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!