Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=60339&page=5#47 Author: Terwin Time Posted: 4/22/2018 at 9:45 PM [quote=1231947] When you say 'any one submission' are you referring to a specific picture, or to a physical object? For example, I took a picture of a rose on a rose bush in my front yard for something beautiful just outside my house, and then I took a picture of one of the branches for something thorny, and finally the bush itself as a flowering bush. If needed I have two other rosebushes in the front yard I, so I can take pictures of each bush for a different requirement, but I was under the impression that the requirement was just a new picture for each item on the list.

Again, the goal of this game is to just have fun and go outside and win some Sylestia prizes for doing so. We are not going to be stickler for rules here and we never have been. We just ask players to do the best that they can do.

We would prefer that you try and not use the same 'thing' for multiple objectives. So if you have a rosebush and want to use that for thorns. Then we'd ask that you find something else that's "beautiful" and another thing that's "flowering". However, if that's your only option and you just use different specific bushes or whatever, then that's fine.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=60339&page=5#50 Author: Bluejellybeans Time Posted: 4/22/2018 at 11:56 PM This will be interesting. I havent been outside for quite some time. Also, does it count as "wild growing berries" if they haven't appeared yet? I have wild raspberries growing behind my shed, but theres no raspberries on it.

We would prefer that there actually be the 'thing' on it. So berries, thorns, flowers, fruit, etc - whatever the objective is.

If your specific thing hasn't shown up yet - you can always wait and check back in a month or so - the contest will still be here.

If the contest is imminently ending and you haven't been able to get that thing - then submit whatever you have as your entry rather than just submitting nothing for that objective.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=60339&page=5#49 Author: Lostwords13 Time Posted: 4/22/2018 at 10:28 PM I'm with many others here :/ Being one of the people from one of those areas that are very much not at all favored, i can say from experience that most of things are not possible to find in many areas. Yes, i understand not everyone is going to find everything and its not expected for people /to/ find everything. But in all reality, people in certain areas have a better chance of finding a majority of these things. Its always been that way with this game, but typically I am at least able to hit the participation amount. Thats not the case this time around. I went through earlier and counted how many I may /potentially/ be able to find. With pure luck, I could find maybe 9 of them. That doesn't qualify for participation credit, so i may as well not even bother. Its disappointing because this has /always/ been one of my fave forum games, despite always being on hard mode because of the climate i'm in when it occurs(City in the desert is highly unfavored for these sorts of things). I don't /want/ to just sit it out, because I do enjoy this game and have honestly looked forward to it all year. I happen to be both on the "its still winter here" side and the "these things dont naturally occur at any time..." sides and /still/ can only get 9 things between 2 different states. And thats even including things that I can /possibly/ stretch the meaning of. And while I do appreciate the contest being posted early since it does mean that personally i do get that 2 state benefit due to lucky timing, its...not all that helpful when the list favors such a specific section of the world. (In terms of red birds, since that one was specifically mentioned: in my hometown, w only have 2 types of birds that have red on them at all. Both are very rare to see, and tend not to venture too far into the city where I live. I'd have to be very lucky to see them(they are one of the 9 things I may be able to find). I see one maybe every other year, and that includes ones that end up at the wildlife rehab center my mom works at.) The list doesnt have to be "boring and generic" to be inclusive. Atm, the list is very much either "you can get almost all if not all of these" or "you can get hardly any". Theres many things that a more dessert or cold area would not be able to find, but not anything that a more moderate area like the midwest wouldn't be able to find. It'd be one thing if there were things that a city dweller or a desert dweller could find that maybe a non-city/desert dweller couldn't find very easily. (for example, a desert dweller might find a cactus, but someone outside of the desert likely wouldnt. Someone in one of the "its still winter" areas might be able to find something thats still cold or soemthign like that. Neither of those are any more generic than a flowering bush/tree or soemthign thorny, but allow for more areas to be involved. And those are just examples.) Again, I say this because it is one of my fave contests on here and I've looked forward to it all year. Its horribly disappointing to not even be able to qualify for participation purely because of where I live (which isnt always a persons choice)

I have a very difficult time believing that you can only find 9 of the 20. I ran through and came up with this pretty quickly for a south-western desert area for the United States:

1. Easy
2. Easy https://www.ehow.com/list_7385484_ground-cover-moss-grows-arizona.html
3. http://winwinfarm.com/2013/12/fruit-tree-varieties-arizona/
4.
5. Easy
6. Easy
7. Easy
8.
9. Easy
10. Easy
11. https://www.tripsavvy.com/cactus-plants-and-flowers-4051688
12. Desert Willow, Vitex, Ironwood, Sweet Acacia, etc, etc
13. Pretty flexible
14. Easy
15.
16. Pretty easy... scorpion, hornets/bees, "hoverfly"
17.
18. Easy
19. Easy
20. Easy

11 of them are incredibly easy and should be just about completely universal unless you live in Antarctica or somewhere else in the world atm that's in the dead of winter. Even still, 9 of those 11 are essentially complete gimme's found just about anywhere on Earth and just require a bit of effort.

