Due to the passing of Linda’s dad, the blog will be on hiatus for a few weeks.

EVOLUTION OF A PUZZLE

"It's a puzzlement!" Sorry, I just couldn't help sneaking in that reference to The King and I, a movie that I've always loved. Last week I revealed the picture of the completed "Rainforest Butterfly" puzzle, which we finished on February 2nd. We started a new puzzle on February 4th and finished it on February 8th. This one was pretty easy because it only had 750 pieces. It was fun to put together, though, as we were excited to see it finished. The calico cat in it looks almost exactly like our sweet Precious Baby, who passed away in 2016.

The "Peeber" puzzle

We received a new 1000 piece puzzle last Friday from Linda's daughter, Emily. She thought that it would be good for our "retired brains" to have a challenge. As if that Rainforest Butterfly wasn't hard enough! So, we got started on it right away. I decided that this puzzle would be a good candidate for me to do a series of photographs on the evolution of a jigsaw puzzle. The first step is dumping all of the pieces out of the box onto the surface upon which you are going to assemble the puzzle.

A pile of puzzle pieces

Next you have to turn all the pieces face-up, and at this time it is a good idea to separate out all of the edge pieces. In a typical square puzzle this is easy to do since an edge piece will always have a straight side. This did not hold true for the butterfly puzzle, however, as the outline of that puzzle was irregular. Below is a picture of what you wind up with after this step. All of the pieces are flat on the table, which left us absolutely no room to start assembling the puzzle. So, we eventually had to stack pieces which means you are constantly moving them around. It just makes it a bit harder, which in our world is a good thing.

All pieces face-up

Edge pieces separated out

Once you get enough room cleared to start, the first order of business is to assemble the edge pieces to establish the outline of the puzzle. In this picture below we had to stack some of the pieces in the middle.

Outline established

Now the work on the puzzle begins in earnest. You will find that the best tool in your search for puzzle pieces is the picture on the box. Linda and I pass the box back and forth, back and forth almost constantly when we start a puzzle. It helps you get a fixed picture in your mind of what the puzzle will look like when completed. The more you look at the picture, the more little things you will see revealed to help you. There are several approaches to working on a jigsaw puzzle. You can conduct your search for pieces by looking for a specific shape to fit into other puzzle pieces. This approach works very well when the puzzle has parts already assembled. Another approach is to look for a specific color that matches surrounding puzzle pieces. I usually pick an area to work on, zero in on a certain color in that area, and then find all the pieces that match the color. Then I try to fit them together. Once you have a few pieces connected in your area you can move on to the final approach, which is looking for pieces of an object depicted in the puzzle. This involves close inspection of the picture on the box. This puzzle we are doing now is so intricate that sometimes I have to use a magnifying glass to see what I am looking for. Here is a close-up picture showing some of the tiny details on the pieces.

Lots of feet in this puzzle!

Here's a short video walk-through of the puzzle as it stands right now.

And here's a picture of what we have done so far. This is definitely a hard puzzle, but still a lot of fun. We find ourselves saying "just let me find one more piece" and then hours later, when we still haven't found that piece, we walk away for a bit. Puzzling can suck up more of your time than being on Facebook! And that, my friends, is a very good thing!

Our current "time black-hole"

BIRD WATCHING & WALKING

We have had some nice, warm, sunny days lately that almost had us tricked into thinking Spring was just around the corner. But then Monday night the temperature got down to 19 degrees and brought us back to reality. The birds have been having a field day out at the feeders. As soon as Linda puts one of the peanut butter-lard-cornmeal cakes out for them, they descend upon it like vultures. So we have been enjoying the antics of the birds lately. One morning this past weekend Linda told me to check out a little sparrow beneath the feeder. He was so cute I had to get a video of him. We think he was sitting in the sun napping, and he would put his head up every few seconds to check out the terrain, and then tuck it back under his wing.

I snapped this photo below of a Black-billed Magpie on top of an large evergreen on our walk at Tahoma Cemetery this past week.

We also took a walk on the Greenway at the part that runs right beside the Yakima River. I was still hoping to see an eagle, but no such luck. However, we did see this duck catching a ride down the river on the swift current.

The winter colors were very much evident on that bright, sunny day. The wind picked up a bit before we left, but it was a fantastic walk. There was so much to see and the weather was so nice that we wound up walking about twice as far as we usually do.

The water was flowing very swiftly down the river, making whitecaps at various spots. The sound of rushing water almost drowned out the traffic noise!

