she cooks and freezes year round in yogurt containers. She begins preparing her suet by melting about 20 - 24 ounces of frozen beef fat in a two-quart pitcher.

      “After I melt the fat,” she says, “I add about six- ounces of the cheapest peanut butter I can find, then add about 1/3 C cornmeal, a few sunflower seeds with some raisins and/or chopped apple.       “I mix this up and pour it into used containers for suet, so it fits in the metal suet holders. I freeze these and pop them out and put use them as needed. This mix makes about three suet blocks. I'm guestimating at the proportions, but it is close. I've even had a Mockingbird and Bluebird eat a little of this.”

— Betty Richey, Chair of RBAS Butterfly Garden

Committee

An Orange-Crowned Warbler discovered Betty Richey’s feeder during January, and was still there at this newsletter’s printing. 

      “It should not normally be here, but it seems to like the suet mix I make,” Richey reports. Orange-crowned Warblers are rarely seen in tree-covered habitats during the first of May and October, according to the Seasonal List of the Standard Birds of Missouri. 

      Betty contributes the bird’s interest to her food choice. “I have 2 suet cakes up; one suet cake is purchased from the store and one I make. I put up the commercial suet block a day earlier then mine and mine is nearly gone and
the other one barely eaten.”

      Her recipe for success includes fat skimmed from beef