Monthly Archives: October 2023

Proverbs and Idioms Puzzle

Proverbs and Idioms Puzzle

Proverbs and Idioms Puzzle

We finished another puzzle in the last few days. This one is another with illustrations of proverbs and idioms and at 1505 pieces, it took us a while. Although areas of bright color are sometimes the easiest to work on, there are times when I get concentrated on things like the sky and for this puzzle, once we had a lot of the easier bits done, I tackled the sky, working primarily with shapes and fine gradations of color. It’s challenging and part of what makes puzzles interesting. The other ‘rule’ we have is we don’t look at the box. That’s cheating, in our book, and it also serves to make the puzzle more interesting, especially with something like this where you have no idea of the overall design ahead of time.

This puzzle is, as you might notice, missing one piece. We actually found that piece after we took it apart to pit it back in its box, so that’s fine. More curious than that, though, is that there was an extra piece that clearly isn’t from this puzzle at all. We’ve no idea where that came from.

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Anemone

Anemone

Anemone

We took a brief trip to the Agricultural History Farm Park today. After wondering through the Master Gardeners demonstration garden and taking a few pictures, we went to the dahlia garden. We were fortunate enough to run into Nick Weber, who grows both dahlias and roses. It was great to see him and get caught up on things that are going on.

This is an anemone from the Master Gardeners garden, and I think they are beautiful. We haven’t had a lot of success with them, but I keep trying.

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At The General Omar Bradley Oak

Seth, Silas, Tsai-Hong, Iris, Eloise, Kaien, Dot, Cathy, Dorothy, and Henry

Seth, Silas, Tsai-Hong, Iris, Eloise, Kaien, Dot, Cathy, Dorothy, and Henry

We had a beautiful day at the farm with most of the family. The weather was amazing and it was really nice to be together. We walked to the big oak tree. Our neighbors named it the General Omar Bradley and we’ve adopted that name ourselves. We don’t know how old it is but it’s almost certainly over 200. The three kids each enjoyed sawing firewood (not from the oak) and we had a nice meal. We also walked in the orchard to see all the clearing work that’s been done.

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Widewater, C&O Canal

C&O Canal, Widewater

C&O Canal, Widewater

Cathy and I went to Great Falls this afternoon and had a lovely walk. We went out to the Olmsted Island overlook and I got a few nice pictures of the river, which was quite low. Across the river at the Virginia Great Falls overlook we could see a couple have wedding pictures taken, with the woman wearing her wedding dress and the two of them on the rocks overlooking the falls.

We walked down the towpath as far as widewater, that section of the canal that’s in a more natural channel with rock sides. It’s a beautiful stretch of the canal and was especially so with the fall color coming on. The water there was low, as well.

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Cathy On The Potomac River

Cathy On The Potomac River

Cathy On The Potomac River

We drove to Pennyfield Lock today and walked up stream past Blockhouse Point. We took a few detours off the towpath, heading down to the river. First we went around one of the artificial ponds between the canal and the river that were built, I believe, in the early part of the 20th century. We got off the towpath again north of Blockhouse point and that’s where this pictures was taken, sitting on the rocks on the side of the river. The river is quite low, even for this time of year, but I suspect we’ll start getting rain again soon and it will be back up.

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Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum)

Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum)

Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum)

After our Sunday visit with Cathy’s mom we went to the Sandy Spring Friends Meeting House and parked. We thought we’d take a walk south from there into the fields around the Sandy Spring. We ran into someone who asked if we wanted a tour of the meeting house, so we did that. My great great grandparents met there sometime before November 20, 1852 (since that’s when they got married).

After that we walked to the Maryland state champion white ash tree (Fraxinus americana) and then on to the spring. On the way back I got a few pictures of bluebirds (Sialia sialis) and a house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) and this shot of what I believe is a palm warbler (Setophaga palmarum).

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Viburnum acerifolium (Mapleleaf Viburnum)

Viburnum acerifolium (Mapleleaf Viburnum)

Viburnum acerifolium (Mapleleaf Viburnum)

We went for a walk at Lake Needwood today. I didn’t get many pictures. We did see a few birds and I got a few of a great blue heron in a tree but they aren’t all that good. We saw quite a few of these mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) growing in the woods. It’s considerably more noticeable this time of year because of it’s striking fall color. At first I thought they were small maples but the dark blue (almost black) berries gave them away. Nice woodland shrubs. It was a popular day to be out and there were lots of people on the trail.

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