Bird feeder 3

This is a recipe for bird cake, I don't know any other name for it but it probably has one. Bird cake attracts waxeyes, chaffinches, sparrows, dunnocks, greenfinches and starlings. If you live in warmer climes (like the north island) you might get myna birds too.   

You will need:
1 part suet
1 part wild bird seed

Melt the suet over medium heat, when melted take off the heat and stir in the bird seed, you can add extra bird seed if you think it needs it. Pour into a plastic container and leave to set overnight. When it is set press it out of the container and put it on your bird table.

Chilli sauce

I invented some chilli sauce, it was an amalgamation of various recipes I found on the internet, it is quite strong so you could reduce the number of chillies. The quantities are very approximate.

10-20 chilies, I used a variety called wildfire (from the garden center)

1/2 - 3/4 Cup white vinegar,

a whole lime, skin and all

salt

1-2 t cumin

1-2 t coriander seed

a little bit of tomato

1-2 T ginger

9 cloves garlic

1-2 onion

Cook until very soft, about 2 hours, then whiz in the food processor until smooth.

Bird feeder 2

This bird feeder is very simple, you just need a flat space and a dish.

Mix 100g sugar with 1l water, red food colouring is not essential but it makes it more attractive to birds. Pour the syrup into the dish, put it some where flat and wait for the birds. This feeder attracts Waxeyes, Bellbirds and Tui (I haven't had any Tui yet)

The gardens

Yesterday we went to the Dunedin Botanic Gardens. It was a lovely sunny spring day, not common around here, the spring flowers were just starting,

 Most of the rhododendrons weren't flowering yet, but they were still very impressive. 

 The boys found a geo cache.

this tree grew in a rather peculiar way

this looks very like a fairy lawn

And hidden deep amongst the roots of a humongous tree I found a tiny door...

 

fairy houses

One day last summer I went into a part of the garden I hadn't been for a while, and there I found a tiny house. After examining the house closely I concluded it must be a fairy house, because it is well known that mice live in holes and I don't known of any other animal that size.

This is the first house I found

Mouse pea

A rose petal bed, this fairy must be very frivolous 

After I found this house I went in search of more houses, under the sweet pea wigwam I found a fairy meeting place, moss floor with small daises growing in it. 

The lastly I found this house under the pumpkin leaves,

a wooden floor

This fairy is more practical

Oxalis bulbs and mouse peas

Strawberry jam and a small mushroom

 The houses were gone the next time I looked...

Bird feeders 1

Recently I have become very interested in birds, so I decided to encourage birds to come into our backyard. If you look up bird feeders they are either very expensive or very plastic. So I decided to make my own feeders inspired by the feeders you can buy.
The first one I made was quite simple, made for holding half an apple and designed to attract waxeyes.

To make a bird feeder like this you will need:
a square of wood approximately 200mm x 200mm and 20mm thick
a drill
a coping saw
a piece of string or rope
250mm no.8 wire

First take your piece of wood and draw a apple on it, make sure it is bigger than the apples you intend to put in it, I used a bit of Rimu that used to be part of our house, it was and still is the only piece of rimu I have ever seen that can be truthfully described as red not orange. Then drill a hole at the base of the stem then cut it out with the saw, I was very careful when cutting it out and I used the leftover apple shape to carve a little dish for Dad for his birthday.

Then drill a hole through the middle of the apple and check the wire fits in thte hole, if the wood gets wet the hole will shrink slightly and the wire might be hard to remove, then sand it, put an apple in it and hang it from a tree somewhere.  

 I think this waxeye is sick, it only flew a way when I was almost touching it.

Haggis

About a month ago I made haggis, it was very interesting and took a long time. This is not exactly a recipe, more like notes.

We got a sheep to put in the freezer, and I went along when it was being cut up and saved the lungs, stomach, heart, liver and suet from the dismal fate of being thrown out and buried in a hole.

The next day there ensued a long search on the internet for instructions of how to clean a sheep's stomach, because running the hose through it was ineffective.

To clean a sheep's stomach you need rubber gloves, a knife, and lots of boiling water, you pour the water on the stomach and then scrape it with the knife and the greenness should come off, it also smells awful.

After about 2 hours the stomach was clean, (it still smelled but there was nothing I could do about that)

 while I was cleaning the stomach, the heart, lungs and liver had been simmering in a pot on the fire

 I took them out and put the heart and lungs through the mincer which was very enjoyable. Then I grated the liver and some of the suet and mixed it all together.

Then I mixed up the seasonings, onions, pepper, chilli, and herbs (not sure which ones) next time I would double everything.

Then I mixed that in together with some steel-cut oats

and then stuffed it all in the stomach and sewed in up with string.

  Then it was boiled for a long time (4 hours?) and we ate it the next day to the accompaniment of a strange poem that is traditional to read when eating haggis, Mum translated it so we could understand it.