Rounding the Horn

by guest blogger, Elmer Prather

My latest puzzle is a 1000-piece titled Rounding The Horn by Ken Zylla. Before I spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is the steam powered locomotive pictured in the puzzle. I love steam powered locomotives. The train displayed in the picture is the Union Pacific number 942. It is pictured steaming along railroad tracks beside a swiftly flowing stream. 

Rounding the Horn assembled by Elmer Prather

The location is a setting comparable to the Garden of The Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado where sandstone formations like the ones displayed in the picture could be three hundred million years old. The Aspen trees are in full Fall color.

Look at all the lovely details in this close up

I have had the pleasure of riding on several steam powered locomotive trains. I once took a trip on one from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the way to and on the way back at each roadway crossing there were people standing along the roadway waiting for a glimpse of the train with the engineer tooting its horn as it passed by. It was apparent that a lot of people love old steam powered trains.

I was a passenger on another steam powered train that runs from Dillsboro, North Carolina to Bryson City, North Carolina. Shortly after the train departed the station in Dillsboro, the conductor announced that if we looked out of the left window of our passenger car, we could see the remains of the train that was derailed for filming the movie, The Fugitive. Much of the movie was filmed in and around Bryson City.

My favorite Steam powered train ride is the one from Durango, Colorado to Silverton, Colorado. The narrow-gauge forty-mile-long railroad track on which this train travels was constructed to move gold and silver ore from the mines in Silverton to Durango.

I live in Canton, Georgia USA which is near the Southern Museum of the Civil War and Locomotive History which is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate. The steam powered locomotive, the General is displayed there. The General is the locomotive stolen by Andrews Raiders. Andrews, a union spy, twenty union soldiers and two Union sympathizers all disguised as Confederate agents boarded the General at the Marietta, Georgia train depot. They uncoupled the train cars and pulled the General out of Marietta and headed North. They were captured by Confederate forces near Ringgold, Georgia.

The National Museum of Transportation is in Saint Louis, Missouri. It was founded in 1944. The museum has over seventy locomotives dating from the early 1800s. One of these steam powered locomotives is one of twenty-five manufactured by the American Locomotive Company and purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad. It is of the 4-8-4-8-4 Class and its number is #4006. This class of locomotive engine is considered the largest steam powered engine in the world. It is 132 feet nine ½ inches long and weighs six hundred tons. It is called “Big Boy.” During its in-service life, it travelled 1,064.625 miles-almost forty-three times the circumference of the globe. Only eight of the original twenty-five still exists.

When I put a puzzle together, I do a lot of research on what I see in the puzzle picture. During my research, I discovered a plethora of information on steam powered locomotives. This information includes the locomotive’s maker, how many each company made, the size and type of locomotive, the number associated with each engine, where it is currently located, and its condition today. Over the years, as these steam engines wore out or became outdated many of them were turned into scrap metal or converted to diesel powered engines. In Georgia there are a total of fifty steam powered locomotives. Only three of these are still operational and the rest are either being restored, stored, disassembled, dieselized, or on display.

Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U S A

"Rounding the Horn" 1000pc puzzle by Ken Zylla

A Thanksgiving Joyride!

by guest blogger, Elmer Prather

My latest puzzle is a five-hundred-piece titled Joyride by Anthony Padgett. To spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connections to this puzzle are old trucks, my love for dogs and farming. This puzzle fills those bills. The picture displayed in the puzzle tells several stories. One is a story of two golden retrievers getting ready to take a “joyride.” The picture also tells the story of a resilient five window, 1953 Chevrolet 3600 pick-up truck. Its original color was a Seacrest Green and now, after 69 years, is a beautiful patina color.

In 1953, Chevrolet pickup truck buyers could opt for either the three or the four-speed manual transmission in their new trucks. Buyers who purchased the trucks to carry heavy loads usually chose the four-speed 3600 model because of the “granny” gear. The “granny” gear was a low gear used to start the truck moving with a heavy load. If the trucks were used to carry heavy loads with a three-speed manual transmission the clutch would tend to wear out much faster. In 1953 a Chevrolet truck’s base price was around $1,650. Gasoline in 1953 averaged twenty cents per gallon. Today, the truck pictured in this puzzle in the condition it is in, would be worth approximately $15,000.

Joyride 500 piece assembled & photographed by Elmer Prather

Older model Chevrolet pickups like this came from the factory with another long gone feature and that was a “foot stomp” starter. When a driver wanted to crank one of these trucks, the ignition key would be turned and when the driver’s right foot was pressed down on the metal starter mechanism mounted on the floorboard this engaged the starter and the engine would start.

The puzzle picture also highlights the golden yellow and orange Fall leaves dropping from the large trees behind the truck onto the green grass highlighted by late afternoon sun rays. The truck pictured in the puzzle is depicted as a work truck since it is loaded with freshly harvested pumpkins on their way to a market. These pumpkins will soon be decorated for Halloween and displayed on the purchaser’s front porch or made into a pumpkin pie for their dessert at Thanksgiving.

 I once owned a 1936 Chevrolet truck. It was black and had a three-speed manual transmission. I took my dogs for “joyrides” and on hunting trips in that truck. They loved every minute of their adventures. My dogs were a breed known as July Walkers. They were bred to hunt rabbits, opossums, and racoons. The truck was also used on our small farm to carry whatever we needed to move from one place to another.

This puzzle is titled Joyride but as I was putting it together, I saw much more than just a simple “joyride” for the two golden retrievers. I have tried to capture and document what the artist intended for people to see and appreciate with his picture displayed in this puzzle.

The artist’s vision of an old Chevrolet pickup truck still working and still looking good after all these years is a testament to his consummate artistry.

Joyride 500 piece puzzle by Anthony J. Padgett

Available in the USA, here. And shop for Joyride in Canada, here. 

Come On Over By the "Fireside"

by guest blogger, Elmer Prather

My latest puzzle is a five-hundred-piece titled Fireside by Jim Mansel. To spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is my love for old log cabins. This puzzle certainly fits that bill. I have put several other puzzles together that highlighted an old cabin sitting on a lake.

Fireside 500pc assembled and photographed by Elmer Prather 

Puzzle pictures tell a story. The story I read as I put this puzzle together was “WELCOME TO MY HUMBLE CABIN.” The scene captured in this puzzle was an invitation for guests to sit by the brightly burning warm fire and enjoy each other’s company.

As I put this puzzle together, I watched the warm evening sky and the sun reflecting on the water come together. I imagined how it would feel if I were sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs placed near the glowing fire in the fire pit. This puzzle was special because it reminded me of a cabin our hunting and fishing club once rented to meet and plan hunting/fishing trips and to socialize. The cabin was built in the early 1900s for an executive with the Coca Cola Company. It overlooked a lake like the one pictured in the puzzle. It was built on forty acres of land abutting the Chattahoochee River just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The old cabin has been torn down and the land is now a Nature preserve.

The cabin pictured in this puzzle has a massive rock chimney constructed of river rocks. There is a stack of firewood on the front porch to keep the fire burning. The cabin in this puzzle was probably constructed in the early 1900s since it has asphalt shingles on the roof rather than the wooden shingles found on older cabins. The cabin owner must be an angular since he has a boat tethered to the small dock by the lake.

The puzzle made a statement that the owners enjoyed spending time with their friends and neighbors. “Come on over.”

Full Steam Ahead With Lumbering Along

by guest blogger, Elmer Prather

My latest Cobble Hill puzzle is a one-thousand-piece puzzle titled Lumbering Along by Mike Bennett. This is the third Mike Bennett puzzle I have put together. The other two were Santa Fe 3751 and Southern Pacific.

Lumbering Along assembled & photographed by Elmer Prather

I must have a connection with a puzzle before I spend the time putting it together. This puzzle displays a steam engine pulling a load of timber from the mountains in the background. The location of this train must be Colorado because the mountains are the front range of the Rocky Mountains with the stands of Aspen trees displaying their bright yellow Fall leaves shown in the puzzle.

This puzzle reminded me of the time I coordinated a trip to Colorado with five of my close friends and family. Our main objective was to take a steam engine powered railroad trip from Durango to Silverton. We started in Denver, Colorado and on our way to Durango we stopped at several old mining towns: Georgetown, Breckenridge, and Fair Play, Colorado. These old western towns built near the gold and silver mines supplied food and merchandise to the miners.

When we arrived in Durango I arranged for a steam engine powered train trip from Durango, Colorado to Silverton. This railroad track was constructed in the 1800s to carry gold and silver from the mines in Silverton to Durango and on to the U S mint in Denver. This track today ferries tourists from Durango to Silverton and back.

Since it was mid-September when we made this trip, the weather was still comfortable so we carried clothes that we thought would keep us warm. We spent the first night in Durango and the next morning we discovered that it had snowed during the night and was still snowing. There was about three inches of snow on the ground. We put on the warmest clothes we had but were still shivering when we left the Chevrolet Suburban we had rented for the trip and walked to the train for boarding. I had arranged for tickets on the open-air rail car not knowing it would be snowing during our trip. It snowed on us all the way to Silverton.

We toured Silverton and had lunch in one of the quaint cafes on Main Street. That afternoon it stopped snowing, and we boarded the train for our return trip to Durango.

When we left Durango, we drove to Mesa Verde National Park where the Pueblo Native Americans had built massive dwellings in the cliffs. When we left there, we headed for Leadville, Colorado then on to Ouray, Colorado and then drove back to Denver. We spent the night in Denver and caught a plane back to our respective homes around Atlanta, Georgia, having toured much of the state of Colorado.

When I put a puzzle together, I try to understand how and why the image was presented as it was. What was the artist thinking? What statement was the artist trying to make. A picture tells a story and I want to know what that story is trying to tell me as I put the puzzle together. I did some research on the steam powered locomotive displayed in this puzzle. The locomotive depicted in this puzzle had a #2 posted on the front of the engine and on the door of the engine cab. I found that the serial number for the steam locomotive pictured in the puzzle was #1240. It was one of the 625 steam powered locomotives built by Heisler Locomotive between 1892 and 1943. The steam powered locomotive depicted in this puzzle has been retired and is located on a farm in Freeport, Illinois. It has lost its beautiful blue color but still looks great in its black patina.

Lumbering Along 1000pc by artist Mike Bennett

We hope you enjoyed Mr. Prather's story. He has a lot of history and life experience that we always find a pleasure to read about. Thank you! 

P.S. We got a fun fact message from the artist, Mike Bennett. He appreciated Mr. Prather's review, as do we. And we love how Mr. Prather investigates and researches to try and figure out what the puzzle image may be based off of. It turns out that Mr. Bennett had some real life visuals! We'll share the links below if you're interested in learning more about this specific puzzle he created.  This is the link to the story of the train and this is the link to his sketches of the train. While Mr. Prather's uncovering of locomotive #2 may not be for this one - it exists out there and we had fun going on his journey!

This puzzle is also a part of our new bundle offering for trains. You can view it here for Canada or here for the USA. And to stay up to date on our news and deals, please subscribe below. 

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Bundle Up for Autumn Weather

Whether you call it Fall or Autumn, it's time to bundle up for cooler weather. Yes, we're talking about sweater weather, but we're also talking about our favourite thing - puzzles!

To help our puzzlers get the most bang for their buck, we have bundled up puzzles in themes to help you save money so you can collect more of your favourite pastime. Every bundle that we offer gives you one free puzzle. You can expect to see different bundle offerings with new holidays or celebrations. Right now, we have a few fall favourites available in different piece counts, so we highly recommend taking advantage of those while they last. We were going to take down the Cottage Collection since summer ended, but it remains quite popular still - so if you're interested in those, grab them before we swap them out.

Fall 500s (visit our website, we have 1000pc bundle too)

And seeing as how we're talking about weather, let's talk Elements - the Elements Collection by Shelley Davies. Water, Earth, Fire Air - sounds like we're talking about Avatar The Last Airbender tv show, but we're talking about the four 1000 piece puzzles with a seamless vertical alignment that create one bold collage. There are a lot of fun objects to discover once the puzzles are completed. If you haven't participated in an Elements event, we highly recommend adding these to your collection! 

We've also recently added one of our popular artists - Diane Dempsey! If you're a planner and want to think ahead to the Christmas and winter season, then we highly recommend snagging this deal right now. It includes three winter puzzles, as well as her Mid-Century Modern Dream Home architectural theme, which has a seasonal vibe. The other three are: Vintage Main Street, Mid-Mod Seasons Greetings (which was a Zulily exclusive), and Christmas Campers - all 1000 pieces. We'll be adding other Christmas bundles as we get closer, so we can't promise this deal will stay online.

If you know a train lover, then we highly recommend our latest giftable bundle. It's a buy four get one more deal, so you'll be setting up that train fan in your life to go full steam ahead with jigsaw puzzles! It includes puzzles from amazing artists like Mark Keathley, Mike Bennett, and Ken Zylla. 

If there are bundles that you think we should offer, then feel free to reach out and post on our new Facebook group - Quirky Together! It's a place where we celebrate the Cobble Hill puzzles and the quirky pieces that we all love. 

Sewing Notions - Threading Our Way Through Life

by guest blogger, Elmer Prather

Did you know that September is National Sewing Month established by US President, Ronald Reagan back in 1982? As we kick off the first day of fall, we want to share Mr. Prather's "Sewing Notions" write up below. Our hope for you in the fall season is that you'll hold on to that sunny disposition of summer. There can be many obstacles in life in which we have to thread our way through whether it be a physical crowd, financial issues, emotional drain, physical pain, or other hindrances. It's not always easy to get that thread through the needle, and sometimes we need a little help from a needle threader or thimble. We hope in this fall season, you'll always know when to take time for yourself or lean on that threader and thimble. In reading through Mr. Prather's story, the word "community" came to mind. And we love how he said, "...she would allow me to..." - you'll see what we're talking about when you read it. But it just delighted us to no end that a young boy could see the value in sitting with an older group of women who were sewing up something beautiful. May you enter the fall season feeling encouraged. With that, we hope you enjoy reading Mr. Prather's story and leave believing that you can sew or mend anything in your life. Enjoy!

The puzzle pictured below is a 1000-piece puzzle titled, Sewing Notions by Shelley Davies. This is the third Shelly Davies puzzle I have put together. The other two were Shelley’s ABC and Timepieces.

Sewing Notions assembled & photographed by Elmer Prather

I must have a connection with a puzzle before I spend the time putting it together. My connection to this puzzle is related to the sewing box my mother used when I was growing up. Her sewing box had an array of sewing items like the ones displayed in the puzzle. She could get that box out and find anything she needed for the mending or sewing task she had at hand. The puzzle displays sewing related items that range from several type thimbles, different colored sewing thread, several different type scissors, many assorted color and size buttons, sewing needles, measuring tapes, and pieces of cloth.

A small portion showing needle, needle threader, thimble, thread, buttons, counter, ribbon...

My mother raised seven children and I was the second oldest. I watched her many times with her sewing box open mending our clothes. As I watched her do this I learned how to sew and mend clothing.

When we were growing up, we lived in an old farmhouse. Mother had a quilting frame hanging from the ceiling in our living room. Mother made many quilts for all of us to stay warm on those chilly winter nights. When she got ready to make quilts, she would get all her material together, lower the quilting frame and enlist her mother, one or more of her sisters and a few of her friends to help her make quilts. The quilting frame would have plenty of room for eight people to sew at the same time.

When I was in my early teens, if one of the ladies was not able to help her with the quilts on any given day, she would allow me to sit in their chair and help sew those quilts. I learned a lot about life, sitting at that quilting frame listening to those women talk and tell stories of things that happened to them when they were growing up during the depression as well as all the current, local gossip.

This puzzle brought back many great memories of the times I helped my mother make quilts. This is a beautiful puzzle full of bright colors and interesting sewing paraphernalia. If someone had all the sewing items pictured in this puzzle, they could sew or mend anything.

Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U S A

BUNDLES & DEALS

Sewing Notions 1000pc by Shelley Davies

Fall kicks off in the northern hemisphere on 09.22.2022, so for the remainder of September, "Sewing Notions" and any Cobble Hill puzzle on our website is 22% off. Be sure to shop in Canada or the USA depending on your location and use this coupon code at checkout:  SEWLIFE

And if you've really got the fall feels, check out our bundles for more savings.

Cobble Hill Boxes Through the Years

In late 2018, Cobble Hill started including reference posters in the 2000 piece, 1000 piece, 500 piece and Easy Handling 275 piece puzzles. A couple years after that, we started to include the reference posters in our Family Pieces 350 puzzles as well. However, from time to time, our Customer Care team still gets requests to please include posters in the boxes. To help people understand which puzzle boxes include a reference poster, we created this video. 

We have some changes coming down the road again and we'll be sure to update you as soon as we've finalized all the details. So, stay tuned and subscribe below for the latest news!

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