Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. Earth Day.

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The birds have grown and gone!

The soon-to-be graduates.

Timeline

Started at the beginning because I was confused. Scroll down for new pics & nest report.

20 March. Took photos. This one was not posted, shows location.

POST Wed 10 April. First nest photo. Because of post, went to look at nest. [Wordless Wednesday]

Wed 10 April. Took more photos, wrote up post for Monday.

Thur 11 April, too dark.

Fri 12 April. Photo, one chick, kinda sorry looking.

Sat 13 April. Said hello to head & yellow beak peeking over rim of nest. We both retreated. Sooooo tempting to keep checking. Due to location of nest, that would be too intrusive.

Sun 14 April. Was over in trailer area doing something else (dog poop). Saw bird fly out from under the overhang. Go mama (or papa). First time I’ve seen an adult bird near the nest. Peeked in. Entrance area is wider? Counted three beaks. Retreated.

Later, second sighting of adult on my way from barn to house. I don’t go near the trailer but I swing around the cars instead of taking the direct path and cast an eye over as I go by.

POST Mon 15 April. Second post, two nest photos from 10 April, outside & inside with blurry beaks. [Baby Birds, Barn Life]

Mon 15 April. Photo. Every time I look, more beaks. Zoom in to see their wittle faces.

Tues 16 April AM. Peeked in. I think I see beaks. Possibly positioned to indicate bigger birds? Didn’t use a light. Didn’t want to wake them up.

Wed 17 April. Morning check. Left nest in the dark. Saw two sleepy beaks.

PM. Photo, moved camera back to mitigate flash. Didn’t seem to wake them.

2nd photo. When I said I thought the nest was pile of sticks leading nowhere, this is what I meant. Also under the overhang. First attempt?

Thur 18 April AM. Dark. Spotted one beak. Bigger?

PM, Dark. 2 two yellow smidges, i.e. beaks.

Fri 19 April AM. Two beaks. Eyes. Motion! Unfortunately, it was from me saying hello & front beak ducking down our of sight back into nest. Left.

PM. Photo. Zoom in, three sets of eyes.

Sat 20 April AM. Bird face looking back at me over threshold of nest. Another in background.

PM. Photo. So tempting to go closer with the flash. Peeked in. Bodies definitely taking up more space in the nest. Halfway up the side of the cavity. Photo at top, same time, no flash.

Sun 21 April AM. Bigger. Two sitting up high enough to see paler feathers on lower half. I made a surprised, pleased squeak. They hunkered back down. I left.

AM. second look. Dark. Sleeping bodies? Need to remember to have my glasses on.

PM. Empty. Moved in for close up once I realized there were no birds to disturb. Fly with joy my feathered friends.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. Sheet music portraits that play as music. Sympawnies. Sales page but a good way to see the images. Music available on YouTube: Sympawnies by Noam Oxman. I know zip about music & am impressed. I suspect if you actually understood what was happening, you would be amazed.

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What can be done with a crossword grid as inspiration?

My Ideas

Weaving, white as weft, black as warp.

LEGO tiles.

Anything with fabric.

What Others Have Done

Puzzle as portrait. Ken Knowlton Mosaics: Will Shortz (NY Times Crossword editor) Portrait as puzzle, ACPT: Mosaic Puzzle.

Go to the 2024 tournament page. 46th ACPT. Scroll down to Videos, Reels and TikTok. Click, Wirecutter: Favorite Pencils and other Crossword Gear. Continue as Guest. Enjoy the crossword-themed items throughout the video.

Xword Info: Grid Art.

Crossword puzzle shirt. Male Pattern Boldness: Michael’s Crossword Puzzle Shirt REVEAL! 2014

Crossword puzzle dresses. A Dress A Day: 4 Across: Prepare for Roasting 2007, ADAD: More Stunt Dressing: Crossword Dress #2 2008.

Crossword Fabric Design. Puzzling: Crossword fabric 2012. Make your own. “This is particularly necessary if you want to have British-style crosswords on your cloth, as most crossword fabrics feature the more solid white American-style grids.” P:Cf

Crossword puzzle book. Anna Shechtman: The Riddles of the Sphinx, Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle (Harper 2024), Okay, not design, but I always give space to books.

Onwards!
Katherine

Words of the outside world. “By that logic, you can score a word based on how well it narrows down the solution space. This turns out to be a difficult problem to figure out whether you have solved it optimally, making it exactly the kind of problem that computer scientists love.” Life Hacker: Science Thinks It Has Found the Best Wordle Starter, Skwarecki, 2022.

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American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
5-7 April 2024
IRL (Stamford Marriott) & Virtual (me)

New For This Year

After the tournament, I was asked to pontificate about my experience at a crossword puzzle tournament. (eek) Small, casual online group, no big deal. (eek.) It was not at all weird to be on the other side of an interview. (eek.) I handled it with my customary suaveness and aplomb. (eek. eek. eek.)