2 others are also pretty flexible and very doable.

That's already 13.

Then I linked you 3 others specific to the region. That's 16.

And this doesn't include any of the others that I'd categorize as "difficult", but doable, and doesn't include any that you may be able to find in your current location.

Find some weeds. Just some weeds xD I was going to take a picture of a marijuana plant but my friend said while i thought that funny and ironic that it might be hmm not as funny and kinda inappropriate on here xD

Find a rock with moss on it: Coming

Find a fruit tree: This is a plum tree, it is autumn in australia atm so its 6 months or so from having fruit on it again

Find wild growing berries: Coming, they wont be edible berries. They are probably those berries that make you see unicorns and faeries before you die a swift and horrible death. i wont touch them but i will take a picture of them. I do have a grapevine but is a grapevine "wild growing berries" cause we didnt plant it xD bird poop did

Find shedded animal hair/fur: Just vacuumed the rug. will check that later xD

Find a flock of birds: yeah of course they werent around when i went to photograph them. coming

Find some litter and clean it up: coming

Find insect/spider eggs: This is a spider nest, it has eggs in it. It also has a red backed spider in it that can kill you. Picture was taken and then nest was disposed of by not me

Find a sunset: ooooh you are in for a treat here. I live near the water but there are too many houses around to get a good sunset picture so i drove to the top of a local hill thingy and took the pics. There are two cause the one with my name doesnt do the view justice

Find a sunrise: coming maybe, im a shift worker and work mostly nights and then play sylestia after i come home. i havent seen a sunrise since my last awake shift that finished at 7am xD
Find a flowering bush: This is a flowering bush we have down the side of our house. Atm its behaving itself but it can have vine like properties and climb the outside of our house. It was climbing inside the weatherboard a few months ago and we didnt know till i noticed the vine with flowers poking through an air vent in our room. That was crazy stuff xD

Find a flowering tree: This is or frangipani tree. It started as a little clipping years and years ago that my aunt liked and wanted to plant. Its now a 25 ft tree that is super beautiful but interferes with our aerial and tv reception when it grows too much

Find something with a shell

Find a baby mammal

Find a bird that is red

Find a yellow insect: this weird fly thingy was in my car when i went to take pics of a flock of birds. Didnt get bird pic but did get weird flying yellow insect pic

Find a fossil: coming

Find something thorny: we have a couple of rose bushes. they need serious pruning and love but yeah xD

Find something goopy: coming

Find something right outside your house that you find beautiful: We have a purple hydrangea bush outside our backdoor. It could have easily filled the flowering bush tag but purple is my favourite colour and they are so beautiful. All the others have died but 2 new ones have just flowered the last few days


I will edit my post as i add new pics

We have a bird feeder right outside our window, and the birds won't come to the feeder if someone's outside trying to take pictures. I know you said taking pictures inside wouldn't count, but I'd like to make sure that I can't stand inside to take pictures of the bird feeder outside.

I always enjoy doing this. Got all but one~

Scavenger List:

1. Find some weeds
https://puu.sh/AeX7g/627b6ae28a.jpg


2. Find a rock with moss on it
https://puu.sh/AeX4T/37cf31054a.jpg


3. Find a fruit tree
This is a flowering Crab Apple Tree. I took the picture while it was flowering as no fruit trees in my area bear fruit in the Spring.
https://puu.sh/AoaLF/ce388efadf.jpg


4. Find wild growing berries
These are a bunch of raspberry and blackberry bushes loaded with berries on them that have yet to ripen.
http://puu.sh/AJ97y/13ff2b94fe.jpg


