STOP THIEF!

O.K., we now have a thief at the birdfeeder. The suet feeder to be exact. I suspect the blue jays. When the lump of suet gets low, it will suddenly disappear altogether. I know that the birds could not have eaten it down that fast. I may have seen a sufficient size lump in the basket not 20 minutes earlier, Then nothing!

Yesterday, I tried a new technique to try to stop the thievery. I took a plastic net bag like onions and other vegetables come in and tied the ends with a twist tie. I had placed a lump of suet inside first. Then I tried to twist the twist tie onto the wires of the suet basket. While we were having lunch today, DH said, “The suet is gone.” It had not been 20 minutes since I looked out there and a sizeable lump was still in the net bag. The thief had even taken the bag. DH looked outside and could not find the bag. The thief had absconded with everything!

I made another suet bag from plastic netting, this time leaving longer ends on the twist ties. DH took this one and his being much taller than I am, hopefully was able to twist the ends sufficiently around the wire of the basket that the thief will not be able to remove it.

I need to find more suet. We were fortunate to have been able to get a large amount of natural suet last time we had a beef butchered. The processors were Amish and very conscientious. When DH asked them if we could buy some, they came back with about a 2-gallon bag full. They refused payment. I sliced it up into basket sized lumps and it has lasted about 2 years.