My hope is to give you a quick peek into why we have decided to create Sweet-Seed, and why we continue to stick to our guns when it comes to creating our products the way we do. We know that sometimes this means our products are a bit more expensive, and sometimes we even miss out on opportunities because of our choice to do things a tad unconventionally, but we believe in what we are doing and why we are doing it.
I didn’t want to drone on about all the research that eventually went into creating our blends in this post. At least not yet. We will get into some of that here and on www.sweet-seed.com. Instead, I wanted to share a super quick story that I think sums up who we are as a company and why we have chosen to do things differently…even if it’s not necessarily the quickest way to get from “point a” to “point b.”
My first memories of wild bird feeding were born in what I like to think of as my “prime.” I couldn’t have been much more than five years-old, tagging along-side my grandfather, and casual wild bird admirer, “Papa B.” Together at his small kitchen table we enjoyed each other’s company during most summer afternoons, and that of the wild birds we could watch through his small kitchen window.
During those days I learned two important things about Papa B…
First, he seemed to find a source of pride, and maybe even peace, from this simple act of learning about, caring for and identifying the many boldly-colored wild birds who would stop for a brief moment at his feeders (cardinals and blue jays were his favorites).
Second, he found an even greater source of frustration in trying to keep his rivals, the “damned squirrels,” off of those same feeders.
If he had devised one, he must have concocted a thousand different contraptions of various levels of technical sophistication to deter the squirrels from raiding his precious seed stash. Milk jugs, soda bottles, platforms, flanges, strings and springs all spent time adorning his feeders at one point or another.
Yet the squirrels always prevailed.
Papa B’s daughter, and my mother, had always shared in his love of nature, and growing up I cannot recall a time that we did not also have at least a half-dozen feeders visible from our kitchen window. In fact, she can still be found feeding just about any creature that dares to venture far enough into the back yard to obtain it. No matter if a blue jay or finch, chipmunk or deer, or even Papa B’s nemesis…those damned squirrels.
Papa B passed away quite some time ago now, but his introduction to this seemingly simplistic pastime, wild bird feeding, has stayed with me to this day. I imagine that while you most likely are not in the wild bird feed business (kudos to you), that you might have a similar story of someone in your life that introduced you to this modest pastime. It has occurred to me that caring for the wild birds, while a noble endeavor in and of itself, is also in some small way how we can care for and preserve those memories for ourselves. Life is tricky. Things sometimes happen that are out of our control. But those simple acts of caring for someone or something else always seem to stick with us.
To this day, I can not stay mad when I see a squirrel eating from one of my feeders.
I hope that you enjoy Sweet-Seed. Thank you and happy birding.
Mike Cerio
Founder
Sweet-Seed Micro Batch Bird Feed