5. Find shedded animmal hair/fur
https://puu.sh/AftWg/324fed67bc.jpg


6. Find a flock of birds
I was on the shore of a lake, and all of those black specks in the water are birds. The ones in the water are Mallard Ducks, and the group of dots in a line are a bunch of Cormorants flying. The second picture is just my attempt at zooming in on some of the birds.
https://puu.sh/AeWJ1/a6720d1c0f.jpg
https://puu.sh/AeWLk/3f37fc40ff.jpg


7. Find some litter and clean it up
https://puu.sh/AeXCg/65b87711da.jpg


8. Find insect/spider eggs
I took two pictures for this one. First is a bush covered in insects that just hatched. In the upper middle right of the photo, there is a white dot. It may be an egg sack. In the second photo, there is a euonymus bush covered in white eggs/scales. This is an infestation that killed the euonymus bushes at my house about a decade ago.
https://puu.sh/AeXkC/0b056b91d0.jpg
https://puu.sh/AeXzJ/85fa2ce23d.jpg


9. Find a sunset
I took two pictures. One with the sunset in focus, the other with my username and date in focus.
https://puu.sh/A8VOX/f6410f59f5.jpg
https://puu.sh/A8VQl/8774e44108.jpg


10. Find a sunrise
I took three pictures this time. The first one has the sunrise in focus. The second one has my name in focus. For the third one, I leaned over the balcony in my backyard(which faces East) and took the picture so you could better see the contrast in the colours of the sky. I got up and took the pictures right when the sunrise started. Since I have a forest in my backyard, you can't see the sun itself until the sunrise is over.
https://puu.sh/A8VSG/bcfc684213.jpg
https://puu.sh/A8VUg/32008bb8b3.jpg
https://puu.sh/A8VVK/31cc493d43.jpg


11. Find a flowering bush
For some reason, only part of this bush was flowering.
https://puu.sh/AoaPm/4044670969.jpg


12. Find a flowering tree
Here is a beautiful Magnolia tree~
https://puu.sh/AoaFC/5e77af7a7d.jpg


13. Find something with a shell
So, in this picture, the something with a shell is a rock with a shell fossil in it. Hopefully that counts. If not, I'll try to find a creature with a shell. The shell fossil in this rock reminds me of an ammonite like shell.
https://puu.sh/AeXee/6dd262b29b.jpg


14. Find a baby mammal



15. Find a bird that is red
So this was a fun chase! XD Cardinals are the only red birds in the area, and they are extremely nervous, and twitchy birds. Thus, I apologize for the poor quality of the images. They won't let you get too close to them. I was following a few throughout the neighborhood area, and got shots in some different areas. These were the best ones, I felt. I had to zoom in to get some decent shots and I am pretty pleased with the action shot I got in the first one I posted. The last shot with my username and date in it is quite far away from where I zoomed in because I took these pictures on the road, looking in on a person's back yard. I wasn't going to trespass, so that's as close as I could get, not zoomed in.
https://puu.sh/Afus7/cda7399198.jpg
https://puu.sh/Afuv2/0bd81d9909.jpg
https://puu.sh/Afuwl/08e11c216d.jpg


16. Find a yellow insect
I found this odd ladybug at the park by the lake near my house. It has yellow on it's face which is quite odd, and it's carapace is black and burgundy.
https://puu.sh/AeWZw/32532c5e08.jpg


17. Find a fossil
I had fun with this one. The wind kept blowing my paper into the water and I almost lost it! Anyway, I remember the rocks I would fish off of at the lake sometimes had fossils in them. This rock had a neat spiral shell fossil in it!
https://puu.sh/AeX9K/f795bbb54a.jpg


18. Find something thorny
https://puu.sh/AoaT5/554933ea88.jpg


19. Find something goopy
What can be more goopy than a bunch of seaweed and algae~
https://puu.sh/AeWVK/8f1350cc91.jpg


20. Find something right outside your house that you find beautiful
This is the view from the balcony of part of the backyard.
https://puu.sh/AJ9c2/9cb3152e35.jpg

