I'll be away for blueberry season, with minimal internet access, until about the third week of September.
But although I'll be away, Sunday Puzzle won't. Pucklady will be hosting the potluck puzzle party on the first Sunday of each month; Villanova Rhodes will be providing a delightfully devious JulieCrostic on the third Sunday of each month; and I'm queuing up re-posts of some of the earliest JulieCrostics for the weeks in between.
Tonight's puzzle is the second JulieCrostic to be posted here by someone other than Julie herself. It was created and posted by wayoutinthestix (who, alas, is no longer an active participant in the Sunday Puzzle series but can often be found in Saturday Morning Garden Blogging. (Stix is as avid and as knowledge about plants as Julie was about birds.) If you're ready to match wits with the flowery Floridian, head on down below the orange squiggle.
If you're new to Sunday Puzzle, you can find a detailed explanation of how these puzzles work in any Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up diary (as well as an introductory puzzle to work and an example of a solved puzzle).
Back in the early days, Julie used to tell us what the word-length pattern for the puzzler was and stix continued that tradition. But since you folks have gotten pretty expert at team-solving these things, the gremlins insisted that I shouldn't include that information tonight. And since I'd prefer the gremlins not sabotage things too much during my absence, I'm inclined to let them have their way on this.
But I think the gremlins won't mind if I provide a couple of bits of helpful information:
* Answers include one archaic word.
* The verticals spell out the names of two Kossacks who were active at the time of the original posting; one is still active, the other has been absent since 2010.
All right, here are the clues. Have fun!
1-A) stone
1-B) lustrous materials
1-C) wails
2-A) crown
2-B) date
2-C) simple vehicle
3-A) pothead
3-B) hiker’s decision
3-C) interconnected group
4-A) had an inclination
4-B) arranged balls
4-C) proceeded slowly
5-A) drives in with force
5-B) pulls the plug
5-C) turned oak to ash
6-A) organ
6-B) truly
6-C) shiny
7-A) special set of words
7-B) mischievous spirit
7-C) mean
8-A) aromatic herb
8-B) soundness
8-C) very good
9-A) woody
9-B) yellowish brown
9-C) works of art
Next week is potluck puzzle party with pucklady!
(And I'll post the answers to tonight's puzzle two weeks from now, along with JulieClassic # 8.)