I always feel a little down in early January after all of the excitement of teh December holidays. One thing that I have always kind of dreaded is taking the tree down. Over the last few years as we have started to celebrate the Twelfth Night however, it’s become its own little celebration, which has completely changed how I feel about this time. It’s become something to look forward to, rather than something to be sad about. In fact I have begun to enjoy taking the ornaments down and packing them away- when we put them up there are frantic little hands grabbing for them and bickering about who gets to hang the most. When I take them down I can reminisce about each of them. We make a family ornament each year that somehow symbolizes our year, and the boys each pick out one new glass ornament each year so they all have memories attached.
After the tree makes its way out of the house I set it up again on the edge of our woods and we decorate it with edible ornaments for our animal friends. I know many people like to do this to celebrate the Winter Solstice, but I prefer it on the Twelfth Night. It’s a nice way to give the tree another use and to mark this time after the holiday rush. And realistically, this tree is as much for us as it is the birds. To really sustainably help the critters in your yard the most, you should plant native plants, leave brush piles, leaves and habitat all winter and make sure you leave these native seeds all winter instead of clearing everything out. We do all of these things in our garden, but a special tree is still a nice treat for the animals and for us! After the treats are eaten the tree gets tipped over and added to a brush piles so the critters can keep using it and it doesn’t get thrown in a landfill. Night Tree by Eve Bunting and The After Christmas Tree by Linda Wagner are two great books to support this activity.
Birdseed and Twig Ornaments
This is a fairly basic gelatin birdseed ornament recipe, but after making these for a few years, it occurred to me that they set up quite hard and it would be pretty easy to form them around a stick or make them into 3D shapes without a mold. The round ones are all hand-formed and the dodecahedrons I used a mold for. I’m not sure they look that different honestly, so in the future I will forgo the mold entirely. It’s also easier and cheaper! I wanted to form them around sticks so that birds would have a place to land easily. Once we started making them I decided I wanted to go even further and form little stick feeder/ cages for them. I think I was still thinking about by my stick lantern. We also made some small wreaths with evergreens, sorghum, wheat and a seed ball in teh center, but they were a little hard to see in the tree.
Materials:
- 2 packets of gelatin
- 1 cup of hot water
- 6 TBS corn syrup
- 1 1/2 cups of flour.
- 8 cups of birdseed
- Twigs and sticks
- Hot Glue
- String
Method:
First make your gelatin seed mixture:
Combine the gelatin and the hot water in a large bowl and stir until teh gelatin is dissolved.
Next add the corn syrup and flour and mix.
Last add the birdseed and stir until thoroughly combined.
Pack into molds with wet hands and allow to dry overnight OR follow the steps below.
To make spheres on twigs:
With wet hands, form two half sphere shapes. press them together to form a ball with a stick in the center.
Once the sphere is a nice shape and teh stick is secure, allow to dry overnight. Tie a string on either end of the stick to hang your ornament on a branch.
For a variation, use a Y stick and form the sphere in the crook!
To make the cages:
Start building the cage. Hot glue three short sticks together in a triangle and allow to set.
Now select three longer sticks and hot glue them to the three points of the triangle. Hold them together in a point at the top while the glue sets, then glue the top together as well.
Select three mid length sticks for the bottom. Turn the pyramid you’ve made so far over and repeat the process on the base so you have a wonky diamond shape.
Make your birdseed ball the same way, form two half spheres with wet hands, only this time sandwich a piece of string in between. Let them dry overnight and then you’ll be able to hang teh ball teh next day when it’s fully dry.
With the taller end of the cage pointing up, tie the seed ball into the middle. Hang the cage by slipping it over a branch.
[…] and decorate it for the animals to feast on. It then gets a second life as habitat for critters. (tutorial here) Check out the After Christmas Tree and the Night Tree for […]
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