Things I Learned From This Year’s Puzzles

The emcee reminded us to check for typos & empty boxes before hitting submit. Did both in puzzle #1. Caught both. Whew.

The D-Train goes to the Bronx. I should have know this automatically, I used to commute to school on it. Duh. Got from crossing with MADCAP. (Puzzle #2 40A & 41D)

AREPA is a Latin American food staple & ALS Hilton wrote “White Girls”. They crossed at the initial A. Pick a vowel. (Puzzle #2 10A & 10D)

Tea Leoni spells her name with an I. If memory serves, I’ve gotten this wrong in other puzzles. Probably thinking of the country. This was my one, non-5 error.

Results

Puzzles 1-4 & 6-7. One incorrect letter.

Puzzle 5. Ten boxes wrong. See last year’s post for a discussion of the dreaded #5. [Almost Flawless]

This year, they announced that they had made 5 easier. True, with a catch. You had to get the trick. I got it about halfway through. I probably could have finished with more time. But. The trick affected a majority(?) of the clues. If you did not get the theme, the puzzle was incomprehensible. So, not sure which way that counts in terms of making it easier.

Coda

Once again, ACPT did a great job keeping the virtual folks in the loop.

ACPT posts & Puzzle posts [Archives]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Progress has a cost. The Atlas of Drowned Towns, Recovering the Histories of Inundated Communities. Project description, BSU: Professor aims to catalog ‘drowned towns’ of the American West, 2020. Site specific, News One: The Black Town Under Lake Martin: A Father & Son’s Dream Of Greatness, Morris 2022.

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Hwy 63 Bridge (Kowaliga Bridge)
Lake Martin/Tallapoosa River
Alexander City, AL USA
November 2023

Lake Martin.com: Bridges at Lake Martin

Technical Details

Bridge, f/16.0, 1/125 sec., 40.0 mm, ISO 100. Manual mode & auto-focus.

Post production. Resized, border, & watermark.

Taken during a walk outing. [Mostly Walking]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Yesterday was state poets. Today is state horses. Netstate.com: Official State Horses.

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I managed to fail on a horse used for beginner walk lessons. I’m so proud. Not.

Lesson at New Barn. Was too glum afterward to discuss next lesson or blog, so they remain anonymous.

Cute little Quarter Horse-cross mare. Fancy, comfortable saddle. We never trotted a complete circuit of the ring.

She shook her head at the trot. I absolutely could not cope. If she’d shake her head sideways, I’d have flashbacks to Rodney at the clinic, when he slung his head so hard back & forth that I could see his tongue flapping. If she put her head down, it was Milton crow hopping around various locales. I knew she wasn’t going to actually DO any of these things, but my early warning system went haywire anyway.

After a while, mare realized that if she shook her head at me, I’d let her walk. Or I’d grab the reins, which she would interpret as a request to walk.

It was weird. One part of me was glad to be back in a saddle with which I was familiar. I’m good at this. I can do this. Let’s go. Another part was, well, see above.

In my defense, one. Not nerves. I know what nerves feel like. This is an error in response processing. They do x. I react to x-times-1000. I could argue that my overreacting is a reasonable conditioned response given past stimuli. I would prefer if it were otherwise. Brains are weird.

In my defense, two. Assistant trainer got on after. Mare tried the same thing. Assistant trainer does not have my baggage. She was able to ignore.

Where do I go from here? No idea.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. I knew about the US Poet. I did not realize that states had official poets as well, Academy of American Poets: Current U.S. and State Poets Laureate.

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Milton and Rodney.

Embodied wind. Eating grass.

Equine dichotomy.

Links

“April 17 is the day the whole world honors haiku.” The Haiku Foundation: International Haiku Poetry Day. Website has not been updated since 2021. Is Haiku Day still a thing? Dunno.

Academy of American Poets: The Haiga: Haiku, Calligraphy, and Painting

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Reuters: All set for Paris 2024 Games torch ceremony after sunny dress rehearsal, April 15, 2024

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Rodney – 8 miles this week, 8 miles total
Milton – 8 miles this week, 8 miles total
Wednesday 10 April to Monday 15 April

Virtual Tevis Cup 2024
100 Miles in 100 Days
10 April to 21 July

Logistics

Started 10 April.

Wednesday to Monday, six morning handwalks, 1 mile each.

Saturday & Sunday, additional afternoon session, 1 mile each. Milton ride both days. Rodney ride on Sat, handwalk on Sun.

All mileage at a walk.

Pace ~2.6 mph. Hand walks take 23 minutes in the morning. Rides take 2 minutes longer, probably spent at the mounting block.

92 miles to go in 95 days.

Commentary

Morning handwalks and weekend afternoon sessions are standard practice around here. So, no Virtual Tevis specific thoughts. Glad everyone is going well.

Virtual Tevis Posts [Archives]

Onwards!
Katherine