Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #491 from October 14, a little harder than yesterday's puzzle, the Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 35 out of 5

We update the Connections clues and hints daily And if the hints aren't enough, see the four answers below, along with the category title and related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #490

There are spoilers for Connections #491 Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections should read on

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses

If you need a hint to help you solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection If not, please continue reading for larger hints Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further

Here's a bigger clue: Today's puzzle will make you use your head to look for double meanings, especially as they relate to the outdoors Try not to split hairs

Now, what is the answer to today's game #491 Connection?

Drum roll please

Today's puzzle had another jump in difficulty, so the pressure was on to solve the puzzles from the easier categories At first I tried to connect the root and dig to the tree, but once I realized that was a red herring, the only other candidates were comb and sieve

But first we struck out on our first guess, which yielded three of the four answers in the blue category I knew it had to do with hair, until I remembered ponies (tails), braids, buns, and twists all together

After that was green; Roll, Rumble, and Clap were easy, but the last one, Peal, had me digging deep into my library of “words I've seen written and kind of know what they mean”

The purple category was surprisingly easy today, but the whole time I was solving the puzzle I was wondering what Salad was connected to Once “salad” was left as the only clue, along with “table,” “tree,” and “book,” the word combination became clear

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3 out of 5

The difficulty of the puzzles has remained flat over the past few days, but Sunday's puzzle went up a bit First, I solved the easiest category, “nails,” “hooves,” “horns,” and “claws,” not realizing that they also have one thing in common: they are made of keratin

Next came the blue category, which puzzled me a bit; after striking out twice, I realized that (MC) Hummer pants were the one pair I was missing, along with capris, cargo, and stirrups

After that was the green category Having recently watched a lot of cartoons on Disney Plus, it wasn't too difficult to learn that Anvil, Boulder, Coyote, and TNT were the stars of the old Road Runner Looney Tunes

That gave me a memorized fill of Purple Sunday This was lucky because I had no idea what California, Drum, Egg, and Honor had in common Wordplay and missing letters always tripped me up