Bragg Family South

We have recently added a link to another feature that Google offers for pictures, this one for Picasa photo albums. This should allow for y'all to access all of our blog pix (eventually), and we can add photo albums for higher quality pictures as well. Check out the new link to the right...

We have really seen a green-up over the last couple of weeks. Many of the trees are nearing full leaf flush, and flowers are blooming everywhere. The wisteria is in full blossom: We have iris flowering in our yard: and Hope's strawberry patch is starting to produce green berries already! We have had extended periods with temperatures in the 80s already--starting to look like another hot year, at least here in Arkansas. The Weather Channel made it sound like there was a chance of snow showers in Rhinelander for next week, which may disillusion most of y'all up north, but our kids are looking forward to it... We leave tomorrow morning early for our northern Easter trip, and look forward to visiting friends and family!

We got quite the treat this week! Our administrative assistant, Paula Hooks is married to a wildlife biologist (Mark Hooks) with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC). They have been running a program over the last several years to relocate black bears from the White River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Arkansas to the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge in extreme southern Arkansas. This involves locating a female bear (called a "sow") with young cubs, and moving them in the spring while they're still denning to their new home. Sows with newborn cubs are moved because they generally are less likely to try to return to the White River NWR. The AGFC allow a limited number of civilians to watch and/or participate in the release of these bears, so we took advantage of this opportunity last Thursday, and met up with the AGFC staff on this trip. We got to the release spot mid-morning, and waited while they tranquilized the sow. After she was calmed, they removed th...

Before she left from her visit with us on Sunday, Diane Pruden needed to package some shrubs she dug out of the woods near our home. Her plan was to take them as checked baggage on the flight home. Unfortunately, we had no box large enough to hold the shrubs, so she first attempted to cobble a protective shroud out of a cardboard box. She and Kenny spent quite a while one evening trying to make this work, but they are no Red Green, and the duct tape/cardboard packaging left way too much to be desired. The next strategy was to go to a Kinko's and see if they had a box of appropriate size that the airline would allow to be used. We found an open Kinko's Sunday afternoon before her flight, and as we struggled to get the box out of the back of our van, the clerk actually met us outside. We could tell by his demeanor and comments that he was NOT looking forward to helping this customer. He tried to dissuade Diane from the attempt by showing the inadequacies of the boxes they h...

Hope's Aunt Diane Pruden flew into Little Rock on Wednesday. We picked her up there (note: we are happy to pick up any visitors that fly into Little Rock...) following Hope's most recent doctor's visit in Pine Bluff--both mom- and baby-to-be are fine... Diane's plane got in a little early, so she was waiting for us by the baggage claim. We then drove to west Little Rock to an Italian restaurant before making one last pit-stop at the Home Depot (I finally bought myself that cordless framing nailer I've been longing for). We arrived home that evening after driving through some stiff rain--it always seems like Hope's family brings rain with them... On Thursday, I returned to work, and Hope, Diane, and the kids toured around the countryside a while, going as far south as our experimental forest in Crossett , Arkansas. I took the day off on Friday, and we drove north towards Hot Springs. On the way up, the clouds cleared, and we had a beautiful spring day to enjoy...

We are sending this request to our friends and family in Michigan, Wisconsin, and any other states...our pharmacist knows a young lady from Louisiana that is trying to get post cards from every state sent to her as part of a 5th grade project. If you get a chance, please try to send this girl a card that has some indication of which state it comes from, and say something like "Greetings from {you} in the state of {whatever state your are in--confusion does NOT count}". Her name and address are: Emma Dugas 3508 Metairie Ct Metairie, LA 70002 Metairie is a suburb of New Orleans, and was pretty hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. Please send her a card and let them know that they haven't been forgotten! Over the last couple weeks I have been working to improve the drainage of our backyard. For an hour or so each evening, I have been digging a trench, sloping the lawn, and hauling wheelbarrows of extra dirt to the back corner of our yard. I first cut a trench down to about the de...

For brother Bill: Yes, we traveled through Dumas last year on our way to that archeological site. Everybody: Bill's question to our blog had me scrambling to find an email address for him--which apparently I don't have...in further checking, I think a number of email addresses I have for y'all in the past are no longer valid. SOOOOOOOOO.......I would ask you to please send me an updated email address that I can put in my address book. That way, I won't always have to reply to the blog to get a message back to you. Please send them to me directly, so they're not listed on the blog site (and hence are more private--helps keep down the amount of spam you may get). If you don't have my preferred email, use this address: DonCBragg[AT ]netscape[DOT ]net Of course, make sure you replace the [AT ] and [DOT ] with the appropriate symbols.

We arrived home in Monticello around lunch time today. We had a relatively easy drive back from Jackson, Tennessee where we stayed last night, even though the kids did get kind of squirrely and loud at times, which is probably to be expected given their extended time in the car during the last week. The most unsettling part of this trip was the tragic sight of the small southeastern Arkansas town of Dumas... Today was cool, with clear blue skies and only some moderate wind. A far cry from a week ago Saturday, when warm, moist air was being pumped north via stiff winds. A cold front dropping in from Canada helped trigger a series of severe storms that raked the whole state of Arkansas, but were most noticeably expressed as they skirted across southern Arkansas. As we sat and watched a DVD of the Lord of the Rings, this frontal systems passed menacingly through Monticello, but did little more than minor damage and some brief power outages. Dumas, a small town just 30 miles or so east o...

After a good meeting in Athens this week, we drove on eastward into North Carolina. We first stopped in Durham, NC, so I could spend time researching at the archives of the Forest History Society, looking up old logging company pictures and articles. We then drove on to Asheville, NC, to spend the night and meet with Tim Grotenhuis and his family. Tim and I went to school together in Rhinelander, from grade school through high school. I then hadn't seen him for years after graduation until one day a fellow student had turned to me in a class I had at Utah State and asked if I had recognized him...well, you can guess who it was--Tim! He was working on a master's degree at USU, and we happened to be in the same biometerology course... He and his wife Leslie also worked at a local bar and grill in Logan that Hope and I frequented, so we would see him periodically. Soon after we arrived at USU, he graduated and moved on, and I didn't hear from him again until just a few weeks a...