A November trip to Madison

First, I'd like to wish my girl a happy birthday! Beth is turning into quite the young lady... The end of October kept Bragg Family South plenty busy...in addition to Beth's birthday, we also had an award ceremony for Stephen and his all A's:

(He insisted on wearing his suit for this ceremony). We also enjoyed another brief visit from Rick Pruden, who came down right before Halloween to taken in one of Kenny's marching band performances during a Monticello Billies football game:

We also took advantage of some gorgeous weather to make a visit to southern Louisiana. It had been some time since we had gone this way, so we opted to make a stop to pick satsuma oranges:

Satsumas are small, not impressive looking oranges, yet are remarkable sweet and juicy, as all good oranges should be...They are definitely a Bragg Family South favorite!

Of course, this was in a pretty rural part of the state, with some interesting highway signs:

It was primarily sugar cane country...For those of you who have never seen sugar cane being farmed, it is a tall, grass-like plant:

They were harvesting many of the cane fields, which (like most farming today) was a very mechanized process. Since we were in this part of Louisiana, we also decided to stop at another favorite place--the Tabasco factory! This facility is definitely geared up for the tourists:

Speaking of which, here's a batch of those ne'er-do-wells:

(note that Kenny is wearing a t-shirt for one of the competitors!). The low rise above the surrounding swamps called "Avery Island" is actually the top of a huge salt "dome" that has long been mined by prehistoric as well as historic peoples, meaning that there has been quite a bit of archeology done here, as seen in their museum:

Of course, we didn't come for the archeology, but rather to learn more about giant bottles of pepper sauce!:

Making Tabasco sauce is actually quite a fascinating process, involving a long fermentation period in
"Arkansas white oak" barrels covered with a thick layer of salt:

Rick had brought down a number of large pumpkins, so the day before Halloween we were frantically carving them:

As you can see, Bragg Family South (plus a neighbor girl) really got dressed up for Halloween this year:

(I stuck to pumpkin carving). We give away many pounds of candy to the hundreds of kids who float through our neighborhood each Halloween.

We also like to treat them to carved pumpkins, which are apparently a novelty in this part of Arkansas... On November 1, I hopped into my truck and drove to Madison, Wisconsin, to participate in the Society of American Foresters National Convention. This also gave me a good excuse to visit some of my siblings and their significant others, including a couple nights stay with my youngest sister Laurie and her husband Mark. Mark, a master chef at a local restaurant, treated us to dinner one night, including the fabulous deserts pictured below:

I also visited with my brother Bill a few times...Although it rained when I first arrived in Madison, and the mornings were often foggy, the rest of the days were beautiful, and there were some trees still in their fall colors, such as these oaks near the state capitol:

Towards the end of the meeting, the local Ho-Chunk nation brought some dancers and a drum to help educate foresters about their culture:

When my meeting ended, I spent two nights visiting brother Bob and his beau, Nancy. Bob wanted to take me to a state-owned natural area about an hour from his house, so we left early Sunday morning for this adventure...and arrived just as the morning's fog started burning off...

We went to Hemlock Draw State Natural Area, which is located in the "Driftless Area" part of southwestern Wisconsin. This area did not get glaciated during the Pleistocene, and thus has a number of neat landforms and forest types, such as found at this natural area. We spent most of the morning exploring bluffs and bluff shelters: