Bragg Family South

Thanks for sharing, Stephen! Before I knew it, Easter has come and gone... Yet another year rocketing by... But first, a few pre -Easter comments... Ever wonder why your stereo quits working properly in your car? If you have young children, it's a good bet to think they may have played a role! This picture is of the factory installed car stereo from our minivan. The pile of coins is what Hope shook out of it the other day when we finally replaced this stereo with an after-market one! It appears our youngest learned he could slip change that we kept in a compartment near the dash into the CD player and/or tape deck. I'm sure it made a most satisfying clinking sound as it entered. We were replacing this stereo anyhow (the new one no longer has an obvious slot to put coins in!), and we've actually had to shake change out of this stereo before, so we weren't surprised at all... Well, maybe the sheer quantity was a surprise! This weekend, we traveled to Petit Jean Mountain...

Well, after a tense week culminated in an all-too-close game of political chicken, sanity finally popped back into a few peoples' heads in Washington DC, and they hashed out a budget compromise that should get us federal employees to the end of the fiscal year. I suspect we'll see tight budgets for some time now, but we've dealt with this before, and we'll survive it again... Speaking of bouts of near insanity, Hope put on an overnight camping trip for Monticello Cub Scout Pack 69 (she's the pack leader this year). Things went remarkably smoothly, all told--the weather was clear, if warm, muggy, and somewhat breezy... All the boys (and their parents) seemed to have survived the weekend alright (a few minor bumps and bruises, and plenty of ticks). Below, Hope instructs the boys on tying knots: This wasn't at a formal Boy Scout camp--we stayed at Cane Creek State Park, which is just about a half-hour north of here. As you can seen, the woods are greening up nicel...

Here's Kenny the alter server, looking all angelic... Kenny recently started this new duty, and has really enjoyed it--he actually has squabbled with another youngster from church as who gets to serve in a particular weekend... I'm sure the enthusiasm will ebb at some point, but it's nice to see for now! We're just wrapping up our spring break period, and unlike some of y'all from up north, we can truly say it has been spring-like here--above the boys are running around in a sprinkler as the high temp on this day exceeded 80 degrees. We've actually had a number of days over 80 this last month, and with a lack of meaningful rain and some gusty winds, we've had a bit of a fire problem this year. However, this has made for some good archeological opportunities, for which the picture below shows me building some screens to look for artifacts with: I've been doing some work on our unit's experimental forest (with the local USFS archeologist's ble...

Here's my typical spring teaser photo for y'all up north--some crocus flowers in bloom in our front yard. Daffodils are blooming, and a few trees are flowering--we're well on our way towards spring. That also includes, unfortunately, spring storms--some severe weather is forecast for tomorrow :( . Fortunately, there are nice days, too, and we've taken advantage of some of this nice weather to enjoy local attractions, including the kids posing on a crazy tree at Cane Creek State Park: We've featured Cane Creek State Park in blog posts of the past--it is relatively close to Monticello, and has some nice hiking trails. And lots of armadillos, like the character below: The day we went, there was some breeze, but clear skies and pleasant temperatures. Cane Creek State Park surrounds part of a reservoir on Cane Creek, which drown a fair amount of timber, including the large cypress in the picture below: (Even cypress can't take too much water). The dead timb...

Kenny's look on Super Bowl Sunday says it all--don't mess with the Packers!! More on this later... It has been a busy 2 weeks since I wrote the last blog posting while fretting about the Packers' chances in the NFC title game. Below, Kenny and the rest of his Cub Scout den learned about the basics of pocket knife safety, and carved pieces of soap: Of all the kids there that day, Kenny was only one to nick his fingers--twice! Fortunately, they were mere minor flesh wounds. The last weekend of January was unseasonably warm--we hit 75 degrees on that Saturday! Such a nice day seemed to be wasted on staying home, so we drove to the neighboring county and did some outdoor activities. First, we went down to a place called Green's Island, which has a large Indian mound that we hiked to the top of: We then went to nearby Moro Bay State Park, which had an old ferry that once transported cars to the other side of the Ouachita River: We also had a nice picnic supper at ...