Practical uses for christmas trees, pork fat, and 300 mm lenses

I love Christmas trees. My whole family does. We get ours the weekend after Thanksgiving and keep it in our house as long as we possibly can (which has been anywhere from the beginning of January to even Mid February). Once it can no longer live in our house, but it is still semi-green, we banish it out to our deck for another couple months. Usually we leave it strung up with lights, so on cold winter nights we can plug it in, look outside, and smile. It also doubles as a home/feeding place for birds, which my family is also fond of.

About a week ago some cooking went on in my house that involved pork-product and whenever one cooks pork there is usually run-off, excess fat left over. You can either let that harden and throw it out, or you can make use of it. One such use being making snacks for birds!

My mom, nature lover that she is, took it, poured it into a small, rectangular plastic form or some sort and mixed bird seed into it. She put a popsicle stick with string on it into the center and let it all harden. Later she popped it out and hung it on the deck-banished (and covered in four feet of snow, with only the very top sticking out might I mention) Christmas tree. Good for birds in the winter. Keeps 'em fat. Keeps 'em happy. And we get to watch them from the comfort of our living room.

A few day ago I played stealthy bird paparazzi (birds are very camera shy) with a 300 mm zoom lens. All the shots were taken through the glass doors, because I didn't want to go stand out in the mass amount of snow. The hope was that I would get a shot of a blue jay (which I love), but apparently they are far too smart and paparazzi cognizant. I've tried again since then and still they refused to let me get a shot of them. But still...some nice photos of other wintery birds ensued.