Bragg Family South

Draco sums up this late fall season well--time to find a box and curl up, awaiting the heat of a warm fire!  We started the month of November with big Thanksgiving plans, including a road trip to Wisconsin to visit my folks and see Kenny, who would come down from Houghton for the week... Until then, we were satisfied (well, not really, but had to live with) connecting with Kenny via his participation in some Zoom calls we've been on (that's him in the center of the image below): I was also able to take advantage of some nice weather on Halloween and Veteran's Day to make a couple trips to western Arkansas to look for an old experimental forest on the Ouachita National Forest that's been closed for decades.  If you look closely in the picture below, you should see a small concrete structure called a "weir" that is used to funnel streamflow through a measured opening to gauge how much water is flowing down that channel.  There is also some stonework along the ba...

My apologies for being so slow to post a new Bragg Family South blog...It is not that nothing has happened since the last one, when we dropped Kenny off at college, but rather we have just been in our typical fall grind.  Above, Beth and Stephen await their school bus in a morning rain shower... Since dropping Kenny off, we've had a couple tropical weather bouts...The first was Tropical Storm Laura, which had hammered Louisiana as Hurricane Laura before weakening to a pretty strong Tropical Storm when in came through the Monticello area a few days after we returned from taking Kenny to school.  And just in past few days, Louisiana got hit again by Hurricane Delta, which wasn't as strong (thankfully) and passed through southeastern Arkansas as a weaker tropical storm/depression before quickly moving on.  We got through these tropical systems in pretty good shape; pray for those elsewhere who were not so lucky! Actually, most of this fall has been fairly dry, and pretty ple...

Well, it's official!  We have a new MTU Husky in the household!  But more on that later...  This summer had a few rainbows: We also had an extended stay by a different kind of family--some birds nested in an old Packer helmet toy of the kids, and it appears that these 4 chicks were successfully raised by their hard working parents: (you can just barely see the beak of one of these nestlings in the picture above).  One other project we worked on was a new fireplace mantle for our living room...The one that had been there since we bought our house was showing its age and breaking down, so after some consideration and shopping around, we decided it would be best to build our own out of a number of oak boards...and we're pretty happy with the results: By now, summer 2020 has now largely wound down...After a brief delay to better prep for COVID, the Monticello school system is now open for classes, so Beth and Stephen have gone back to classes this past week.  The de...

Look at what Stephen found! Not a dinosaur tooth...something even older--a quartz crystal with three points!  More on this discovery later... Hard to believe it's been almost a couple months since my last blog post.  Lots has happened...and less than usual, thanks to these unusual days...  Hope and I have been consumed with work, as has Kenny, who is working nearly full-time at the city swimming pool (as a lifeguard).  Beth and I made a quick trip to visit my folks, who enjoyed a visit from 2/5 of Bragg Family South: We had some gorgeous weather, and got to see several of my siblings, including my youngest brother Bill, pictured below enjoying a campfire with mom and Beth: We spent time cooking out, and working on the house and trails on our property: We took Mom on a day trip out of the house to visit Bond Falls: We also took mom and dad to one of their favorite places in the world, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help ( https://championshrine.org/ ) near Ch...