his collection, mostly classical, but also mostly collections from Time Life and Reader's Digest. Last week, we listened to a Readers Digest Collection of Nat King Cole. Best part? Opening it. Yeah, it arrived unopened. I had grown up listening to the same collection that my mother owned, so it was like hearing an old friend. However, I have never opened a record before for the first time. Tapes, CD's, movies, DVD's, all that I have opened, but never before a record. And then getting to play them all for the first time, it holds a unique place in my memories that I may never do again.

So, what does that have to do with my kids inheriting? Well, it made me think of all the things that my uncle and my parents tried to pass on to me at a younger age. All the random museums my mom dragged me to growing up (every Columbus Day we went to one. Corning Museum of Glass, Planetarium, Rochester Museum and Science Center, Fort Niagara, The Genesee Country Village and Museum, The Carousel Museum in Tonawanda, etc.), not to mention every family vacation included something educational (Fort Ticonderoga, The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, all of DC but the Jefferson Memorial, etc.). Then there were my summers. I spent a lot of my summers with family, part in the Adirondacks, part in Livingston County. When I was with my mom's family (my Uncle Jerry and Grandma Carney), I spent most of the week doing yard work with them. You have never trimmed that many trees and bushes, cut that much grass, or hauled all you cut, believe me. But contrary to the Forrest Gump quote, I did not do that for free. I got paid. How? Well, I went to a Rodeo, a County Fair, Steam Pageants, and Air Shows, all of which my uncle paid for me to do, as long as I worked my tail off during the week. I saw and learned things no one else would think interesting. I've driven an antique tractor, sat in a P-40 (still my favorite WWII airplane), watched how we lived in bygone times and how our civilization has gotten to here. I actually listened to the same music the flyboys from WWII listened to quite often, not to mention Irish Folk Music (my poor wife went to an Irish Folk Music concert with me when we were dating. She seemed confused as to why I was singing along to 90% of the concert), any and all pop music from the 50's-70's, the list goes on and on. I knew my upbringing was different. How? Because most of the kids I went to school with helped me realize that quickly. Every kid's upbringing is different, but I don't know many kids in my class that could ID most of the major Allied heavy bombers from WWII, much less have seen all but the B-29 fly as a group (I got to go to the Geneseo Air Show with the National Warplane Museum before their rift and see 8 B-17's, 2 B-24's, and a Lancaster fly together with a couple of P-47 Thunderbolts and a gaggle of P-51 D's using a grass field as their runway. This was in the very late 80's to early 90's. Once you figure out why that's cool, we'll talk). I was excited when I heard Vera Lynn sing in person (you want to see some old Vets get dolled up and purty? Have her show up in a Rolls Royce, they all of a sudden don't need their canes anymore). I have people I have worked with as an adult who would have heard her not know who I was talking about.The crazy part about all that, secretly, I liked it. No matter what it did to my so-called social life, I liked it.

So, where am I going with all that? Well, that's part of my inheritance. I just scratched the surface on some of what my family did for me growing up. So here's the kicker: What do I do with all that for my kids? They've been apple picking, to the zoo, #1 son has been to the Dixie Deer Classic twice (that's a redneck party that's worth attending, oh hunters of North Carolina), they know what those crazy birds at the feeder are called, they have started to understand gardening, #1 Son can sing along to "Nature Boy" both with me and Nat King Cole on vinyl, #2 Son loves whatever music I put on, they know what it looks like when eggs come straight from the nest and need to be cleaned, been on a plane (I didn't do that for the first time until I was in high school), and who knows what I've missed. I have some years left, can I fill them with all of what I had given to me? Not exactly, because apparently no one in North Carolina knows how to throw a decent Warplane Airshow. However, I can start one record at a time. They have started to actually be able to tell them apart and tell me which ones they want to listen to. Will they get what I'm doing? I didn't get all of the above until a few years ago, when I realized that by dragging me through every single possible "living" history opportunity they had, my parents made me see the past in a different light. That sparked me realizing that inheritance is something you do, not just an object you leave. With any luck, my kids will like it too. They have a good start, as this past Christmas, the it seemed like the most important ornament #1 Son wanted me to put on the tree from my collection was The Lone Ranger (granted, I primed him for this with putting him to bed listening to some of the taped recordings and also sometimes listening to the one I've got on vinyl as well). No, not that weird Johnny Depp/Gore Verbinski mess. This is Clayton Moore at his Silver riding best. Tail streaming, finger pointing, blue outfit wearing, American West goodness (seriously, it needs a button to push with the recording, "Hi-ho Silver....AWAAAAAAAY!!!!). And my son was excited about it. One small step for dad, one giant step for inheritance.