Bragg Family South

Why am I showing a picture of a dusty hole in the ground?  To make the point that just a few weeks before, it was a pine stump--the ground looks scorched because it has been burned in a recent wildfire just south of Monticello.  When the flames get to these resin-soaked pine stumps, the pitch (which is highly flammable) burns well, and the whole stump, roots and all, can burn out completely over the course of days or even weeks.  This particular area burned a couple weeks before we got about 5 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Isaac, and parts of it (not this stump hole) were still smoldering weeks later--even AFTER the tropical storm!!  That's your forestry lesson for the day!!  We have entered the beginnings of fall here in southern Arkansas...not that we're really seeing any change in leaf colors, but the kids of started school, football season is upon us (horrible NFL ref calls and all!), and harvest-related events are springing up.  The other wee...

Is it possible that it is already September?  That our kids have been in school 2 weeks already??  It seems so unlikely, yet it is what it is--even though the near 100 degree temperatures we'll have today  will make a mockery of this assertion, summer 2012 is done!!  We at least ended the summer with a bang (or two).  First, a set of pictures from a recent business trip I made, with Hope and the kids in tow.  I'm on the organizing committee for a regional forestry meeting that occurs every two years somewhere in the South.  This next meeting is in Shreveport, Louisiana, which is not quite 4 hours from where we live.  So, seeing as how the kids didn't start school until the following week, we figured we'd take advantage of this opportunity to get out of town one last time this summer.  The meeting will be held at the Sam's Town Casino: For some of you, this may seem strange, but a lot of these big casinos have large convention facilit...