Media darlings

Look who's starring on television!!  Well, at least for a brief bit on a local TV news show...  Hope, as a part of her job with 4-H, was invited to speak on her programs.  Because March is Archeology Month in Arkansas, she chose to feature her work integrating archeology in 4-H curricula.  She also managed to coax Beth into helping, as you can see...

Beth (and the boys) had the week off (our spring break), so I took the day off and we made a family trip out of this...  The kids and I started out in the studio's small "green room" while Hope set up her materials.  Hope then asked Beth, Kenny, and Stephen if they wanted to help--only Beth was willing.  So, she got to make her media speaking debut (the host asked her several questions), which she answered very well!

Beth also helped by decorating a clay flower pot as part of one of the props, and helped her mother out with several other aspects of the interview--Hope had just come down with a bad cold, and was struggling to stay her cheery self, so having a sidekick was a boost! 

Both did very well, and the TV crew was happy with how smooth and polished they were--sometimes their guests on this show are wooden and camera shy...but not the crew from Bragg Family South!!!  What an experience for the whole batch to share!

I also did a bit of a media adventure, although fortunately for all involved, they only got to hear my voice (the didn't have to look at my mug!).  I did a 45-minute talk on the history of southern forests and forestry that was streamed to a webinar for forest landowners across the region.  This effort was based out of a university in North Carolina and live-streamed to locations across the South.  I think it went well--hard to get immediate feedback across the internet in this venue!

Not all of spring has been work related with Bragg Family South.  The kids and I spent a warm afternoon in late February poking around one of the creeks on our hunting lease looking for fossils, agates, etc.  We also had the joy of watching Stephen earn his Arrow of Light award as a Webelos and then cross-over into Boy Scouts.  This ceremony was quite an effort, helped in no small part by Beth, who tended the young daughters of some friends of ours while they helped set up the banquet:

Hope managed to get back from her work in time to deliver the opening meal blessing:

(note that she's wearing a 4-H polo, not something Scout related!).

This is our good friend Claire, mother of a couple of the Scouts (and the curly haired-cutie Beth was watching a couple pictures back).  Claire excels at baking, and made the desserts she posed with in the picture above (everything except the utensils was edible!).

Note the checkerboard design of the cake above, and all the chess pieces...  That was because the boys chose a chess theme for this banquet.  Most of the ones crossing over into the Boy Scouts love to play chess, hence the theme:

Here are several additional pictures from the banquet:

 

 

In the last picture, several Boy Scouts (including Kenny, and neighborhood friend Cole) helped Stephen and the other new Scouts cross over. Kenny was quite the trooper, given that he had just come down with a bad cold! 

We also recently enjoyed a visit with Hope's dad.  Rich (pictured below enjoying some frozen yogurt with us right after he arrived) ventured down to visit and help us with the kids for a few days--I had a business meeting in northern Louisiana, and Hope needed to be at one in western Arkansas, so his help allowed us to both be gone and make sure the kids got where they needed to go...

Rich also helped out with some equipment repairs, first starting with the back brakes on my truck:

I'm sure I speak for all in the neighborhood who appreciate how quiet my truck is now when I leave for working in the early morning hours!  He also help get our lawnmower running again.  In addition to our profuse thanks, we also rewarded Rich with a favorite treat--a crawfish boil:

If you haven't had a good Cajun crawfish boil, don't knock it until you try it!

At the beginning of the Spring Break week I took a day off and the kids and I went to western Arkansas to look at the general area where the archeology summer dig will be in June.  En route, we saw a neat piece of vehicle art advertising a local hog-related festival:

We also stopped a local state park, and explored an eroding area with some neat soil (not rock) formations:

 

Those are not rocks the kids are standing on, but soil materials that are eroding into formations!

This weekend, the end of our spring break, proved to be rather quiet.  Stephen went off with the rest of his Boy Scout troop on a camping/hiking trip to the Shiloh Civil War battlefield in western Tennessee, and Beth, Kenny, Hope, and I went up to the Little Rock area for a mixed business (Hope's business, not mine) and family trip.  We stopped yesterday morning at a historical park just outside of Conway, Arkansas, to see the sights there.  Below, Kenny looks over the cliff towards the Arkansas River:

The graffiti painted on the rocks (and some of the trees) at this site is unfortunate vandalism that detracts from an impressive piece of Arkansas history.  This settlement at Cadron predates most Euroamerican communities in Arkansas, and that small tree in front of Kenny may actually be old enough to have been present in the early 1800s when this area was being settled!  It is small because of the harsh growing conditions it is found in...