Everyday I’m Puzzling [White Mountain Puzzles]

Thanks to the library now lending out jigsaw puzzles, we’ve had a steady source of puzzles to assemble for free. Over the past nine months or so, we/I’ve put together a puzzle approximately every one to two weeks, with subject matter ranging from cats and books to marbles to pastoral scenes. Today I’ll highlight a few puzzles from White Mountain Puzzles.

White Mountain Puzzles was founded in 1978, and are still making puzzles today. They’re located in New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. Their website claims that their 24” by 30” 1000-piece puzzles are the largest in the industry. White Mountain Puzzles is perhaps best known for their collage-style puzzles, where they pick a theme like Broadway musicals or Christmas stamps, and make a collage out of related images. However, they do also have plenty of landscapes and Americana (general stores, drive-in theaters, etc.), based both on artwork and photographs. They offer hundreds of different puzzles; I found somewhere around 300-400 1000-piece puzzles listed on their website, though not all of them are always in stock.

Their puzzles are fun to solve and the collage puzzles in particular get put together pretty quickly because the individual images are easy to differentiate. The pieces fit together tightly, especially when new, so the entire puzzle can be picked up after assembly, and there are no false fits. The puzzles are random cut, and, though more cardboard-y than Ravensburger or Cobble Hill, overall high quality.

With that, here’s the first puzzle, titled “I Love Massachusetts,” and featuring such icons as Dunkin Donuts, Hoodsie cups, and Spock (Leonard Nimoy). This puzzle was designed/constructed by Charlie Girard, who does a lot of White Mountain’s collage puzzles based on photos/logos.

I Love Massachusetts

Next we have “Old Candy Store,” a candy store filled with jars of candy and excited patrons illustrated by Steve Crisp. This may be the only White Mountain puzzle I’ve done that isn’t a collage or map. It still came together pretty quickly, and had plenty of colors and interesting parts to put together.

Old Candy Store

“The New Millennium” is part of a series of puzzles based on different decades that are done by artist James Mellett. This series highlights important events and people, TV shows, athletic accomplishments, and foods and products associated with each decade. Along with the 1990s puzzle (The Nineties) that I also own, these two puzzles cover most of my childhood.

The New Millennium

Finally, we did “I Love America,” another Charlie Girard creation, which includes national icons like the Liberty Bell, NASA, hockey, and Play-Doh. My final verdict on White Mountain Puzzles: not the most difficult, but fun to assemble. Would recommend.

I Love America

Top Ten _____ [books, general fiction]

Over the past 18 years or so, I’ve read somewhere around 800 books. Just for fun, I thought I’d look at some of my favorites, starting with fiction, and see if anything interesting emerged. In this batch of books, I’ve excluded science fiction/fantasy and YA/children’s, which I plan to go through separately. I’m not a huge fan of romance/thrillers/mysteries, so aspects of those genres don’t feature heavily in the list below. Books are listed in reverse alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Our Town, Thornton Wilder – A play about everyday life in a small New England town at the beginning of the 20th century. Its intentional simplicity and sparseness emphasizes the message, and in many ways is the message.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker – An epistolary tale told by Celie, an African American woman living in the south in the 1900s, about the struggles and abuse she faces. At times violent and explicit, it’s nevertheless a powerful story.

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck – On a street lined with sardine canneries, characters go about their lives in Monterey, California during the Great Depression. I chose Cannery Row over something like The Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men for being slightly less depressing than Steinbeck’s typical work.

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger – A coming of age story filled with angst and alienation in which nothing much happens. Holden is, objectively, kind of annoying, but with reason, and there’s a particular mood that Salinger effectively captures.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – Set in Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Scout Finch growing up with her brother Jem while her father Atticus defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan – When Rachel Chu travels to Singapore with her boyfriend Nick Young, she doesn’t expect to meet a bunch of crazy rich Asians. (Are they crazy rich? Or crazy and rich? Probably both.) It’s a ridiculous and completely fun read.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad), Gabriel García Márquez – Magical realism at its finest; the book follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo, and explores the ideas of fate and inevitability.

City of Tranquil Light, Bo Caldwell – Based on the author’s grandparents’ experiences as missionaries living in China during the first half of the 20th century. The writing treats the characters and setting with care, resulting in a lovely read.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen – Poor Mr. Bennet has five daughters to marry off in early 19th century England. Despite many misunderstandings and preconceived assumptions, will any of the Bennet women find love? Absurd at times, with memorable characters.

If you’re counting, that’s nine books for a top ten list. I couldn’t decide on a tenth, so here are some honorable mentions: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), Dracula (Bram Stoker), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) (arguably the first science fiction novel), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë).

The list is pretty balanced in terms of gender – four female authors and five male authors. The oldest book is Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813; the newest is Crazy Rich Asians, published 200 years later in 2013. Most of the rest of the books cluster around the mid-1900s. There’s one book (One Hundred Years of Solitude) not originally published in English. One Hundred Years of Solitude is also the longest book by page court, per Goodreads, and Cannery Row and Our Town tie for the shortest (though by word court I would guess Our Town is shorter because it’s a play). And lastly, like only players with last names beginning with B scoring for the Revolution, five¹ of the nine books have titles that start with C.

¹Six if you use the original Spanish title for One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Marching On

31 sentence fragments (and three photos) about things that happened during the 31 days of March:

Wednesday, March 1: Started the graphic novel Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift, chipped ice off the back deck, and did laundry.

Thursday, March 2: Grocery day.

Friday, March 3: Tried monk fruit-sweetened oatmeal for breakfast (not bad).

Saturday, March 4: Shoveled the driveway for (likely) the last time of the season.

Sunday, March 5: Finished the birthday prinsesstarta that was baked the previous week (recipe from The Great British Baking Show: The Big Book of Amazing Cakes) and Wednesday.

Monday, March 6: Reviewed some photos, read some emails, and cored and de-eyed a pineapple.

Tuesday, March 7: Continued making my way through A Clash of Kings and started The Chair.

Crocus

Wednesday, March 8: Rewatched the Great British Bake Off season 9 final, the one with the outdoor open fire technical bake.

Thursday, March 9: Sent in some job applications.

Friday, March 10: Made a trip to the library and worked on a jigsaw puzzle.

Saturday, March 11: Spent the day at home with the puzzle and a book about a time-travelling café.

Sunday, March 12: Listened to the New England Revolution implode on the west coast and lose to LAFC 0-4 at midnight via radio call like it’s 2005.

Monday, March 13: Finished another graphic novel, Almost American Girl, about a Korean girl who moves to America in the 90s knowing very little English and eventually finds her place thanks to comics.

Tuesday, March 14: In honor of Pi Day, baked a cranberry apple galette.

Rubik's Cube jigsaw puzzle

Wednesday, March 15: Ate cranberry apple galette.

Thursday, March 16: First crocus in our sad flowerbed.

Friday, March 17: Put together a Rubik’s Cube jigsaw puzzle that was a gift from a Cornell friend for possibly the first time.

Saturday, March 18: Baked a Nutella/chocolate-filled babka, started another jigsaw puzzle, and heard the Revolution beat Nashville off Gustavo Bou’s first goal of the season while folding laundry.

Sunday, March 19: Dim sum lunch courtesy of (mostly) Trader Joe’s.

Monday, March 20: Watched Galaxy Quest (still haven’t met a parody movie I don’t like).

Tuesday, March 21: Started two kinds of tomato seeds – cherry and yellow pear.

Nutella/chocolate babka

Wednesday, March 22: Finally finished A Clash of Kings.

Thursday, March 23: Baked a batch of chocolate chip pecan banana muffins and talked to a friend from grad school.

Friday, March 24: Picked up The Soulmate Equation at the library to see if it was better than The Love Hypothesis (it was).

Saturday, March 25: Got to watch the Revolution beat DC United thanks to Carles Gil’s first touch after coming on as a substitute being an assist to Bou.

Sunday, March 26: Curry for lunch outdoors at the park.

Monday, March 27: Made research presentation slides the day before the presentation (so business as usual around here).

Tuesday, March 28: Went for an on-site interview.

Wednesday, March 29: Tomato seedlings made their appearance.

Thursday, March 30: Had blueberry frosted wheat for breakfast and bread with butter, arugula, and chorizo for lunch.

Friday, March 31: Mostly successfully made sushi and mostly relearned to knit.

Project Recap [Christmas tree ornament]

To try out something a little different, I ordered a kit with one of my online cross stitch orders some time ago. The stitching has been completed for a while, but I finally added the French knots and did the final cutting out of my Christmas tree ornament. Designed by Susan Winget for Dimensions, the kit came with 14 count plastic canvas, cotton thread, a needle, and the pattern. The floss arrived sorted and labeled on a cardboard organizer, which wasn’t absolutely necessary for this kit, but is nice to have. Symbols were chosen well and easy enough to distinguish from each other. Additionally, the paper pattern uses two colors, black and pink, which helps to further differentiate some of the symbols. The type of stitch and number of strands were clearly tabulated and overall it feels like a professionally put together pattern. Also included were brief stitching instructions, but I didn’t use them so I can’t comment on how effective those were.