ARTY PHOTO OF THE WEEK

On our walk at Tahoma Cemetery I stopped to admire some grasses along the driveway. The sun was shining behind them and they were almost glowing.

PARTING SHOT

I think the warm weather also tricked Summer Girl into thinking Spring was coming. She has been enjoying her time outdoors basking in the warm sun. All that basking came to a stop on Tuesday as it was bitter cold outside. So she was relegated to watching the birds out the front window.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

I hope everyone has a great day spent with the ones you love the most. Here's a picture to remind us all that love never dies.

See you next week!

PUZZLE REVEALED ~ MORE WALKING ~ NEW FEATURE ON THE BLOG ~ PARTING SHOT

PUZZLE REVEALED

The puzzle is finally finished! It was very challenging but we both so much enjoyed putting it together. Here is the final picture and as you can see, it's a butterfly-shaped puzzle.

Rainforest Butterfly

My good friend Linda H. read in a previous blog about the butterfly-shaped puzzle we put together back in North Carolina, so she thought that we needed to do another one. She showed up at our front door one evening bearing this as a "just because" gift. I must admit that I think this one was way harder to put together. Normally the outline of the puzzle is pretty easy to do, but the intricate design of the outline of this particular puzzle was one of the hardest parts to get together. It is a beautiful puzzle, as the closeup video below of the entire puzzle shows.

We would like to thank Linda H. for all the hours of enjoyment we got from putting this puzzle together. Of course, now we are on to another one so stay tuned in future blogs for progress reports. Here is a picture of the new one we've started.

Any guesses yet?

MORE WALKING

This past week we took another walk at Randal Park. It was once again a dreary day, but we decided to take a walk anyway. The ducks and geese were there to greet us as usual. They actually didn't pay us much attention because they were busy eating.

We like this park so much because it has a pond. The department of Parks & Recreation is in the process of planting some shrubs and grasses along the edge of the pond, so there are orange barriers up in certain places. There are also plans to resurface the pathway around the park, which is a good thing because it is very uneven. The pond has a large paved viewing area at one end and that is where I like to go to take pictures and videos of the ducks and geese. Here's a short video of a duck taking a bath, a visual rendition of the expression "like water off a duck's back."

Sometimes the obvious subject of a photograph is not the only thing you should be looking for. A lot of times the photographer's intention is to take a picture of something else, but sometimes this intention is so subtle that you really have to look at the whole picture to see what the photographer was aiming to capture. Take a look at this picture, what do you see?

Ripples in the water cause a ghostly image of the trees on the edge of the pond

A couple of days later the sun came out so we decided to take a walk at the Arboretum. When we left the house it was still quite chilly, but as we walked along the path we actually got very warm from being in the sun. 

There are always a couple of flocks of Canada Geese at the Arboretum foraging around in the wide open spaces, under the trees and shrubs, and on the pond. They were dabbling around underneath the trees when we arrived, finding little morsels or insects for their breakfast.

Three up...three down

I got a few pictures at the bird blind so you can see the set up there. 

Yakima Arboretum Bird Blind

Above is a picture of the back side of the blind, where you stand to view the wildlife on the other side. 

Open viewing slat in bird blind

This picture above shows one of the slats dropped down so I can take pictures through the hole. Below you can see my view of the feeding area (note the shadow of my head in the middle).

Linda spread out a couple of containers of birdseed around the area and it wasn't long before we had a customer. He wasn't the only one as there were birds and squirrels all over the place within a few minutes.

The bird blind is just wonderful for taking closeup pictures of the birds and squirrels as they come there to feed. I am so glad the Arboretum constructed this feature for the benefit of the bird-loving public. Now, if I could just figure out a way to make them stay still...

NEW FEATURE ON THE BLOG

I decided to add a new intermittent feature to the blog called "Arty Photo of the Week." From time to time I will share one of our photos that we think is worthy of being called "art." As justification for being able to call our pictures "art," I cite the French saying from the early 19th century: "L'art pour l'art" which translates into English as "Art for art's sake." This expression embodies the idea that the foremost aim of a work of art is the self-expression of the creator of the work.

PARTING SHOT

This time of year it is very hard to get an action picture of Summer Girl. Lately she has been spending a lot of her time in the house, sleeping in one or the other of her favorite spots. She has become quite good at ignoring me. Nevertheless, she is so adorable. Just look at those little paws!

That wraps it up for this week, be sure and check back again next week!