A lot of birds particularly prefer black sunflowerl and millet, the latter is especially cheap. During the winter months though, bird seed can go uneaten because birds are looking for fatty sources which is why suet is recommended for fall and winter. You can put all the bird seeds into a homemade suet cake and then it becomes far more appetizing. You just need to use some kind of edible fat source which is solid at room temperature. Shortening is what many people make. A few years ago, we were accidentally sent a half dozen quarts of shortening, which we never use. I called the seller about the misplaced order and they placed the correct order and told us to keep the shortening. We bought a 20lb bag of mixed bird seed, then made a whole winter's worth of suet cakes using cupcake trays.
In other news, my A.S. Gillot Alpine Tourist Deluxe is coming along quite nicely. I've amassed a collection of just about 100% of the parts I need for the build; just needing to find a good condition Sturmey Archer "window" trigger shifter, and get a set of 278mm spokes.
This fact that I now own the following bikes, which cost me VERY LITTLE, is proof positive that economic forces at play are not in a good way:
1964 A.S Gillot, Alpine Tourist Deluxe, brazed by Ron Cooper**
1949 Rotrax "the Shirley" path racer**
1952 R.O Harrison "Madison" path racer**
1994 Concorde Aquila (Columbus TSX) racing bike**
Late 1980s Puch Mistral (Columbus SLX) racing bike
1994 Breezer Lightning**
A bunch of other not-quite-dream-bikes, which are users.
** denotes "holy grail" bike
My being able to afford any one of these, let alone all six, portends an economy on the downturn, as I bought them all for less than 5% of their previous value. I put a full Suntour Superbe Pro group on the Concorde, and it has unobtanium Sampson Titanium hubs. Even the wheelset was formerly far outside my ability to purchase, but people are nearly giving these things away. The Concorde frame was very cheap, the Puch was almost free, the Breezer was also almost free and it came with an XTR bottom bracket and a Judy XC with a very uncommon 1" threadless fork crown.
In years prior, I've never been able to afford any one of these frames, without saving up for months. I also have a BS price cutoff above which I simply won't entertain purchasing a bike (or whatever used durable good I happen to be looking at). So now between those six bikes, the combined previous sane value of them (before the collapse of whatever) was easily over $10,000. These days, if they were all sitting outside the shop where I was working for a while, none of them could sell for more than $600, simply because people aren't looking for old touring bikes, superlight racing bikes, nor 26" mountain bikes built for racing (no braze-ons). Just like my old Benz, the only way I would be able to get rid of these bikes, would be to offer them to a scrapper. Not happening. Esentially, I'm just saying they have zero resale value in the current market, and I only have them because I enjoy riding.
Same goes for the remaining typewriters I have. All fully restored, but otherwise more valuable as boat anchors than as unplugged writing tools, which I enjoy using. The camera "collection" is another issue; lots of sentimentality and personal work history there, so it's a lot harder to put any value on them, and hard to think of getting rid of them. One of these days, I'll have my own darkroom, then I'll get back to shooting regularly.
Phil
