Homemade Suet Blocks

Cyril loves homemade suet blocks
Ghillie Suit Gardening – Homemade Suet BlocksSometimes I make my own suet blocks when I have time and the right ingredients. They’re very popular (especially with Cyril and the Littlies), but they do disappear frighteningly fast.Simple Homemade Suet Block RecipeIngredients (roughly fills 2–3 holders):

• 250–300g lard (or beef suet)
• Bird seed mix
• Peanut kibble (crushed a bit)
• Sunflower hearts
• Niger seeds (if you have them — they’re tiny so they get wasted otherwise)
• Mealworms (dried)
• Optional: a handful of chopped peanuts or oats

Method:

1. Melt the lard gently in the microwave (in short bursts so it doesn’t get too hot).
2. Let it cool slightly until it’s still runny but not scorching hot (you don’t want to cook the seeds/mealworms).
3. Stir in your dry ingredients until everything is well coated. The mix should be quite thick.
4. Spoon into your empty suet holders or disposable containers.
5. Leave to set completely (I usually put them in the fridge for an hour or so).
6. Hang them up and watch them vanish.

Top Tip:
The temperature of the melted lard is the tricky bit. Too hot and it can cook the additions. Too cool and it won’t mix properly. You’ll get the hang of it after a couple of tries.They’re definitely more effort than the shop-bought ones, but it’s a good way to use up odds and ends (especially tiny niger seeds that no one eats loose).Cyril approves. The Littlies approve. My washing-up bowl… not so much.

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The Cyril Chronicles

Ghillie Suit Gardening – Live Dispatch: LEVEL 20 — CYRIL HAS WON THE WAR

I have been utterly, comprehensively, and humiliatingly defeated by one small squirrel.This morning I went out and put the sodding lid back on the Littlies extra-wide “squirrel-proof” feeder for the fourth time. I even wrote and posted a blog post publicly shaming him for his previous acts of vandalism.Not ten minutes later, Cyril had unscrewed the lid again, hidden it somewhere I still cannot find, and is now fully living inside the feeder like he’s paid the mortgage and I’m the squatter.

Tail elegantly wrapped around the branch for support. Body completely inserted. Head buried deep in the suet pellets like he’s on a luxury spa day and I’m just the cleaner.He is no longer raiding my feeders.
He has moved in. He’s redecorated. He’s probably charging rent to the other squirrels.At this point I’m seriously considering just putting a little “Cyril’s Private Residence” sign on it and accepting my new role as his full-time catering staff.The manufacturers of these “squirrel-proof” feeders clearly never met my Cyril. This little ginger-and-grey criminal has more engineering knowledge, determination, and sheer fucking audacity than most humans I’ve ever encountered.The final score stands at:
Cyril: Infinity
Me: -47 and falling rapidlyI am no longer fighting squirrels.
I am simply providing luxury accommodation and all-you-can-eat dining for one extremely entitled, highly skilled tiny criminal who has made it his life’s mission to destroy my sanity one feeder lid at a time.Send stronger lids.
Send therapy.
Send a priest.Actually, just send more pliers and a white flag.I surrender.
Cyril has won. The garden is his now.Level 20 achieved.