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=60339&page=6#53 Author: Krinadon Time Posted: 4/23/2018 at 3:14 AM [quote=1232033] I have a very difficult time believing that you can only find 9 of the 20. I ran through and came up with this pretty quickly for a south-western desert area for the United States: 1. Easy 2. Easy https://www.ehow.com/list_7385484_ground-cover-moss-grows-arizona.html 3. http://winwinfarm.com/2013/12/fruit-tree-varieties-arizona/ 4. 5. Easy 6. Easy 7. Easy 8. 9. Easy 10. Easy 11. https://www.tripsavvy.com/cactus-plants-and-flowers-4051688 12. Desert Willow, Vitex, Ironwood, Sweet Acacia, etc, etc 13. Pretty flexible 14. Easy 15. 16. Pretty easy... scorpion, hornets/bees, "hoverfly" 17. 18. Easy 19. Easy 20. Easy 11 of them are incredibly easy and should be just about completely universal unless you live in Antarctica or somewhere else in the world atm that's in the dead of winter. Even still, 9 of those 11 are essentially complete gimme's found just about anywhere on Earth and just require a bit of effort. 2 others are also pretty flexible and very doable. That's already 13. Then I linked you 3 others specific to the region. That's 16. And this doesn't include any of the others that I'd categorize as "difficult", but doable, and doesn't include any that you may be able to find in your current location.

2. One of those technically isnt moss, and doesnt grow on rocks. The other two specifically state they do not tolerate the heat too well and dont occur naturally really. I'd have to get lucky and find someone who has planted them in their yard, and then trespass in said yard. (nty)
3. All of those must be planted, and would again, require trespassing on someone else's property.
11. Are we counting cactus as bushes now? Cause if so, fine. I'll give you that one.
12. desert willow looks unfamilair, as does Vitex. After a tiny bit of research, ironwoods only bloom 4/10 years, and fr only 10-18 days as early as March, so I'd have to be very lucky for that one. And sweet acacia, the flowering season is october-march, not spring.
16. You can go scorpion hunting if you want Krin, but nty. I've only ever seen one in my entire life and have no interest in seeing more, let alone getting close enough to take a pic for a contest. Most are very difficult to tell apart, and look a lot like the bark scorpion which is extremely venomous. Hornets, again, im not going hunting for. Also another insect I havent really seen. and if i /did/ see one, i would find anywhere far far away from it, not stop to take a pic. Yellow is typically a /warning/ color in insects/reptiles. Not to mention things like bees need flowers and water, and a lot of people are allergic to them so it may be dangerous for them to get that close.

So that leaves about 11/12, maybe exactly 12 if we are in fact counting cactus as bushes. But then there comes the whole "But for each one you find you will receive a point. The more points you have the more times your name will be included in the random generator for when we do the prizes."
Last year:
5/10 winners had all 20.
of those 5 that did /not/ find all 20: 2/5 had 1-2 missing. 2/5 had 13(one above minimum). One more had 15/20. 8/10 were within 5 points of being all of the requested items.
Even with the randomization of the winners, this puts those of us in less satisfactory climates at a massive disadvantage if we can only hit the bare minimum. (And I may also mention the participation reward last year was based on how may points you received, which means those of us who can only get so many due to location can potentially be at a disadvantage for that as well.)

Krin, I would like to point out to you and others who are saying that they at a disadvantage.... technically, they maybe correct. But, if people used there imaginations, things can be found!

For example, last year one of the items was something with a scale.... I took a picture of a truck weighing station that definitely had a HUGE scale! Another example, 2 or 3yrs ago we needed a rainbow. I found a sign with a rainbow on it.

I actually enjoy this scavenger hunt so much! I am sure that I will be using my imagination on a couple of the items... I hope to get all 20. You have given us over a month to find things, I think that also helps quite a bit (since Spring is very late this year in MI). Thanks for the fun and helping me to get out and away from The Lost Grove! LOL!

Here's what I found so far. Will add more later. I didn't have access to a computer yesterday to copy and paste so that's why the paper is out of date.

[ ] 1. Find some weeds


[ ] 2. Find a rock with moss on it (Here's several rocks with moss on them.)


[ ] 3. Find a fruit tree

[ ] 4. Find wild growing berries

[ ] 5. Find shedded animmal hair/fur

[ ] 6. Find a flock of birds

[ ] 7. Find some litter and clean it up



[ ] 8. Find insect/spider eggs

[ ] 9. Find a sunset


[ ] 10. Find a sunrise


[ ] 11. Find a flowering bush


[ ] 12. Find a flowering tree


[ ] 13. Find something with a shell

[ ] 14. Find a baby mammal

[ ] 15. Find a bird that is red



[ ] 16. Find a yellow insect

[ ] 17. Find a fossil

[ ] 18. Find something thorny


[ ] 19. Find something goopy (Pretty sure dirt touched by water would be pretty goopy.)



[ ] 20. Find something right outside your house that you find beautiful

I may just be blind, but how long do we have to complete (to the best of our ability). I just couldn't see a deadline date, or has it not been decided?