Entries to Win Afghan

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

We DO Have a Winner! (and some fooling around)


I'm so glad that Ratty commented that he had sent an entry for the contest. He sent it from a different email than he usually uses, and it got caught in my junk mail filter. He solved the puzzle completely! SPOILER ALERT- if you are trying to solve the puzzle, skip to the next paragraph. The quote was from The Superior Peninsula by Lon Emerick. Remember that the first initials of the clues spelled that out. Here's the quote: "The ice caves north of Eben should be approached quietly, even reverently. The ice formations are especially spectacular this year, long fluted columns of pale green-- thick Byzantine pillars in amber and ivory. When icicles fell, they set off an enchanting musical tinkling." It refers to the Ice Caves in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the Rock River Canyon Wilderness.

The tiebreaker questions: In the first photo a dog and person were traveling right to left, and a deer in the other direction. Ratty got this right too, and even correctly speculated that the dog and human were me and Maggie. In the second photo, Ratty guessed a bird of some kind. I purposely made this one rather obtuse, since I thought I would need a tiebreaker. It was actually Maggie's tail! The snow was very deep and she was floundering through. Every time she switched her tail it made that funny mark!

The Top Commenters
I like to give the top commenters of the past month a free link with a small icon in the sidebar. There were 59 total commenters, and 221 comments! I really appreciate every one, and try to respond. There were 10 clear winners. Here they are:
Everyday Adventurer (Ratty- 26 comments)
Carmen's Chronicles (Carmen- 25 comments)
Dances of Dreams (IcyBC - 24 comments)
Ann's Snap & Edit (Ann- 22 comments)
Experiences (Wenn- 19 comments)
My Journey (rainfield61- 17 comments)
Secondary Roads (Chuck - 15 comments)
Vanilla Seven (VanillaSeven- 12 comments)
Sue Jean (Sue Jean- 11 comments)
Our Simple Life (Julia- 10 comments)

I finished the puzzle at 6:10 tonight! I'll show you its picture tomorrow, but I have some stark winter pics that I made B&W for today.

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See Winter Stillness


10 comments:

RNSANE said...

Congratulations to Ratty! I did give it a try but didn't make it to the finale.

Shark, did you sleep at all last night? I cannot believe you already got that puzzle finished! Did you recruit your fellow church members to come in and help?

The black and white winter snow pictures are wonderful. Makes me glad I had a beautiful sunny day as I went out and looked at the Pacific Ocean! We reached a high of 60 degees!

Rick (Ratty) said...

The first picture with the tracks was the easy part, by far. I thought those "bird" tracks looked strange, but I would never have guessed the true answer.

I love these winter pictures. I have to say, even with my slide down the hill last week, I've been enjoying hiking in the snow this year.

Anonymous said...

Congratulation to the winner, and thank you for the small ad, Sharkbytes!

Your black and white photos of winter are beautiful.

wenn said...

wow, that's interesting! thanks for the link!

VanillaSeven said...

Congratz on your contest! That B&W pictures looks stunning!

Secondary Roads said...

Congrats to our friend, Ratty! Love those B&W pics. They capture the spirit and feel of the season.

Ann said...

Well congratulations to Ratty. Love those black and whites

Lin said...

Crud, I didn't even make the list! Ugh. Either I'm slipping or the competition is tough! (don't answer) Love the photos in black and white. The second is my fav!

Sharkbytes said...

Carmen- Nope, no all-nighters! It was relatively straight-forward to do. Glad you got to enjoy the ocean. I do still like winter, though. I seem to need the seasons.

Ratty- I'm so glad you didn't get banged up too badly. Do you get enough snow cover on your trails that snowshoes make sense. It seems that I am recalling "not really" from my years in Ann Arbor.

Icy- You earned that ad! I really appreciate the interaction with readers, and this is one real way I can say thank you.

Wenn- no problem. Are you always so brief?

Vanilla- I liked the BW look too. I think I might have composed the last one better. Maybe just used one group of cones

Chuck- You know, sometimes I look at winter pictures and I have a hard time telling if they are color or BW. Everything is so monochrome a lot of the time.

Ann- Thanks- there is a lot of drama that appears when the color is drained, isn't there?

Lin- you said you needed a little breather, and you took it. Nothing wrong with that, except that I was sorry I couldn't give you that link. You were in a 3-way tie for 11th place with 9 comments. I value yours for their quality, but if I start awarding links based on quality things could get ugly- simple counting makes it easier to give tangible rewards. But I am always happy when you stop by.

Julia said...

I have so so fallen off the boat on the contests.

But with illnesses and wacked out schedule I've been forced to downsize my blogging.

Love the snowy pictures. I need some snow time I think.