For something that was relatively small (about 4.75” x 3.12” at its tallest and widest points), this project took considerably more time than it would have taken on Aida. While laboring on my tree, I discovered that I strongly dislike stitching on plastic canvas. The holes become very tight after you start stitching and have multiple strands going through each hole, making the needle hard to get through the canvas. Eventually, I stabbed a hole in my finger from pushing the needle through the canvas, though this problem could be solved with a thimble or different stitching technique. I also found it hard to anchor starting and ending threads if I was running them under existing stitches, again because of how tight the stiches were to the canvas. With all that said, the end result looks really, really nice. The backstitching adds definition without being too blocky and the French knots that I considered not doing are needed to bring out the snowflakes. The final product looks good enough that I would even do another project on plastic canvas if it were similarly well-designed. Apologies in advance to my fingers.

The initial cross stitching took about three weeks, then I added the backstitching a couple months later on a trip home, then a couple months ago I spent another two days doing French knots and one more day cutting out the tree and making the ornament hanger. The plastic canvas was surprisingly easy to cut with scissors, but I ended up using a craft knife for most of the little cuts around the tree branches. The back is on the messier side for me, partly because there were more color changes than in some of my larger projects, and partly because I travelled farther than I normally would so I wouldn’t have to start/end another thread. I’m considering trying to back it with felt, but either way it’ll be going up as a Christmas decoration. As I mentioned above, it was a very well put together kit. Worth the pain.

Middlesex Fells

As autumn came to New England, I went searching for good fall hikes in the area and the Middlesex Fells came up as an option, specifically the Skyline Trail with views of Boston from Wright’s Tower. The Fells are managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation, who also oversee the state parks. At over 2,500 acres, the Fells have more than 100 miles of trails as well as mountain biking, boat rentals, and an off-leash dog field. The reservation is split in two by route 93; on this visit we hiked on the western side, which is also the mountain biking side. The Skyline Trail loops around the three reservoirs (North, Middle, and South) in the western Fells, sometimes coinciding with the Reservoir Trail and Mountain Bike Loop, and passes by Wright’s Tower at the trail’s southernmost point. According to the DCR website, the Skyline Trail is 6.9 miles, but people on AllTrails and other sites said it was longer, with distances ranging up to 8.5 miles. AllTrails also had multiple people comment that the trail was not well marked in places and could be confusing where it intersected/merged with/separated from other trails.

We began at the Sheepfold parking lot, which serves as a main access point for a lot of the western trails. It then took us over fifteen minutes to find the Skyline Trail, so yes, I would agree with the people who said that the trail markings need some work. Within another 30-45 minutes, we lost the trail again, and it wasn’t just us, because in less than 5 minutes we met two other groups with the same problem. We ended up backtracking until we found the turnoff down a pile of rocks that was apparently the trail, marked with an inconspicuous blaze on an out of the way tree. Fortunately, from there the trail was marked better, at least well enough that we didn’t lose it again.

Thanks to our wayfinding delays, we only made it a mile or two on the trail before we stopped for lunch by the North Reservoir (surprise, it was peanut butter and jam sandwiches and bananas). From there, we rounded the top of the reservoir and started heading south along the west side of the reservoirs. This part of the trail tended to be smoother and flatter, especially any parts that were shared with the mountain biking trails, so we made better time until we got to the bottom of the South Reservoir. There, the trail split off into a network of rocky ups and downs that eventually meandered its way to Wright’s Tower. The view here was nice, though we were hoping for more fall colors. The final couple of miles remained quite rugged, and I ended up cutting off the last bit by crossing over to what Google maps¹ had labeled as the Railway Trail that was much flatter.

Rocky, hilly, root-y trail

¹Google maps was somewhere between mostly useless and not greatly helpful in navigation because of the very large number of side trails that it didn’t have properly mapped. Even the main trails weren’t labeled correctly, if they were labeled at all, so I wouldn’t rely on Google to get you to a particular trail, though it’s okay for tracking your general progress.

In the end, it took us 5.5 hours to complete the loop, which included losing our way multiple times, lunch, and some time at Wright’s Tower (I'd estimate closer to 4 hours of actual hiking). The entire trail is unpaved, either dirt or rock, though the west side of the loop has some areas that are flatter and smoother while the rest (north, south, east) is very rocky and hilly. As discussed above, the trail markings are particularly poor in the northeast quadrant of the trail. Other than Wright’s Tower, there aren’t any great vistas, and we barely even got to see much of the reservoirs. I would hike the trail again, but without the expectation of seeing many skyline views and as more of a woods trail, not a scenic one.

View of Route 93/Boston from Wright's Tower

Parking was free at the Sheepfold and at a number of the other parking lots around the Fells, though not all the lots are free. It was pretty busy on a fall Saturday with lovely weather, but not crowded. Sharing the trails with mountain bikers at times wasn’t bad; the sections weren’t too long and nobody was riding too recklessly. Final verdict: The Skyline Trail wasn’t bad, and I’d hike it again, but I wouldn’t necessarily put it on a list of amazing fall hikes. There are also a number of other trails at the Middlesex Fells that are possibilities for future adventures.