Need help with today's NYT Strand? Today's theme, “Fall Fun,” can be very difficult for those outside the US.

Below are some helpful hints for Strands #239 and some answers if you need them. We will start with a few hints and then connect them to the full solution to Strands #239.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strands #239.

The official theme for NYT Strands #239 is... “Autumn Fun.”

And here's an unofficial hint from me: “Harvest Fall.”

If you're still in the dark, here are a few useful words that will give you valuable hint tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions. Today it starts with 'O' and ends with 'S'.

Scroll down to see what it is.

ORCHARDS.

Now, what's the answer to today's strand?

Drumroll, please.

... Spangrams were ORCHARDS.

Strands #239

“Fall fun”

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Hello Strands fans! I do not live in the US and this is one that I just had to tease out. The phenomenon of visiting orchards as a recreational activity is not common in the UK.

Nonetheless, I was able to place the fall crops, pumpkins and apples, right in the opposite corner of the board, so I was able to complete the puzzle without using any clues. Later, the letter “Z” turned out to be part of the “MAZE” and opened the way to the “ORCHARDS” spangram.

At this point, I still didn't really know what I was doing, so I had to randomly type in plausible words starting with CIDER; the word DOUGHNUTS, even if I wasn't quite sure of the relevance, now opened up a path, and the word DOUGHNUTS, even if I wasn't sure of its relevance, now opened up a path.

Only one word remained in the upper right section of the grid: deciphering the anagram of DSIREHYA, spelled HAYRIDES, completed a rather fiddly puzzle.

Are you reading this late in the day? The full article on Strands' solution to yesterday's game #238 can be found here.