Making a Winter Solstice Tree - Merry Yule!

Winter Solstice Tree

Winter Solstice is such an incredible time.  The fairies in the Grove are abuzz with excitement!  One of their favourite activities is making a Winter Solstice Tree for all the hungry little woodland creatures - this is most enjoyed by the chickadees, blue jays, bush tits, juncos, woodpeckers and yes, even the squirrels.

How to make a Winter Solstice Tree

• Spread some peanut butter on waxed paper, roll pine cones in peanut butter, then stand pine cone in a large bowl and pour bird seed overtop, coating nicely, wrap string around the pine cone for hanging.
  
  
• Cut an orange in half and partially hollow it out, carve or punch three holes in the side near the top, insert string and tie at the top, fill with bird seeds.
  
  
• Cut a hole in stale bread, bagels or crackers, tie a string, spread with congealed bacon fat, sprinkle with bird seeds (bacon fat helps the birds to put on their own fat for the winter; bread alone fills them up ... but leaves them vulnerable to the cold).
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• Make a popcorn string.
  
  
• Hang all these goodies on a tree with lots of little branches for perching, ducking and hiding, spread a little bird seed on the ground.

​Watch and enjoy your little visitors from a quiet place!

​​Meadow Sweet Grove © V. Buchanan 2016 / edited 2019

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