Thursday, March 15 – 22:51

I almost thought I was going to be stumped by this one, in the middle W side.  I didn’t know RENEE Taylor from “The Nanny”, was completely puzzled with “Apple picker?” and I had SMOG for “Some particulates”, which I knew was wrong.  Going down, I had UNCOUPLE for “Separate”, but for “Swiss nationals, historically” I had N__GRALS, and for “Heaviest member of the weasel family” I had “S__MTTER”, which is why I knew SMOG was wrong.  It took me too long to remove SMOG, but when I did, I got NEUTRALS, duh, and then SOOT.  Still no idea on the apple clue – ACCUSER?  RECUSER?  Something to do with the Garden of Eden?  The Big Apple?  With __NEES, I figured RENEES must be the Nanny answer, which gave me SEAOTTERS.  And then I was really mad I didn’t get that sooner, since I love sea otters – that was my favorite Wild Kingdom episode, watching them smash open abalones or oysters with rocks while floating on their backs in the ocean.  But I digress.

Anyway, then I had _ACUSER, and after a few more seconds the light finally dawned on MACUSER.  D’oh!  As far as the fun theme, I did a pass through the acrosses, and wanted to put in HORN for “*Narwhal feature”, but SKYS (surely being the limit) nixed that.  It didn’t take me too long to get TUSK, and then went through and filled in most of the other theme answers.  If you’re wondering what a word ladder is, it’s a series of words where each subsequent word differs by one letter from the previous one.  One of the ACPT puzzles this year featured one.  Can’t remember if it was a Gorski.

The theme answers are DAWN, DARN, BARN, BURN, TURN, TURK, TUSK, DUSK, with 36 across tying them together with “SUNRISESUNSET”.