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Suet Pitcher: Keep Suet Out of Cats Reach

Suet can be put out of bounds for cats if it is tied by a length of twine to a twiggy stick and thrown high into a bushy tree. It will catch on something and hang down. Of course there's the matter of getting it to catch and stay, and sometimes it takes me some little while to make a connection. I wind up, let go an overhand throw, and the first few tries it is apt to shoot up and through the tree, out over the stone wall and across the road. It is unnerving because I'm always sure that behind one of the windows my husband, Andrew, is watching.

When I was young I had a friend who played baseball for the University of Vermont. He taught me to pitch overhand. The first time Andrew saw me do it he was fascinated, and I suspect it was one of the reasons he married me. Anyway, even now he never misses a performance if he can help it. It is more difficult to control a freeform chunk of suet than it is a baseball, but, even so, mine travel quite a distance. Andrew says one of these days one of them will top our ridge and end up in the heart of the nearby town. Their Beautification Committee will come looking for whoever threw it, and I'll pay a fine for littering. There is that danger, of course, but having one high in the tree is worth the risk. No one ever said bird feeding was easy.